It did not seem to her that he was so interested in her as Almsbury had said and since she had come half to be flattered by a man’s goggle-eyed staring, she was disappointed and bored. She paid little attention to the rest of the conversation and as soon as dinner was over escaped back to her room.
The apartments she had shared with Bruce for more than a month were dreary and deserted now, and the fact that he had so recently been there made them even lonelier. She wandered forlornly from one room to another, finding something to remind her of him everywhere she looked. There was the book he had been reading last, lying opened in a big chair. She picked it up and glanced at it: Francis Bacon’s “History of Henry VII.” There was a pair of mud-stained boots, two or three soiled white-linen shirts which carried the strong male smell of his sweat, a hat he had worn while hunting.
Suddenly Amber dropped to her knees, the hat crushed in her hands, and burst into shaking sobs. She had never felt more lonely, hopeless and despairing.
Two or three hours later when Almsbury gave a knock at the door and then came in she was stretched out on her stomach on the bed, head buried in her arms, no longer crying but merely lying there—listless.
“Amber—” He spoke to her softly, thinking that she might be asleep.
She turned her head. “Oh. Come in, Almsbury.”
He sat down beside her and she rolled over on her back and lay looking up at him. Her hair was rumpled and her eyes red and swollen, her head ached vaguely but persistently, and her expression was dull and apathetic. Almsbury’s ruddy face was now serious and kindly, and he bent to kiss her forehead.
“Poor little sweetheart.”
At the sound of his voice the tears welled irresistibly again, rolling out the corners of her eyes and streaking across her temples. She bit at her lower lip, determined to cry no longer; but for several moments they were quiet and one of Almsbury’s square hands stroked over her head.
“Almsbury,” she said at last. “Did Bruce leave without me because he’s going to get married?”
“Married? Good Lord, not that I know anything about! No, I swear he didn’t.”
She gave a sigh and looked away from him, out the windows. “But someday he’ll get married—and he says when he does he wants to make Bruce his heir.” Her eyes came back again, slightly narrowed now and suddenly hard with resentment. “He won’t marry
“But you will let him, won’t you? After all, it would be best for the boy.”
“No, I won’t let him! Why should I? If he wants Bruce, he can marry me!”
Almsbury continued to watch her for several seconds, but then all at once he changed the subject. “Tell me: What’s your opinion of Radclyffe?”
She made a face. “A nasty old slubber-degullion. I hate him. Anyway, he didn’t seem so mightily smitten by me. Why, he scarcely gave me a glance, once he’d made his leg.”
He smiled. “You forget, my dear. He belongs to another age than ours. The Court of the first Charles was a mighty formal and discreet place—ogling wasn’t the fashion there, no matter how much a gentleman might admire a lady.”
“Is he rich?”
“He’s very poor. The Wars ruined his family.”
“Then that’s why he thinks I’m so handsome!”
“Not at all. He said you’re the finest woman he’s seen in two-score years—you remind him, he says, of a lady he once knew, long ago.”
“And who can that be, pray?”
Almsbury shrugged. “He didn’t say. Some mistress he had, most likely. Men are never favourably reminded of their wives.”
She saw the Earl of Radclyffe again the next day at dinner, but now there were two more guests: a cousin of Emily’s, Lady Rawstorne, and her husband. Lord Rawstorne was a big man—about Almsbury’s height, but much heavier—with a boisterous laugh, a red face and a smell of stables about him. The moment he saw Amber he seemed delighted and throughout dinner he stared across the table at her.
His wife looked sour and discontented, as though she had watched such behaviour for a great many years and was not even yet resigned to it. And the Earl of Radclyffe, though he elaborately ignored Rawstorne and his staring at Mrs. Dangerfield, was clearly annoyed. For the most part he sat with his eyes on his plate, and regarded the food with the expression of one to whom it could mean only future distress. Amber was amused by both of them and found a sort of mischievous pleasure in flirting with Lord Rawstorne. She pouted her lower lip, slanted her eyes at him, and moved her body provocatively. But it was not a very entertaining diversion. Loneliness and boredom continued to mock at her.
As she left the table she saw Rawstorne begin to edge around from one side, trying to avoid his wife’s glowering signals and get to her, but before he could do so Radclyffe was at her side. He bowed, stiffly as a marionette whose joints had not been well oiled for years.
“Your servant, madame.”
“Your servant, sir.”
