Читаем Forever Amber полностью

Their eyes swung quickly together, stared hard for the briefest instant; then he smiled and she looked down at Monsieur le Chien where he lay sprawled at the foot of the bed. “Lord, your Grace, I can’t imagine,” she said, growing nervous. “What’s the newest libel? That I’ve got a mole on my stomach or prefer the Dragon upon St. George?”

“No, no. I heard all that last week. Don’t you know the latest gossip about yourself? Tut, tut, madame. They’re saying—” Here he gave a slight and, she thought, a sinister pause. “They’re saying,” he finished briskly, “that Colbert just made you a gift of a diamond necklace valued at two thousand pound.”

Amber had a quick sense of relief, for she had feared that he was there to talk about Father Scroope. She finished her chocolate and set the mug onto the table beside the bed. “Well—if that’s what they’re saying, it’s true. Or true enough, anyhow—my jeweller says it’s worth six hundred pound. Still, it’s pretty enough, I think.”

“Perhaps you like Spanish jewels better.”

Now Amber laughed. “Your Grace knows everything. I wish I had such an intelligence-net myself. I swear all the news comes to me cold as porridge, no matter how high I pay for it. But I’ll tell you truth—the Spanish ambassador gave me an emerald bracelet—and it was handsomer than the French necklace.”

“Then your Ladyship intends to cast in with the Spaniards?”

“Not at all, your Grace. I’ll cast in with the Dutch or the Devil, at a price. After all, isn’t that the way we do business here at Court?”

“If it is you shouldn’t admit it. The news might carry—then what would your price be?”

“Oh, but surely one may be allowed to speak frankly among friends.” Her voice gave him a light flick of sarcasm.

“You’ve grown mighty high, haven’t you, madame, since the days you trod the boards wearing some Maid of Honour’s cast-off gown? Even the Pope, they say, begins to court your favour.”

“The Pope!” cried Amber, horrified. “Good Lord, sir, I protest! I’ve had no traffic with the Pope, let me tell you!”

Amber had little use for her own religion—except when she was alarmed or worried or wanted something—but she shared the popular hatred of Catholicism, without any idea as to why she hated it.

“No traffic with the Pope? But I’ve got it on very good authority your Ladyship sometimes entertains Father Scroope in the dead of the—Oh! I beg your Ladyship’s pardon!” he cried with mock concern. “Have I said something to startle your Ladyship?”

“No, of course not! But where the devil did you get an idea like that? Me, entertaining Father Scroope! What for, pray? I’ve got no taste for bald fat old men, not I!” She tossed back her hair and started to get out of bed, pulling her dressing-gown around her as she did so.

“Just a moment, madame!” Buckingham caught hold of her arm and she looked at him defiantly. “I think you know well enough what I’m talking about!”

“And what, then, are you talking about, sir?”

Amber was growing angry. Something insolent in his Grace’s manner always brought her temper to the surface with a rush.

“I’m talking, madame, about the fact that you are interfering in my business. To be quite plain with you, madame, I know that you discovered my arrangement with Father Scroope and took steps to forestall the plan.” His arrogant handsome face had settled into hard lines and he stared at her with threatening violence. “I thought that we had agreed to play the game together—you and I.”

She gave a swift jerk of her arm to free herself and jumped to her feet. “I’ll play the game with you, your Grace—but damn me if I’ll play it against myself! It could scarce be much to my advantage, d’ye think, if her Majesty left the Court and—”

Just at that moment the King’s spaniels rushed scraping and clawing into the room and before Amber and the Duke could compose themselves Charles had strolled in, followed by several of the courtiers.

Buckingham instantly smoothed out his face and went to kiss the King’s hand—it was the first time he had seen him since the day in the garden when Charles had called him a scoundrel. The Duke lingered several minutes longer, affable and talkative, pretending to Amber and all of them that they had merely been having a friendly chat; but she was considerably relieved when he left. News of the quarrel spread rapidly. When she met Barbara in her Majesty’s apartments before noon the Lady had already heard of it and undertook to let her know that her cousin had sworn to all his acquaintance he would ruin Lady Danforth if it took the rest of his life. Amber laughed at that and said Let Buckingham do his worst, she did not doubt to hold her own. And she knew that she could, too, while the King liked her. After all, she had been at Whitehall only one year and any possible loss of Charles’s affections still seemed to her, like old age, a distant and unlikely misfortune.

And certainly the first result of their broil seemed a very favourable one. Baron Arlington came to pay his first secret call upon her.