“Oh, Bruce, what a pretty little moppet he is!” cried Amber. “Can he talk?” And without waiting for an answer she immediately asked him, “Why do they call you Tansy?”

“ ’Cause my mother ate a tansy puddin’ before I was born.” He had a soft liquid voice which it was difficult for her to understand. He stood up in the coach, leaning with one elbow on the seat beside Bruce, and he did not once glance out the window at the busy streets through which they were passing.

“What does he do? What’s he for?”

“Oh, he’s very useful. He plays the merry-wang—that’s a kind of guitar the Negroes have—and makes coffee. And of course he sings and dances. I thought perhaps you’d like to have him.”

“Oh, Bruce, is he for me! You brought him across the ocean for me! Oh, thank you! Tansy—how would you like to stay here in London with me?”

He looked from Amber to Bruce, then shook his head. “No, sir, mam. I’s goin’ back to see Mis’ Leah.”

Amber looked questioningly at Bruce, and caught a quick passing smile on his face. “Who’s Miss Leah?”

“She’s my housekeeper.”

Instant suspicion showed in her eyes. “Is she a blackamoor too?”

“She’s a quadroon.”

“What the devil’s that?”

“It’s one who has a quarter Negro blood and the rest white.”

Amber gave a mock shudder. “They must be a scurvy lot!”

“Not at all. Some of them are very beautiful.”

“And do they call ’em all ‘miss’?” she demanded sarcastically. “Or only yours!”

He smiled. “That’s the way Tansy pronounces ‘Mrs.’ ”

She gave him a sidewise glance of jealousv and mistrust, and though she wanted to ask him point-blank if the woman had been his mistress he was still a little strange to her and she did not quite dare. I’ll ask Tansy, she decided. I can find out from him some way.

At that moment they stopped before her lodging-house. Bruce helped her out and whatever she was about to say to him was cut short by the appearance of Almsbury’s coach, which had followed close behind them. She and the countess walked upstairs together, chatting about the weather and the play and the audience, and Amber found herself liking her very well, for she seemed kind and generous and apparently had none of the envy or malice which Amber habitually expected in a woman.

The meal was everything that Amber had hoped it would be.

There was a hot thick pea soup, steamingly fragrant, with leeks and chopped bacon and small crusty meat-balls that floated on the surface. There was roast duck stuffed with oysters and onions and walnuts; fried mushrooms; sweet biscuits; and an orange pudding baked in a dish lined with a crisp flaky puff-paste and decorated with candied orange-blossoms. And she had ordered a potful of black coffee because she knew that Bruce liked it—it was becoming a fashionable, though still an expensive, drink. The men were enthusiastic and Amber was as pleased as though she had cooked it all herself.

When supper was done they went into the parlour to talk; Amber and Lady Almsbury sat on the couch before the fire while the men took chairs, one on either side of them. For a few minutes Amber and her Ladyship discussed the new fashions —gowns were now being made with trains three feet long—and Bruce and the Earl talked of the Dutch war, which both were sure would come soon. But Amber presently grew tired of that. She had not invited Bruce there to talk to Almsbury.

“You say you’re not here to stay, my lord,” she said now, turning to him. “What do you intend doing?”

Bruce, who sat with both elbows resting on his wide-spread legs, holding his brandy glass in his two hands, glanced across at Almsbury before he answered her.

“I’m going back to Jamaica.”

“Why there, for Heaven’s sake? I’ve heard it’s a nasty place.”

“Nasty or not, it’s a very good place for my purpose.”

“And what’s your purpose, pray?” She was thinking of Mrs. Leah.

“To get some more money.”

“Some more? Aren’t you rich enough by now?”

“Is anyone ever rich enough any time?” Almsbury wanted to know.

Amber ignored him. “Well, now, sure you don’t intend to be a pirate all the rest of your life!” She knew well enough what was the difference between a pirate and a privateer, but liked to make his profession sound as disreputable as she could.

Bruce smiled. “No. Another year or two, perhaps, depending on what luck I have—and then I’m through.”

Her face brightened. “Then you’ll come back here to stay?”

He drew a deep breath, drained his glass, and as he answered her he started to get up. “Then I think I’ll go to America and plant tobacco.”

Amber stared at him, nonplussed. “Go to America!” she cried, and then added, “To plant tobacco! Why, you must be out of your head!” Suddenly she sprang up and ran after him where he had gone to pour himself another glass of brandy. “Bruce! You’re not serious!”

He looked down at her. “Why not? I don’t intend to stay here and play at cross-or-pile with the Court politicians for the next thirty years.”

“But why America! It’s so far away! Why not plant your tobacco here—in England?”

“For one thing, there’s a law against planting tobacco in England. And even if there were not it would still be impractical. The soil isn’t suitable and tobacco culture requires a great deal of ground—it exhausts the land quickly and you’ve got to have room to spread out.”

“But what will you get by it? You won’t need money over there—money’s no good if you’re not where you can spend it!”

He did not answer her, for just then the door opened and Rex Morgan came in; and paused in surprise to find her staring up so intensely at a man he had never seen before. Amber was disappointed and a little troubled, wondering what her expression had been at the moment he had opened the door, but immediately she ran to take his hand, welcoming him gaily.

“Come in, darling! I wasn’t expecting you and we’ve eaten everything but the nut-shells! Here—let me present my guests—”

Rex had already met Almsbury but neither the Countess nor Bruce, and once the introductions were acknowledged Amber made a quick suggestion that they play cards. She did not want the men to begin talking. They sat down to a five-handed game of lanterloo and as Almsbury began to shuffle the cards Amber saw Rex and Lord Carlton exchange glances across the table that sent a chill down her spine.

Oh, Lord! she thought. If he guesses!

She played badly, unable to keep her mind on her cards, and the room seemed too hot and close. But Bruce paid her no particular attention and was as casual in his manner as though he were merely the friend who had come along because he happened to be staying at Almsbury’s house. And in her turn Amber tried desperately to convince Rex of her undivided interest in him. She flirted with him as flagrantly as though they had just met, asked his opinion on several matters of no importance, called Nan to fill his wine-glass the moment it was empty, and scarcely looked at Bruce. For he had given her no reason as yet to think she would not continue to need Rex Morgan.

But she was uncomfortably nervous and the back muscles of her neck were beginning to ache when Almsbury, giving his wife’s pregnancy as an excuse, suggested that it was time to go home. She threw him a look of grateful relief.

Nan brought out the men’s cloaks and plumed hats and Amber walked into the bedroom with Lady Almsbury, telling her how pleased she was to have made her acquaintance. She held her cloak for her and took her fan while Emily adjusted her hood, then gave back her own instead. Emily did not notice the change and they went back into the parlour. The three men were having a last drink and all of them seemed to be on perfectly friendly terms; when they left Rex invited them to come again.

Nan went out with a candle to light them to the bottom of the stairs and Amber waited a minute or two. “Oh!” she cried then. “I’ve got her Ladyship’s fan!” And before Rex, who had gone into the dining-room to pick up a cold biscuit, could offer to take it down for her she had run out of the room. She reached them when they had just gotten to the bottom of the stairs, for Emily had to move with care, and all of them laughed politely as they made the exchange.

But as she turned to go back up again she gave a swift glance around, and then whispered to Bruce, “I’ll come to Almsbury House tomorrow morning at eight,” and before he could reply or object she had picked up her skirts and was running up the stairs once more.


Bruce was busy most of the time.

The days he spent down at the wharves overseeing the cleaning and repairing and supplying of his ships, signing new men, and talking to the merchants from whom he ordered provisions, for many of them had a monetary share in his ships. Privateering was the greatest speculative business of the nation, and not only the King and courtiers but most of the great merchants and many of the lesser ones were engaged in it, usually through money invested in a venture such as his. At night he went to Whitehall, saw the plays there, gambled in the Groom Porter’s Lodge, attended the never-ending succession of balls and supper-parties.

Consequently Amber saw him for only an hour or two in the morning when she visited his apartments at Almsbury House, and she did not go every day because, when he could, Rex waited until she was ready to start for the Theatre before he left. But as far as she knew he had no slightest suspicion that she had seen Lord Carlton either before or since that one night. And she intended to make sure that he never would suspect it.