"Dunnett, Dorothy - The Game of Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunnett Dorothy)

Mariotta was returning from her errand by the wheel stair when she heard the
horses in the courtyard and guessed that Richard and his train were coming in.
The requirements of dignity fought with a wifely desire to scamper below. She
was hesitating still when footsteps turned the stair corner below and an alien
and unknown yellow head rose from the serpentine depths, a nautilus from the
shell.
Young and exhibitionist by temperament, Lady Culter gathered her skirts, darkly
glowing, and just missed a simper. "Can I help you, sir?"
Norman fairness recognizing Celtic darkness howled like a duncane. "I've got the
servants' stair again. This place was built by mouldiewarps for mouldiewarps,
and to the devil with lords and gentlemen. Jennie, m'joy, where is thy master?
The traces d'amour? The path to a Culter? Any Culter: old Lady Culter, young
Lady Culter, or his middle-aged lordship . . .
If she thought the mistake genuine, it was only for a moment. Then:
"A rather primitive sense of humour, surely?" she said pleasantly. "My husband
has not yet arrived, but his mother the Dowager is upstairs. I shall take you to
her, if you like."
A crow of delighted laughter answered her. "A Culter, and bad-tempered, and
black. Come dance with me in Ireland."
"I," said Mariotta firmly, "am Lady Culter. I take you to be a friend of my
husband's."
He came to rest two steps below her. "Take what you like. Yellow doesn't suit
you, and neither does angling for compliments."
"I-really!" said Mariotta, roused. "There is no excuse for rank bad mapners."
"Richard doesn't like me either," said the fair one sorrowfully. "But that's
unmannerly rank for you. Do you like Richard?"
"I'm married to him!"
"That's why I asked. You don't believe in polyandry by any chance?" He rested a
shoulder and elbow against the newel post,


staring at her cheerfully. "It's difficult, isn't it? I might be a distant
cousin with a quaint sense of humour, in which case you'll look silly if you
scream. I might be a well-known cretin to be kept from your guests at all costs.
Or I might be-oh no, my angel!"
Quick fingers, closing on her wrist, wrenched her up from a headlong plunge to
the lower floor, to the servants and her husband.
"-Or I might be annoyed. Don't be a fool, my dear," he said. "These were my men
you heard entering below. You are not being badgered; you are being invaded."
Held close to him as she was, she found his eyes unavoidable. They were blue, of
the deep and identical cornflower of the Dowager's. And at that, the impact of
knowledge stiffened her face and seized her pulses. "I know who you are! You are
Lymond!"
Applauding, he released her. "I take back the more personal insults if you will
take back your arm without putting it to impious uses. There. Now, sister-in-law
mine, let us mount like Jacob to the matriarchal cherubim above. Personally," he
said critically, "I should dress you in red."
So this was Richard's brother. Every line of him spoke, palimpsestwise, with two
voices. The clothes, black and rich, were vaguely slovenly; the skin sun-glazed