Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [210]
‘Harm me!’ Philippa’s lashes flew open, and her mouth widened of a sudden in a charming, uninhibited grin. ‘But that’s stupid! He harms me himself.’
‘You heard why he did that,’ said Kate shortly. ‘He thought it too much of a coincidence that the Turnbulls’ settlement and Liddel Keep should be so close together. And he thought our fire here was much too mysterious. So he wanted you away from the Keep quickly. It was your own silly fault you didn’t do as you were told.… He was asking me,’ said Kate, picking her way among her responsibilities and the fragments of her conscience, ‘why anyone should want you out of the way. All I could think of was George Paris and his little secret.’
‘So you told him?’ said Philippa thoughtfully.
‘Yes. He knew already,’ said Kate defensively. ‘So I wasn’t exactly giving away the privy code book. But he didn’t know you knew.’
‘And does he think,’ said Philippa cheerfully, ‘that Mr Paris wants to murder me?’
‘I think he finds it a little hard to believe. But it’s not impossible. Anyway, until we know, I’ve promised to put you in irons, Philippa. No more trips to the village without me. No visits at all away from home. And Charles or some other unfortunate sufferer has to keep an eye on you even in the garden. We’re not taking any chances.’
Her heart sinking, she saw her daughter seize unerringly on the one reprehensible element. Oh, Francis …!
‘But,’ said Philippa, ‘all Mr Crawford need do is denounce George Paris as a double agent, and the Queen Mother of Scotland would put him in prison, and I should be safe.’
It would be easy to say that, in belated patriotism, she had made Lymond promise otherwise. Kate instead baldly told the truth. ‘One of the people in league with Paris over a little piece of chicanery is a friend of Mr Crawford’s. He can’t expose Paris without involving his friend as well.’
‘Then why doesn’t Sir Graham Malett expose Paris? He wouldn’t care about Mr Crawford’s criminal friends,’ said Philippa.
‘He doesn’t know who Paris is,’ reminded Kate patiently. ‘Paris gave him a false name, remember? It was all very adult and tortuous.’
‘I don’t think it was very adult,’ said Philippa after a moment. ‘I … Oh, I see. Sarcasm again. All right. But then,’ said Kate’s daughter, pursuing it doggedly, ‘why didn’t you denounce Paris?’
‘Because,’ said Kate, getting up and shaking the cut grass and insects off her skirt, ‘I have some shreds of respect left for my nation, if none for the extraordinary creatures who are attempting to run it at present. If George Paris is exposed as a double agent, he can’t work for the English King any more.’
‘I must say,’ said Philippa getting up, ‘Mr Crawford doesn’t seem to be worried. He must think a lot more of his friends than he does of his country.’
‘Um,’ said Kate, eyeing her child in the mellow glow of late sunshine, prettily backlighting the apple leaves. Philippa looked terrible. She supposed she looked terrible too. She made up her mind to get a new dress and something that would contain her hair, and then changed it abruptly. Character was all. She said, ‘If you think Mr Crawford isn’t worried, you’re blind. He’s nearly out of his mind with worry.’
‘About himself,’ said Philippa. ‘The trouble about Mr Crawford is that he has no social conscience.’
‘The trouble about Mr Crawford,’ said Kate, ‘is that he puts up with his enemies and plays merry hell with his friends. Come on. Let’s go inside, before my mother-love slips and I give you a bruise on the other side of your jaw.’ And hugging her daughter rather desperately to her side, Kate Somerville went indoors.
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The Hadden Stank
(March Meeting, June/July 1552: Algiers, August 1552)
THE Hadden Stank, a boggy meadow almost precisely on the Scottish–English Border and a few miles from the English castles of Carham and Wark, over the river, was not England’s most popular spot