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

timing, just as the boy was drawing in breath to speak, Angelique turned away. "Why, it's the man who'd
trade his kingdom for a horse." She smiled into the eyes of the dazzled Roman and, taking his hand,
allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor.

As they departed, she smiled once more at the boy in gray.

It was as neat and as cruel a piece of flirtation as January had seen in a lifetime of playing at balls, and it
left the boy openmouthed, helpless, clenching and unclenching his fists in rage. Leon Froissart, a fussy
little Parisian in a blue coat and immaculate stock, bustled over with a young lady and her mother in
tow—Agnes must be ready to spit, thought January, seeing that neither Marie-Anne nor Marie-Rose was
present in the ballroom at that moment—and performed an introduction, offering the girl's gloved hand.
The boy shoved it from him and raised his fist, Froissart starting back in alarm. For an instant January
thought the boy really would strike the master of ceremonies.

Then at the last minute he flung himself away, and vanished into the crowd in the lobby.

Shaking his head, January swung into the Lancers Quadrille.

By the dance's end, when he was able once more to pay attention to the various little dramas being
enacted in the ballroom, Agnes Pellicot had been rejoined by her two daughters, and it was blisteringly
clear that Minou's predictions concerning Angelique's use of her design skills had been correct.
Marie-Anne and Marie-Rose were both clothed now in gowns quite clearly designed to complement
Queen Titania's moondust skirts and shimmering wings, and just as clearly designed to point up the older
girl's awkward height, and the sallow complexion and rather full upper arms of the younger. Both girls
were confused and on the verge of tears, knowing they looked terrible and not quite knowing why, and
Agnes herself—no fool and considerably more experienced in dressmaking—seemed about to succumb
to apoplexy.

Languishing, giggling, smiling with those dark eyes behind the cat mask, Angelique dispatched Marc
Anthony to fetch her champagne and vanished into the lobby, the tall tips of her wings flickering above
the heads of the crowd.

"I'll be back," said January softly and rose. Hannibal nodded absently and perched himself on the lid of
the pianoforte as Uncle and Jacques disappeared in quest of negus. As January wove and edged his way
reluctantly through the crowd toward the doors, a thread of music followed him, an antique air like faded
ribbon, barely to be heard.

Best do it now, he thought. The picture of the doll-like six-year-old in his mother's front parlor returned
to his mind, lace flounced like a little pink valentine, clutching the weeping Minou's half-strangled kitten to
her and shaking away January's hand: "I don't have to do nothing you say, you dirty black nigger."

And Angelique's mother—that plump lady in the pink satin and aigrettes of diamonds now chatting with
Henry VIII, rather like a kitten herself in those days— had laughed.

The Creoles had a saying, Mount a mulatto on a horse, and he'll deny his mother was a Negress.

Angelique was at the top of the stairs, exchanging a word with Clemence, who came up to her with
anxiety in her spaniel eyes; she turned away immediately, however, as a rather overelaborate pirate in
gold and a blue-and-yellow Ivanhoe claimed her attention with offers of negus and cake. January
hesitated, knowing that an interruption would not be welcome, and in that moment the boy in gray came