Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [203]
Lord Grey of Wilton also sat down, without removing his eyes from his visitor. The straight brown hair he rather remembered, although not dressed and knotted in this style. Her face had thinned. Her eyebrows had changed. He had seen paintings at Whitehall Palace with eyes like that. Come to think of it, these were probably painted too. The rubies round her neck were worth a fortune. And she was wearing scent. A smell of pepper and musk, faintly discernible, made the room pleasant.
Lord Grey said dryly, ‘Perhaps for England’s sake it is as well that we do not. Your husband appears to possess an uncanny gift for seducing his enemies.’
The versatile brown eyes gazed at him limpidly. ‘I have a confession to make. Did you know I brought him to France in the first place? I thought it might be cheering to watch France and Spain waste their money on one another. I didn’t, I’m afraid, think of Calais.’
‘No. And you have, of course, remained in France.’ Spare, and cool. It was the way he got the truth out of many a young ensign.
Young ensigns did not say candidly, as this girl did, ‘But I haven’t taken arms against you, truly. It was the only way I could obtain my annulment. And in less than a month I shall be free to leave for England again, if he doesn’t contrive to get rid of me sooner. I beg your pardon?’
‘You should know,’ said Lord Grey, adjusting his sight to the folded paper he had just raised from his desk, ‘that I am tied to the Hexham Saphronia, who combines total chastity with a jackal-like taste for digging up my family history. With twelve barons Grey to research she should be rendered peacefully harmless, with no sharp quality of heat, either biting the tongue or offending the head. She will also bring you a fortune in dowry.’ He looked up.
The girl, he was pleased to see, had turned a deep and uniform crimson. ‘He’s sent you a letter,’ she said.
‘Mr Crawford has indeed taken the trouble to write to me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. ‘Soliciting, it appears, my aid in the event of your making a match with my nephew. I have seldom been more astonished.’
‘So have I,’ the girl said. She was still scarlet. ‘That is, it’s true that Austin has mentioned marriage, but nothing has been settled as yet. And in any case … although of course I know he would want your approval
‘He is of full age, and requires no one’s permission to marry. Quite,’ said Lord Grey. He recalled, but did not refer to the succession of powerful families into which Audrey Grey had attempted in vain to marry her son. He continued, gazing at the girl, ‘That is not the point exercising your husband. He appears merely to be anxious that the match should not fail because of what he calls any undue delicacy surrounding the use of the young lady’s dowry.’
‘For your ransom?’ said Philippa. Her face had become even brighter. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. He knows Austin better than I expected. But he doesn’t know how anxious … That is, I don’t think Austin would allow the money to interfere with his plans.’
‘Then I,’ said Lord Grey with heavy humour, ‘am tempted to be equally magnanimous. This attachment, then, is of some standing? It explains, of course, Austin’s behaviour on a number of occasions. I am sorry the boy did not see fit to confide in me. If he had, I must admit that I should have put forward several objections. There is, forgive me, some difference in rank. The boy is unworldly. And you yourself, Mistress Philippa, have been married for some years to a man of some notoriety; a Scotsman who has many times fought openly against us, and who has made powerful enemies in England.’
‘But you knew Gideon,’ the girl said quietly; and under her gaze he felt his colour rising. She said, ‘In any case, as Mr Crawford has so tactfully pointed out, I should expect my money to mend my lack of status. And if he has powerful enemies, Mr Crawford has friends even more powerful. If you have any doubts, speak to Austin,