Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [131]
His right arm shook suddenly as his wife brushed under it and into the room. He did not follow her but waited, looking at the dark glass of the window where her figure was reflected, pulling things out of a drawer. He saw an emerald necklace; then pearls, some rings, brooches and collars, buttons and combs followed until the table shivered and sparkled in front of her. Lastly, she pulled off the splendid brooch at her breast and flung it on the heap. The violet eyes, turned full on him, were as bright as the jewels. “No!” said Mariotta with contempt. “But he might have been.”
She had meant to hurt him, and she had meant to force him outside his defences. Even yet, she did not recognize what she had actually done. In the long silence that followed, he put on a stiffer armour than she had ever been allowed to see.
Without looking at her, he picked up a piece, read the inscription on it, and flung it back on the heap. “How long has this been going on?”
“For three months. They come anonymously to the house.”
“Bidding appears to have been commendably brisk. It’s friendly of you,” said Richard, “to allow me to compete. What would you like next?”
If she had never been able to shake him when he chose to be wooden, she was paralyzed by this behaviour. She said, shocked into stammering, “I’ve t-told you the truth because he was making such a f—because people are drawing comparisons. I’ve never made any move to meet him—”
“I’m sorry,” said Richard. “But on the whole I’d rather appear a fool than a cuckold. As a result of your efforts I now seem to be both. I should have looked less ridiculous, perhaps, if you had chosen to tell me about this when it first began?”
Cornered, she snapped. “I might have done, if you hadn’t been missing three weeks out of four. I was miserable, and idle, and not very well, and it happened. I might have agreed to tell you earlier—but as it is, I’ve told you now. Does it matter? Is it so hard to believe?”
The slip escaped her notice, but not Richard’s. He said, “Agreed to tell me? Agreed with whom, for God’s sake! Lymond?”
“No! No.”
“Then who? One of the girls? Buccleuch? Tom Erskine? Rothesay Herald? You didn’t manage to tell me, but I’m sure you made certain we should both be the clack of the shopkeepers. Who was it?”
Mariotta said furiously, “I needed advice, and he noticed.… Anyway, he’s been a good friend to me. To you as well. It was Dandy Hunter.”
“So he advised you how to conduct this very comic marriage of ours. How friendly. And was it only advice he gave you? Or has Dandy, like Lymond, been showering you with expensive and unsolicited gifts? It was your maxim, I remember: it’s often more expensive to accept favours than to buy them. What did Dandy exact for his services?”
“Nothing! Stop it, Richard!” said Mariotta. “I’m sorry. I was a fool not to tell you; I was mad to tell Dandy first; I shouldn’t have told you now in the way I did. But I have told you … I didn’t need to. You would never have found out.”
Richard said, staring at her, “No, I don’t suppose I should. I should have been one of those odd stock characters, the ludicrous deceived husband, which would have afforded Lymond endless innocent pleasure …”
“No!” She tried to catch hold of him, but he moved away, pacing the room.
“Lymond … Dandy … Who else? Who else, now?” He stopped dead, a square, monumental, derisive figure. “You must think. After all, we’ve got to give this damned child an identity.”
Mariotta sat down. “It isn’t true.”
“Can you prove it?”
This time, steel met steel. “No!” said Mariotta, and dropping her arms, she turned to her table. Watched by this venomous new foe she lifted her jewellery piece by piece and put it on: the emeralds around her pretty neck; the bracelets and rings, the long earrings and the combs, drifting sparkling in her dark hair. She turned to him covered in light, in a blaze of many-eyed, expensive vulgarity, with her voice doubly, diamond hard.
“No!” she repeated. “No, I can’t prove it. Why should I? What do I care for you or your brother? You’re both Crawfords