Читаем Forever Amber полностью

“Perhaps it wasn’t really so strange you should have made me think of her,” he continued, and as his voice did not move she knew that he was standing just a few feet away, beside the candelabrum. “I’ve been looking for her for twenty-three years —in the face of every woman I’ve seen, everywhere I’ve gone. I’ve hoped that perhaps she wasn’t dead—that someday, somewhere I’d find her again.” There was a long pause. Amber stood quietly, somewhat surprised by the things he had said, and then she heard his voice coming closer and the sound of his slippers moving across the floor toward her. “But now I’ve ceased looking—I know that she’s dead.”

Amber threw off her gown and got quickly into bed, and the swift sense of dread she had every night grabbed at her. “So you were in love—once!” she said, angry to know that though he despised her he had once been able to love another woman with tenderness and generosity.

She felt the feather-mattress give as he sat down. “Yes, I was in love once. But only once. I remember her with a young man’s idealism—and so I still love her. But now I’m old and I know too much about women to have anything but contempt for them.” He put his robe across the foot of the bed and lay down beside her.

For several minutes Amber waited apprehensively, her muscles stiff and her teeth tight-closed, unable to shut her eyes. She had never dared actually refuse him, but each night she was tortured with this suspense of waiting—she never knew for what. But he was stretched flat on his back far to his own side of the bed, and he made no move to touch her; at last she heard him begin to breathe evenly. Relieved, she relaxed slowly and drowsiness began to creep upon her. Nevertheless, the slightest move from him made her start, suddenly wide awake again. Even when he left her alone she could not sleep in peace.

Jenny’s relatives came and for several days they were interested observers of Amber’s gowns and jewels and manners. None of them approved of her, but all of them found her exciting, and while the women talked about her with raised eyebrows and pinched lips the men were inclined toward nudges and conspiratorial winks. Amber knew what they were thinking, all of them, but she did not care; if they found her shocking she considered them dull and old-fashioned. Still, when they were gone and the silence and monotony began to settle again, she was more impatient than ever.

By now she had worked Philip to such a pitch of infatuation and resentment that it was difficult to make him use discretion. “What are we going to do!” he asked her again and again. “I can’t stand this! Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”

Amber was sweetly reasonable, smoothing back the light-brown hair from his face—he never wore a periwig. “There isn’t anything we can do, Philip. He’s your father—”

“I don’t care if he is! I hate him now! Last night I met him in the gallery just as he was going in to you—My God, for a minute I thought I was going to grab him by the throat and—Oh, what am I saying!” He sighed heavily, his boyish face haggard and miserable. Amber had brought him some momentary pleasures, but a great deal of unhappiness, and he had not been really at peace since she had come to Lime Park.

“You mustn’t talk that way, Philip,” she said softly. “You mustn’t even think about such things—or sometime it might happen. I doubt not it’s his lawful right to use me however he will—”

“Oh, Lord! I never thought I’d see my life in such a mess—I don’t know how it ever happened!”

It was only a few days later that Amber came into the house alone from her morning ride—Philip had returned by another route so that they would not be seen together—and found Radclyffe at the writing-table in their bedroom. “Madame,” he said, speaking to her from over his shoulder, “I find it necessary to pay a brief visit to London. I’m leaving this afternoon immediately following dinner.”

A quick smile sprang to Amber’s face, and though she did not really believe that it was his intention to take her with him, she hoped to bluff her way into going. “Oh, wonderful, your Lordship! I’ll set Nan a-packing right now!”

She started out of the room but his next words brought her up short. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’m going alone.”

“Alone? But why should you? If you’re going I can go too!”

“I shall be gone but a few days. It’s a matter of important business and I don’t care to be troubled with your company.”

She drew a quick breath of indignation and then suddenly rushed back to face him across the table. “You’re the most unreasonable damned man on earth! I won’t stay here alone, d’ye hear me? I won’t!” She banged the handle of her riding-whip on the table-top, marring its surface.