Winsor, Kathleen (152 page)

Susanna
stopped crying all at once and gave her a look of such hurt and bewildered
astonishment—for usually her mother made a great fuss over her when she had
been gone a few days and always brought back a present of some kind— that Amber
was instantly contrite. She knelt and took her into her arms again, kissed her
tenderly and smoothed her hair and promised her that she might come upstairs
that night to say her prayers. Susanna's eyes and face were still wet but she
was smiling when Amber waved goodbye.

But
as she sat waiting for Corinna in the anteroom outside their apartments Amber
began to wish she had not come.

For
if Bruce should return and find her there she knew that he would be furious—it
might undo whatever chance she still
had left to make up the quarrel with
him. She felt sick and cold, trembling inside, at the mere thought of
confronting this woman. The door opened and Corinna came in, a faint look of
surprise on her face as she saw Amber sitting there. But she curtsied and said
politely that it was kind of her to call. She invited her to come into the
drawing-room.

Amber
got up, still hesitating on the verge of giving some random excuse and running
away—but when Corinna stepped aside she walked before her into the
drawing-room. Corinna had on a flowing silk dressing-gown in warm soft tones of
rose and blue. Her heavy black hair fell free over her shoulders and down her
back, there were two or three tuberoses pinned into it and she had another
cluster of her favourite flower fastened at her bosom.

Oh,
how I hate you! thought Amber with sudden savagery. I hate you, I despite you!
I wish you were dead!

It
was obvious too that Corinna, for all her smooth and charming manners, liked
her visitor no better. She had lied when she had told Bruce that she did not
believe he had continued to see her—and now the mere sight of this honey-haired
amber-eyed woman filled her with loathing. She had almost come to believe that
while both of them lived neither could ever be truly at peace. Their glances
caught and for a moment they looked into each other's eyes: mortal enemies, two
women in love with the same man.

Amber,
realizing that she must say something, now remarked with what casualness she
could: "Almsbury tells me you'll be sailing soon."

"As
soon as possible, madame."

"You'll
be very glad to leave London, I suppose?"

She
had not come for simpering feminine compliments, insincere smiles and subtly
disgusted cuts; now her tawny speckled eyes were hard and shining, ruthless as
those of a cat watching its prey.

Corinna
returned her stare, not at all disconcerted or intimidated. "I shall,
indeed, madame. Though perhaps not for the reason you suppose."

"I
don't know what you mean!"

"I'm
sorry. I thought you would."

Amber's
claws came out at that. You bitch, she thought. I'll pay you off for that. I
know a way to make you sweat.

"You're
looking mighty smug it seems to me, madame—for a woman whose husband is
unfaithful to her."

Corinna's
eyes widened incredulously. For a moment she was silent, then very quietly she
said, "Why did you come here, madame?"

Amber
leaned forward in her chair, holding tightly to her gloves with both hands,
eyes narrowed and voice low and intense. "I came to tell you something. I
came to tell you that whatever you may think—he loves me still. He'll
always
love me!"

Corinna's
cool answer astonished her. "You may think so if you like, madame."

Amber
sprang up out of her chair. "I may think so if I like!" she jeered.
Swiftly she crossed the few feet of floor between them and was standing beside
her. "Don't be a fool! You won't believe me because you're afraid to! He
never stopped seeing me at all!" Her excitement was mounting dangerously.
"We've been meeting in secret—two or three times a week—at a lodging house
in Magpie Yard! All the afternoons you thought he was hunting or at the theatre
he was with me! All the nights you thought he was at Whitehall or at a tavern
we were together!"

She
saw Corinna's face turn white and a little muscle twitched beside her left eye.
There! thought Amber with a fierce surge of pleasure. She felt that one, I'll
wager! This was what she had come for: to bait her, to prod her most sensitive
emotions, to humiliate her with boasting of Bruce's infidelity. She wanted to
see her cringe and shrink. She wanted to see a woman who looked as miserable,
as badly beaten as she felt.

"
Now
what d'you make of his fidelity to you!"

Corinna
was staring at her, a kind of repugnant horror on her face. "I don't think
there's any shred of honourable feeling left in you!"

Amber's
mouth twisted into an ugly sneer; she did not realize how unpleasant she
looked, but was past caring if she had. "Honour! What the devil is
honour!
A bogey-man to scare children!
That's
all it's good for these days!
You can't think what a fool you've looked to all of us these past months—we've
been laughing in our fists at you— Oh, never deceive yourself—he's laughed with
the rest of us!"

Corinna
got to her feet. "Madame," she said coldly, "I have never known
a woman of worse breeding. I can well believe that you came out of the
streets—you act like it and you talk like it. I am only amazed you could have
produced such a child as Bruce."

Amber
gasped, completely taken aback at that. Lord Carlton had never told her that
his wife knew she was the boy's mother. And yet she did know and had never said
a word to anyone, had not refused to have him about her, and seemed to love him
as sincerely as if he had been her own.

Good
Lord! the woman was a greater fool even than she had thought!

"So
you did know that he's mine! Well, now you know me too, and I wonder how you
like knowing that one day my son will be Lord Carlton—everything your husband
has and is will belong, to
my
child, not to yours! How d'you like that,
eh? Are you so damned virtuous and noble that it doesn't rankle in your flesh
at all?"

"You
know very well that's impossible unless his legitimacy can be proved."

She
and Corinna stood very close, breathing each other's breath, staring into each
other's eyes. Amber felt an overpowering desire to grab her by the hair, tear
at her face, destroy her beauty and her very life. Something, she hardly knew
what, held her in check.

"Will
you please leave my rooms, madame," said Corinna now, her lips so stiff
with fury that though they shook they scarcely moved to form the words.

All
at once Amber laughed, a high hysterical laugh of fury and nervous repression.
"Listen to her!" she cried. "Yes, I'll leave your rooms! I can't
get away from you too soon!" With swift jerky movements she gathered up
the muff and fan she had dropped and then turned once more to face Corinna,
breathing hard, quivering in every muscle. She could no longer think but she
began to say, half unconsciously, something she had long wanted to say to her.

"You'll
soon be lying-in, won't you? Think of me sometimes then— Or d'you imagine he'll
be waiting by your bed like a patient dog till you're—"

She
saw Corinna's eyes close slowly, the irises rolling away. At that instant a
man's harsh voice cracked through the room.

"Amber!"

She
whirled and saw Bruce striding toward her, looking gigantic in his fury. She
started a little as though about to run, but he seized her by the shoulder,
spun her around and at the same instant his other hand lashed out and struck
her across the face. For an instant she was completely blind and then she
caught a flashing glimpse of his face above her, contorted, ugly—and she knew
that he was angry enough to kill her.

Her
reaction was swift, partly through fear and her own violent instincts of self-preservation,
partly because all control over her mind had been gone long before this. Wild
as an animal she began to kick and scratch and pound at him with her fists,
shrieking with rage, cursing him with every vile word she knew. Over and over
again she screamed that she hated him. For the moment her lust for revenge was
so powerful she would have killed him if she could—all the pain she had ever
suffered because of him, all the jealous hatred she had for Corinna had seized
hold of her and made her something evil, dangerous, demoniacal.

After
his first swift outburst of fury Bruce had instantly recovered himself. Now he
was only trying to bring her to her senses, though the strength begot of her
rage made it almost impossible for him to control her.

"Amber!"
he shouted, trying to break through her deafness and blindness. "Amber,
for God's sake—be still!"

One
side of his face was raw and bleeding and long claw marks showed where she had
raked her nails across his cheek. His wig and hat had fallen off, Amber's gown
was ripped across one breast and her hair had come undone. Corinna
stood watching
them, motionless with horror, sick with dread and humiliation.

Suddenly
he seized Amber by the back of her hair and gave a violent jerk that snapped
her neck so hard the vertebrae cracked. She let out an agonized scream and the
next instant her fist smashed into the side of his face, bruising her knuckles
and knocking his head backward. His eyes turned green and he seized her neck in
both hands, his strong lean fingers began to close in. Her face darkened.
Frantically she tore at his, hands, her tongue was forced out and her eyes
seemed to burst from the sockets. She tried to scream.

Corinna
rushed toward them. "Bruce!" she cried.
"Bruce!
You're
killing her!"

He
seemed not to hear but Corinna dragged his arms, hammered with her fists
against him, and all at once he let go. Amber dropped like a sack. With a look
of unutterable disgust on his face—disgust which seemed as much against himself
as Amber—he turned away, holding up his hands, the fingers still bent, and he
stared at them as though they did not belong to him. Corinna was watching him,
tenderly, with a pity that was almost maternal.

"Bruce—"
she said at last, her voice very soft. "Bruce— I think you must send for
the midwife. The pains come often now—"

He
stared at her dully, slow realization spreading over his face. "You're
having pains—Oh!
Corinna!"
There was a sound of almost agonized
remorse in his voice. Suddenly he picked her up in his arms and walked into the
other room to the bed. There he laid her down. The blood on his shirt and coat
had smeared her gown and the side of her cheek. His hand reached down to wipe
it away; then swiftly he turned and ran out of the room.

For
two or three minutes Amber lay senseless on the floor. As she began to regain
consciousness it seemed to her that she lay in a warm, soft and comforting bed;
she tried to pull the blankets about her. It was several moments longer before
she was conscious enough to remember where she was and what had happened. Then
she tired to sit up. The blood thumped heavily in her ears and eyes, her throat
ached and she felt dazed and stupid. Very slowly she dragged herself to her
feet and she was standing there, almost as though hung from a hook, her head
drooping, when Bruce came into the room again. She looked up and he stopped for
a moment beside her.

"Get
out of here," he said. He spoke softly, between his teeth. "Get
out."

For
the next several days Amber scarcely left her bedroom in Ravenspur House.
Visitors were turned away and she did not go once to the Palace. Someone
started a rumor that she had been poisoned by Lady Carlton and was dying.
Others said she was recovering from an abortion. Someone else insisted she was
suffering from the effects of her latest perversion. Amber would not have cared
no matter what they said— but when Charles sent to inquire she told him she had
a severe attack of ague.

Most
of the time she merely lay on the bed, her face unpainted and her hair in tangled
snarls. There were dirty circles about her eyes and her skin was sallow; she
had been eating too little and drinking too much. Her tongue felt thick and
leathery and had a nasty taste. She thought she might as well be dead.

She
had known in the past dark bitter moments of loneliness, self-distrust,
desolation—but this was something more. Whatever she had hoped for the future,
whatever she held dear in the present had been lost that day at Almsbury House.
In only a few minutes she had destroyed everything, and the destruction had
been complete; there seemed nothing left on which to build. Even her energy,
the intense vitality which had never failed, now seemed dissipated.

When
Buckingham tried to interest her in his latest plot he found her, to his annoyance
and surprise, indifferent almost to apathy. To get any response at all he had
to offer twice what he had intended. But with his usual early enthusiasm he was
prepared to squander all that remained of his fortune for this most dark and
fantastic of all his schemes. It was his intention to poison Baron Arlington.

Amber
heard him explain the plan with mounting if half-reluctant admiration. At the
end she gave a mock shudder. "Lord, but your Grace is an ingenious
murderer! Then how d'you plan to rid yourself of me?"