Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [110]
Lazily, she replied. ‘Do not delude youself, Phelim O’LiamRoe—or me. Were you faced with eternal night and chaos you would poke up the fire and theorize till your blood itself boiled under the skin. Why stay if you no longer enjoy it? Go back to your heathery nook on the Slieve Bloom, where Edward’s sheriffs pass you by; and take Ballagh with you. If you have a new master, someone doubtless will tell you.’
O’LiamRoe’s gaze, for once, was unreadable. He said, ‘I didn’t say, I believe, that I was wearying. I told you once why I intended to stay.… And I asked you a question, but we were interrupted.’
‘Then ask it again,’ she said.
There was a long silence. At the side of his neck, in the baby’s skin, a pulse was beating, although outwardly he was still perfectly tranquil. ‘And do you like me or do you love me at all?’ he had asked, that night in the Hôtel Moûtier. ‘If I were fifteen years old again, I might,’ he said. ‘But now I know the answer.’
‘Do you? I think you should know,’ said Oonagh, ‘that you are not alone in your view of the artichoke.’
Looking down, he could see her high brow, her thinking eyes, the firm body under the piled, thick folds of her robe. He said innocently, ‘That might make it awkward when you take a French husband.’
One angular, boy’s wrist lay on her lap; the other hand was tucked under her head. He saw the tendons sharpen suddenly, and was not surprised when she said, ‘I have had dogs enough.’ There was a little interval; then she added, hearking back still to their previous talk, ‘I have reached a queer conclusion. There is a thing or two worse than sitting in a mud hut with salt herring and a kale bowl between your two knees.’
O’LiamRoe did not know that he himself had turned rigid. He said only, ‘I always said it. It depends on the company.’
She did not remove her eyes. Instead she gave a little twist so that instead of her back, she had one elbow on the rock, the other hand laid idly on the grass. Dead leaves, like flotsam on a web, scattered her fur. Unbelieving, he read in her eyes a kind of testy, unassumed kindness. ‘I like you, Phelim O’LiamRoe. For my own good, I ought to love you.’ She scanned his face. On it were small unaccustomed marks; of strain, of some measure of need or defence. She said with wholly unexpected anger, ‘You are the very soul of detachment, are you not? Can you do nothing to make me love you, since you are so wise?’
There was a racking silence. Then he slipped to one knee beside her, crushing her dress, and, catching her idle hand, drew her into his arm. She came lightly, holding up her face for the kiss.
It was a strange embrace. The woman, it was clear, was the more experienced of the two; and she made no effort to hide it. O’LiamRoe’s own simple nature came to his rescue. At this ultimate moment he felt no awkwardness; nor did he strive fora sophistication beyond his means. Instead, his own basic qualities, his speculative mind, his adventurousness, his essential decency, all brought to that first kiss something perfectly well integrated, of its kind; and to Oonagh O’Dwyer, quite new.
So new that for a moment it confused her. He sensed something wrong and broke away, his whole face shaped in a queer, unaccustomed way; then found her hand on his back had hardened disturbingly. She brought her other hand up, the heavy sleeve falling back, and drew his head down to her own. During this kiss she let him know, without speaking, that what he wanted, he could have.
Humility … intelligence … insecurity: one of them spread its