Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [253]
‘Would you wish for them,’ Adam said, ‘that they lived without knowing such hunger?’
Afterwards, she could not recall having answered him.
*
Much later, Philippa Somerville crossed to where Richard Crawford was still standing and asked him, without much preliminary, if she might call on his mother next morning. Then, before he had quite finished expressing his pleasure, she asked him if he would be so kind as to enable her to meet Austin Grey at the same time under his roof.
He agreed, as she knew he would: it was a concession easily arranged with the master of Lymond’s household. Then she left, and in the peace of her room took the decision to which she now saw there was no alternative. Late that night, without waiting longer, she wrote a message of open supplication to Leonard Bailey
With the letter, in earnest of her good intentions, she sent the emerald pendant so admired by John Elder.
*
The following morning, in the sunlit parlour of Sybilla’s rooms in the Hôtel de l’Ange, Austin Grey arrived for his meeting with Philippa.
Since receiving Richard’s summons he had not slept at all, or wanted to sleep. He had come quickly through the spring morning, outpacing his guards to be with her, for it seemed that now she wanted him. Now, with her annulment nearly upon them, she was going to keep to her promise: to ask him for his proposal, if he still wished to offer it. And to consent, if he did.
Happiness walked with him into Sybilla’s parlour and illuminated all his quiet face. The door closed and his heart beat, seeing that Philippa was alone, her back to the lit, lozenged windows with their achievements. He smiled at the picture she made, her outline childishly austere in her high-necked gown, with all the long, glossy brown hair swept inside an absurd little cylinder.
Then she moved forward. And while he was still assimilating, shocked, the sharp-angled pallor of her face she said, ‘Is your arm better? I asked you to come because I have to say something facing you. I can’t marry you. I can never marry you. I have wasted three months of your life and I can offer you nothing instead, except possibly the knowledge that I was not worth your trouble in any case.’
The sun turned dark, and there were no lights. Outside, someone was singing.
‘Why?’ he said. And then, almost at once, ‘No.’ He made, without thinking of it, a sightless turn round the small room and said, his eyes still trained upon nothing, ‘I knew you were in some anxiety. I asked if you would bring it to me as a friend. But perhaps that is too much.’
‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘No. The reasons are very simple. You may not have heard, because it hasn’t been made known as yet. But Catherine d’Albon has withdrawn from her marriage to … to Mr Crawford.’
A door closing on a black-haired girl through the night in the Hôtel d’Hercule. And a charming voice heard pronouncing, through the raging pain in his arm, ‘Even if I were told that Philippa was inflamed with an unlikely love for me, I should still marry Catherine d’Albon.’
Austin Grey drew a long, uneven breath. ‘Now you have frightened me beyond telling. Philippa, think what you are doing. I can see nothing but hurt in this for you.’
‘There is nothing but hurt in this for anyone,’ said Philippa abruptly. ‘I am trying, although you might not think it, to ameliorate it for you.’
He could hear, because he studied everything about her, the effort she was making to keep her voice steady. Austin said, ‘He told me he wanted this St André marriage. You said yourself he was interested only in his annulment.’
‘I thought it was true,’ Philippa said. ‘But it isn’t. It appears that what I feel for him … he also feels for me. As you see, it changes everything.’
This, the second blow, was worse than the first. For a moment he was without words. Then, controlling, brutally, all his dazed senses he said quietly, ‘I can see you think it does. When did you tell him, Philippa, that you were in love with him?’
Her pale lips twitched for