“You don’t know a thing! And if you weren’t as jealous as a barren wife you wouldn’t have such suspicions, either!” Her eyes went swiftly from Jemima to Carter and back again. “Who puts these ideas in your head? This old screech-owl here?” Carter’s guiltily shifted glance told her that her guess was right and Amber, with a great show of independent virtue, gave her a last warning and went off. “Don’t let me hear any more of your bellow-weathering, Jemima, or we’ll try which one of us your father will believe!”

Jemima evidently did not care to make the test, and Dangerfield House remained quiet. Amber pretended to have the ague so that her step-daughter could not ask why she had stopped going to visit Lady Almsbury. The time was drawing nearer for Jemima’s wedding, though the date had been postponed a few days at her almost hysterical demand, and Amber was eager to have it over and the girl out of her way.

A week after her quarrel with Bruce Samuel told her that Lord Carlton had been in his office that morning. “He’s sailing tomorrow,” he said, “if the wind serves. I hope that once he’s gone Jemima will—”

But Amber was not listening. Tomorrow! she thought. My God—he’s going tomorrow! Oh, I’ve got to see him—I’ve got to see him again—

His ships lay at Botolph Wharf and Amber waited inside her coach while Jeremiah went to find him. She was excited and anxious, afraid that he would still be angry, but when he returned and found who it was waiting there for him he smiled. The afternoon was hot and he wore no periwig but only his breeches and bell-sleeved white shirt, and his tanned face was wet with perspiration.

She leaned forward eagerly and put her hand on his as he stood in the door, and her voice spoke swiftly and softly. “I had to see you again, Bruce, before you went.”

“We’re busy loading, Amber. I can’t leave.”

“Can’t we go on board? Just for a minute?”

He stepped back and took her hand to help her down.

Everywhere about them was activity. Tall-masted ships, elaborately carved and gilded, moved gently with the water, and the wharf was crowded. There were sailors who had been so many years at sea that they walked with a rolling gait which would distinguish them anywhere. Husky-shouldered porters were trundling casks or staggering along bent beneath great wooden boxes and iron-hooped bales. Well-dressed merchants strolled up and down, pestered by the beggars—broken old seamen who had given a leg or an arm or an eye for England. There were wide-eyed boys, loitering old men and blatantly painted harlots—a noisy variegated crowd.

As they walked along the wharf every eye glanced at or followed them. For her clothes and her hair and her jewels glittered in the sunlight; she was beautiful and she had a look of breeding to which they were not very much accustomed. The prostitutes looked Bruce over with an interest not wholly professional.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” she asked him in an undertone, and then crossed over the wide roped-off plank which led to one of his ships.

Following her, he murmured, “I didn’t think my company would be very welcome,” and turned to talk for a moment or two to another man. Then he led her around the deck and down a flight of stairs to a small cabin. It looked comfortable, though not luxurious, and was fitted with a good-sized bunk, a writing-table and three chairs. Maps were nailed to the dark oak-panelled walls and on the floor were stacks of leather-bound books.

Inside she turned about swiftly to face him. “I’m not going to quarrel with you, Bruce. I don’t want to talk—just kiss me—”

His arms had scarcely gone around her when there was a sharp knock. “Lord Carlton! A lady to see you, sir!”

Amber looked up accusingly at him, and as he released her he muttered a soft curse. But before he started for the door he gestured at her, and picking up her cloak and the muff she had dropped she hurried through the door he had indicated into the adjoining cabin. And then, as Bruce opened the other door, she heard a pair of high heels coming down the stairway and Jemima Dangerfield’s lilting young voice.

“Lord Carlton! Thank Heaven I found you! I’ve got a message from my father for you—”

Amber heard Jemima’s feet walk into the cabin and the door swing shut. She stood close behind her own door, her ear against the wooden panels and her heart hammering violently as she listened. Her excitement was caused as much, just now, by fear of being caught as by jealousy.

“Oh, Bruce! I found out you’re going tomorrow! I had to come!”

“You shouldn’t have, Jemima. Someone might see you. And I’m so busy I haven’t an extra moment. I came down here to get some papers—here they are. Come, and I’ll walk back to your coach with you.”

“Oh, but Bruce! You’re going away tomorrow! I’ve got to see you again! I can meet you anywhere—I’ll be at the Crown tonight at eight. In our same room.”

“Forgive me, Jemima. I can’t come. I swear I’m too busy—I’ve got to go to Whitehall, and we’ll sail before sun-up.”

“Then now! Oh, Bruce, please! Just this once more—”

“Hush, Jemima! Sam and Robert will be here at any moment. You don’t want them to find you here alone with me.” There was a pause, during which she heard him turn and walk to the door and open it, and then he said: “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you drop your glove.” Jemima did not answer and they walked out.

Amber waited until she was sure that they were gone and then she went back into his cabin again.

Apprehension for her own safety, now that it was secured, dissolved instantly into a jealous fury against both Jemima and Bruce. So he had been making love to her! The dirty varlet! And that puling little milk-sop, Jemima! She’ll smoke for this!

Bruce returned to find her sitting on the writing-table, her feet braced against the bunk and both hands on her hips. She looked at him as though expecting him to hang his head and blush.

“Well!” she said.

He gave a shrug, closing the door.

“So that’s what you’ve been about this past week!” Suddenly she got up, walked across the room and turned her back on him. “So you didn’t intend to seduce her!”

“I didn’t.”

She swung around. “You didn’t! She just said—”

“I didn’t intend to. Now look here, Amber, I haven’t time for a quarrel. A fortnight or so ago Jemima came one morning to Almsbury House and sent up your name. You may think I should have indignantly ordered her out of my bedroom, but I didn’t. The poor child was unhappy and disappointed over being made to marry Joseph Cuttle and she thinks, at least, that she’s in love with me. That’s all there is to it.”

“Then what about the Crown—and our same room?” The last three words mocked Jemima’s voice as she had said them.

“We met there three or four times afterwards. If you want to know anything else about it, ask Jemima. I haven’t the time. Come on—I’m going back up on deck.”

As he turned she ran forward and grabbed his arms. “Bruce! Please, darling—Don’t go till we’ve said goodbye—”

Half an hour later they returned to her coach and he handed her in. “When will you come back to London again?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’ll be several months anyway. I’ll see you when I do.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Bruce. And, oh, darling, be careful! Don’t get hurt. And think of me sometimes—”

“I will.”

He stepped back, swinging the door closed, and made a signal to the coachman to start. The coach began to move and he smiled back at her as she stuck her head out the opened window.

“Sink a thousand Dutchmen!” she called.

He laughed. “I’ll try!” He gave her a wave and turned to go back onto the ship. The coach moved on and the crowds closed between them; he disappeared from her sight.

Amber entered her apartments, still too full of the warm luxuriant afterglow of Bruce’s love-making to have begun thinking of Jemima again. It was an unpleasant shock to find the girl there, waiting for her.

Jemima was tense and excited. “May I see you alone, Madame?”

Amber felt very superior; triumphant. “Why, of course, Jemima.”

Nan herded the other servants out of the room, all but Tansy who stayed where he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor absorbed in working a Chinese puzzle which Samuel had brought him more than a week ago. A servant took Amber’s muff and fan and gloves, one of which Amber had lost. She was careless with her belongings, they were so easily replaced; and if she lost something it gave her an excuse to buy another.

Amber turned and faced her step-daughter. “Now,” she said casually, raising her hands to her hair. “What d’you want?”

The two women, both of them beautiful and expensively dressed, with well-bred features, presented a strange contrast. For one was obviously unsophisticated and essentially innocent, while the other was just as obviously the reverse. But it was not the way she looked, nor was it anything in her manner. It was rather a certain indefinable aura which hung about her, like a wickedly fascinating perfume, redolent of passion and recklessness and a greed for living.

Jemima was too overwrought, too disappointed and unhappy and angry to try to be subtle. “Where ’ve you been!” It was no question, but an accusation.

Amber gave her eyebrows a lift, and twisted around to straighten the seams in her stockings. “That’s none of your business.”

“Well, whether it’s any of my business or not, I know! Look at this—it’s yours, isn’t it!” She held out a glove.

Amber glanced at it and then her eyes narrowed. She snatched it away. “Where’d you get that!”