Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [273]
‘It seems a little sudden,’ said Bonne, after brief thought. ‘In fact, I have been invited to stay for a month, and have accepted. No. I am most grateful, but tomorrow is out of the question.’ She looked from one man to the other. ‘Unless, of course, you wish to use coercion. I have no rights of my own. I know that.’
If she had shown a trace of passion, Nicholas would have applauded. She merely looked firm. Against her vivid maturity, her strong brows, her self-possession, Jordan seemed like a child. Henry, closer to her own age, was viewing her with stony intolerance. Muriella, who still held Jordan’s hand, looked both eager and shocked. Her lips had parted.
‘War is sudden,’ said Julius. ‘Tomorrow.’ It could be seen that his nostrils were white.
Bonne said, ‘M. de Fleury? I am really not sure which of you has the casting vote.’
‘He does,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is, he will hold the necessary conversations with Master Malloch and Sister Monika, and I shall supply any coercion required to detach you tomorrow. Or my groom will. He is a married man, and will not be at all rough.’
Suddenly, Henry had caught a note in Nicholas’s voice, and a light entered his own eye. He said darkly, ‘She’ll go. She just likes her own way. You should try living in the same house for two days.’
‘That,’ said Nicholas, ‘is ungallant. It is also discourteous to your host. Bonne, I know you appreciate Master Malloch’s kindness, and don’t wish to disappoint him, but I think you have no alternative. May I take it that you will come?’
‘Yes,’ said Bonne, frowning a little. ‘But to where?’
TO WHERE was, at intervals, the question of the evening: through and after the meal, shared by Sister Monika, and in between the pleasant music they made afterwards, with Nicholas and Malloch in harmony, and Muriella’s sweet voice entwined with her brother’s. John Malloch, entering late, was an elongated, dust-coloured version of the golden child he had once been, serene in manner and grey-blue of eye. Willie sweated and played, Julius looked bored, Bonne and her chaperone embroidered, and Henry sat sulkily watching Muriella. When she asked Jordan to sing, and then, laughing, began to sing with him, Henry lay back, a little drunk, and kept interrupting. John, smiling, tried to divert his attention, but Henry got up and walked out.
Soon after that, they reached agreement with Bonne over her future. First, a Cistercian convent within reach of Edinburgh, at which Sister Monika might, if she approved, eventually remain. Next, as soon as might be arranged, an appointment in some gentle household, as a preliminary to an arranged marriage. The household and the marriage to be selected, from a short leet, by Bonne.
Nicholas, who had not expected to manage the business in public, was thankful to have it over and to be able to think of something else. He had not actually cursed Julius aloud. None of it, of course, bothered Willie, and Jordan had sat absorbed through it all, when he wasn’t being commandeered, in that enchanting lisp, by Muriella. Eventually, she was sent off by her father to do something, and Jordan came back and beat drums for Willie. Nicholas, vaguely uneasy, made an excuse and left the room himself.
He heard Henry’s strained, angry voice almost at once; not that it was loud, but because he would know it anywhere. When another young voice replied, he knew he was listening also to Muriella. They were in the room above, leading off the turnpike staircase he was climbing. He stood where he was.
Muriella was angry as well. She was saying, ‘You’re not my husband! I’ll speak to whom I want! He’s a polite boy. I hate you!’
‘He’s a baby! Jo-dee!’ Henry mewed the name like a kitten. ‘He wets the bed. He’ll make you his mammy. If you want a baby, I’ll give you one. You want a man. You don’t want a piddling baby with a goat for a father! Do you know that Nicholas de Fleury isn’t de Fleury at all? He’s a by-blow. No one knows who his father was. His mother was a tart and his wife is a worse one—did you know that she slept with my