“Pish—why should it be? Anyway, he’ll ask me. So you tell me what name you’d like—please, Bruce, I want to know.”
He seemed to give it a few moments’ serious consideration—but the smile that lurked about his mouth showed what he was thinking. “Susanna’s a pretty name,” he said at last.
“You don’t know anyone named Susanna, do you?”
“No. You asked me for a name that I liked, and I told you one. I had no ulterior motives.”
“But you’ve named your share of bastards, I doubt not,” she said. “What about that wench—Leah, or what d’ye call her? Almsbury said you’d had two brats by her.”
By now Bruce had been back long enough and she had seen him so often that the jealousies and worries that beset her when he was away had begun to encroach upon the pleasure she found in being with him. She had begun to feel more discontented over what she was missing than grateful for what she had.
His voice answered her quietly. “Leah died a year ago, in childbirth.”
She looked up at him swiftly, saw that he was serious and a little angry. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she lied. But she turned to another subject. “I wonder where you’ll be when Susanna’s born?”
“Somewhere giving the Dutch hell, I hope. We’ll declare war on them as soon as Parliament votes the money for it. While we’re waiting I’ll try what I can do to keep the peace the way his Majesty wants it kept.” England and Holland had been at war everywhere but in the home seas for almost a year, and during the past two months the fight had blazed into the open; it needed only to be declared, but Charles had to wait on further preparation and Parliamentary grants.
They were lying on the bed, half-dressed. Bruce had his periwig off and his own hair had been cut short so that now it was no more than two or three inches long, and combed back from his forehead in a wave. Amber rolled over onto her stomach and reached for a bunch of purple Lisbon grapes in a bowl on the table.
“Heigh ho! I suppose it’s a dull day for you when there isn’t a town to burn or a dozen Dutchmen to kill!”
He laughed, pulled a small cluster of grapes from the bunch she held, and began to toss them into his mouth. “Your portrait’s somewhat bloodthirsty.”
She gave a sigh. “Oh, Bruce! If only you’d listen to me!” And then all at once she bounced up and knelt facing him, determined that he should listen to her. Somehow he had always managed to stop her before—but not this time. This time he was going to hear her out. “Go off to the wars if you must, Bruce! But when it’s over sell your ships and stay here in London. With your hundred thousand and my sixty-six we’d be so rich we could buy the Royal Exchange for a summer pavilion. We could have the biggest finest house in London—and everyone who was anybody at all would come to our balls and suppers. We’d have a dozen coaches and a thousand servants and a yacht to sail to France in if we took the notion. We’d go to Court and you’d be a great man—Chancellor, or whatever you wanted, and I’d be a Lady of the Bedchamber. There wouldn’t be anyone in England finer than us! Oh, Bruce, darling—don’t you see? We’d be the happiest people in the world!”
She was so passionately convinced herself that she was positive she could convince him; and his answer was a painful disappointment.
“It would be fine,” he. said. “For a woman.”
“Oh!” she cried furiously. “You men! What do you want then!”
“I’ll tell you, Amber.” He sat up and looked at her. “I want something more than spending the next twenty-five years standing on a ladder with one man’s heels on my fingers and mine on the man’s beneath. I want to do something besides plot and scheme and intrigue with knaves and fools to get a reputation with men I despise. I want a little more than going from the theatre to a cock-fight to Hyde Park to Pall Mall and back over the same round the next day. Playing cards and poaching after anything that goes by in petticoats and a mask and serving my turn as the King’s pimp—” He made a gesture of disgust. “And finally dying of women and drink.”
“I suppose you think living in America will keep you from dying of women and drink!”
“Maybe not. But one thing I know—When I die it won’t be from boredom.”
“Oh, won’t it! I don’t doubt it’s mighty exciting over there with blackamoors and pirates and Newgate-birds and every other kind of ragamuffin!”
