Читаем Forever Amber полностью

Her eyes sparkled, her mouth smiled. She rolled over on the bed and her arms went about him, crushing her breasts against his shoulder. Their mouths came swiftly together. Corinna no longer existed for either of them.

As the time went by Amber’s confidence increased. For though he said that he loved Corinna she knew that he loved her too. They had shared so much together, there was so much between them, so many memories—those things remained in his heart and they would always remain there, she was sure of that. She began to feel that his wife was merely an inconvenience, a social handicap, and even Corinna’s great beauty held less terror for her than it had at first.

As she had expected, their meetings did not long remain secret. Buckingham, of course, and Arlington too must have known about them from the first—and, though Charles never mentioned it, undoubtedly he did—but all those gentlemen had other matters of greater importance to them than a woman’s love-affairs. The ladies of the Court, however, did not.

Lord and Lady Carlton had been in London less than a month when the Countess of Southesk and Jane Middleton came one morning to pay Amber a visit—and met Bruce just leaving. He bowed to them both, but though Mrs. Middleton gave him her most languishing look and Southesk tried to rally him into conversation, he made his excuses and left them.

“Oh, by all means, my lord!” gushed Southesk. “Do go along. Lord, I vow and swear no man’s reputation is safe if he’s coming out of her Grace’s chamber before noon!”

“Your servant, madame,” said Bruce, bowing again, and he walked away.

Middleton’s eyes followed him down the corridor, her pink lips pouting. “Lord, but he’s handsome! I vow and swear, the person in the world I most admire!”

“I told you! I told you!” cried Southesk gleefully. “He’s her lover! Come, let’s in—”

They found Amber taking a bath in a large marble tub set on a rug in the middle of her bedroom floor. There was asses’ milk in the water to cloud it and a white-fox robe was laid across the lower half of the tub, concealing her body from the waist down. The room was crowded with tradespeople all talking at once, and the monkey chattered, the parrot squawked, the dog barked. Just behind her stood the newest addition to her household, a tall blonde eunuch, handsome and no more than twenty-five. He was one of the many seamen captured each year by Algerian pirates and castrated to be sold back into Europe where they were bought as household ornaments by the finest ladies.

“No,” Amber was saying, “I won’t have it! It’s hideous! My God, look at that colour! I could never wear it—”

“But, madame,” protested the mercer, “it’s the newest shade —I just got it from Paris. It’s called ‘constipation.’ I vow and swear, madame, it’ll be all the fashion.”

“I don’t care. I’d look like a blowsabel in it.” And then, just as the two women came up behind her she gave a little cry of surprise. “Lord, ladies! How you sneak up on one!” “Do we so? We came in noisy as anything, your Grace. Your thoughts must have been elsewhere.”

Amber gave a little smile and snipped at the soap bubbles with her thumb and forefinger. “Oh, well—perhaps you’re right. You can all go now—” she told the tradesmen. “I don’t want anything more today. Herman—” She glanced over her shoulder at the eunuch. “Fling me a towel.”

Mrs. Middleton’s eyes were running appraisingly over Herman’s imposing physique and now she said, as though he were no human being but a mere inanimate object: “Where did you get this fine-looking fellow? My eunuch is a mere jack-straw—a frightful object, let me die.”

Amber took the towel and stood up to begin drying herself, conscious of their close jealous scrutiny. But let them stare as they could, she thought they would discover few flaws, for in spite of bearing three children she looked very much as she had at sixteen—her waist was as slim, her belly as taut and smooth, her breasts as high and pert. She had given herself the best of care, and yet perhaps she had been a little lucky too.

“Oh, I got him from what-d’ye-call—the East Indies merchant. He was mighty dear, but I think he makes a fine enough show to be worth the price, don’t you?”

Lady Southesk regarded him with contempt. “Gad, I wouldn’t have one of ’em about me! Filthy creatures! Unable to perform a man’s most significant function.”

Amber laughed. “Some of ’em will even do that for you, I’m told. Would you like to borrow Herman someday and find out if it’s true?”

Southesk looked furiously insulted at that, though certainly her reputation was none too tidy, but Middleton hastily changed the subject. “Oh, by the way, your Grace, whom d’you think we encountered just at your door?”

Amber gave her a quick narrow look, seeing that the cat was out. She was almost pleased, though she would not have dared spread the news herself. “Lord Carlton, I suppose. Do be seated, ladies. Pray, no ceremony here.”