Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [205]
He had called her innocent, for this he believed was her nature. But the brown eyes watching him now were those of a clever young woman, versed in diplomacy. She said, ‘He won’t go back to Scotland, Lord Grey. And if he did, how do you know which side he would take?’
‘I hoped you would tell me,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton.
‘No. I don’t know. He may not know himself.’
‘Ah. There,’ said Lord Grey, ‘if I may say so, I think you are wrong. These are profound issues. A man of intelligence will not fail to have considered them. Discuss it with him.’
‘No. That is for you to do. You forget,’ Philippa said. ‘I am not his confidante: only the subject of an act of propriety, shortly to be excised.’ She rose. ‘If Austin asks me to marry him, do you truly think you could find it supportable? I swear that whatever happens, at least Mr Crawford will never suborn him.’
Within the brushed and silvery beard, he smiled at her. ‘I believe you. I see it may be a good match. I shall not stand in your way,’ said Lord Grey of Wilton. And in the same kindly mood took the packet she gave him; and agreed, patting her arm, to send it to London with the envoy arranging his ransom. He wondered, examining the very firm seal, why she was writing to Henry Sidney, but he didn’t break it. It might, after all, be to do with her dowry.
He stood at his window and watched her depart. She looked preoccupied.
She was preoccupied. She had just asked Lord Grey for leave to marry his nephew. But as she saw it, the time was coming nearer and nearer when she might have to wed one of four bankers.
*
The youth with the scarred cheek who alternated with Osias followed her home and she made it easy for him, wryly conscious of the fact that, like two fortune-tellers at a fair, she and his master were playing the same game. Except that these men were paid by Lymond for the straightforward purpose of protecting her, while her duplicity was rather more complicated. She returned anxiously to her boiling pots, but found that no message had come to her from Bailey or the Schiatti cousins; and the men watching the Hôtel des Sphères reported that the old man and his four henchmen were still inside, and there had been no unwonted activity.
One could not be certain, with all the passing traffic of a large and busy household, that no other messages slipped in and out. One could only hope that Bailey’s own men would handle the important matters.
A note came from Richard, brief and friendly. The Commissioners were coming to kiss the hand of their juvenile monarch, and he looked forward to seeing her. Sybilla would not be there.
She hadn’t called to see Sybilla yet. Had it been possible, she would have been missing from Queen Mary’s reception as well; but the inquiries about her health last time had been too many and too embarrassing to perpetuate. Her task was not to draw attention but to present an appearance of unruffled serenity.
By the day of the ceremony, the strain of maintaining unruffled serenity had put her off her food and sowed a doubt in her mind as to whether she was going to be capable of attending anyway. The presence of Richard presented no unsurmountable problems. He knew from Kate, presumably, that she was in France for her divorce, and at Court through Queen Mary’s persuasion. She had always been able to handle Richard, and most of the other Commissioners were familiar to her as well, from her frequent sojourns in Lymond’s absence at Midculter.
What frightened her was the knowledge that now she must face and deceive Lymond himself.
Since her far-off moment of self-discovery in Lyon she had seen him only twice. Once when, lying to her, he had told her at Saint-Germain that he was the son of Gavin Crawford. And once through the long, dizzy evening at the Hôtel de Ville which had ended in that explosion of violence and loathing in which he had flung at Marthe the name of his mistress.
Since then, he had endured the reunion at Dieppe described by Archie as vexing; and the