Читаем Forever Amber полностью

She was waiting one morning for her pretty little golden mare to be saddled when she heard his voice behind her. “Why, good morrow, your Ladyship! Are you riding so early?” He tried to sound surprised, but she knew the moment she looked at him that he had come purposely to meet her.

“Good-morning, Philip! Yes, I think I’ll gather some May dew. They say it’s the most sovereign thing in the world for a woman’s complexion.”

Philip blushed, grinning at her, whacking his hat nervously against his knee. “Your Ladyship can’t have need of anything like that.”

“What a courtier you are, Philip.”

She looked up at him out of the shadow of her broad hat-brim, smiling a little. He doesn’t want to, she thought, but he’s falling in love with me all the same.

The mare, now accoutred with a handsome green-velvet saddle embroidered in gold lace, was led out to where they stood waiting beneath the great trailing pepper-trees. For a moment Amber talked to her, patting her neck and giving her a lump of sugar. Philip then stepped forward to help her mount. She sprang up easily and gracefully.

“We can ride together,” she suggested now. “Unless you were going somewhere to pay a visit.”

He pretended to be surprised at the invitation. “Oh, no. No, I wasn’t. I was just going to ride by myself. But thank you, your Ladyship. That’s very kind. Thank you very much.”

They set out over the rolling clover-thick meadowland, and were presently beyond sight of the house. The grass was very wet and a slow-moving herd of cattle grazed in the distance. For some time neither of them found anything to say, but at last Philip called, happily: “What a glorious morning it is! Why do people live in cities when there’s the country?”

“Why do they live in the country when there are cities?”

He looked surprised and then grinned broadly, showing his even white teeth. “But you don’t mean that, my lady—or you wouldn’t be at Lime Park!”

“Coming to Lime Park wasn’t my idea! It was his Lordship’s!”

She spoke carelessly, and yet something of the contempt and hatred she had for Radclyffe must have been in her tone or in some fleeting facial expression, for Philip replied quickly, as if to a challenge. “My father loves Lime Park—he always has. We never have lived in London. His Majesty, Charles I, visited here once and said that he thought there was no finer country home in England.”

“Oh, it’s a mighty fine house, I doubt not,” agreed Amber, aware that she had offended his family loyalty—though she did not very much care—and they rode some distance farther without speaking. At last she called to him: “Let’s stop here awhile.” Without waiting for his answer she began to rein in her horse; but he rode several hundred yards beyond, wheeled, and came back slowly.

“Perhaps we’d better not, since there’s no one about.”

“What of that?” demanded Amber in half-impatient amusement.

“Well—you see, madame—his Lordship thinks it best not to dismount when we ride. If we were seen someone might misunderstand. Country people love to gossip.”

“People everywhere love to gossip. Well, you do as you like. I’m going to get off.”

And immediately she jumped down, pulled off her hat to which she had pinned two or three fresh red roses, and shook out her hair. He watched her and then, setting his jaw stubbornly, he dismounted too. At his suggestion they started over to see a pretty little stream that ran nearby. The brook was noisy and full, dark-green bulrushes grew along the banks and there were weeping willows that dipped their branches into the water. Through the trees sunlight filtered down onto Amber’s head, like the light in a cathedral. She could feel Philip watching her, surreptitiously, out of the corners of his eyes. She looked around suddenly and caught him.

Slowly she smiled and her eyes slanted, staring at him with bold impudence. “What was your father’s last countess like?” she asked him finally. She knew that his own mother, the first Lady Radclyffe, had died at his birth. “Was she pretty?”

“Yes, a little, I think. At least her portrait is pretty, but she died when I was nine—I don’t remember her very well.” He seemed uneasy at being alone with her; his face had sobered and his eyes could no longer conceal what he really felt.

“Did she have any children?”

“Two. They died very young—of the small-pox. I had it too—” He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “But I lived.”

“I’m glad you did, Philip,” she said very softly. She continued to smile at him, half in mockery, but her eyes were weighted with seduction. Nothing had amused her so much in over four weeks.

Philip, however, was obviously wretched. His emotions pulled him two ways, desire in one, filial loyalty in another. He began to talk again, quickly, on a more impersonal subject. “What is the Court like now? They say it’s most magnificent—and that even foreigners are surprised at the state in which his Majesty lives.”