The girl lowered her eyes. “I was turned out, mam.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper and she added, “The lady said I was debauchin’ her sons.” But she looked up quickly then and added with great earnestness, “But I wasn’t, mam! I vow and swear I wasn’t! ’Twas just the other way around!”
Amber laughed. “Well, my son’s not old enough to be debauched. I’m looking for a woman myself, and if you want to wait in the coach after you’ve had your dinner we’ll talk about this later.”
She hired Nan Britton at four pounds a year and her clothes and lodging and food. Within three or four days they were good friends—Amber felt that Nan was the first real woman friend she had ever had—and Nan did her work quickly and well, taking the same delight in polishing a pewter pitcher or arranging Amber’s hair that she did in riding to the ’Change or accompanying her and Rex on a visit to the Spring Gardens.
She was energetic, vivacious, and unfailingly good-natured, and as she became more sure of her place and accustomed to it, these qualities remained. Nan and Amber found much to discuss, exchanging the most unabashed feminine confidences, and while Nan learned almost all that there was to know about her mistress (except that she had been in Newgate and Whitefriars) Amber likewise heard the tale of Nan’s adventures as a girl-servant in a household where there were four handsome boys. Her dismissal had come when one of them, deciding that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Nan, announced to his horrified parents that he intended to marry her.
When Rex was not there Nan shared the bed, but otherwise she slept on the trundle. As was customary, she was as much his personal servant as she was Amber’s, helped him in and out of his clothes, was not embarrassed to be in the room when he was naked, and soon decided that Captain Morgan was the finest gentleman she had ever known. He enlisted her on his side and she urged Amber again and again to marry him.
“How Captain Morgan loves you, mam!” she would say in the mornings, while she brushed Amber’s hair. “And he’s the handsomest person, and the most genteel! I vow, he’d make any lady a mighty fine husband!”
But Amber, who merely laughed at first and teased Nan with having fallen in love with him herself, grew less and less interested in such advice. “Captain Morgan’s well enough, I suppose,” she said finally. “But after all, he’s only an officer in the King’s Guard.”
“Well!” cried Nan, offended at such disloyalty. “And who will you have, mam? The King himself?”
Amber, smiling at this sarcasm, gave a superior lift of her eyebrows. She was just setting out for the theatre and now began pulling on her gloves. “I might at that,” she drawled and, when Nan gasped, repeated, “Yes, I might at that.” She strolled toward the door, leaving Nan staring pop-eyed after her, but just with her hand on the knob she turned suddenly. “But don’t you dare breathe a word of this to Captain Morgan, d’ye hear me!”
After all, it might be only gossip that King Charles had told Buckingham who had told Berkeley who had told Kynaston who had told Amber that the King had a mind to lay with her.
AMBER UNLOCKED THE door and started up the steps two at a time. She was eager to look at herself in a mirror, for she was sure that she must be very much changed. She had almost reached the top when the door to her apartments was flung open, and Rex loomed there above her. The light was at his back and she could not see the expression of his face, but knew by his voice that he was angry.
“Where in hell have you been?” he demanded. “It’s half after two!”
Amber paused for one astonished moment, staring at him almost as if he were some intruding stranger. And then, with, a haughty lift of her chin, she came on toward him and would have gone by without a word, but he grabbed her wrist and snatched her up close to him. His eyes had the dangerous glitter she had seen before when his ready jealousy was aroused.
“Answer me, you jilting little baggage! The plays at Whitehall are done by eleven! Who’ve you been with since then!”
For a long moment they stared at each other, and then at last Amber gave a pout and winced. “You’re hurting me, Rex,” she whimpered.
His face relaxed, and though he hesitated a moment he released her. But just as she moved away a heavy bag dropped out of her muff and fell clanking to the floor; by the sound it could only contain money. Both of them looked down at it, and then as Amber raised her eyes she saw that his were narrowed and gleaming with rage, and that the veins in his neck stood out.
“You God damned whoring little bitch,” he said softly.
And then suddenly he grabbed her by the shoulders and began to shake her, harder and harder, until her head snapped back and forth so fast she felt that the top of it would come off.
“Who was it?” he shouted. “Who’ve you been laying with! Tell me, or by Jesus I’ll break your neck!”
