Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
Because of the Duchess she had come to dislike London— though it had been the dream of her life to revisit it someday—and she wished that they might leave immediately. She had begun to wonder if her Grace was the reason why he had suggested staying in London during her pregnancy—instead of going to Paris. That was why she did not dare suggest herself that they cross over to France to spend the time with his sister. Suppose he should guess her reason? For how could she explain such a wish when he said it was for her own safety and both of them were so desperately anxious to have this child? (Their son had died the year before, not three months old, in the smallpox epidemic which was raging through Virginia.)
With some impatience and scorn she chided herself for her cowardice. I'm his wife—and he loves me. If this woman is anything to him at all she can be only an infatuation. It's nothing that will last. I'll still be living with him when he's forgot he ever knew her.
One night, to her complete surprise, he inquired in a pleasant conversational tone: "Hasn't his Majesty asked you for an assignation?" They had just come from the Palace and were alone now, undressing.
Corinna glanced at him, astonished. "Why—what made you say that?"
"What? It's obvious he admires you, isn't it?"
"He's been very kind to me—but you're his friend. Surely you wouldn't expect a man to cuckold his friend?"
Bruce smiled. "My dear, a man is commonly cuckolded first by his friend. The reason's simple enough—it's the friend who has the best opportunity."
Corinna stared at him. "Bruce," she said softly. At the tone of her voice he turned, just as he was pulling his shirt off, and looked at her. "How strangely you talk sometimes. Do you know how that sounded—so cruel and callous?"
He flung his shirt aside and went to her, taking her into his arms. Tenderly he smiled. "I'm sorry, my darling. But there are so many things about me you don't know—so many years I lived before I knew you that I can never share with you. I was grown up and had watched my father die and seen my country ruined and fought in the army before you were ever born. When you were six months old I was sailing with Rupert's privateers. Oh, I know—you think all that doesn't make any difference to us now. But it does. You were brought up in a different world from mine. We're not what we look like from the outside."
"But you're not like them, Bruce!" she protested. "You're not like these men here at Court!"
"Oh, I haven't got their superficial tricks. I don't paint my eyebrows or comb my wig in public or play with ladies' fans. But— Well, to tell the truth the age is a little sick, and all of us who live in it have caught the sickness too."
"But surely I live in it?"
"No, you don't!" He released her. "You're no part of this shabby world. And thank God you're not!"
"Thank God? But why? Don't you like these people? I thought they were your friends. I've wished I could be more like them—the ladies, I mean." Now she was thinking of the Duchess of Ravenspur.
His mouth gave a bitter twist at that. "Corinna, my darling, where can you have got such a foolish idea? Don't ever dare think of it again. Oh, Corinna, you can't know how glad I am that I saw you that day in Port Royal—"
Suddenly her fears and jealousies were gone. A great and wonderful sense of relief swept through her, washing out the hatred, the poison of mistrust that had been festering there.
"Are you glad, darling? Oh, I remember it so well!"
"So do I. You were on your way to church. And you were wearing a black-lace gown with a black veil over your hair and roses pinned in it. I thought you were Spanish."
"And my father thought you were a buccaneer!" She threw back her head and laughed joyously, safe back there in those happy days when no slant-eyed minx with the title of "duchess" had existed to try to take him from her. "He was going to send you a challenge!"
"No wonder. I must have been a disreputable looking fellow. I hadn't got ashore half-an-hour before. Remember—I followed you into church—"
"And stared at me all through the service! Oh, how furious father was! But I didn't care—I was in love with you already!"
"Dirty clothes, five-day beard, and all?"
"Dirty clothes, five-day beard, and all! But when you came to call that night—oh, Bruce, you can't imagine how you looked to me! Like all the princes out of every fairy-tale I've ever read!"
She looked up at him, her eyes illuminated like stained-glass in a chapel. Suddenly his own eyes closed, as if to shut out the sight of something that troubled him, but at the same time his arms drew her close and his head bent to kiss her. Oh, you've been a fool! Corinna told herself. Of course he loves you— and of course he's faithful! I'd see it when he looked at me, I'd feel it when he touched me, if he weren't.
And yet, the next time she saw the Duchess of Ravenspur, her resentment was stronger than ever. For the woman looked at her, she knew it, with a kind of sliding contempt, a sort of secret sneer, as though she had an advantage over her. Her Grace seemed, however, more friendly than she had at first, and she always spoke to Corinna pleasantly.
But at last Corinna felt that she could bear this uncertainty, these jealous suspicions of hers no longer. And finally, as if in the hope that she could exorcise the demon by speaking its name, she determined to talk to Bruce, as casually as she could, about the Duchess—though it had been some time since she had been able to hear the woman's name without wincing inside. They were coming home one night from the Palace when she forced herself to begin the conversation. She had known for a long time what she would say and had repeated the sentence over so many times that the words seemed to come out flat and stilted.
"How lovely the Duchess of Ravenspur looked tonight. I do think she's more beautiful than my Lady Castlemaine— don't you?" Her heart was pounding so that she could scarcely hear her own voice and her hands, clenched tight inside her muff, felt wet and cold.
Horsemen rode beside the coach and the torches they carried threw a bright unsteady light in upon them, but Corinna looked straight ahead. It seemed to her that he hesitated a long while before answering and those few seconds passed in torture. I should never have said it! she thought miserably. The sound of her name means something to him—something I don't want to know about. I wish I had kept quiet—
Then she heard him say, with no more emotion in his voice than if it were some comment upon the weather: "Yes, I think she is."
She felt a kind of sudden relief and now she said, almost gayly: "She flirts furiously with you. I suppose I should be jealous of her."
Bruce looked at her and smiled faintly but made no reply.
But Corinna was determined not to stop now that she had made the break. "Is it true she was once an actress? Or is that only gossip? The other women don't seem to like her. They say terrible things about her—of course, they're probably jealous," she added hastily.
"Do women ever like one another? Not very often, I think. But it's true she was an actress—several years ago."
"Then she isn't of quality?"
"No. Her people were yeomen farmers."
"But how did she come by her fortune and title?"
"The only way a woman can come by such things if she isn't born to them. Somehow she contrived to marry a rich old merchant, and when he died she inherited a third of his money. With that she bought a title—another old man. He's dead too."
"She's married now, though, isn't she? But where's her husband? I've never seen him."
"Oh, he comes to Court sometimes. I don't think they're very well acquainted."
"Not very well acquainted! With her own husband!" Genuinely astonished at that, Corinna forgot her own wretched feeling of nervous tightness. "What did she marry him for, then?"
"To get a name for the King's bastard, I think."
"Oh, heaven! I feel as though I'm in a strange new world here! Everything seems to be turned upside down!"
"It is upside down—unless you're standing on your head with the rest of them. You'll be glad to get home again,
"Oh, yes!" Then, regretting her too hasty enthusiasm, she added, "But only because I miss Summerhill—and everything it means to us." She turned her head to look up at him, and he was so close their lips brushed and then his mouth pressed down upon hers.
A few days later Corinna went with her waiting-woman to make some small purchases at the New Exchange. The Exchange, located far out on Thames Street, was a great blackened stone building with a double gallery on two separate floors. Each tiny shop had its own sign that hung so low that anyone of more than usual height must duck or dodge to avoid striking his head. The shopkeepers were for the most part attractive well-dressed girls—though there were a few young men—who kept daily court for their admirers. It was the most fashionable lounging-place and rendezvous of the town, much frequented by beaus waiting to meet some masked lady who had a father or husband to outwit. Pretty young women came there too, flirtation-bent—but always pretending to be very pert and disdainful when first approached.
With her woman Corinna mounted the staircase and strolled along the gallery. Stares and low whistles and audible comments followed her, for many of the fine ladies would rally with the gallants, bandying barbed compliments and insults sweetened with a smile. Corinna, however, had not caught this London habit either and she paid them no attention.
At last she paused before the booth of a pretty little woman, Mrs. Sheldon, who had been temporary mistress to several great men but was just now without a keeper.
"Good-day to you, Lady Carlton!" she cried pleasantly. "I didn't know you were here with his Lordship this morning."
"Oh. Is my husband here?"
She turned, glancing around, and as if she had known exactly where to find him she looked across into the opposite corridor and saw him standing with his back to her, evidently talking to someone who was hidden by his size and bulk. Impulsively she started forward, intending to go around and surprise him, but just at that moment he stepped aside to let someone pass. She saw then that he was talking to the Duchess of Ravenspur.
Horrified, she stopped.
Could he have met her there by accident? Of course! With all her heart she wanted to believe that that was what had happened. But after all the doubts and hints and suspicions of the past weeks the sight of them standing there together could mean only one thing to her. Corinna turned back, trying to conceal her agonizing confusion and shame. Little Mrs. Sheldon looked as miserable as though she had unwittingly given away a state secret.
"He's talking to a friend just now," murmured Corinna, scarcely aware of what she was saying. "I'll make my purchases and meet him below in the coach."
"Can't I show you the embroidered ribbons I told you about last week, your Ladyship? They came in on the packet-boat from France not two days since!" She almost fluttered as she talked and in spite of herself her eyes shifted again and again across to the opposite corridor. Red-faced over the terrible mistake she had made she was frantically piling great heaps of ribbons on the counter. Oh, if only it had been anyone else but Lady Carlton—so lovely, so gentle, so kind!
Corinna's head was ringing and her eyes were blinded; she could see nothing but a blur of colour before her. "Yes," she said softly. "I'll have three yards of this—and ten of this, I think."
Lord Carlton and the Duchess of Ravenspur were strolling toward them now, taking a leisurely path along the crowded corridor, absorbed in their own conversation. Quickly Corinna's woman stepped around behind her mistress to shield her from them as they passed. And little Mrs. Sheldon was babbling distractedly in hope of keeping her from hearing their voices.
But Corinna's ears, almost abnormally alert, heard the Duchess's low pitched voice, just as they went by, saying: "—and Bruce, only to think, we'll have all—"
Corinna, holding with her fingers to the counter, her eyes closed, swayed slightly and felt herself growing sick and weak. Passionately she prayed that she would not faint and draw a crowd about her. But within a few seconds she had regained control of herself. "And I'll take twelve yards of this silver ribbon, Mrs. Sheldon. I think that will be all." Even before her waiting-woman had finished paying for them Corinna turned and started away in the opposite direction, longing to get back into the safety and solitude of her coach.
That night, to her own surprise, Corinna heard herself say to Bruce, in a voice which sounded impersonal and but politely interested: "What did you do this afternoon, darling? Play tennis with his Majesty?"
They were in the bed-chamber and he was writing a letter to his overseer while she sat brushing their three-year-old daughter's hair. "For a while," he said, pausing with the pen in his hand to glance around. "Then I went to the House of Lords for an hour or two."
He returned to his writing and she continued, automatically, to brush Melinda's hair. Even now that it had happened she could scarcely believe that he would lie to her. Melinda, a black-haired blue-eyed miniature of her mother, looked up into Corinna's face with her eyes large and serious and solemn, ducking her head a little at each stroke of the brush. And at last as Corinna leaned over to kiss her an unexpected tear splashed onto the little girl's head. Hastily Corinna brushed it away with her hand, lest Melinda should notice and ask why she was crying.
Corinna felt that her life had ended.
It was enough now for her merely to see the Duchess of Ravenspur look at Bruce to know that he was her lover. How could she have been so simple as not to have realized it long ago? For now she had no doubt that the affair had begun when they had first reached England—or perhaps much earlier. He might have met her when he had gone there in sixty-seven, for she knew that the Duchess had been at Court then and some of the women had taken pains to let her know about her residence at that time in Almsbury House.
They would have told her more—all the things she both wanted and dreaded to know—but she refused to let them. And for some reason, perhaps the very fact that she was so different from them, they were a little kinder; they did not force her to hear it against her will.
But this could not go on indefinitely. Something must happen—what would it be?
Would he send her back to her father in Jamaica and remain here in London himself? Or perhaps he would even take the Duchess with him to Summerhill—to her own lovely Summer-hill which she had named and which they had built together out of their dreams and their love and their limitless plans and hopes for the future. All the things that were gone now. They must be gone, since he loved another woman.
For several days Corinna, not knowing what she should do, did nothing. She thought it could do no good to accuse him. For what did it matter whether he would deny it or not—since the fact could not be denied? He was thirty-eight years old and had always done as he liked; he would not change now and she did not in any real sense want to change him for she loved him as he was. She felt lost and utterly helpless here in this strange land, surrounded by strange manners and strange customs. The ladies here, she realized, had all of them doubtless met this same situation many times, tossed it off with a smile and a witty phrase and turned to find their own amusement elsewhere. She had never realized so acutely as now what Bruce had often told her—that she was not a part of this world at all. Everything inside her recoiled from it with horror and disgust.
When he took her into his arms, kissed her, lay with her in bed, she could not put the thought of that other woman out of her mind. She would wonder, though she despised herself for it, how recently he had kissed the Duchess, and spoken the same words of passion he spoke to her. Why doesn't he tell me? she asked herself desperately. Why should he cheat me and lie to me this way? It isn't fair! But it was the Duchess she hated—not Bruce.
And then one day Lady Castlemaine paid her a visit.
King Charles had recently given the Duchess of Ravenspur a money grant of twenty thousand pounds and Barbara was so furious that she was determined to make trouble for her in some way. She was convinced that any woman—even a wife— of Corinna's beauty must have co
It was Rochester's habit to dress one of his footmen as a sentry and post him about the Palace at night, there to observe who went abroad at late hours. With information thus secured he would retire to his country-estate and write his nasty satires, several copies of which would be scribbled out and sent back anonymously to be circulated through the Court. They always pleased everyone but the subject, but the Earl was impartial—sooner or later every man and woman of any consequence might expect to feel the poisonous stab of his pen.
For the first few minutes of her visit Barbara made trifling but pleasant conversation—the brand-new French gowns called sacques, yesterday's play at the Duke's Theatre, the great ball which was to be held in the Banqueting House next week. And then all at once she was launched upon the current crop of love-affairs, who slept with whom, what lady feared herself to be with child by a man not her husband, who had most recently caught a clap. Corinna, guessing what all this was leading to, felt her heart begin to pound and her breath choked short.
"Oh, Lord," continued Barbara airily, "the way things go here—I vow and swear an outsider would never guess. There's more than meets the eye, let me tell you." She paused, watching Corinna closely now, and then she said, "My dear, you're very young and innocent, aren't you?"
"Why," said Corinna, surprised, "I suppose I am."
"I'm afraid that you don't altogether understand the way of the world—and as one who knows it only too well I've come to you as a friend to—"
Corinna, tired of the weeks of worry and uncertainty, the sense of sordidness and of helpless disillusion, felt suddenly relieved. Now at last it would come out. She need not, could not, pretend any longer.
"I believe, madame," she said quietly, "that I understand some things much better than you may think."
Barbara gave her a look of surprise at that, but nevertheless she drew from her muff a folded paper and extended it to Corinna. "That's circulating the Court—I didn't want you to be the last to see it."