In seventeenth-century England, Amber St. Clair aims to raise herself from country girl to nobility, and succeeds, but loses her true love in the process.
Amber St. Clair means to get on in life, and despite a poor background, she knows she has the assets to do it. Husbands, lovers, prison, and a liaison with King Charles II form a tapestry of apparently calculating ups and downs, although in fact the one love of her life, Bruce Carlton, is never far from Amber's thoughts.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
In mid-seventeenth century England, beautiful and headstrong Amber St. Clair, now of marriageable age, defies her puritanical farmer parents' directive for what seems her natural destiny, to marry a farmer. She instead is determined to marry into title and wealth, arguably to match what is her true blood lineage as she was abandoned by escaping unknown nobles when she was a newborn. Upon meeting, she falls immediately in love with Bruce Carlton, a cavalier and thus supporter of King Charles II. While not as taken with her as his comrades, Bruce does relinquish to Amber's request to allow her to travel to London with them. There, Amber begins to be exposed to big city life, both sides in nobility and street crime. Amber is able to use her feminine wiles to get out of scrapes and curry favor with the powerful and rich. Bruce, who does love her in his own way, can see Amber's ambition which in his mind may eclipse any feelings the two may have for each other. Conversely, Amber sees her life with Bruce and others more powerful than him as wanting her cake and eating it too as Bruce comes and goes from her life.—Huggo
Amber St. Clair is 16 years old by the time the revolution of Oliver Cromwell ends and the House of Stuart has returned to the British throne in 1660. Unhappy in the home of her Puritanical foster parents, she departs for London under the reluctant "patronage" of Bruce Carlton. Amber encounters a lot of patrons as she climbs to the top by lying on her back. Carlton goes off on some privateering business in the Colonies and Amber is swindled out of the money he left her. She goes to prison, has Carlton's child there (which he doesn't know about until years later), and escapes prison with the aid of highwayman Black Jack Mallard, who soon has her working as a decoy and other odd jobs, using her non-monetary assets, for his gang. She is caught and arrested by Captain Rex Morgan who, for considerations duly delivered, places her in the theatre, where she enjoys the King's protection. There, while pounding the boards, she first attracts the attention of King Charles II and also the Earl of Radcliffe. She marries the Earl and hits her peak when she becomes the King's "favorite" ("Time Magazine" was fond of calling such relationships "great and good friends"). Carlton returns from Virginia with his bride and wants to adopt his and Amber's child, but also takes time out to kill Morgan in a duel based on but not supported by Amber's long-vanished honor. Amber still wants Carlton and sets his wife up to be compromised, but this fails and she is "found out" and the King is a bit hacked about all the goings-on, and soon she is no longer his favorite. Carlton returns to America with their child, and Amber is reduced to accepting a supper invitation from the King's equerry. But you can't keep a good girl down and, what the hey, tomorrow's another day.—Les Adams <[email protected]>
