Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [223]
And still, he kept his head, and his temper. ‘It does not seem,’ he said, ‘very different from your marriage to Austin.’
‘No,’ said Philippa. Then, because she had demanded honesty herself, she set her teeth and said, ‘But I have told Austin that if I marry him, he must accept the fact that my interest, too, is given elsewhere.’
His hands moved together and clasped themselves, lightly. ‘And you have told him, of course, the name of the fortunate man?’ His voice had changed, a little.
Philippa’s face muscles trembled. She stilled them. ‘I thought it fair. Do you think I was proud of it? I didn’t think he would still want to marry me.’
He stood up, with his own very studied grace. ‘But he does. And you arrive uninvited at my house——’
‘Uninvited!’ Her voice scraped. ‘Now that is——’
‘… You arrive without warning at my house and hear what you were not intended to hear: a number of things which are painful in the extreme, because they all have a bearing on my possession of Catherine. You——’
‘I pushed you——’
‘Please allow me to finish,’ he said. ‘You asked me to analyse my motives. Look at your own, Philippa. This visit tonight hasn’t been about Sybilla, except in so far as you wanted to punish me. It hasn’t been about Catherine either: if Austin will forgive you anything, why should …’
He stopped in mid-sentence. Sick with miserable anger, Philippa glared at him, her lips shut, waiting. And incredibly, all the hostility melted out of his face. His hands loosened. And he gave a laugh.
‘The wine speaking,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon. It appears that I am in no position to lecture you on that particular subject. Come.’ His smile was unforced: and sweet as she rarely saw it. ‘I shall find someone to see you home.’
‘And that,’ said Philippa, ‘is a little capricious, isn’t it? You were going to inform me why I was here.’ She was still very flushed.
‘Scorpio,’ Lymond said, ‘does not caper. He stings. We are damned, as the man says, of nature: so conceaved and borne as a serpent is a serpent, and a tode a tode, and a snake a snake by nature …’ He looked at her again, a little wryly. ‘And you, I suppose, are the Crab. It doesn’t matter. If you want to bite, bite.’
Her colour burning she said, ‘I pushed you into Catherine’s arms. Jealousy is one motive you really can’t accuse me of.’
There was a short silence, but not an unkind one. Then Lymond said, ‘Brought face to face with reality, it can make a difference.’ Then as she didn’t speak, he said, ‘I was on my way to her room when you stopped me. You know that, Philippa.’
‘You can still go,’ she said stiffly.
He gave a very faint smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. And then, gently, ‘It was a natural reaction. Piero’s fault, and mine. It won’t happen again, and soon you will be home. Don’t worry.’
She had been led into behaving like a female. And she was being dismissed as a female. But she had charge of his good name, although he might not know it; and she had work to do, although, like a fool she had lost sight of it. Philippa said curtly, ‘Hanged with clooth of gold, and nat with sarge. I apologize, but you needn’t be so forgiving about it: your behaviour did you no credit. Which reminds me. After you left me, how did you spend your last evening in Lyon?’
He was lifting her cloak when that reached him. He set it down and turned. After a long scrutiny: ‘Hanged with serge next time, I think,’ Lymond said pleasantly. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Nostradamus suggested it,’ Philippa said.
There was a silence this time of some weight. Then, ‘Nostradamus? How interfering of him,’ Lymond said. ‘Not having my present resources, I passed the night at a house of entertainment. You don’t want the details, I take it.’
She fixed on him, without a qualm, the lucent stare which had so distressed the eunuchs. ‘Nostradamus is to tell me the truth if you avoid answering. He said you’d avoid answering. He was right.’
‘And you, of course, instantly assume my conduct was execrable. Whose eyes continually burn