Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [222]
‘I see,’ he said. In the few moments she had been speaking he had flushed and paled again. The verbal attack, when all his senses had been prepared for something different, had set him adrift, it was clear, for a moment. When he moved, she could smell the wine on his breath. He said, resting his fingers on the chimneypiece. ‘So you think I am cruel to Sybilla?’
‘My dear man,’ Philippa said. ‘It seems to me that you have no spirit left but the spirit of resentment. In a few years, there’ll be nothing to choose between you and Leonard Bailey. Tonight, Sybilla came in good faith as your guest, and you broke her down publicly. Justify that.’
‘A drunken whim,’ Lymond said. He had taken his hand from the carving. ‘Probably unjustifiable, as you say. I shall apologize for it, if you like.’
‘You were sober when you arranged it,’ Philippa said. ‘And “probably unjustifiable”? What would justify it? If she had whipped you daily instead of protecting you all your childhood? Would you have let her off if she had confided in you, as you grew up, that you were a bastard? Or will you never really let her off because she cared more for her lover than she did for any child he might leave her with? Have you ever tried to analyse her motives or yours, or are you still standing outside your grandfather’s door, kicking it?’
‘Oh, Christ, Philippa,’ he said, after a little check, as of a man suddenly winded. When he sank, his hands gripping his elbows, into a wainscot chair, it was with such economy that the golden eye of the Calais medallion shone without interruption. ‘How did you find out?’ he asked.
‘I guessed.’ If it was a half-lie, he was not to realize it. ‘The seal on the death certificate. I saw the first baron’s arms on it, although you broke it so quickly. I found out that Sevigny had been leased by him for many years, before much later you bought it. And if you were his son, it accounted for your likeness to Marthe. I have told Sybilla, by the way, how to reach Marthe. She wanted to speak to her.’
He allowed the spate of words to pass over his head, sitting compressed and unmoving, his eyes on the table below him. Then he said, his voice kept, with evident care, still quiet and ordinary, ‘Did you tell Sybilla that you knew the truth?’
‘No. Not in words,’ Philippa said. ‘Not in any other way I could help. But of course, she has been left in no doubt that you know it. She is being quite adequately punished, so far as I can see, without your assistance. She also asked, by the way, if your marriage to Catherine was one of convenience only. I said that on your side, it was.’
He let his arms loose then. They lay, the embroidery glittering, on the table. He said, ‘You must remember. You wanted me to marry Catherine.’
‘She is in love with you,’ Philippa said.
‘It is not usually,’ he said unwisely, ‘an impediment to successful matrimony.’
The click as she set down her glass rang through the quiet room. Springing from the bed she walked to the shuttered window and back; then stood before the low fire looking at him. ‘Successful matrimony?’ she said. ‘You told me once you loved someone else.’
‘Did I?’ he said. ‘Ah, in Lyon. I remember. But it is no one, I promise you, who will interfere with my marriage to Catherine.’
He seemed able, in spite of the wine, to keep his voice perfectly normal. She found she resented that. ‘How many of those songs tonight were yours?’ Philippa said.
The light lay on his rings, and the curve of his lowered lashes, and the gold and green of St Michael, killing the dragon. Presently he said, ‘Some, of course. But the purpose of the evening was political.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ said Philippa grimly. ‘If you are made to leave France, what will happen to Catherine?’
Again, he did not answer at once. Then he said, ‘While armies need captains, I am not likely to be asked to leave France.’
She said, ‘That is not, I think, an honest answer. And since the purpose of the evening was political, the songs were not for Catherine either. Although, it seems, they brought you their reward. You’re right, of course,