Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 128

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Now Centaine rolled her head carefully on the lace pillow and looked at him. The dawn light was silvery through the shutters and his features seemed carved in ivory. She thought that he looked like a sleeping Roman Caesar, with that imperial nose and wide commanding mouth.

In all but the ears, she thought, and stifled a giggle.

Strange how after three years his presence could make her still feel like a girl. She rose quietly, careful not to rock the mattress and disturb him, picked up her wrap from the couch and slipped through to her bathroom.

Swiftly she brushed her hair into thick dark plumes checking for grey and then, relieved, went on to clean her teeth and wash her eyes with the little blue glass bath of lotion until the whites were clear and sparkling. Then she creamed her face and wiped away the excess. Blaine liked her skin free of cosmetics. As she used her bidet she smiled again at Blaine's mock amazement when he had first seen it.

Marvellous! he had cried. A horse trough in the bathroom, how jolly useful! Sometimes he was so romantic he was almost French. She laughed with anticipation, snatched a fresh silk wrap from the wardrobe and ran through to the kitchen. The servants were all astir, bubbling with excitement because the master was here and they all adored Blaine.

Did you get them, Hadji? Centaine demanded, using the title of respect for one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Malay chef grinned like a butter-yellow gnome under his tasselled red fez and proudly displayed the pair of thick juicy kippers.

Come on the mail boat yesterday, madam, he boasted.

Hadji, you are a magician, she applauded. Scotch kippers were Blaine's favourite breakfast. You are going to do them his way, aren't you? Blaine's way was simmered in milk, and Hadji looked pained at the impropriety of the question as he turned back to his stove.

For Centaine it was a marvelous game of make-believe, playing wife, pretending that Blaine truly belonged to her.

So with a sharp eye she watched Miriam grind the coffee beans and Khalil finish sponging Blaine's grey pinstripe suit and begin to put a military gleam on his shoes before she left them and crept back into the darkened bedroom.

She felt quite breathless as she hovered beside the bed and studied his features. He still had that effect on her even after all this time.

I am more faithful than any wife, she gloated. More dutiful, more loving, more, His arm shot out so suddenly that she squealed with fright as he plucked her down beside him and flicked the sheet over her.

You were awake all along, she wailed. Oh, you awful man, I can never trust you. They could still, on occasion, drive each other into that mindless frenzy, those writhing sensual marathons that exploded at the end in a great burst of light and colour like the Turner on the wall before them. But more often it had become as it was this morning, a fortress of love, solid and impregnable. They left it with reluctance, coming apart slowly, lingeringly, as the day filled the room with gold and they heard the clink of Hadji's breakfast dishes on the terrace beyond the shutters.

She brought him his robe, full-length brocaded China silk royal blue lined in crimson with a belt of embroidered seed pearls and velvet lapels. She had chosen it because it was so outlandish, so different from his usual severe style of dress.

I wouldn't wear it in front of anybody else in the world, he had told her, holding it gingerly at arm's length, when she presented it to him on his birthday.

If you do, you'd better not let me catch you at it! she warned, but after the first shock he had come to enjoy wearing it for her.

Hand in hand they went out onto the terrace and Hadji and Miriam beamed with delight and bowed them to their seats at the table in the morning sunlight.

With a rapid but steely survey, Centaine made sure everything was perfect, from the roses in the Lalique vase to the snowy linen and the Faberg6 jug of silver gilt and crystal filled with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, before she opened the morning paper and began to read to him.

Always in the same order: the headlines and then the parliamentary reports, waiting for him to comment on each, adding her own ideas, and then going on to the financial pages and stock exchange reports, and finally to the sports pages with special emphasis on any mention of polo.

Oh, I see you spoke yesterday: "a forceful reply from the minister without portfolio", they say. And Blaine smiled as he lifted a fillet off his kipper.

Hardly forceful, he demurred. "Pissed off" better describes it. What's this about secret societies? A bit of a flap over these militant organizations, inspired it would seem by the charming Herr Hitler and his gang of political thugs. Anything in it? Centaine sipped at her coffee. She still couldn't get her stomach to accept these English breakfasts.

You seem to have dismissed the whole thing rather lightly. Then she looked up at him with narrowing eyes. You were covering up, weren't you? She knew him so well, and he grumed guiltily at her.

Don't miss a thing, do you? Can you tell me? Shouldn't really. He frowned, but she had never betrayed his trust. We are very worried indeed, he admitted. in fact the Ou Baas considers it the most serious threat since the 1914 rebellion when De Wet called out his commandos to fight for the Kaiser. The whole thing is a political nettle, and a potential mine-field. He paused, and she knew there was more, but she waited quietly for him to make up his mind to tell her. 'All right, he decided. The Ou Baas has ordered me to head a commission of enquiry, cabinet level and confidential, into the Ossewa Brandwag, which is the most extreme and flourishing of them all.

Worse than the Broederbond even. Why you, Blaine? It's a nasty one, isn't it? Yes, it's a nasty one, and he picked me as a non-Afrikaner.

The impartial judge!

Of course, I've heard of the OB. There has been talk for years but nobody seems to know much. Extreme right-wing nationalists, anti-Semitic, anti-black, blaming all the ills of their world on perfidious Albion, secret blood oaths and midnight rallies, a sort of Neanderthal boy scout movement with Mein Kampf as its inspiration. I haven't yet read Mein Kampf. Everyone is talking about it. is there an English or French translation? Not officially published, but I have a Foreign Office translation. It's a rag-bag of nightmares and obscenities, a manual of naked aggression and bigotry. I would lend you my copy but it is appallingly bad literature and the sentiments would sicken you. He may not be a great writer, Centaine conceded. 'But, Blaine, whatever else he has done, Hitler has put Germany on its feet again after the disaster of the Weimar Republic.

Germany is the only country in the world with full employment and a booming economy. My shares in Krupp and Farben have almost doubled in the last nine months. She stopped as she saw his expression. Is something wrong, Blaine? He had laid his knife and fork down and was staring at her.

You have shares in the German armaments industry? he asked quietly, and she nodded.

The best investment I have made since gold went off She broke off; they had never mentioned that again.

I have never asked you to do anything for me, have I? he asked, and she considered that carefully.

No, you haven't, ever. Well, I'm asking you now. Sell your shares in German armarnents. She looked puzzled. Why, Blaine? 'Because it is like investing in the propagation of cancer, or like financing Genghis Khan's campaigns. She did not reply, but her expression went blank and her eyes went out of focus, crossing into a slightly myopic squint. The first time he had seen that happen he had been alarmed; it had taken him some time to realize that when she squinted like that she was involved in mental arithmetic, and it had fascinated him to see how quickly she made her calculations.

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