Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [247]
She said, ‘Do I not come before vanity?’
‘I have that, too,’ he said. ‘But you know the difference between that and conscience. Every other woman since Eve has asked to be loved more than honour. But not you.’
‘If you have any,’ she said. ‘After what you have told me.’ She was standing.
He knew very well now what sort of attack he was under. He said, ‘Even if it is only a chimera, it makes marriage impossible.’
‘It seems a pity,’ Philippa said. ‘But if honour can’t make me the legal occupant of your bed, would it cavil at a private arrangement? Or do I have to be a fully paid bawd before you would think it proper?’
He said, ‘Don’t. That is not a weapon for you. And it destroys what we have.’
‘But I have nothing, yet,’ Philippa said. ‘And all the nicety is on your side. Which means I choose any weapon that suits me. You say I can’t hold you to your marriage. Neither I can. But I can find my way to your room; and to your bed. Do you think your scruples could survive that? Or I can come close to you now, like this. The door is locked.’
‘No!’ he said; and then controlled it immediately. ‘No, Philippa. Forgive me, but I’m going to call Archie.’ She was standing only four paces off.
‘For protection?’ she said.
He said, ‘I’m trying to save you. I’m trying to save myself, if you like. And Catherine. And Austin.’
‘They will marry someone else. Perhaps someone who loves them,’ Philippa said. ‘Can’t you forget what is behind you? Can’t you accept this gift for what it is? Or don’t you believe, don’t you see what it is?’
‘I see it,’ Lymond said. ‘It is out of my reach.’
There was an open box on the desk beside Philippa, and within it a bone pen, and a knife for trimming it. She stretched out her fingers and lifting the knife, laid it on her narrow palm. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘if you can slash your wrists from self-pity, you can hardly keep me from cutting mine, can you?’
He pushed himself from the grille. ‘Stop play-acting,’ he said. His tone, suddenly changed, held in it a note that was quite outside the usual.
Philippa allowed her calm gaze to dwell on him. ‘Why not? I thought we were speaking of death and dishonour? You would advance to your grave and I should join the ranks of your numerous dead: Diccon and Salablanca, Tosh and Christian Stewart; Oonagh; Will Scott and his father; Turkey Mat and Tom Erskine; the dog Luadhas; the child Khaireddin.… What shall I say to your son when I meet him? Don’t be surprised: your sire loved me also?’
The penknife shone in her hand. All he had to do was grasp her and take it. She added, gently, ‘It seems a just ultimatum.’
He said, his voice deathly tired, ‘You know that if you take one step nearer; if you lift that blade to your wrist, you have beaten me.’
The knife flashed and quivered on her palm. ‘I came here to defeat you,’ Philippa said. She added violently, ‘By any means.’
Against the gold and crimson and brown of the books, supported by Ovid and Cicero, by Virgil and Dante and Petrarch, Francis Crawford was standing now very still, as if the air was a burden to him. He said, ‘If you bring yourself to do it this way, I don’t think either of us could survive it.’
His face had radically altered. As she saw it, he turned to the shelves in a movement wholly involuntary, and the lances of candlelight followed him. He said, ‘Let us be ourselves.’
Grief caught her by the throat. Grief and anger.
This was what Marthe had wanted.
The penknife dropped to the ground, and lay shining. Philippa said, ‘It is your life.’ But it was said only in defence, and in protest. After a long time she said, ‘Very well.’
But this time he made no reply. Instead she heard a cruel intake of breath, such as a surgeon hears under the scalpel; and she saw that he had lifted his hands to his face, pressing so hard that his fingers were bloodless, with the shadow-wreaths of his collar voile cast on them. She said, ‘What is it?’
‘Another escape,’ he said. His voice shook, like a light bough in a storm just beginning. ‘I want you to go.’
She said, ‘I did this to you. What can I do?’
He didn’t answer.