Читаем Forever Amber полностью

For an instant she stood unmoving, and then suddenly she picked up her skirts and rushed off, leaving them to stare after her, bewildered and astonished. Lord Carlton, with Almsbury and one other young man, had just entered the fair grounds and were standing while an old vegetable woman knelt to wipe their boots according to the ancient custom. Amber got there out of breath but smiling and made them a curtsy to which they all replied by removing their hats and bowing gravely.

“Damn me, sweetheart!” cried Almsbury enthusiastically. “But you’re as pretty a little baggage as I’ve seen in the devil’s own time!”

“God-a-mercy, m’lord,” she said, thanking him. But her eyes went back instantly to Lord Carlton whom she found watching her with a look that made her arms and back begin to tingle. “I was afraid—I was afraid you were gone.”

He smiled. “The blacksmith had gone off to the Fair and we had to hammer out the shoe ourselves.” He glanced around. “Well—what do you think we should see first?”

In his eyes and the expression about his mouth was a kind of lazy amusement. It embarrassed her, made her feel helpless and tongue-tied and awkward, and a little angry too. For how was she to impress him if she could not think of anything to say, if he saw her turning first white and then red, if she stood and stared at him like a silly pea-goose?

The old woman had finished now and as each of the men gave her a coin to “pay his footing” she went on her way. But she looked back over her shoulder at Amber who was beginning to feel conspicuous, for everyone was watching the Cavaliers and, no doubt, wondering what business a country-girl might have with them. She would have been delighted by the attention but that she was afraid some of her relatives might see her—and she knew what that would mean. They must get away somehow, to a safer quieter place.

“I know what I want to see first,” said Almsbury. “It’s that booth down here where they’re selling sack. We’ll meet you at the crossroads below the town, Bruce, when the sun gets here—” He pointed high overhead and then, with another bow, he and the other man left them.

She hesitated a moment, waiting for him to suggest what she wanted to do, but when he did not she turned and started toward the pillory and wooden stocks and the tent where the play was going on. The crowds were still thick, but it was away from the center of the fair grounds. He walked along beside her and for several minutes they said nothing. Amber was glad that it was too noisy to talk without shouting—and she hoped that he would think that was what kept her quiet.

She had a miserable sense of inadequacy, a fear that whatever she said or did would seem foolish to him. Last night, lying in bed, she had seen herself very gay and easy, casting her spell over him as she had over Tom Andrews and Bob Starling and many, many others. But now she was once more aware of some great distance between them and she could not find her way across it. Every sense and emotion had heightened to an almost painful intensity and there was an unnatural brilliance about everything she saw.

To cover her embarrassed confusion Amber looked with the greatest interest at each booth they passed. Finally, as they came to one where a young woman had a great deal of sparkling jewellery for sale, Lord Carlton glanced down at her.

“Do you see anything there you’d like to have?”

Amber gave him a quick look of delighted surprise. All of it looked wonderful to her, but of course it must be very expensive. She had never worn any such ornaments, though her ears had been pierced because Sarah said that when she married she was to have a pair of earrings which had belonged to her mother. Now, of course, if she came home wearing something like that Uncle Matt would be furious and Aunt Sarah would begin to talk to her again about getting married—but the lure of the jewels and the prospect of a gift from his Lordship was more than she could resist.

She answered without hesitation. “I’d like to have some earrings, m’lord.”

Already the young woman behind the counter, seeing them pause, had set up a noisy babble and was picking up necklaces and combs and bracelets for her inspection. Now, as Amber mentioned earrings she snatched up a pair from which dangled pieces of crudely cut glass, both coloured and clear.

“Look at these, sweetheart! Fine enough for the ears of a countess, I do vow! Lean over, dear, and I’ll try ’em on you. A little closer—There. Why! will you look at that, your Lordship! I vow and swear they make her quite another person, a lady of quality, let me perish! Here, my dear, look at yourself in this glass—Oh, I vow I’ve never seen such a change come over anyone as those jewels make in you, madame—”