Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [208]
‘How delightful,’ said Philippa kindly. ‘And will you stay, Master Elder, for the wedding?’
‘I have been invited,’ he said. ‘Am I not fortunate? The Earl of Lennox is distempered and his dear lady must needs stay and nurse him. But she charged me, did I see you both, to tell you that she trusts you remember her.’
With curses, as she well knew, sending that decorous message. And delivering it, John Elder must be hugging a private pleasure known, he believed, only to himself and to his semi-royal mistress.
For Margaret Lennox was not only the woman who had taken a sixteen-year-old boy and ruined him. She was the woman who, to strike this formidable antagonist and his relatives from the path of her family, had promised Leonard Bailey six thousand pounds for the public proof of Lymond’s base parentage.
Only John Elder did not know, unless Bailey had told him, that she, too, was in the market for the same information. Philippa said, ‘Do you know Paris well, Master Elder?’
He smiled. The lean, Caithness face, untidily bearded, had nothing generous in its lineaments. ‘I know some parts better than others. I visit friends. I was not so fortunate as some, to be educated here. I come of humble parents, Madame de Sevigny. Humble but law abiding. I cannot aspire to the splendid caste of your husband. A lowly priest stands in awe of a descendant of the superb, the stainless, the magnificent Crawfords. I can only draw maps and string some Latin together and nurture my noble young prince, who may surprise you ali one of these days.’
His eyes, bright with malice, flickered from Lymond to herself and back again. He had hoped to hurt. But had he known the real truth, Philippa thought, he would have cut very much deeper. And had he known that she knew it, he could not have resisted the temptation to taunt her.
It meant that Bailey had not betrayed her interest. It probably meant that the existence of the Hôtel des Sphères was still unknown to Elder.
Lymond, his gaze restful, was allowing a pause to develop. The irony could not have escaped him, even if he perceived, as she did, that it was founded on nothing solid. Then he said, ‘He certainly should. With his education and heritage, Harry Darnley will be the only turncoat in England who can practise sodomy in Alcaic stanzas. Now he can’t write any more winsome verse to his cousin, how are you going to impress his charms on the little French princesses? Or would you like me to speak for him?’
Between the strands of his beard, Elder yellowed. It was a cut, you had to allow, of inspired virulence. Darnley was twelve: a suitable age for betrothal. But to flatter his character at the French court Lymond was the last person Lady Lennox could depend upon.
‘You are too kind,’ said the priest at last. ‘Indeed, I shall send word of your offer to her ladyship. And meantime, perhaps I may perform the same office on your behalf with your future wife, Mademoiselle d’Albon?’
‘Why,’ said Lymond, surprised. ‘I should appreciate it if you would. There are some items in my early history which Mademoiselle d’Albon has yet to hear about.’
Fool. After carrying it off, he had allowed Elder to sting him. Philippa, exasperated, marched up to the blaze with a hand-squirt. ‘There are a few episodes in your later history she ought to be warned about as well,’ said Lymond’s wife with acidity. ‘She may be hoping for Lug of the Long Arms but what she has is the family Crawford, qui peut de tous bois faire flèches in order to sit in the butts and shoot hearty rounds at each other.’
The blue gaze had swung round upon her, but Master Elder’s shot arrived in the meantime. ‘And when,’ said the priest, ‘am I to wish Madame la comtesse