Amber was leaning across the woman on her left to talk to a couple of young men and the three of them were busily murmuring and laughing together over the newest scandal.

The night before Charles had gone with Rochester to the Russia House, a brothel in Moor Fields, and while the King’s attentions were occupied his Lordship had stolen his money and left. When he was ready to pay his fee and go Charles found himself penniless and was only saved from a severe beating when someone chanced to recognize him. Rochester had gone to take the country air and, no doubt, to polish a new set of lampoons which would soon flood the Court.

“D’you think it’s true?” Henry Jermyn wanted to know. “I saw his Majesty this morning and he looked as spruce as you please.”

“He always does,” the other reminded him. “It’s his Majesty’s great good fortune that his dissipations don’t show in his face—at least not yet.”

“We’ll never know if it’s true or not,” said Amber. “For he won’t tolerate being reminded the next morning of what he did the night before.”

“Your Grace should know.”

“They say he’s mightily taken with Nell Gwynne these days,” said Jermyn, and he watched Amber carefully as he spoke. “Chiffinch tells me he goes to see her two or three times a week, now her belly’s got so big she can’t hop in and out of hackneys.”

Amber knew that already, and in fact Charles had not visited her at night for several weeks. Ordinarily she might have been worried about it, but she had been too much concerned over Bruce to give it very much thought. He had neglected her before, and she knew that he would do so again, for the King liked variety in his love-affairs and no one woman could satisfy him for long. It was a habit he had contracted early in life and which he had never wanted or tried to change. But it made her angry to have others know and remind her that she was less a favourite than she had been on her first coming to Court.

She might have thought of something flippant to say in retort, but at that moment she caught the end of the auctioneer’s sentence: “—if no one else wishes to bid, this length of cloth goes to my Lady Carlton for the sum of six pound—” His eyes went over the room. “Is there another bid? No? Then—”

“Seven pound!”

Amber’s voice rang through the room, loud and clear and defiant; she was half startled herself to hear it. For certainly she had no use for that calico—pretty as it was; it was printed in colours she never wore and would not have considered wearing. But Corinna had bid for it, wanted it—and must not have it.

Corinna did not turn her head to look at Amber, but for several seconds she sat quietly, as if surprised or embarrassed. The auctioneer was setting up a lively chatter, sensing that these two ladies were rivals who might be persuaded to bid against each other. Amber, fully expecting that Corinna would retire meekly and let her have the cloth, was astonished when her voice, soft but determined, spoke again.

“Eight pound.”

Damn her! thought Amber. I’ll get it now if it costs me my last farthing!

The flame was burning close to the pin. In just a few moments the pin would fall out and whoever had made the last bid took the prize. Amber waited until the auctioneer was once more announcing that the cloth went to Lady Carlton and then she interrupted him.

“Twenty pound!”

The room had grown quiet now and at last they were taking an interest in the auction, for the Duchess of Ravenspur’s affair with Lord Carlton was known to all of them. They understood why she was so anxious to get the cloth, and they hoped to see her beaten and embarrassed. Their sympathy for Corinna was not great, but their resentment against Amber was. She had got too much, been too successful, and now even her sycophants and pretended friends hoped secretly for her unhappiness. No defeat of hers could be too small to give them satisfaction.

Corinna hesitated, wondering if it was not absurd to haggle with a woman who had neither the breeding nor the manners to appreciate that both of them were being made conspicuous in the worst possible way. Amber had no such misgivings. She sat tensely forward in her chair, her eyes wide and shining with excitement, fists clenched inside her muff.

I’ve got to beat her! she was thinking. I’ve got to! It seemed that nothing else in her life had ever been so important.

And while Corinna hesitated the flame burned closer to the pin, melting the wax, and slowly it began to droop. Amber was breathing faster, her nostrils flared a little and her muscles held taut. There! It’s sliding out! I’ve got it! I’ve won!

“Fifty pounds!” called a masculine voice, as the pin fell from the candle onto the table.

The auctioneer was holding the cloth in his hands, grinning. “Sold, for fifty pound, to my Lord Carlton.”

For a moment Amber sat, unable to move, while every other head in the room turned curiously to watch him making his way through the crowd. Then, as though her neck operated on a creaky hinge, Amber forced herself to turn her head, and just as she did so she looked up into his face. His green eyes met hers for a moment and there was a faint smile on his mouth; he nodded at her, and went on. She saw other smiles too, all around her, mocking jeering faces that seemed to close in upon her, to swim and dance all about her head.

Oh, my God! she thought wretchedly. Why did he do that to me? Why did he do it?

Lord Carlton now stood beside his wife and she was getting to her feet; her waiting-woman had gone to take the piece of cloth and she held it in her arms, triumphantly. Chairs scraped and moved, gentlemen stepped aside as Bruce and Corinna walked out. The room was murmurous as a bee-hive, and not every smirk was covered with a polite fan.

“Lord!” said a nearby baroness. “How’ll we shift if it should become the fashion for a man to prefer his wife to his whore?”

Amber sat there, feeling as though she were imprisoned where she could neither see nor breathe, and that if she did not somehow break her way out she would explode. Lord and Lady Carlton were gone now and the auctioneer was measuring down another inch on his candle, but no one paid him any attention.

“What d’ye know!” cried Middleton, ruffling her fan and showing her teeth in a simulated smile. “Aren’t men the most provoking creatures?”

All of a sudden Amber ground her heel on the other woman’s toe. Middleton let out a yelp of pain and reached one hand down to massage her injured foot. Threateningly she glared back up at Amber, but Amber ignored her. She was sipping her tea, eyes cast into the bowl, and she did not so much as give a surreptitious glance around the room to see who was watching her, for she knew that they all were.

But later at home she was so sick that she vomited and went to bed and wished she would die. She contemplated suicide—or at least some spectacular try at suicide to rouse his sympathy and bring him back to her. But she was afraid that even that might not succeed. Something in the expression of his eyes, seen for just that moment as he passed, had convinced her at last that he was done with her. She knew—but she would not accept it.

Somehow, somehow, she told herself, I can win him back again. I know I can. I’ve got to! If only I can talk to him again I can make him see how foolish this is—

But now he did not even answer her notes. The messengers she sent came back empty-handed. She tried to meet him herself. Once she dressed in boy’s clothes and went to Almsbury House. She waited more than an hour in the rain at the door he was supposed to leave by, but did not see him. She had her informers posted everywhere, to let her know the moment he entered the Palace grounds, but apparently he never came to Whitehall any more. At last she sent him a challenge to a duel —the one infallible means she knew to make him see her again.

“For some months, sir,” it read, “I have suffered the embarrassment of being your cuckold. This has damaged the repute of my family, as well as of myself, and to repair the honour of my house I do hereby challenge your person to mine, by whatever arms you may choose, and do request your attendance at five of the clock tomorrow morning on the twenty-eighth day of May in Tothill Fields where the three great oaks stand by the river. Pray, sir, do me the favour of keeping our rendezvous a secret, and come to it unattended. Your humble servant, sir, Gerald, Duke of Ravenspur.”

Amber thought it had the ring of authenticity and sent Nan to an amanuensis to have it copied in a hand like Gerald’s, for though she knew it was unlikely Bruce had ever seen his writing, she intended to take no chances. If this failed—But it couldn’t fail! He had to come—no gentleman dared refuse a cartel.

But Nan protested. “If your husband had been going to fight ’im at all, he wouldn’t have waited till now.”

Amber would hear no objections. “Why not? Look how long it took the Earl of Shrewsbury to challenge Buckingham!”

Early the next morning while the Palace was still asleep, she set out on horseback, attended only by Big John Waterman. She wore a riding-habit of sage-green velvet embroidered in gold, and the brim of her Cavalier’s hat was loaded with garnet-coloured ostrich-plumes. Though she had scarcely slept at all excitement kept her from feeling or looking tired. They clattered down King Street and through the narrow dirty little village of Westminster into the green fields beyond, past the Horse Ferry and out to the three great oaks. There Amber dismounted and Big John went on with her horse; he was to keep out of sight and not to return until she gave him a signal.