Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [134]
Scott tried to read. Except for the muffled voices from the lower stair, the tower was silent; the hills and half-mined valleys outside lay quiet in the dripping darkness. Next door, there was no movement either, although he could hear the fire crack and see the resulting flare through his own near-shut door. He had no idea what Lymond was doing. He remembered suddenly a revealing expression used at Annan, and wondered if it had been reported to Lady Lennox; and what a well-born majestically reared young woman would make of this wildcat eccentric.
When he thought the time was nearly up, he snuffed his own candles and found a place from which he could comfortably see without being seen. As an afterthought, he took off his boots. Then he settled to watch.
Matthew’s knock on the staircase door, when it came, was thunderous and his voice when it opened rolled like Pluto welcoming one of the damned. “The Countess of Lennox,” he said, and retreated, closing the door behind him.
Margaret Douglas, standing just inside the room, was cloaked to the chin and very frightened indeed. The quality of her startled Scott: the near-leonine vigour, the firm chin and big, shapely hands. Then the unexpected black eyes took on fire from the reflected light, her lips parted and she unclenched and dropped her hands. “Francis!” Few people, except perhaps those with Scott’s opportunities, could have told that the recognition had preceded the fright. “Francis!”
“Yes. Come in,” said Lymond pleasantly, coming into view. He was dressed, as Scott had hardly ever seen him, in white shirt and hose, sleek white and gold in the firelight: the effect was damascened and deliberate.
Momentarily bemused, the Countess of Lennox moved forward, her blue robe brushing the new wood of the floor, until she shared the firelight. Her hair was wet with rain; its fairness darkened. “Was I brought here by your orders? I wish you had told me. I was very frightened.”
Lymond drew out a chair for her, and waited while she sat. “You should perhaps allow yourself to be frightened now. It would be very suitable and maidenly.”
The intelligent black eyes were without guile. “It probably would. But I have a husband.”
“A rather indifferent one.” The silverpoint voice was equally bland.
“A very partial one.… At least I trust him to protect my good name,” said Margaret. So she was not ignorant of what happened at Annan. She added reflectively, “And he saved your life, once.”
“True,” said Lymond. “But then, I spared his at Annan. I’ve regretted it since. I think that, like the dolphin, he would be prettier dying.”
Margaret exclaimed gently. “Dear me: now, what have we here? Revenge or jealousy? You want me as a weapon against my husband?”
“What else should I want you for?”
Her eyes sparkled, but her voice was calm. “To insult me, perhaps?”
“No. What a low opinion of me you have,” said Lymond tenderly. “I haven’t captured you to exchange for Lennox. Not at all. I was proposing to offer you to your husband in return for your small son.”
At last, the Attic tableau exploded. “Harry!” She was on her feet. “Not my baby: no! Francis, please! That’s being vindictive beyond all sense and sanity. Even you can’t be callous enough to ask a small child to suffer for … Matthew won’t send him!”
“Of course he will. He can always have more.”
“Unless you fail to send me back.”
“Unless I keep you both.” He was irradiated with a soft cheerfulness. “But I hardly ever indulge in acts of retribution: they’re usually bad for trade. I propose to offer the child for sale to the Scottish Government, whether alive (which they might find awkward) or dead, which might be more convenient, diplomatically speaking. As