It was true, as Amber had told Almsbury, that Rex Morgan wanted to marry her. During the past seven months they had been happy and content, leading a life of merry companionable domesticity. They took an instinctive pleasure in doing the same things, and it was heightened always by a warm suffusing glow of happiness at the mere fact of being together.

The summer just past they had been together most of the time, for with the King out of town Rex had no official duties and the theatres were always closed for a vacation period of several weeks—though twice Amber had gone down with the rest of the Company to perform before their Majesties at Hampton Court. With Prudence or Gatty or whomever she might have in service, they would pack a hamper and ride out Goswell Street on warm June evenings to eat a picnic supper at the lonely, pretty little village of Islington. Several times they found a quiet spot in the river and pulled off their clothes to go swimming, laughing and splashing in the cool clean water, and afterwards while she dried her hair Rex would catch a few fish for them to take home.

Or they rowed up the river in a hired scull, Amber with her shoes and stockings off and her ankles trailing in the water, screaming with delighted laughter to hear Rex bandy insults and curses with the watermen—caustic-tongued old ruffians who amused themselves by hooting and jeering obscenely at everyone who ventured upon the river, whether Quakeress or Parliament man. At Chelsea they would get out to lie dreamily in the thick meadow grass, watching the clouds as they formed and passed overhead, and Amber would fill her skirt with wildflowers, yellow primroses, blue hyacinths, white dogwood. Then she would open the hamper and spread a clean white linen cloth, laying on it the potted neat’s tongue, the salad which the celebrated French cook at Chatelin’s had made for her with twenty different greens, fresh ripe fruits, and a dusty bottle of Burgundy.

They seldom quarrelled—only when, rightly or wrongly, Rex’s jealousy was aroused, though before she had seen Almsbury she had never been unfaithful to him. But she did drive out to Kingsland to see the baby once a week. For a long while she contrived to keep her visits secret from him, but one day, to her astonishment, he accused her of having been with another man. During the violent quarrel which ensued she told him where she had been—and told him also that she was married.

For two or three days he was angry, but no matter what lies he caught her in he did not seem to love her less, and even after that he asked her again to marry him. She had refused before, pretending that she thought he was only joking, but now she objected that it was impossible. Bigamy was punishable by death.

“He’ll never come back,” said Rex. “But if he does—well, you let me alone for that. I’ll see to it you’re a widow, not a bigamist.”

But Amber could not make up her mind to do it. She still had a lingering horror of matrimony, for it seemed to her a trap in which a woman, once caught, struggled helplessly and without hope. It gave a man every advantage over her body, mind and purse, for no jury in the land would interest itself in her distress. But neither that horror nor the greater one she had of being prosecuted for bigamy was the real reason behind her refusal. She hesitated because in her heart she still nursed an imp of ambition, and it would not let her rest.

If I marry Rex, she would think, what will my life be? He’d make me quit the stage and I’d have to start having babies. (Rex resented the child she had had—he thought by her first husband—even though he had never seen the little boy, and had a sentimental desire for her to bear him a son.) And then most likely he’d grow more jealous than ever and if I so much as came home a half-hour late from the ’Change or smiled at a gentleman in the Mall he’d tear himself to pieces.

He probably wouldn’t be as generous as he is now, either, and if I spent thirty pound for a new gown there’d be trouble and he’d think last year’s cloak could do me again. First thing you know I’d grow fat and pot-bellied and dwindle into a wife —and before I was twenty my life would be over. No, I like it better this way. I’ve got all the advantages of being a wife because he loves me and won’t put me aside, and none of the disadvantages because I’m free and my own mistress and can leave him any time I like.

She had heard that King Charles had remarked more than once he considered her to be the finest-woman on the stage, and that in particular after her last performance at Hampton Court he had told someone he envied the man who kept her.


A fortnight or so after Almsbury’s return to town Amber got a new maid. She dismissed Gatty one day when the girl surprised her taking a bath and talking to his Lordship, sending her away with the warning that Almsbury had a great interest at Court and would order her tongue cut out if she spoke to anyone at all of what she had seen. She told Rex that she had turned the girl away because she was pregnant, and sent Jeremiah to post a notice for a serving-woman in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a good deal of such business was done.

But that same morning as she was riding from the New Exchange to a rehearsal, her coach stopped at the golden-crowned Maypole, and while Tempest was bellowing abuse at the driver and occupants of the coach that blocked his way, the door was flung open and a girl leaped in. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes looked wild.

“Please, mam!” she cried. “Tell ’im I’m your maid!” Her pretty face was intense and pleading, her voice passionate. “Oh, Jesus! Here he comes! Please, mam!” She gave Amber a last imploring look and then retreated far back into one corner, pulling the hood of her cloak up over her red-blonde curls.

Amber stared at her in amazement and then, before she could speak a word, the door was thrown open and a blue-coated constable, carrying his staff of offices, pushed his head in at them. At this Amber gave an involuntary backward start. But, remembering that a constable could mean nothing to her now, she quickly recovered herself.

He made her a half salute, evidently mistaking her for a lady of quality. “Sorry to trouble you, mam, but that wench just stole a loaf of bread. I arrest you,” he shouted, “in the King’s name!” And he lunged across Amber toward the girl, who cowered far into one corner, skirts drawn close about her. Even from where she sat, Amber could feel her tremble.

Suddenly furious, all her memories of Newgate rising like a tide, Amber brought her fan down with a hearty smack on the constable’s wrist. “What are you about, sir? This girl is my serving-woman! Take your hands off her!”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Well, now, mam—I wouldn’t care to be calling a lady a liar—but she just stole a loaf of bread from off that bulk over there. I seen ’er myself.”

He leaned far in now, grabbing hold of the girl’s ankle and dragging her toward him. A curious restless crowd was beginning to gather outside in the street—and as Amber gave him a kick in the chest with the toe of her shoe and a violent shove that sent him staggering, a loud joyous laugh went up. He lurched back; she leaned forward and slammed the door shut.

“Drive on, Tempest!” she shouted, and the coach rolled off, leaving justice to pick itself up from a swimming kennel of rain-washed filth.

For a moment both women were silent, the girl staring at Amber with gratitude, Amber breathing heavily from anger and the nervousness which the sight of a constable still roused in her.

“Oh—mam!” she cried at last. “How can I ever thank you? But for you, he’d have carried me off to Newgate! Lord, I didn’t see ’im till he made a grab for me, and then I ran—I ran as fast as anything but the old fat pricklouse was right on my heels! Oh, thank you, mam, a million times! It was mighty kind for a great lady like yourself to care what happens to the likes of me. It wouldn’t ’ve been any skin off your arse if I’d gone to Newgate—”

She rattled along in a quick light musical voice, the expressions playing vivaciously over her pretty face. She could have been no more than seventeen, fresh and dainty with clear blue eyes, light lashes and brows, and a golden sprinkle of freckles over her little scooped nose. Amber smiled at her, liking her immediately.

“These damned impertinent constables! The day’s a loss to ’em that they don’t throw half-a-dozen honest citizens into jail!”

The girl lowered her lashes guiltily. “Well—to tell you truly, mam, I did steal that loaf of bread. I’ve got it here.” She tapped her cloak, beneath which it was concealed. “But I couldn’t help it, I swear I couldn’t! I was so hungry—”

“Then go ahead and eat it.”

Without an instant’s hesitation she took out the crusty split-topped loaf, broke a piece off one end and crammed it into her mouth, chewing ravenously. Amber looked at her in surprise.

“How long since you’ve eaten?”

The girl swallowed, took another great bite and answered with her mouth full. “Two days, mam.”

“Ye gods! Here, take this and buy yourself a dinner.”

From a little velvet bag inside her muff she emptied several shillings and dropped them into the girl’s lap. By now they had drawn up before the theatre and the footman came to open the door. Amber gathered her skirts and prepared to get out and the girl leaned forward, staring through the glass windows with great interest.

“Lord, mam, are you goin’ to the play?”

“I’m an actress.”

“You are!” She seemed both pleased and shocked that her benefactress should be engaged in so exciting and disreputable a profession. But immediately she jumped out on her own side and ran around to make her curtsy to Amber. “Thank you, mam. You were mighty kind to me, and if ever I can do a good thing for you, I wish you’d be pleased to call on me. I’ll not forget, you may be sure. Nan Britton’s my name—serving-woman, though without a place just now.”