Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [299]
He said, ‘Kuzúm? But he is yours, of course, for as long as you want him. I was speaking of other things. They have broken to you, I imagine, the exciting news about the Venetian four-poster. Don’t worry about that either. Think of it as a camp, with Míkál and his friends. You shall lose as little privacy as possible. What I am trying to point out is that, once you are home, you will find that to some people innocence doesn’t exist side by side with experience, and adventure is a limited thing. It will be known, long before we get there, that you have been a concubine in Suleiman’s harem; that you journeyed alone through Greece with Míkál, and that you were given to me and that we shared this room together. And men are conventional beings, even the best of them.’
Philippa’s brown eyes suddenly danced. ‘You mean my reputation is ruined? No wealthy gentlemen suing for my favours?’
‘No respectable wealthy gentlemen suing for your favours,’ he said. She had made him half-smile again.
It seemed such an extraordinary thing for him to be concerned about that Philippa stared at him owlishly while she considered the matter. Then she said, guessing his main preoccupation, ‘Kate won’t be troubled. I don’t know any gentlemen, anyway.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lymond. ‘You mean that when you left home you were too young for the marriage market. Or uninterested, at least. Such are the ways of nature, I must inform you, that one day the situation is likely to change.’
He stopped abruptly, and rising to his feet, walked to the wall and then turned, looking down on her. ‘You were ready to spend the rest of your life safeguarding that child,’ he said. ‘You faced God knows what dangers and devilment tracing him. You will no doubt in due time collect your just award in the Heavenly Kasbah, daily visited by seventy thousand angels. Until that time, so far as I am able, I intend to see that nothing which has happened to you here interferes with your happiness or prospects. I can’t say you’re being very helpful.’
Philippa looked up at him, her narrow face grave. ‘I have helpful intentions,’ she observed. ‘Actually the Kislar Agha is the man for these assurances. Do you think he would give me a written guarantee, dated tomorrow?’
‘Philippa?’ said Francis Crawford. And this time, the tawny silk unrumpling slowly, she rose to her feet.
She had grown. Kate’s vicious friend, once so elevated, was taller by little more than a head. She drew her brows together, and studied the circles under his eyes. He said lightly, ‘My dear girl; it’s Almoner’s Saturday. With six frails of figs and a sackful of almonds, I am offering you my name.’
Philippa’s lips parted. The smith in her chest, changing a wooden mallet for a small charge of gunpowder, pulverized brain, lungs and stomach and left her standing, wan as a blown egg. She said shakily, ‘How would that help?’
Round his mouth, the curled lines deepened, and his eyes, very blue, lit suddenly with something like the flame she had seen struck in them at other times, by other things and other people. ‘Stout Philippa,’ he said. ‘Sit down and hear.… There is no guarantee for you now except marriage. Do it now, and you go home a respectable matron of fifteen … sixteen——’
‘Nearly seventeen,’ said Philippa.
‘Yes. Well: with no money but a good many friends and enough property to keep a roof over your head and Kúzum’s. Then, as you choose, you may divorce me.’
She cleared her throat. ‘On what grounds?’
He looked at her directly, his voice level. ‘On very obvious grounds. We shall find another Kislar Agha, if you like, to give you a guarantee.… You must have no fears that this will be anything but a marriage on paper. But I want it done now. Tomorrow, if the Embassy chaplain can do it.’
Philippa’s gaze was also direct. ‘You think there is a chance we may not all get home?’
‘There is a chance some of us may not,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to do this very much. I have very little to offer you … an irresponsible past, and a name which is