Читаем Forever Amber полностью

“Adultery is a crime. It’s a crime against two innocent people —your husband, and my wife. But I’ve committed a worse crime than that. I’ve made love to my father’s wife—I’ve committed incest.” The last word was a whisper and his eyes stared at her, full of self-loathing.

“Nonsense, Philip! We’re not related! That was a law made up by old men for the protection of other old men silly enough to marry young women! You’re making yourself miserable for nothing.”

“Oh, I’m not, I swear I’m not! I’ve made love to other women before—plenty of them. But I’ve never done anything like this! This is bad—and wrong. You don’t understand. I love my father a great deal—he’s a very fine man—I admire him. And now what have I done—”

He looked so thoroughly wretched that Amber had a fleeting sense of pity for him, but when she would have reached over to press his hand he stepped back as if she were something poisonous. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, Philip—it’ll never happen again. Forget about it—just forget it ever happened.”

“I will! I’ve got to!”

But she knew that he was not forgetting at all, and that as the days went by he found it more and more impossible to forget. She did nothing to help him. Whenever they met she was invariably looking her most alluring and she flirted with him in a negative way which seemed just as effective as anything more flagrant could possibly have been. By the end of a fortnight he met her again when she had gone out to ride, and after that he was completely helpless. His feeling of guilt and of self-hatred persisted, but the desire for pleasure was stronger.

They found many places to meet.

Like all great old Catholic homes Lime Park was full of hiding-places which had once been used for the concealing of priests. There were window-seats which might be lifted to disclose a small room below the level of the floor. There were panels in the walls which slid back to show a narrow staircase leading up to a tiny room. Philip knew them all. For Amber at least their various rendezvous afforded a dangerous excitement from which she derived far more enjoyment than she did from Philip’s inept love-making.

She did not, however, find it so amusing that she was less eager to return to London. She asked Radclyffe over and over again when they were going back, but invariably he said that he had no plans for returning at all. He would as soon stay in the country, he said, until he died.

“But I’m bored out here, I tell you!” she shouted at him one day.

“I don’t doubt you are, madame,” he said. “In fact it’s always been a puzzle to me how women avoid boredom wherever they are. They have so few resources.”

“We have resources enough,” said Amber, giving him a slanted look, full of venom and contempt. She had started the conversation with good resolutions, but they could not last long under his cold supercilious stare, his srieering sarcasm. “But it’s dull out here. I couldn’t wish the devil himself a worse fate than to be boxed up in the country!”

“You should have considered that, then, when you were attempting to prostitute yourself to his Majesty.”

She gave a harsh vindictive little laugh. “Attempting to prostitute myself! My God, but you are droll! I laid with the King long ago—while I was still at the theatre! Now, my lord, what do you make of that!”

Radclyffe smiled, cynical amusement on his thin pressed lips. He was standing beside one of the great windows that overlooked the terrace, leaning against the gold-embroidered hangings, and his whole decadent figure was like that of a delicate porcelain. She longed to smash her fist against the fragile bones of his cheek and nose and skull, and feel them crumble beneath her knuckles.

“Your own lack of subtlety, madame,” he said quietly, “makes you suspect a similar flaw in everyone else.”

“So you knew it already, did you?”

“Your reputation is not spotless. It was, in fact, very much befouled.”

“And I suppose you think it’s in a better condition now!”

“At least it will not be in a worse one. I have no interest at all in you or in your reputation, madame. But I have a great deal of interest in the repute which my wife bears. I cannot undo the faults you committed before I married you—but I can at least prevent you from committing new ones now.”

For an instant fury brought her close to a disastrous error. It was on the end of her tongue to tell him about herself and Philip, to prove to him that he could not govern her life no matter how he tried. But just in time she controlled herself—and said instead, with an unpleasant sneer: “Oh, can you?”

Radclyffe’s eyes narrowed, and as he spoke to her he measured each word like precious poison. “Someday, madame, you’ll try me too far. My patience is long, but not endless.”

“And then, my lord, what will you do?”

“Go to your rooms!” he said suddenly. “Go to your rooms, madame—or I shall have you carried there by force!”