Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [228]
‘Until April, you are married to me,’ Philippa said. ‘Perhaps four weeks of matrimony would cure us both.’
She saw his breath leave him silently. There was a space. Then he said, ‘We should simply lose our annulment. I have had eleven months to think of all this. There is no basis for marriage between us. And that is quite final, Philippa.’
She was breathing almost as quickly as he was. But she kept her voice calm. ‘As you say, I’m inexperienced. On the other hand, you are not always right. Please listen. Please think. Are you sure, when it matters so much, that you know my feelings better than I do?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not infallible. You might, without my crediting it, fall deeply in love and for ever, with some warped hunchback whelped in the gutter. I should equally stop you from taking him.’
She couldn’t speak. Her breath wheezed in and out. With extreme deliberation, and indeed restraint and moderation as well, Philippa raised her glass and dashed it on the parquet. Crystals frosted the carpet between them, and the wine lay like blood.
Speech came back. ‘God in heaven,’ Philippa said. ‘Do you think that I care?’
He looked up from the mess. ‘I know you don’t,’ Lymond said. His eyes were black, not blue; and there were red splashes on the white velvet. ‘But you must excuse the hunchback, who does.’
*
The crash of broken glass was heard in three rooms and brought the Englishman, Austin Grey, to his door.
He saw Adam Blacklock walk to his host’s door and tap on it. It opened on de Sevigny himself, standing in a blaze of silver and white, his face like hammered quartzite. And on a tearstained girl behind him, her gown sparkling with glass, who bent suddenly, snatching a cloak, and ran past him into the passage.
It was Philippa. Disbelieving he saw Blacklock speak, and then hurrying after, catch the girl’s arm and begin to guide her downstairs. When they were out of sight, de Sevigny turned and Austin confronted him.
His eyes on Lymond’s face, the Marquis of Allendale stretched out the velvet sleeve of his night robe and stroked the black taffeta cross-sash with its fine jewel on the other man’s doublet.
‘So what do they give you this Order for?’ said Austin Grey. ‘Fornication?’ And hooking his fingers beneath it, he ripped the sash from Lymond’s shoulder. The little glove also pinned there fell with it.
‘With my wife?’ said Francis Crawford without moving; and Austin, lifting his hand, struck him over the face.
Or intended to. Just before the blow reached him, Lymond caught his wrist. Nor was he gentle. The grip on his wristbone made Austin gasp, before pride and anger shut his lips and drove him to bring all his strength to bear on M. le comte de Sevigny.
They were better matched than they had ever been before, because the more experienced of them had his reactions deadened by drink and by weariness. So it took Austin longer to lose, as the struggle took them back and forth on the stone steps and in the end, half over the low wooden coil of the balustrade, so that for a moment death stood, unattended, on the squabble.
Then Lymond made a sudden, violent move and Austin, his arm limp, released him, and staggered, and sat on the steps.
His assailant, breathing very hard, stood and surveyed him.
‘That was a pity,’ Lymond said. ‘You always seem to come upon me doing the wrong thing, in the wrong place, with the wrong person. I goaded you quite unnecessarily, and I accept total responsibility. I was only having a somewhat dissident discussion with Philippa. She will tell you tomorrow. I have made no attempt to enforce my dwindling conjugal rights.’
He was, Austin saw, shivering from the exertion.
If Philippa was to corroborate, then he spoke the truth. Giddily, Austin Grey rose to his feet and tried also to control his heavy breathing. ‘Then it seems,’ he said, ‘that I should apologize.’ He waited, and then said, because his breeding and nature against all his desires demanded it: ‘You are married to her. Have you no wish to cancel the annulment? Have you never thought of taking her to