Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [184]
‘I’m a quick convert,’ said Lymond. ‘I thought I’d try love. Stronger than hate, if you remember. Tant que je vivrai en âge fleurissant, servirai Amour, le dieu puissant.’
Straight as a fawn, Joleta sat in the blaze of her hair. ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘my reputation concerned you.’
Lymond laughed. ‘After darting in and out of my bedroom all night with twigs in your beak? There’s a love-nest here all right, sweetheart, as far as the inn is concerned, although St Mary’s may not know of it yet. In which case, why not nestle?’
There was a short silence. Then Joleta said, masking her face suddenly in her long hands, ‘Help me. Help me. I love you.’
‘Good,’ said Lymond encouragingly. ‘Now you finish undressing.’
Slowly, her hands came down, hovered over the clasps of her girdle and then stopped. Two tears washed down her flushed cheeks. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Beautiful,’ said Lymond approvingly. ‘Now I should come over and unfasten it. I’m tired. You do it.’
She was crying harder, silently, the streaks silvering her firm little breasts. ‘I meant … I don’t know how to make love.’
‘Joleta!’ said Lymond. ‘Magnificent girl. You deserve to be put in a play.’ He got up, his eyes blazingly blue, his walk not yet quite steady, and began to approach. ‘Then I shall have to teach you. Isn’t that what they all say?’ And smiling, he brushed aside her hovering hands, and with smiling violence snapped the remaining clasps of her gown.
Below him, her white-lashed eyes were open and clear; the blood pulsed in her white throat. Wet with tears, the hair coiled round her neck and caught in the fine russet of his clothes. ‘Be gentle,’ she said, and Lymond, gripping her, shook his fair head.
‘With you, no, angel-sister; not with you. For what you need, my Joleta,’ said Francis Crawford, and his own teeth showed for a moment white against his hard mouth, ‘is a master.’
Three hours later Richard Crawford in the other wing of the inn woke from the sleep of the healthily tired to find his landlord battering on his locked door.
From that anxious gentleman he discovered that two of the men from St Mary’s had left the tavern at midnight, and that Thompson, on no doubt urgent concerns of his own, had also later departed, forgetting to settle his score. Having reassured the man with an English rose noble and the sight of some more, Richard got rid of him, robed, and marched to his brother’s wing to investigate.
Lymond’s door was locked, and his rap went unanswered, despite distinct sounds from within. Having made sure that Blacklock and Jerott Blyth had indeed vanished, Lord Culter returned to his brother’s room and this time, annoyed, both rattled the latch and addressed him. ‘Francis, you unmitigated rake. Put her down, whoever she is, and emerge.’
Behind the door something crashed, and Lymond chuckled. There was a short silence, then the sound of a minor struggle, and he laughed again. When he spoke, his voice was quite close to the other side of the door. ‘It’s all right, Richard. The others were called back and I shall be following them in five minutes. Pay the accounting if Thompson doesn’t, will you? I’ll put it right with you later.’
‘If you live,’ said Richard drily. Something hit the inner side of the door and fell, breaking. ‘What’s happened? Come out without your money?’
Lymond didn’t answer. Instead, the key rattled. Richard heard his brother say something sharply and brutally, a tone of voice he had never heard him use in a bedroom before. There was one movement of extreme violence and a woman’s voice, directly cut off. Then the key turned and the door blundered open.
Inside, eyes crazed, hair wild, a ripped sheet clutched round her naked sixteen-year-old body, Gabriel’s beloved child-sister stood swaying.
Speechless, Richard Crawford stood stupidly staring, first at the child, then beyond her to where his younger brother, his imprisoning arm dropped to his side, turned abruptly and, kicking his way through the shambles, walked back to the fire.
In silence,