Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [128]
He was not put off, but simply accelerated. Without finesse, Tom Erskine shot forward and seized one idle hand. “Christian! Do you like me? Could you put up with me? … Will you marry me, Chris?”
To keep the normal, comforting directness in her voice, she squandered all her training. “To have your love is a wonderful thing, Tom, but you’re wasting it on an obstinate woman.”
In his eagerness he mistook her meaning. “There’s no one to cross you in Stirling, my dear; and by God, I’d like to see anyone try elsewhere.”
In spite of herself she smiled. “Build a hedge around the cuckoo? I don’t think perpetual summer would be very good for me, somehow. In the same way—in the same way that I don’t think marriage would be good.”
His bewilderment reached her, even though she couldn’t see. Releasing her hand he said slowly, “You’re afraid of marriage? Or is it of me?”
Christian said quickly, “Not afraid: no. My reservations are of another kind. And not any dislike of you: of course not.”
“Then there’s someone else?” he said.
It had not occurred to her that he might think that. With an effort, she applied her mind. “Under the circumstances, that’s rather flattering of you. But no—there’s no one else. It’s simply that—”
That what? It was not simple at all. Love was no prerequisite, whatever Agnes Herries might think. He must indeed be wondering why she hesitated; wondering perhaps if she was after bigger game than himself. She had money and her birth was higher than his own. She had no need to be diffident about her handicap, but it was the only excuse she had. So she went on. “It’s just that, my dear, a blind wife is no asset to a future Lord Erskine.”
“Rubbish!” It was a mistake: the boisterous relief in his voice told her that. “My dear lass, I’m the best judge of that. D’you imagine I’d give two thoughts to it? Are you afraid of leaving the places you know? We’ll build us a house in Stirling, and I’ll teach you every timber and brick of it as it rises so that each one is a friend to you. I’ll give you a family of eyes: more eyes than Argus; in all Stirling there’ll be no woman with younger or purer sight than you shall have. I shall—”
“Tom!” She cried out, desperate to stop him. “Tom, if it were that alone, I shouldn’t hesitate. Or if there were any single good reason, I’d tell you at once. The trouble is I have a hundred reasons, none of them good. The war; Lord Fleming’s death; the need to set Boghall in order; my own liking for freedom and my friends and the old days—a mixen of wretched, feminine evasions.”
His silence lasted so long that she bit her lip, raging at her lack of sight; but he was only thinking over, very seriously, what she had said. At length he spoke. “Yes, I see, Christian. I think I understand. You mightn’t want to marry me now. But later, perhaps? When the invasion is over, and the Queen is better, and Lady Jenny is free … ?”
He didn’t say, as he might have done, “And if I come back.” She had to be merciful, but how?
In the end, she took the easier way. “I can offer nothing, Tom; and it would be unfair to let you think I might. But if you still feel as you do, sometime in the future—”
“When? Next month?”
Christian, who had been thinking weakly in terms of six months or a year, suddenly decided. She said, “Next month if you like, Tom: a month from today, on one condition, if you’ll allow me the presumption of making it. That you abide by my answer then, whatever it is.”
He said rather pathetically, “Do you think by then … ?” but she groped for his hand, found and tucked her own firmly into it and walked him to the door. “I haven’t the faintest idea, but I can say this, my dear. If I were going to marry anyone—anyone at all—it would be Tom Erskine.”
* * *
Three miles away at Midculter, Sybilla was also preparing to leave for Dumbarton. Richard, looking for her before setting off south with his troops, found her coming out of the courtyard, her manner a little distrait and an unaccountable smell of sulphur lingering in her hair.
They conferred briefly, discussing the guarding of the castle