The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [274]
Lymond turned and looked at him, and then smiled; and for all there were only two years between them, Sidney felt his maturity of a sudden drop away. ‘But life,’ Lymond said, ‘is not quite like this in Russia.’
Philippa was still unconscious when he disentangled her from the cluster of Medioxes and, pulling off the wig, lifted her in his arms while Nicholas, climbing before him, pioneered their footing out of the shambles.
Outside, the sun was still shining, and the oarsmen waiting, patiently, to take Sir Henry back to the Savoy. Lymond explained, briefly, and climbed into the barge, Nicholas helping. Nicholas, in spite of the unfortunate outcome, was still full as a millstream with bubbles: he giggled all the way to Lady Dormer’s, in between droning verse and applying, frequently, for the lines he had failed to remember. Lymond settled with Philippa’s head on his arm, and was disposed to smile, sometimes, too.
Whiffle. She was a quick-witted child. From Kate, of course. He stirred back the brown hair which had caught in her lashes. And that was Kate’s too. What did she take from Gideon? Honesty. That both her parents had. And courage. Riding through the night once, into unknown country, to find him, and pay some sort of debt she thought she owed to him, or her parents. And, of course, following him for the sake of the child. In spite of a good deal of uncivilized behaviour, he recalled clearly, on his part.
Courage from both parents, too. You would go far to find a woman braver than Kate. And music—from Gideon? Yes. Both studied and felt—that furious display on the harpsichord at Lady Mary’s, defiant though it had been, had been more than plain pyrotechnics. But then, she was no longer ten, and had put to use the years of study and practice. How old, then, was she?
The year he fought his brother, they had met. The year of Pinkie, or the spring just after. Which made her … nearly twenty.
He was aware of deep surprise. But of course, the mind which had comprehended and discussed with him all the intricacies of the present blunderings of nations was not, could not be a child’s. The loving spirit which could serve Queen Mary, seeing clearly all her weakness, had nothing immature about it, or the wit which Ascham had found worthy to teach.
Unlike Kate, this girl had broken from her setting. All that Kate was, she now had. And standing on Kate’s shoulders, something more, still growing; blossoming and yet to fruit.
All that he was not. He looked at her. The long, brown hair; the pure skin of youth; the closed brown eyes, their lashes artfully stained; the obstinate chin; the definite nose, its nostrils curled. The lips, lightly tinted, and the corners deepened, even sleeping, with the remembrance of sardonic joy.… The soft, severe lips.
And deep within him, missing its accustomed tread, his heart paused, and gave one single stroke, as if on an anvil. ‘We’re there, sir,’ Nicholas said.
The air hurt his skin. His nerves, unsheathed, left him over-sensitized and defenceless, as sometimes happened: exposed raw to the touch of his clothes, as if his flesh had been stripped off with acid. He remained perfectly still.
‘… Sir?’ Nicholas said.
So Francis Crawford moved and, bending, took the weight of the straight shoulders and the crumpled skirts and the supple hands and the fall of long, ruffled hair. It was not a child’s body, any more.
He carried Philippa from the boat and through the garden of the Savoy, without moving his hands. Somewhere he stopped, because Nicholas was speaking to him: it seemed that Lady Dormer was out, with her women, and the house was empty except for the kitchen maids. Nicholas offered to go find them and the physician they favoured. He agreed, and found himself inside the house, with an excited kitchenmaid beside him, showing him to Mistress Philippa’s chamber. She was still in his arms, and had not wakened.
The maid seemed to have gone. He lowered Philippa on