Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [145]
Rarely, outside their own family, had a delicate situation been stripped to the bone, in the Crawfords’ experience, by the supposedly oblivious victim. Never, in anyone’s experience, had the protagonist made to look foolish been Lymond.
The reflex action was a foregone conclusion. Regardless of Sybilla’s cry, the duenna’s sudden, shocked protest, despite Richard’s ejaculation or Will Scott’s laughter or Jerott Blyth’s angry clenched fists, Lymond pulled the girl to him in one hard, capable movement. ‘But I,’ said Lymond, ‘am one of the new apostles, seeking nothing but voluptuousness and human pleasures, and abusing the world.…’
Her eyes closed as he brought his mouth down on hers. Her lips, a little apart, showed her sparkling teeth; her lashes were amber, and the long, apricot hair, streaming back to the floor, was born at her temples in powderings of golden down.
Francis Crawford drew a little breath, just before his lips touched hers, his eyes on that ineffable, heart-stopping face; then straightening, he opened his hands.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. I’m sorry. It’s like kissing a chapel. Less a mouth, you might say, than a hole for the bell-rope. Sir Graham is right. I forego my option.’ And, released from his hands and his attention in the same staggering moment, Joleta sat on the floor.
‘Francis!’ said Lord Culter hoarsely. Will Scott choked. And while Mariotta, her eyes round, looked from the dumbstruck governess to the flushed and furious Jerott and back, Sybilla Lady Culter, with erect hauteur, took the matter in hand.
‘Madame Donati, I apologize. Francis, I shall speak to you later. Joleta, you can hardly be surprised at what has happened. If you had asked me, I could have told you, without putting yourself to the trouble of experiment, that no one, saint or sinner, is likely to seduce Francis against his will. Unfortunately.’
And as Madame Donati, monumental in anger, removed a white-faced and thoroughly shaken Joleta, Jerott Blyth, opening a grim conversation with Will Scott, found one satisfaction in the cheap little scene. Lymond, occupied in sitting staring at the floor, had an unpleasant appointment with the mistress of Midculter to match any he had made himself that day.
The Crawfords on the other hand were hugging a different discovery, equally pleasing. The simple village maiden was not about to fall under the young master’s spell. ‘And vice versa,’ as Richard afterwards said. ‘Vice, incredibly, versa.’
Later that night, having won his way, with some trouble, back into his family’s good graces, Lymond answered some of their questions about Malta. And having listened, ‘Well, they must be gey poor fighters, or ye were unco late with your warning,’ said Buccleuch the Younger argumentatively. ‘For they lost Gozo and Tripoli, whether it was the French knights’ fault as they say or not.’
‘They lost them because His Eminence the Grand Master is a two-faced bastard,’ said Lymond. ‘And having spent all the Order’s money on himself and his nephews, he can’t afford to fortify the Order’s possessions as he should.’
‘Depose him,’ said Will Scott, astonished.
‘The Grand Master’s holy office terminates with his life.’
‘And can nobody think of an answer to that?’ said Will Scott.
‘Riots, dry cuffs and straiks among God’s priestly servitors, and when the dust settles, the French are in charge?’ said Lymond. ‘Charles would attack them, the Pope would spurn them, and four hundred years of chivalry would go for a groat. And don’t tell me either there are murderers and murderers. If Juan de Homedès gets so much as a stuffed nose, heads will roll for it just now.’
Sybilla thought, And so you leave Malta at the mercy of this greedy old man and his retinue. That isn’t like you, my boy. Presumably Francis, like Gabriel, knew too much about what had happened at Tripoli to be allowed to stay profitably on Malta. She wondered what part Francis had played in Gabriel’s saintly retreat. Gabriel, they said,