Free The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett

long silence, duringwhich Mariotta kept her head bent, her eyelashes wet, and the Dowager’s face became whiter and whiter. Then at last, as the pause threatened to become unbearable, ‘Then where,’ said Sybilla evenly, ‘do you suggest we send her?’
    Richard’s tremendous exhalation plumbed his shattering relief. He said, ‘Would Jenny take her, at Boghall?’
    It was the solution. Lady Fleming, exquisite widow of royal birth, was newly back at Boghall Castle from France, returned to bear a son out of wedlock to the French King. Of her seven children by the late Lord Fleming only Margaret, now married to Tom Erskine, could ever control Jenny Fleming; and Margaret, now in France with the Queen Mother, would soon be home. At Boghall, under the eyes of Margaret and Tom Erskine, Joleta Malett would be safe.
    ‘Her brother will certainly not approve of Jenny,’ said Sybilla thoughtfully. ‘But then, if I know Jenny, she will be far too interested in returning to France to acquire another little insurance against her old age, to trouble about Joleta. Joleta would be virtually in the care of the Erskines. And the Erskines—’
    ‘—know better than any the dangers of Francis with time on his hands,’ said Lord Culter gratefully. It was, as a matter of fact, the first argument with his mother that he had ever won, and had he known it, the most useless.
*
    So Tom Erskine called at Flaw Valleys to take the Malett girl and her governess home to Boghall, and saw and caught his breath at the child’s looks, and noted that, since Gideon’s death, Kate had lost weight.
    She was the last person to seek pity. He treated her to a recital of Jenny’s accouchement and the birth of the King of France’s acknowledged son, and she laughed at that, but not at the little he told her of Lymond’s presence at the French Court, and his wife Margaret’s attempts to restrain him.
    He was missing Margaret. Of their two years of marriage, she had spent eight months in France with the Queen Dowager, and it might be October before he would see her again. Kate, a perceptive soul, spent some time in talk of his wife before saying suddenly, ‘I hope they come back from France soon, Tom. I have a feeling that child Joleta is going to need help.’
    ‘She’s pretty lonely, I would guess,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll try to amuse her. She’ll have the young men round her anyway like bees.’
    ‘It’s a safe guess,’ said Kate, amused. ‘I’ve had three fights in the stockyard already. If she hadn’t been in bed ill half the time, God knows what would have happened.’
    ‘Trotty Luckup cured her, I hear?’
    ‘It looked like it,’ said Kate uncompromisingly. ‘She got her fee, anyway.’
    ‘That’s what I heard’, said Tom, relieved. ‘I came across the old dame the other day, in the cells for a drunken scold, and she had far more money on her than was likely—you know Trotty. But I was able to back up her story and save her a ducking. She’s no beauty, but fair’s fair.’
    ‘That woman will make her fortune,’ said Kate. ‘Look at all the advertisement her cure has had. My apothecary is threatening to disown me. You wouldn’t like to fall ill while you’re here so that I can give him a turn?’
    ‘Next time,’ said Tom earnestly, ‘I’ll fall off my horse on your doorstep.’
    ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Kate frankly. ‘He’s not very happy with bones. Something lingering with pimples in it is more in his line. Come when the apple trees are bearing, and help Philippa eat them.’
    ‘She hates Lymond still, does she?’ said Tom Erskine gently.
    Kate nodded, and after a moment said, almost against her will, ‘I don’t think that other child would, though.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Tom Erskine cheerfully. ‘Joleta and Francis Crawford are unlikely to meet. And if they do, I’ll be there to see she’s the same girl that she is now, when Gabriel comes to fetch her.’
    And he smiled over his shoulder, at where