Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [173]
She hadn’t said so, but all the repercussions he had described had, of course, occurred to her. To be despised by dyers’ wives didn’t worry her. She had no close friends. Of course, Tilde would have been distressed and Felix would have been a handful. Of course they might lose people like Julius and the new managers, who would feel their status impaired. But Claes himself, with his gifts, could reduce the impact, could talk people round, could deal with Tilde and probably even with Felix. And if people left, he would be here to find others. He had said that the merchant world would set itself to compete against him. She had no doubt, if that happened, who would win. She wondered, as she had wondered over and over, how clever men had not seen what she had seen.
And remembered that some of them had. And that it was Claes himself who had, in the end, given them the opening. Which meant that he, too, was tiring of simple tasks and simple company and perhaps even of simple friends. If he had taken thought, he might have discovered that he would not really miss them. But then, of course, he had taken thought. Behind the impersonal objections were all the personal ones.
He was giving her time to recover, and she had recovered. She said, “I should have told you that I’m proud of you. You realise that the only failure in this has been mine. You brought me a service I didn’t deserve, and don’t have the ability to take advantage of. But you thought I did, and I’m flattered.”
He had been sitting watching the fire, his hands tight around his updrawn knees. The rip in his jacket, neatly mended, had begun to open again across his flat back. When he heard her voice, he eased round a little without changing his attitude. She thought that his face, queerly, looked older. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard her. He said, “You’ve had suitors.”
It was baldly put, she knew; for the answer to it had to be an admission. She wouldn’t think of his reasons. She said, “I want none of them.”
He said, rather slowly, “Of the two, marriage would be less troublesome in the end than selling the company.”
She found she was experiencing a shaky amusement. He saw it and said, with a glimmering smile. “For you, I mean. To begin with, it would be like asking the burgomaster and échevins to lie down with Felix’s porcupine. It would need care and forethought and attention and teamwork for a long time, through a lot of rebuffs and some unpleasantness. And I’d have to leave almost immediately, leaving you to deal with whatever developed. But if Gregorio is what I think he is, I could confide in him a bit of the alum scheme. That would commit him. And he would help you.’
Her expression must have been very disturbed, because he stopped there and said, “That is, if I may reopen the subject? I wasn’t sure if you had finally closed it. For instance, you didn’t give me a chance to produce my impersonal list of the advantages of managerial partnerships. I’ve always admired and respected and honoured you. That’s the main one on my side. Indeed, I don’t know if I need any others. What’s more, I have an excuse to see Bishop Coppini who, I am sure, could manage the essential dispensation, since there’s a relationship. That is, I am the illegitimate grandson of the first wife of your late sister’s husband. If I have it right?”
He was prepared to reverse his decision. Placing the relationship before her was his way, however, of reminding her that this, too, was a factor to be considered, on top of the difference in age, and in status. Yet such uneven marriages did take place in great houses, where property must pass and heirs be got, regardless.
With a marriage contract, she would be buying not that, but his skills for her company. She had her heir, Felix, and her daughters.