Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
‘So should I, if the Maréchale were my mother,’ said Marthe. ‘But he is not cool.’
Philippa looked at her. Was she meant to smile, remembering all the dissolute hosts of his lovers? And yet she was prepared to swear, if Marthe was not, that he had never embarked yet upon a debauch save deliberately, and with coldness.
Elegans est animal. In some men the intellect governed the body, but the spirit escaped from its censorship. In the bedchamber, Marthe was wrong. In every other way, her careless assumption was all too accurate. It was because he was not cool that Sybilla’s betrayal had harmed him so vilely.
Marthe was talking again. ‘Will you stay in France and help to encourage the girl? Or do the machinations of the nasty Mr Bailey deter you?’
Her eyes on the fire, Philippa sat still and thought about it.
She was free to go if she wished. Whatever had impelled Mary of Scotland to throw herself and Lymond together, it could not apply now, when the Queen of France had taken so forceful a hand in the game. And Catherine d’Albon her protégée was more than a possible bedfellow. She was also a possible instrument to turn Mr Crawford from Russia.
She was free to go. But if, by staying, she could steer these two towards one another; if there still existed any fragment of history which would reconcile him to his family then nothing, Philippa thought, would make her go home but the demand he had made in his letter.
She sat still, and let her eyes rest on it. A dismissive letter. A letter which hastened to say that the case was closed, the facts known, the actors due for dispersal. And there, in Bailey’s name, was an excellent reason why she, Philippa, should leave France quickly. Escorted by Adam. For Kate’s sake.
She believed in the letter from Bailey. She believed there might be a degree of danger. She believed Renée Jourda was dead and had told Lymond little.
What fretted her about Lymond’s note were its omissions. He had told her he would send for Renée Jourda. From Adam’s face she now knew the suggestion had never been feasible. To stop her plaguing him, Lymond had gone to Flavy himself. And had been captured. And had led false information, Adam said, which had misfired through no fault of his, and which even now might turn against the whole army.
He had promised to bring her news. He had not promised, in so many words, to send for Renée Jourda. He had at no time intended to send for Renée Jourda.
He had sent her news. He had not sent her the name of Sybilla’s lover, or made even the smallest comment on the whole worrying subject of Bailey.
She had wept once because she could not escape, but that was behind her. They had met, she and Lymond, and the skies had not fallen. If she was hurt, she was able to conceal it. If he found matters not to his liking he, too, had the means to avoid her. And meanwhile, there was something at least she could do for him. Perhaps, because of those very omissions, more than she was at present aware of.
For example, this matter of Bailey. It was true, the old man was vindictive. But it was also true that the old man was greedy. The last person, one would have said, to risk his pension for a moment of malice. Or to risk more than that if Lymond caught him. Some of that had been obvious even to Marthe, but Lymond had said nothing of it. If she wished to know more, she must make her own inquiries.
Nor had he said anything, either written or verbal, about what might await him in Calais. She could not save him there. If, as Adam said, the plan misfired, there was nothing she could do except be here, under the same benign sky, and hope when his life drew to its end that she would know it.
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