Читаем Forever Amber полностью

Amber gave him a swift glance and heaved a deep bored sigh, brushed the dice aside and got to her feet, reaching down as she did so to take Tansy’s wrist and lift him too. Suddenly there was a sharp stinging blow on the back of her hand that made the nerves tingle. Tansy gave a scared shriek, grabbing at her skirts for protection.

“Take your hands off that creature, madame!” Radclyffe’s voice was even and cold, but his eyes glittered savagely. “Get out of this room!” He spoke to Tansy, who ran, not waiting to be told twice.

Radclyffe looked at Nan, who was staying close to Amber. “I told you, Britton, that that little beast was not to be in this room when her Ladyship was undressed. What have you—”

“It’s not her fault!” snapped Amber. “She told me! I brought him in myself!”

“Why?”

“Why not? He’s been with me two and a half years—he comes and goes in my apartments as he likes!”

“Perhaps he did. But he shall do so no longer. You are now my wife, madame, and if you have no sense of decency yourself I shall undertake the management of your conscience myself.”

Furious, determined to hurt him with the one weapon she could depend upon, she said now, softly but with an unmistakable sneer: “Sure, my lord, you don’t expect to be cuckolded by a mere child?”

The whites of Radclyffe’s eyes turned red, and the purple veins of his forehead began to beat. Amber had an instant of real terror, for there was murderous rage in his face—but to her relief he seemed swiftly to control himself. He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his immaculate lace cravat.

“Madame, I cannot imagine what sort of man your first husband must have been. I assure you that an Italian woman who spoke to her husband as you have just spoken to me would have the gravest cause to repent of her impertinence.”

“Well, I’m not an Italian woman and this isn’t Italy—it’s England!”

“Where husbands, you think, have no rights.” He turned away. “Tomorrow that black monkey will be gone.”

Suddenly Amber regretted her insolence and bluster. For she realized that he was neither to be bullied like Black Jack Mallard or Luke Channell—nor wheedled like Rex Morgan or Samuel Dangerfield. He did not love her and he had no awe of her. And though it was fashionable to scorn husbands, she was quite aware that a wife, under the penal laws, was her husband’s property and a chattel. He could use her at his will, or even murder her—particularly since he was rich and titled.

She changed her tone. “You won’t hurt him?”

“I’m going to get rid of him, madame. I refuse to have him in my house any longer.”

“But you won’t hurt him, will you? Why, he’s harmless and helpless as a puppy. It wasn’t his fault he was in here! Oh, please let me send him to Almsbury! He’ll take care of him. Please, your Lordship!” She hated begging him and hated him more for making her beg, but she was fond of Tansy and could not bear to think of his being hurt.

There was something on his face now almost like secret amusement, and his next words were her return for the cut she had given him. “It scarcely seems possible,” he said slowly, “a woman could have so much fondness for a little black ape unless she had some use for him.”

Amber shut her teeth and refused to be goaded. For a long moment they faced each other. At last she repeated: “Will you please send him to Almsbury’s?”

He smiled faintly, pleased to have her in this humiliating predicament. “Very well. I’ll send him tomorrow.” The favour, though granted, was like a slap.

Amber’s eyes lowered.

“Thank you, sir.”

Someday, she was thinking, I’ll slit your gullet, you damned old cannibal.

On the ist of February Charles returned to Whitehall. There were deep snows on the ground, the church bells pealed out merrily, and at night great bonfires lighted the black winter sky, welcoming the King home. Her Majesty, however, and all the ladies had remained at Hampton Court. Castlemaine had recently given birth to another son; the Queen had miscarried again. And York was not speaking to his Duchess because he thought—or pretended to think—that she had been having an affair with handsome Henry Sidney.

Radclyffe went to wait upon the King, but Amber could not go to Court until the women returned, when she might be presented at a ball or some other formal occasion. However, having once paid his respects, Radclyffe did not go often to Whitehall. He was not the sort of man King Charles would take for a confidant and his religion barred him from ever holding an office. Furthermore, he had been too long away from Court. A new generation was setting the pace, and it was not the pace at which his own had moved. There was a new way of living, which he considered to be shallow, frivolous, lacking in grace or purpose. Most of the men he judged either knaves or fools or both and the women he thought a pack of empty-headed sluts. He included his wife in this category.