Kathleen Winsor - Forever Amber

But now he looked at her with obvious displeasure. “Madame, I had hoped your own sense of shame would prevent you from making any further reference to so unfortunate an episode in your life. Pray, let me hear no more about it.”

“Why not? I’m not ashamed of it!”

“I am.”

“It didn’t keep you from marrying me!”

From across the dozen or so feet that separated them they eyed each other. Amber had long felt sure that if once she could break through his coldness and composure she would have him at her mercy. If I ever hit him, she had told herself a dozen times, I’d never be afraid of him again. But she could not quite bring herself to do it. She knew well enough that he had a strong streak of cruelty, a malevolent savagery—highly refined, as were all his vices. But she had not found any restraining rein of conscience or compassion. Therefore she hesitated out of fear, and hated herself for the cowardice.

“No,” he agreed at last. “It didn’t keep me from marrying you—for you had other attractions which I found it impossible to resist.”

“Yes!” snapped Amber. “Sixty-six thousand of ’em!”

Radclyffe smiled. “How perceptive,” he said, “for a woman!”

For several seconds she glared at him, longing violently to smash her fist into his face. She had the feeling that it would crumble, like a mummy’s, beneath any hard and sudden blow, and she could picture his expression of horror as his face disintegrated. Suddenly she turned toward the book-shelves.

“Well, where are they! The plays!”

“On this shelf, madame. Take whatever you want.”

She picked out three or four at random, hastily, for she was anxious to get away from him. “Thank you, sir,” she said without looking at him, and started out. Just as she reached the door she heard his voice again.

“I have some very rare Italian books in which I believe you would be interested.”

“I don’t read Italian.” She did not glance around.

“These may be appreciated without a knowledge of the language. They make use of the universal language of pictures.”

She at once understood what he meant and paused, caught by her own strong interest in whatever was sensational or prurient. With a smile which clearly betrayed his cynical amusement at her curiosity he turned and took down from a shelf a hand-tooled leather-bound volume, laid it on the table, and stood waiting. She turned, and for a moment hesitated, watching him suspiciously as though this were some trap he had set for her. Then with a defiant lift of her chin she walked forward and opened the book, turned half-a-dozen pages on which was some unrecognizable printing and stopped with a gasp of surprise at the first picture. It was beautifully done, painted by hand, and showed a young man and woman, both of them naked, straining in an ecstasy.

For a moment Amber looked at it, fascinated. Suddenly she glanced up and found him watching her, carefully, with the same expression she had seen that day in Almsbury’s library. It disappeared again, as swiftly as the time before; and she picked up the book and started across the room.

“I thought you’d be interested,” she heard him saying, “but pray handle it carefully. It’s very old and very rare—a treasure of its kind.”

She did not answer or look around but went on out of the room. She felt bewildered and angry, both pleasantly excited and disgusted. It seemed, somehow, that he had taken an advantage of her.

THE QUEEN’S PRESENCE CHAMBER was packed with courtiers. The ladies were dressed in the full splendour of laces, spangled satins and velvets—garnet, carmine, primrose-yellow, dusky plum and flame—with shoulders and bosoms and forearms blazing with jewels. Hundreds of candles burnt in wall-sconces and torchères, and Yeomen of the Guard held smoking flambeaux. Their Majesties, seated on a dais canopied with crimson velvet swagged with gold and silver fringe, gave their hands to be kissed. At one end of the room waited the musicians, in varicoloured taffeta suits and with garlands about their heads, quietly tuning their instruments. There were no outsiders, no spectators thronging the gallery to watch, for the plague was persistent, the number of deaths fluctuating week by week. The women had only recently arrived from Hampton Court.

“Her Ladyship, the Countess of Castlemaine!” cried the usher.

“Baron Arlington! Lady Arlington!”

“Lord Denham! Lady Denham!”

“The Earl of Shrewsbury! The Countess of Shrewsbury!”

As each name was announced eyes swept toward the door, murmurs ran round the room behind raised fans, glances were exchanged; there were feminine giggles and sometimes the sound of a man’s low chuckle.

“Damn me,” remarked one young beau to another, “but I wonder my Lord Shrewsbury dares show his face in public. Her Ladyship has laid with half the men at Court and yet he’s never once so much as offered to defend his honour.”

“And why should he, pray?” retorted the other. “Any man who thinks his honour depends upon that of his wife is a fool.”

“Look!” whispered a twenty-year-old fop, stroking at his elaborate curled wig, arranging the profusion of ruffles at his wrist. “York’s ogling my Lady Denham again. I’ll bet a hundred pound he lies with her before St. George’s Day.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t. Her Ladyship’s honest.”

“Honest? Pshaw, Jack. There’s not a woman in the world who’s honest at all times and upon all occasions.”

“She may not be honest,” interrupted a Maid of Honour, “but she’s watched mighty close.”

“No woman’s watched so close she can’t give her husband a buttered-bun if once she sets her mind to it.”

“Now where d’ye think Lady Arlington got that scurvy gown? She’s always as far behind the fashion as a Lancashire squire’s wife.”

“She’s a Dutchwoman, darling. How should she know how to dress?”

All of a sudden something unexpected happened—the usher announced two unfamiliar names: a new element had entered that close-knit little clique.

“The Earl of Radclyffe! The Countess of Radclyffe!”

The Earl of Radclyffe. Who the devil was he? Some moss-backed old dodderer left over from the last generation? And his countess—a platter-faced jade of at least five-and-forty, no doubt, who disapproved of the new manners as violently as any Puritan alderman’s wife. They looked toward the doorway with a kind of bored curiosity. Then, as Lord and Lady Radclyffe appeared, surprise and shock flowed over the room, snapping them out of their lazy indifference. What was this! An actress being presented at Court!

“Jesus Christ!” remarked one gentleman to another. “Isn’t that Amber St. Clare?”

“Why!” hissed an indignant lady. “That’s that comedian—Madame What-d’ye-call who was at the Theatre Royal a couple of years ago!”

“Intolerable!”

Amber kept her head high and looked neither right nor left, but straight ahead toward the Queen. She had never felt so nervously excited, so eager, or so scared. I really am a countess, she had been telling herself all day. I’ve got as much right at Whitehall as anyone. I won’t let ’em scare me—I won’t! They’re only men and women—they’re no different from me or anyone else. But the truth was she did believe them different—here, at least, in Whitehall.

Her heart pounded so hard she was breathless, her knees trembled and her ears rang. The back of her neck ached. She kept looking straight toward the dais, but all she could see was a blur, as though she had her eyes open under water. Slowly she walked forward, her shaking fingers on Radclyffe’s arm—down the long long corridor of faces toward the throne. She sensed the whispers, the smiles and smirks, the indignation, but actually she saw and heard nothing.

Radclyffe was splendidly dressed. His wig was white, his coat gold-and-purple brocade and his breeches pale-green satin; precious stones glittered on his sword-hilt. His sharp austere face forbade them to criticize his wife, defied them to remember that she had been an actress, demanded that they admire and accept her. And Amber’s costume was as gorgeous as any in the room. Her long-trained gown was cloth-of-gold covered with stiff gold lace; a veil fell over her head and she wore her impressive collection of emeralds.

Now they had reached the throne. She spread a deep curtsy; he knelt. As Amber’s lips touched the Queen’s hand she raised her eyes, to find Catherine smiling, a gentle wistful smile that caught suddenly at her heart. She’s kind, thought Amber, and she’s unhappy, poor lady. But she’s harmless. I like her, she decided.

But she dared not look at Charles. For here in his Palace, surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of royalty, he was not the man she had visited secretly at night three years before. He was Charles II, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. He was all the might and glory of England —and she knelt before him reverently.

Slowly she rose, moving backward, and went to stand among the throng that lined the approach to the dais. For several moments she remained half-dazed—but gradually the world began to expand again beyond herself and her feelings. She glanced to the right and found Buckhurst there, grinning down at her. Sedley looked over his shoulder with a wink. Immediately across from her was the magnificent Buckingham, and though she had not seen him since that night at Long’s in the Haymarket, he smiled at her now and she was grateful. There were others: the two Killigrews, father and son; Dick Talbot and James Hamilton and several more young men who had frequented the tiring-room. And then all at once her eyes came to a stop. She was looking straight at Barbara Palmer. Castlemaine was watching her, her face speculative and predatory. For several seconds their stares held, and it was Amber who looked away first, with flaunting unconcern. She was beginning to realize that these people were not, after all, gods and goddesses—even here on Olympus.