"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 1 - A Free Man of Color" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

"All right. Thank you."

They left her in the office, Hannibal checking the corridor, right and left, before they ducked out and
hastened up the narrow, mildew-smelling flight of the service stair. In the hall January retrieved another
cock feather from the bare cypress planks of the floor, lest Richelieu happen by and be of an observant
bent. With luck once the music started everyone would be drawn up to the ballroom, and Madame
Trepagier could slip away unnoticed. It shouldn't be difficult to hire a hack in the Rue Royale.

Didn 't I tell myself fifteen minutes ago, 'Let's not do this again'? An interview with Angelique
Crozat—spiteful, haughty, and so vain of the lightness of her skin that she barely troubled herself to treat
even free colored like anything but black slaves—a clout in the mouth from Cardinal Richelieu promised
to be mild in comparison. At least being struck was over quickly.

"Who's the lady?" asked Hannibal, as they debouched into the little hall that lay between the closed-up
supper room and the retiring parlor.

"A friend of my sister's." The parlor door was ajar, showing the tiny chamber drenched in amber
candlelight, its armoire bulging with costumes for the midnight tableaux vivants and two girls in what
was probably supposed to be classical Greek garb stitching frantically on a knobby concoction of blue
velvet and pearls.

"In case you've forgotten, that kind of tete-a-te'te's going to get you shot by her protector, and it
probably won't do her any good, either."

They passed through an archway into the lobby at the top of the main stair. The open stairwell echoed
with voices from below as well as above, a many-tongued yammering through which occasional words
and sentences in French, Spanish, German, and Americanized English floated disembodied, like leaves
on a stream. Pomade, roses, women, and French perfumes thickened the air like luminous roux, and
through three wide doorways that led into the long gas-lit ballroom, only the smallest breath of the night
air stirred.

Hannibal paused just within the central ballroom door to collect a glass of champagne and a bottle from
the bucket of crushed New England ice at the buffet table. One of the colored waiters started to speak,
then recognized him and grinned.

"You fixin' to take just the one glass, fiddler?"

Hannibal widened coal-black eyes at the man and passed the glass to January, ceremoniously poured it
full and proceeded to take a long drink from the neck of the bottle.

"Oh, for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene.
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth."

He solemnly touched the bottle to January's glass in a toast, and resumed his progress toward the dais at
the far end of the ballroom. January collared two more glasses for Jacques and Uncle Bichet, who
awaited them behind the line of potted palmettos. The waiter shook his head and laughed, and went back
to pouring out champagne for the men who crowded through the other doorways from the lobby,
clamoring for a last drink before the dancing began.