Forever Amber полностью

They returned to the drawing-room after eleven to find the gambling still going on and a group gathered about the King and his Royal Highness—James was playing a guitar and Charles was singing, in his magnificent bass voice, a rollicking Cavalier song of the Civil War days. The first person she saw, even before they got to the bottom of the stairs, was Almsbury, and he came toward her with a look of worry on his face. But he said nothing and he and Buckhurst exchanged polite bows. His Lordship went off then and left her with the Earl.

“Ye gods, Amber, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I thought you’d gone—”

All at once Amber found herself ready to burst into tears. “Almsbury! Oh, Almsbury, please take me home! Haven’t I stayed long enough!”

They went outside then and got into the coach and there Amber began to cry with furious abandon, sobbing almost hysterically. It was several moments before she could even speak and then she wailed miserably: “Oh, Almsbury! He didn’t even smile at me! He just looked at me like—like—Oh, God! I wish I was dead!”

Almsbury held her close against him, his mouth pressed to her cheek. “What else could he do, sweetheart? His wife was there!”

“What difference does that make! Why should he be the only man in London to care what his wife thinks! Oh, he hates me, I know he does! And I hate him too!” She blew her nose. “Oh, I wish I did hate him!”

She saw Lord and Lady Carlton the next day riding in the Ring. Amber knew that he disliked intensely the monotonous circling round and round, nodding and smiling to the same people two dozen times and more, but evidently he had come for Corinna’s entertainment, since the ladies always enjoyed that pastime. The following day they sat in adjacent boxes at the Duke’s Theatre, and the day after that they were in the Chapel at Whitehall. It was the first time she had ever seen him in a church. Each time both Lord and Lady Carlton bowed and smiled at her, and his Lordship seemed no better acquainted with her than his wife was.

Amber alternated between fury and despondent misery.

How can he have forgotten me? she frantically asked herself. He acts as if he’s never seen me before. No, he doesn’t, either! No man who’d never seen me before would look the way he does! If his wife had any wit at all she’d begin to suspect he knows me only too well—But she won’t of course! Amber thought petulantly. I swear she’s the greatest dunce in nature!

But despite his seeming indifference she could not believe it possible that he had been able to forget all they had meant to each other, for happiness and sorrow, over the nine years past. He could not have forgotten the things she remembered so well. That first day in Marygreen, those early happy weeks in London, the terrible morning when Rex Morgan had died, the days of the Plague—He could not have forgotten that she had borne him two children. He could not have forgotten the pleasures they had shared, the laughter and quarrels, all the agony and ecstasy of being violently in love. Those were the things that could never fade—nothing could ever erase them. No other woman could ever be to him exactly what she had been.

Oh, he can’t forget! she cried to herself, lonely and despairing. He can’t! He can’t! He’ll come to me as soon as he can, I know he will. He’ll come tonight. But he did not.

Five days after she had seen him at Arlington House, he and Almsbury came to her rooms late one afternoon as she was dressing to go out for supper. She had been thinking of him, both angry and excited at once, wishing passionately that he would come—and yet she was surprised when he and Almsbury walked into the room together.

“Why—your Lordship!”

Both men bowed, sweeping off their hats.

“Madame.”

Then, quickly recovering herself, Amber shooed the maids and other attendants out of the room. But she did not rush toward him as she had thought she would. Now that he was there she merely stood and looked at him, almost painfully self-conscious, and did not know what to do, or what she dared to do. She waited for him.

“I wonder if I might see Susanna?”

“Why—yes—yes, of course.”

She walked to the door and called to someone in the next room. She turned back to face him. “Susanna’s grown like anything. She’s—she’s much bigger than when you left.” She was scarcely aware of what she said. Oh, my darling! she thought wildly. Is that all you’re going to do—after two years? Just stand there—looking as if you scarce know me at all?

But the next moment the door was pushed open and Susanna stood in it, dressed in a grown-up, green-taffeta gown with the tiny skirt tucked up over a pink petticoat, and her golden glossy hair caught back at one side with a pink bow. She looked at her mother first and then, somewhat bewildered, at the two men, wondering what was wanted of her.

“Don’t you remember your Daddy?” asked Amber.

Susanna gave him another dubious glance. “But I have a Daddy,” she protested politely.