Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [144]
‘He won’t,’ said Richard gravely; and Jerott, with revived interest, shot him a look. ‘But he’d like to reassure himself that you are well, I’m sure. Come and join us. He won’t be long.’ And, smiling, the child walked forward and choosing a hooded chair by the fire sank into it, while Madame Donati, with a sigh, seated herself far too near Jerott for that knight’s absolute comfort.
Then Lymond came in. Suavely toasted and slender; all masked blue eyes and buttermilk hair, he moved forward without seeing Joleta in her tall, wide-backed chair, exclaiming, ‘God, it’s Buccleuch the Younger. I hear you are proliferating like mice, and every one of you with a skull like a marmalade orange. Have you no thought for the sorry state of the nation?’ And went without hurry to hammer the big, grinning Scott’s shoulders and salute, on one picturesque knee, the hand and cheek of his Irish sister-in-law. ‘Mountebank,’ thought Jerott Blyth.
Last of all, Lymond bowed low to Madame Donati, and if his Italian disarmed her, she gave no sign, but answered austerely his soft inquiries about her charge’s health. She had opened her mouth, presumably to direct his attention to Joleta’s presence, when Sybilla cut in. ‘And what did you think, Francis, of Sir Graham’s beautiful sister?’
It was a risk that, knowing Lymond, Jerott would never have taken. He rather judged, from Will Scott’s dropped jaw, that Lady Culter had alarmed him as well. Lymond himself, his back squarely to the chair concealing Joleta, said, ‘She’s a peach. I told Jerott she’s a peach. He can have her. Some are clingstones. And some are freestones. But each dear little fuzzy fruit is packed full of poison.… Ah, there you are.’
‘You knew I was here!’ exclaimed Joleta. She hadn’t knocked over her chair, because it would have taken two strong men to incline it an inch, but she exploded round the oaken rim of it like a charioteer, her hair swinging, the colour pink in her cheeks. She halted. ‘I know all about you and your.…’
‘… Nicolaitan practices? And I know all about you and your sanctity. Poor horse. Poor October horse, sacrificed to the God Mars. The fine in cows due from the murderer of a thane’s son is sixty-three and two-thirds of a cow. The law of the Bretts and the Scotts. The fine for attempted murder,’ said Lymond, moving round to the furious girl and leading her gently back to her seat, ‘is not promulgated, but I imagine the odd two-thirds would meet it. The question is, which end of the cow?’
‘You’re talking nonsense, Francis,’ the Dowager said with equanimity. ‘And your manners are appalling. You’ll make the poor child regret her bad aim. Did you know she was here?’
‘I smelt the incense. So familiar with God, and such plenty of instructions from Heaven, she was a companion for angels. I trust she is. She’s certainly a blistering nuisance in the company of men.’
Resisting, with remarkable strength, the thrust of his arm, Joleta was still standing. ‘I frightened you,’ she said, her little teeth sparkling before the great aquamarine eyes. ‘I’m sorry. And you have a certain reputation for romantic violence to keep up. To be kind and conventional would be too dull, wouldn’t it?’
‘It’s a lie,’ said Lymond, releasing her. ‘An unbridled liberty of lewd speech. I am kind and conventional. They pull their forelocks in the village cots, and call me the young master. How is Gabriel?’
Joleta’s eyes sparkled. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I thank you. He writes of you often.’
‘Does he, by God,’ said Jerott, startled out of his trance and into unsuitable language. The Dowager looked interested and Will Scott, oblivious to nuances, was much entertained. ‘What does he say? What can he say, missing out the swear-words?’
‘Only,’ said Joleta gravely, ‘that in Francis Crawford he found an armed neutral or even an enemy, so apprehensive was he of seduction by Mother Church.’ And as Richard’s eyes met those of his mother, ‘And that I am not to