Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [258]
Buccleuch growled. “She knew who he was. I don’t see what bearing this has on the thing.”
“She claimed to know, finally, when she thought it would save him. Did you reveal your identity to her when you met, Mr. Crawford?”
“No,” said Lymond, and his hands closed.
“Why not?”
There was a pause. “It relieved her of what I felt to be … too cruel a quandary. I didn’t expect to see her again.”
“No quandary for a girl as upright as we know this one was, surely. Or do you mean she was already in love with you?”
“I mean nothing of the sort. We had been childhood neighbours, and she was a—kindly person.”
“I see. And having all these scruples, no doubt you went out of your way to avoid further meetings. Or did you see her again?” added Lauder suddenly.
There was another pause. Then the Master said evenly, “Several times. Shall we save some tedious questions and answers?—After the first and second, the meetings were not unavoidable. I allowed her to help me with my private affairs although I knew that by doing so I should make her virtue suspect, at least, if it became known. It was through pursuing my affairs that she was captured at Dalkeith. It was directly because of that that she came into the power of the Countess of Lennox. These were unprincipled and unpardonable acts, and you can’t possibly blame me as much as I blame myself.
“But in all of them, Lady Christian was the innocent and deceived party. She did nothing dishonest, even in her efforts to help me; and, unpleasing as it may seem to Mr. Lauder’s active imagination, there was nothing but friendship between us. Under the circumstances no doubt you will find it ludicrous that I should cast myself into Lord Grey’s lap simply to free her; but that was what I did.”
The Lord Advocate might have been annoyed at having his effects spoiled, but he gave not the slightest sign. “It certainly has its suspicious side. Particularly when linked with the fact that Lady Christian died suddenly and violently immediately after you traced her to England.”
Erskine’s voice said harshly, “Wait a moment. Lady Christian died from a fall from her horse.”
Lauder said simply, “How do you know?”
There was real anger in Erskine’s brusque voice. “I knew Chris better than any of you—I was to have married her—and if we weren’t in a court of law I would shove down your damned throat the implication you’ve just been making. I saw Crawford of Lymond immediately after her death and heard what he said and saw how he acted. If I’d thought for a moment that he’d killed her, I wouldn’t have let Culter have the pleasure of fighting him.”
The Lord Advocate let this poignantly confident rebuttal wreak its own doom; and then said gently, “What then are you suggesting? That Mr. Crawford went to her rescue after all in a fit of erratic gallantry?” and was much surprised to hear Sir George Douglas’s smooth voice.
“Suppose, since they worry you, we dismiss the romantic gestures in favour of another fact? Mr. Crawford had been disappointed in his efforts to exculpate himself, as he thought, from the older crimes we have not yet discussed: he had just heard from me that the man who might do so was dead. He had already disbanded his force in expectation of a satisfactory meeting with this man and had suffered the considerable shock of being handed over to us by his own protégé. He might well, under the circumstances, have decided on a course of despair such as this.”
The Lord Advocate bowed without the least shade of irony. “A point well made. Particularly as it puts before us another fact. Mr. Crawford, it appears, had just been cheated of his hopes of reinstating himself in our midst—by whatever means—as an honest, loyal and worthy servant of the Crown.
“What then remained, one might ask, but to fly to England; to get rid of this awkward girl, who was in England and who knew so much of his activities, and at the same time to present information