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

served that . . . that uppity tart right if he'd torn those wings right off her back." Minou adjusted the fall of
one floor-length sleeve of buttercup yellow and straightened the dark curls of her chignon. "Did you hear
what she told her mama about price and terms to take back to Peralta Pere? If I ever saw such a . . ."

"I've looked everywhere." Marie-Anne Pellicot, her long oval face visibly beautiful despite a domino
mask of exactly the wrong shade of gray-green for her pale creme-cafe complexion, hurried up, vexation
replacing her earlier tears. "It's nearly eleven! She promised to dress our hair. . . ."

Her sister was right behind her. January heard Ayasha's voice in his mind: A designer who knows what
she's doing can guide beauty to a woman's form or make that selfiame woman ugly, just in the
way she cuts a sleeve. He knew what his wife would have guessed—and said— about Angelique, just
from looking at those two dresses, on those two particular girls.

For all her tartness, Ayasha had been a kind woman. She'd never have let Angelique anywhere near
those poor children's hair.

"If the parlor is the first place you looked, look again," advised January. The music had soothed away his
anger, and he was able to look dispassionately at Angelique and at the situation, only wondering what he
was going to say to Mme. Trepagier to keep her from undertaking some other mad attempt to see the
woman. He hadn't liked the hard desperation in her eyes as she had said, "I must see her. I MUST." She
and Galen may have gone somewhere else for their quarrel, but if she's going to repair those wings she'll
have to go back where there's light."

"Galen?" Marie-Anne looked surprised. "Galen left after what she said to him in the lobby. "Which was
horrible, I thought—he can't help it if he stammers."

"Galen." January sighed. "He came back."

"Tiens!" Dominique flung up her hands. "Just what we need! That . . . that . . ."

"Wasn't that you who slammed the door?" asked Marie-Rose, trying vainly to tug the lower edge of her
bodice into a more flattering position on her hip.

"Have you checked the attics?" Hannibal swiped rosin onto his bow with an expert lightness of touch.
"Those back stairs go up as well as down."

"I swear I'm going to ... Ah! There's Henri." The annoyance melted from Minou's face, replaced by a
mischievous brightness at the sight of her elephantine beau emerging awkwardly through the curtain of the
passageway to the Th6atre. She stroked a tendril of her hair into the slightest hint of seductive dishabille.
"I must go, p'tit. It's one thing to let your protector see you in all your glory in a tableau, but it does mean
he's wandering about the ballroom unattended while you're getting yourself ready." She flitted away like a
primrose-and-black Gothic butterfly, leaving Marie-Anne and Marie-Rose to their own devices.

"Clemence might know," said Marie-Anne, not in the least disconcerted by the abrupt departure. As
January had said to Mme. Trepagier, they all knew the rules. "Is she still here? I thought she went after
Galen." Hannibal poked January in the back with the bow, and mimed fingering a keyboard. "She'll have
to comb her hair when she's done, anyway," the violinist pointed out practically. "They can catch up with
her then." And he led the way into the opening bars of a waltz.

In the blaze of gaslight and candle glow, January's eyes followed his sister and her protector around the