Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [256]
Lymond paused. Round the long table, the hardening of their attention was plain to see. He was approaching the inexcusable: something that all of them, except for de Nicolay, knew or suspected; and they awaited it with shrinking revulsion. Only among the women, Jenny looked less than disturbed, and Thompson, with a chuckle, shuffled lower in his chair. Margaret Erskine, her face deliberately calm, sent a silent message of support over the table to the Dowager of Culter.
Lymond continued, his cold voice unaltered, ‘Two of the prime moves towards usurping power, it seemed to me, would be to attack on two fronts at once: to rouse the Government—in this case, the Queen Dowager against me, which he has done—do you really think, Thompson, that Logan’s attack on you was a coincidence?—and to discredit me, finally, with the company. The one person associated with him who walked also in clouds of sanctity, and possessed as well extreme youth and extreme beauty, was his sister Joleta.’
‘Ah, the golden child. I know her,’ said Nicolas de Nicolay lingeringly. ‘But you suspect Sir Graham Malett, you would say, of accusing you of molesting her? Your exposition enchants me, but this I find hard to believe.’
‘You needn’t. It’s true,’ said Lymond drily. The clinical blue gaze looked for the recoil and found it, from face to face round the table. ‘The point being,’ he continued, staring at them, ‘that Sir Graham has almost certainly been accusing people of debauching Joleta since she became eligible for seduction. Joleta is not a virgin. She was experienced when she came here from Malta. In addition, she has, as Adam will confirm for you later, borne at least one child. She is pregnant now, though not by me. These are facts, however unpleasant. There are, also, other traits of character which some of us can put before you which might lead you to agree that she is not the winsome vessel she appears. What you must also bring yourselves to understand … is that Gabriel knows it.’
‘Gabriel knows it! But this is sacrilegious rubbish!’ The voice, the contempt, were Lord Culter’s. But Alec Guthrie’s followed immediately after. ‘You’ll have trouble substantiating that. If it were true, he would never have brought her. Too much of a liability.’
Lady Jenny sparkled. If her attention had wandered through some of the discussion, it had become remarkably vigorous at mention of Joleta. ‘A liability? With Francis?’ she said, the lightest malice in her tone. ‘I should think Joleta was Sir Graham’s greatest asset.’
Unexpectedly, Lymond smiled back. ‘He thought so,’ he said. ‘No effort was spared to press home the point that Joleta was to be my redemption. So that I became enslaved, he was prepared to contemplate marriage—anything. It would have saved him a remarkable amount of trouble, obviously, to have me a doting member of the family. Joleta did her best.… My God, it was a display. Fiery, disdainful, contemptuous, and as inviting as hell. That was before Gabriel arrived. I refused the invitation, much to her surprise. There was always the chance, still, that when he found out he couldn’t do it the easy way, he might not come. I didn’t quite know the full extent of his vanity then. He must have written back trouncing her, and she abandoned the intellectual approach and came trailing nubile misery to St Mary’s, where if she didn’t manage to stay the night, at least she went on record as being innocently adoring. In fact, she was furious, with him and with me. Then he installed himself finally, and battle was joined.’
‘Dumbarton?’ said Adam Blacklock. It fitted so neatly, you could see them all thinking. It fitted so neatly that only a master strategist could have devised it. But which of them had devised it? The gentle, maligned Gabriel, flying from Malta? Or Francis Crawford, who had met his master and would not admit it?
‘Mille douceurs, mille bon mots, mille plaisirs: Dumbarton. To which Gabriel was so gently