The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [228]
‘I don’t suppose you meant to get drunk,’ Kate said flatly, ‘but you are, rather. Would you like to sit down over there?’
He took the chair she indicated, on one side of the fire, by the bed. ‘But you must sit down as well.’
Kate Somerville stood, her lips shut, and looked at him. ‘I don’t know that I want to. Are we going to have a sensible discussion?’ she said.
‘Well, you are sensible,’ Lymond said. ‘And I am not unconscious, yet. The trouble appears to be with the subject. I am here, on legal advice, as your son-in-law.’
‘I’m not going to sit down,’ Kate said, in some desperation, in view of the fact that her limbs would hardly uphold her.
The beautiful, intolerant blue eyes surveyed her. ‘It is perfectly safe to sit down with sons-in-law. Not with prospective fiancés. I have just asked Austin Grey what he would do if I carried Philippa off and then ravished her.’
He stared at Kate.
Kate licked her lips and surmised. ‘Kill you?’ she said. Her voice, she found, was not totally reliable.
‘Yes. That’s satisfactory, isn’t it? I thought perhaps she was in love with Diccon Chancellor.’
He never said what he meant. He never said what he meant.… All through their encounters, their clashes, their crossing of swords she had known that and learned a little to deal with it, and to translate, if only to herself, what lay under the stream of hurtful, facile words. And, suddenly, this time she felt panic, a seizure of fear so unexpected that she stared at him, quite unseeing, listening to the tone of the words. And then she saw what was behind it, and sat down.
‘I think everyone was,’ said Kate Somerville.
Lymond said abruptly, ‘What about the divorce?’
Kate said, ‘Lady Lennox is blocking it. The grounds, as you may have heard, are the test case of the Constable’s son.’
‘Why is she opposing it?’ Lymond said. ‘She knows the situation?’
Her confidence mildly restored, Kate threw him a look of withering irony. ‘You mean is Philippa moaning and plucking off daisy petals? I am sorry to dispel the fancy. Philippa thinks of you, as she thinks of me, as a rather run-down institution for indigent imbeciles.’
‘That was the impression I got,’ Lymond said. ‘So why …?’
‘Because Lady Lennox wants to hurt you through her. At least, that is my reading,’ Kate Somerville said. ‘You have Laurence Hussey with you just now, haven’t you?’
‘Wills, wives and wrecks?’ Lymond said. ‘Yes; he’s been concerned in the Edward. What else—ah. Boyar Angus has just died at Tantallon Castle.’
‘I wish,’ said Kate, ‘you were just a little more sober.… The Earl of Angus is dead, Lady Lennox’s father. There arises the matter of the inheritance. All those rich lands, and Tantallon Castle, one of the strongest in Scotland.’
‘The laird of Craigmillar is in it,’ said Lymond comfortably. ‘He told me the other day. Holding it for the Queen. But Margaret Lennox, of course, will lay claim to the lands and the Earldom, and Master Hussey, being a civil law practitioner and a member of Doctors’ Commons, will no doubt be asked to pursue it.… He seems a harmless enough little man. What has Philippa done?’ said Lymond.
‘Passed on to your family a Lennox plot to control Scotland,’ said Kate bluntly.
Lymond’s eyes studied hers. ‘Who in turn, in their simple, loyal way, have passed it on to the Queen Dowager. Who will therefore take great pleasure in squashing any claim whatever from the Lennox family to the Earldom of Angus?’
‘You aren’t drunk,’ said Kate.
‘No. I have had a severe blow on the head, and a great deal of provocation. But Kate, Philippa can only be harmed if Master Hussey discovers what the Queen Dowager knows about the Lennox plot, and how she knows it. Who would tell Hussey?’
‘Maitland of Lethington,’ Kate Somerville said.
‘Who is close to the Queen, and loves the Lennoxes? And then Mary Tudor is told that her young