Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [307]
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She lifted her chin from her arm. ‘That’s not what I meant. How did they capture you?’
He said, ‘They slapped you, and I offered myself as a professional mediator.’
‘Just as I thought,’ Gelis said. ‘What happened to chivalry? Pretz and Paratge? Grant victory to this worthy knight, for whom await two rewards: heaven and the recognition of noble women?’
‘It was too foggy. Noble women would never have noticed me.’
‘You may be right,’ Gelis said. He was gazing at his clasped hands, one knee up, his ravished sleeve against the stair-wall. She took a firmer grip of the banister. ‘And even if they had, would they have deigned to proceed? You are still married.’
He looked up slowly. She could not read his eyes. He said, ‘How do you know?’
‘That you didn’t annul it? You told Anna so. That you married in the first place? I seem to remember it. The abboccamento. The impalmamento. The ductio, even. I am sorry for what happened next.’
‘You thought I deserved it,’ he said. ‘And then I seem to have proved that I did. We are back where we began. It is night. There is a bed. We may part; we may stay together. You must choose.’
‘Nicholas?’ Gelis said. He looked up. ‘I must choose? You care so little, you will let me break the marriage or not, as I want?’
‘I care so much,’ he said, ‘that I can’t in fairness speak for myself. How can I? You stand to lose far more than I do. You’ve found a fitting career at the Bank, but I couldn’t join you. Once I’ve put away David de Salmeton, I should have to leave.’
‘For Russia?’ she said. ‘You’ve launched a fine business there, so they tell me.’
‘For Julius,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not necessarily for Russia. I came to realise, in the end, that I was treating Russia as I did Scotland. I was working for my own benefit, not for theirs. And if I couldn’t do better, it would be wrong to go back.’
‘You could do better. You could help them,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It needs someone else.’
He had never spoken like that in her hearing before. She did not know what to do. She drew breath and went on, as evenly as she could.
‘Poland, then? Or the Black Sea? Or Persia? Or Africa? I hear that Benecke is waiting for you to join him. I even hear talk of Jordan de Ribérac sending ships to the gold coasts from Portugal.’
She didn’t know why she even mentioned him: Nicholas wasn’t going to talk about Jordan de Ribérac. As it was, the strain in her manner drew his attention. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy sailing with Benecke,’ Nicholas said. ‘He drinks, and gambles, and is seduced into subversive activities, and takes pretty women to bed without considering what it would do to them, or their lives. I don’t know where I shall go. You would have to help me choose that, as well.’ He broke off, the tortured levity evaporating from his voice, and made a small gesture which she recognised, disconcerted, as one of helplessness. ‘It’s too uncertain. You don’t know me. How can you decide?’
She moved thoughtfully then, sliding her hands from the polished wood, turning from the post to the stairs where he sat.
He stood.
Gelis said, ‘I’m not sure.’ She could not say why she was not sure. Or she could, but she was afraid. Her voice sounded steady. She held his gaze, her own eyes open and clear, so that he might know he could trust the channel between them, and that it was not unfriendly. His face, which had been drained of expression, slowly changed, and he looked at her differently, with understanding and patience, as if she had been Jodi. Her eyes filled.
He said, ‘Of course. There are two rooms. Sleep tonight, Gelis. We can talk in the morning.’ A dimple trembled, in an unattended way; oddly forlorn.
She hesitated, one hand fingering the cloak at her breast. He stepped down to where she stood and taking her fingers, set them formally to his lips. Then he released her and walked into the hall, where he looked up, with both smiling dimples, deep as coins.
‘Good night, Monna Donnina.’
‘Good night, Nicholas,’ Gelis said.
They had not touched, except for that moment. He had kissed her on the boat, swiftly,