The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [227]
He did not look again at the ending:… since it seemed to me that by ignoring it, you were doing yourself and your folk a disservice.… The people among whom you grew up are your dearest … but lifted the papers, and holding them into the flame, let the whole thing take fire and burn down to ashes.
‘I told you. You knew it already,’ Roberts said.
‘No. It was news,’ Lymond said.
And Austin Grey, looking at him with those attentive dark eyes said unexpectedly, ‘Bad news? I am sorry.’
Lymond put a picturesque hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ he said, faintly chiding. ‘It makes everyday commerce most trying. It was a letter from my dear wife.… I have just remembered where we are going. Do you suppose she shows her mail to her mother?’
Austin said, ‘You will know better than I do.’
‘But I don’t,’ Lymond said. ‘I didn’t know she could write, until recently. She spent most of her time in the cradle. And if Kate knows what she wrote in that letter, you have no idea what an intriguing meeting this is going to be. You will have your divorce by next Friday.… You are passionately in love with the lady, I take it?’
Austin said, ‘I think Mr Roberts probably wants to go to bed.’
‘No, he doesn’t. He’s enjoying the conversation,’ Lymond said. ‘But we shall respect your finer feelings if you insist on it.’ And, smiling, he did indeed exchange all the necessary courtesies which placed them, five minutes later, outside in the still, snowy street.
‘The inn is there,’ Allendale said, and pointed. ‘You have only to ask for Mistress Somerville.’
Lymond made no move to go. ‘I can be a great deal ruder than this,’ he said. ‘You really must stand and fight. You won’t safeguard the Somervilles by running.’
He did stand then, very straight and slender against the dark snow, with no fear on his face. ‘I don’t need to fight,’ said Austin Grey. ‘You haven’t become what you are without intelligence. You know the world, and you know Philippa’s mother. You won’t harm either of them.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I am not perhaps as easily upset as I look. I think I can protect them, if I have to.’
‘Can you?’ Lymond said. ‘I am going to call on Philippa, when we get to London. What will you do if I take her straight to my lodging and rape her?’
Austin was very white. ‘Kill you,’ he said. ‘If I can.’
‘But she is my wife,’ Lymond said.
‘Not——’
‘Yes!’ said Lymond softly. ‘Before God and man. And for that, my dear Marquis, you would hang. If, of course, she told you about it in the first place.’
Allendale’s hand was on his sword. He took it off again and drew a long breath. His body was trembling. He said, in a low voice, ‘This is uncivil.’
‘Yes, but it’s quicker than question and answer,’ Lymond said. ‘And we know where we stand. I’m delighted, in fact, to have met you. You may have her first, when the Pope and I have both finished.’ And he walked off, smiling, into the inn, leaving Austin Grey standing where he was, very still in the snow.
He brought the same bright, deadly mood to the meeting with Philippa’s mother, and Kate Somerville, that small, wise friend of long ago who knew him better than anyone, stood in her small crowded bedchamber and watched him come in, fair and smiling and elegant with his face marred and marring shadows, too, in his eyes and about his temples and mouth which had never been there before.
He saw the woman she had always been, buttoned purposefully into a gown which, on equal purpose, would not be her best, with her brown hair accommodated hopefully in a rather nice cap but coming down, and her brown eyes, frowning, on the marks on his face. He said, ‘Richard, you will have heard. It probably did him a lot of good, because he wanted to do it so badly. I received your unaddressed, badly spelt note with all the polysyllables.’
‘Yes. Well,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know what you want to be called.’
‘Home, like the cattle?’ said Lymond. ‘No. No, that