The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [32]
‘Well. She says it was a matter of form,’ said Thomas Wharton. He flicked the young Marquis on the arm. ‘Don’t get so excited. Your friends will make fun of you.’
Margaret Douglas said slowly, ‘Married? Francis Crawford is married to this farmer’s daughter from Hexham?’ Then without removing her fine eyes from Thomas Wharton, she added, ‘Why?’
Far better than Austin Grey she knew from years of experience how to conceal surprise or dismay or excitement, but even so, the effort behind her very detachment told Tom Wharton all he wanted to know. He said, ‘That we don’t know. But Flaw Valleys is very close to the Scots Border. And he has used it already in actions against my father in England.’
‘I remember,’ said Margaret Douglas. ‘Her father was Gideon Somerville. One of Lord Grey’s staunchest lieutenants through the Scottish wars and between them. He served with the Queen for a while.’
‘He is dead,’ Tom Wharton said. ‘There’s only his widow now at Flaw Valleys, and his only child, Philippa. I tell you, I shouldn’t like to see Flaw Valleys become the base for Francis Crawford’s activities. And that is what may well be the outcome.’
‘Tom, that’s nonsense,’ said Austin Grey. ‘The man isn’t even there. And she’s going to have the marriage annulled.’
‘How wise,’ said Margaret Douglas. ‘And where, then, is her importunate husband?’
‘She says,’ said Wharton, ‘she left him in Greece. Volos, I think. She travelled back alone with his son.’
There was a moment’s blank pause. Then the Countess of Lennox began, despite herself, to laugh. ‘His son! How many foolish extravagances has he permitted himself, on this odd peregrination? By whom? Philippa?’
‘The child is over two,’ said Austin Grey. He was a little pale. ‘In fact, Lady Lennox, Mr Crawford has disappeared and there is no reason to think that he will ever come back to Scotland. As Tom has said, the marriage is to be dissolved. I really think you need have no misgivings about it.’
‘But,’ said Lady Lennox, ‘if he did come back, it might be quite serious. I think we should find out what is happening about the divorce. And whether in fact the child genuinely means to go through with it. How old is she? Fourteen?’
‘Seventeen, Lady Lennox,’ said Austin Grey.
He had displeased her. ‘Indeed,’ she said. And after a moment, ‘Old enough, then, for Court. Sir Thomas, is she presentable? If her parents were in the Queen’s household, she cannot be too rough in her ways.’
Thomas Wharton put his velvet-shod foot firmly on top of Austin Grey’s toes, and kept it there. ‘She would do at Court very nicely,’ he said. ‘She has an uncle somewhere in London. The Queen would remember the family.’
‘Then,’ said Lady Lennox, ‘I shall get the Queen’s permission tomorrow to invite her. And you shall take the summons with you Lord Allendale, when next you go north to the Somervilles. I take it you would have no objection to showing this girl how to conduct herself in the city?’
And Austin Grey, flushing, confirmed shortly that he would be pleased to escort Mistress Philippa Somerville in any way the Countess might indicate.
Chapter 5
Philippa’s letter, stained with food and sea water, arrived in the Kremlin in September and was laid by a servant on the Voevoda’s carved desk in the palace granted to him and to his mistress by his sovereign prince, Ivan IV. It lay there, ranked with other papers and packets, neatly dated and docketed, awaiting the Voevoda’s attention. Crawford of Lymond, as demanded of his new office and title of Russian commander, was absent in the field with his officers; whether exercising or fighting, his household did not know.
Smoothly conducted by the Mistress’s small, white-fleshed hands, the business of the luxurious house continued without cease. The Mistress’s riches were unpacked; the carpets laid; the tapestries hung, the books and paintings displayed; the lute and harpsichord uncrated and placed in the new rooms designed and built to her orders so that the strict timber edifice, raised in a cleared space near the Nikólskaya Tower for some dead appanaged prince,