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"You don't owe me anything," said the Master. "There's an unnatural conspiracy to keep me alive, that's all. I hope to God you don't regret it. I hope to God I don't regret it. How the hell did you manage to thrash Palmer at cards?"
Delight rose within Scott's soul. Not expecting Lymond to say more, and not knowing that he dared not say more, the young Buccleuch explained, while the Master dressed.
Lymond was fully and impeccably dressed by the time Will had told his story, having required no help at all. It was only then that Scott, finished recounting the pleasing tale of his own triumph, became aware of a certain tension in the room, a sense of things yet unspoken. What will you do now? he had said, and it was still the old question, which he had been asking breathlessly for all the time he’d spent in the Master's service.
What Lymond did next was turn back to where Will was seated, still in the chair where the Master had pulled him, and stood looking down at him. Despite pain and laudanum, the blue eyes were clear. “It was well-played, Mr. Scott,” he said, and then frowned in dissatisfaction. “I don’t seem to have developed much of a habit of sincerity; it makes for awkward pleading in court. And now there’s little I can say to you that you would be likely to believe.”
Scott was about to protest, for he had already heard as much as his confused heart required. But instead Lymond bent down, despite the agony it must have caused him, and kissed him full on the slackened mouth.
“O miracle, I think the door is open,” he said rapidly, straightening. “Mihi habitote dulcis, amata...I’ll go and see if the summons has come.”
This time it was Will’s hand that shot out to stop him. “If you owe me any thanks at all, I’m damned if you’re leaving without explaining why you did that.”
The single candle that Lauder had left behind was guttering, but it was yet summer, and the early dawn was already beginning to pale behind the high window of the Tolbooth. “Why do I do anything?” the Master asked, his face thus uncertainly lit. “The number of my follies is infinite, as Solomon nearly said; it’s a shame you weren’t in court yesterday to hear them enumerated.”
Scott was implacable. “Why now?”
With a near-imperceptible yielding of the captured arm, Lymond surrendered temporarily to questioning. “The unreformed spirit of rebellion? In the same place at the same time,” he explained, “I managed to describe you, God and all his angels help me, as a ‘normal and lively youngster.’ This was in the course of denying an aspersion on your virtue that I knew patently to have been untrue.”
“It was untrue,” spoken with a rising inflection. He was thinking, of course, of the Ostrich, and all the tumult of heightened emotion he had then suffered.
“Would it have bound you closer or lost you entirely if it hadn’t been? I asked myself the question, and hence knew that any action was impossible. Unlike Lady Lennox, I do not deal in adulterated coin.”
Will Scott’s pulse was beating quickly: he felt himself at the card table again, wagering everything on a bluff. “And now?”
“Now, Mr. Scott, we find ourselves before a vista of vast and dizzying possibilities. I have almost brought myself to believe it, you see – enough of almost to be momentarily incautious. Will you hold me to the lapse?”
“Yes,” Will said decidedly, tightening his grip around the fine bones of the wrist, and the Master laughed.
“Yes, perhaps – I admire your resolution, gaming and lechery in a single night – but not, my dear, just now. Those are boots belowstairs, and the sun appears to be rising.”