Darling Jasmine (37 page)

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Authors: Bertrice Small

BOOK: Darling Jasmine
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“Ohh, the wicked devil!” the queen cried.
George Villiers, however, listened, not without some admiration for the marquis of Hartsfield's machinations. No one, except the clever old Madame Skye, had considered him the culprit in Stokes's murder. He would have gotten away with it, too, had not his brother confessed. He might have gotten away with it all had he not been so impatient for his revenge. It was a lesson to be learned. Sometimes revenge must wait, even if it meant a very long time.
“Cousin,” the earl of BrocCairn said, “ye must do something else Jasmine and Jemmie be killed at St. Denis's hand!”
“Ye must write to your governor in Edinburgh that the Leslies are innocent of any crime and that it is the marquis of Hartsfield who is the traitor,” the queen insisted.
“And I will carry the message myself for Your Majesty,” George Villiers said. “This matter requires a bit more authority than a plain royal messenger, my dearest lord.”
“I will accompany him,” Alexander Gordon added. “They dinna know yer pretty favorite in Edinburgh, Jamie, but they know me.”
“Barclay!” the king snapped. “Where are ye, mon?”
“Here, my lord!” the secretary said, stepping quickly forward.
“Ye hae heard,” the king told him. “Write it down, but keep it simple, for my Scots are simple people. Do it now, and then bring it back to me wi my seal to sign.” He slumped against his cousin. “I am weary, Alex. I canna take this excitement any longer. My years tell upon me, I fear.” He looked at the still kneeling Kipp St. Denis. “Ye may rise, mon. I know how hard it was for ye to come to me, but giving yer loyalty to yer king first was the proper thing to do. Ye will nae suffer for it, laddie.”
“I only ask mercy for Piers, my liege,” Kipp said. “Let me take him home and look after him. His mother was frail of mind, and I fear he has inherited her tendencies.” He brushed his knees off.
“We will see,” the king responded. “We will see. For now I would hae ye remain here at court, Master St. Denis, where I can speak wi ye when I need to again. Answer me one question before ye go. Why did ye nae kill Lord Stokes for yer brother?”
Kipp St. Denis almost recoiled at the query. “I could not harm an innocent being, my liege,” he said. “I vomited afterward, for Piers insisted that I accompany him. I shall never forget the look in the earl of Bartram's eyes when he realized what had happened.” He hung his head in shame. “God forgive me that I could not prevent my brother from his wickedness.”
The king nodded his head. “Ye may go now,” he dismissed the man. “Does he tell the truth, I wonder?” he said after Kipp had gone.
“I have heard it said,” Viscount Villiers noted, “that it was Kipp to whom the ladies were often drawn, and not Piers. I have heard it said that he is a decent man, but for his brother. What a pity he was not the legitimate son, my dearest lord. How sad that the house of St. Denis will die out now. It is, I have been told, an old name.” Then, pouring a goblet of wine from a sideboard tray, he gave it to the king. “Drink, my dear lord, and be strengthened,” he said sweetly. Then he turned his attention to the queen, while the king and his cousin of BrocCairn talked together.
“What plot do you have in your head, Steenie?” the queen inquired.
The viscount's fine dark eyes glittered, and he brushed the errant lock of chestnut hair from his forehead. “St. Denis may or may not be mad, madame, but I will wager he will never forget his position. Yet it is unlikely that he will ever have a wife, and the name will die with him and his brother.”
“Unless?”
The queen smiled, light blue eyes twinkling. “What scheme are you contemplating, my fine young coxcomb?”
“Kipp St. Denis was born first, madame, and someone only recently suggested to me that there might be something he desired above all things, but he did not think he would ever have.”
“He is a bastard sprig,” the queen said softly.
“So is your grandson, Charles Frederick Stuart,” Villiers said daringly, “and yet Prince Henry saw that he was ennobled, and had him created a duke. Do you not think Kipp St. Denis has contemplated his accident of birth many times? He would have to be a saint not to have thought about it, and I do not think he is a saint, madame.”
“You are suggesting that the king take away Piers St. Denis's title and inheritance, and give it to his half brother?”
“The marquis is mad, and a danger to himself and everyone else about one who offends the king. He must be confined or executed, madame. The king will have no choice but those two.”
“Aye,” Queen Anne agreed. “There is no other choice but death or imprisonment for Piers St. Denis.”
“But what of Kipp, madame? If the king creates him marquis of Hartsfield, the family need not die out. I even have a possible bride for him. Margaret Grey, the widowed countess of Holme. She is just nineteen, has a modest inheritance from her late husband which would serve as a dowry, as well as a two-year-old daughter, proving that she is capable of childbearing.”
“Such generosity of heart, my dear Steenie,” the queen murmured. “Why do you care what happens to Kipp St. Denis or their family name?”
“Because, madame,” Viscount Villiers said, “I can think of no greater revenge upon Piers St. Denis for all his arrogance and unkindness to my dear lord than to have him aware that his titles, his inheritance, his estate, and indeed even the bride he thought you would choose for him, have been ripped away and given to his bastard half brother.”
“If he is mad, will he understand?” the queen wondered.
“Mad, he may be, madame, but he is not insensible to what will go on about him,” George Villiers said. “It will eat into him each day as the years go by, and he will be incapable of doing anything to relieve his suffering or to regain his former status. It is the worst thing that could happen to him, madame. Execute him, and it is over for Piers St. Denis. Take and give what was his to Kipp St. Denis, and you will inflict upon him a punishment of the subtlest kind, one that will burn into his very soul.”
“You are cruel,” the queen said.
“Aye,” he agreed, not denying it.
“I will think on it,” the queen told him.
“Convince our dear lord, and the new marquis will be his devoted servant forever,” Viscount Villiers cleverly pointed out.
At that point in their conversation Barclay returned and presented the king with a document to sign. George Villiers was at once on the alert. The king read the parchment slowly, carefully, and then, taking the quill from his secretary, signed it. Barclay then spread it firmly, and the king dripped the dark red wax upon it, and then pressed first the royal seal, and secondly his own signet ring into the cooling wax. Waiting a moment for the wax to harden, Barclay then rolled the parchment up upon the table and sealed it a second time with wax. The royal seal was again imprinted upon it, and the secretary, looking up, handed the document to Viscount Villiers.
“There's time to ride out yet today,” the earl of BrocCairn said to the young Englishman, “if yer up to it, laddie.”
Villiers nodded. “Just give me a half of an hour to get ready,” he said. Then he knelt and kissed the king's hand.
James Stuart reached out and stroked the young man's silky hair. “Ahh, Steenie,” he said, “must ye go? Can my cousin of BrocCairn nae take it alone? What will I do wi'out my bonnie laddie?”
“I promised the Leslies my friendship,” George Villiers said. “It would be a poor promise if I did not help them now when I could, my dearest lord. I will not linger in your Scotland, and I will return to you as soon as I can.” He kissed the royal hand again and, rising, departed the king's privy chamber.
“He's a wee bit too pretty for my taste,” BrocCairn said bluntly, “but Jasmine and Jemmie say he's a good man. Now tell me, cousin, how is young Charles? Is there a chance I might pay my respects before I leave ye today?”
“Are ye thinking of the future, Alex?” the king teased him.
Alex Gordon looked startled at the king's comment, then he laughed. “I suppose I am,” he said. “Sandy's married, ye know, but my own Charlie is going to need some kind of living eventually. A place wi yer son might be just the thing for him. Besides, now that ye Stuarts are in England, I fear our great and extended family will begin to separate. We share a grandfather, Jamie, though my name be Gordon. For my family's sake I dinna want to lose our wee prestige wi the royal Stuarts. I need a son in England, and God knows there is little for Charlie in Scotland. His brother's wife hae already birthed an heir for us.”
“Honest as ever,” the king replied with a smile. “There's time for ye to renew yer acquaintance wi royal Charles before ye must set out for Edinburgh. Annie, will ye take our cousin to the prince? And dinna worry, Alex. We'll find something for yer laddie before the summer's end. Farewell now, and God bless ye.” The king extended his hand.
The earl of BrocCairn took it and kissed it fervently. “Farewell, cousin,” he told the king, “and God bless ye! Hae it not been for yer timely intervention, a great injustice would hae been done in yer name.”
Chapter
18
C
lan Bruce was hosting a small summer games on the other side of the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. As late summer approached the weather had turned sunny and warm.
“We'll go,” Jemmie Leslie decided. “You've seen all that Edinburgh has to offer, darling Jasmine. You've seen the castle, and blessed Queen Margaret's chapel. You've visited the markets, and the King's Cross, where my stepfather, Francis Stewart-Hepburn, Lord Bothwell, was sadly ‘put to the horn,' outlawed by his cousin, our own King James. We'll go across the water to the Bruce games, then return to Edinburgh to pack up and go back to Glenkirk.”
“But what about St. Denis?” Jasmine asked him. “We have had no word from England yet, Jemmie. Is it wise for us to go home yet?”
“St. Denis is in the north, chasing shadows,” her husband said. “We have naught to fear from him, sweetheart. As for our messenger, he will more than likely go to Glenkirk when he finds we are not here.”
They sailed across the Forth with the earl's aunt and uncle.
“Adam still loves the games,” Fiona said. “ 'Tis he who taught Jemmie how to toss the caber. He generally wins, despite his age, when he competes. You'll enjoy the games. They'll run about four or five days.”
The servants had already gone ahead to prepare the tents that would house them. The Leslie griffen flew from their tops and made their lodging easily visible. Fiona had instructed Jasmine how to dress so she would not appear unusual to the clannish Scots who were gathered. All the men wore lengths of plaid wrapped about them, and linen shirts, knit hose, and wide leather belts along with leather shoes upon their feet. The women wore ankle-length skirts and white shirts with plaid shawls, their clan badges in full view, and knitted stockings and leather shoes upon their legs and their feet. It was simple, comfortable clothing.
Their lodging was equally modest, but comfortable. There were wood and leather camp beds set up, covered with feather mattresses, and comforters. There were braziers to heat each tent. Outside the tent beneath the awning were two chairs. The servants had pallets which were placed at their lord's discretion, either inside or outside the tents. The earl of Glenkirk did not think it wise that his wife's female servant sleep out-of-doors, where she would be prey to lechers and drunkards. Maggie would be inside while Fergus and Red Hugh would be just outside the tent's entry, where they might also serve to guard their master and their mistress.
Jasmine had never experienced anything like the games, and the only time in her entire life she had slept in a tent was during the weeks in which she made her way from her father's court to Cambay on the coast. It had been a dangerous adventure then. Now, she decided, it was fun. Their hosts, the Bruces, were providing both food and drink for their guests. Great cook fires burned night and day. The fare was simple. Hot oat stirabout, oatcakes, and cider in the morning. Mutton, oatcakes, and ale in the afternoon. Many of the guests at the games supplemented this rather spartan fare. The Leslies had brought a half a wheel of cheese, fresh bread, a fat, cooked capon, wine, apples, and pears.
“All those oats give me the wind,” Adam Leslie complained. “After five days if we all turn our arses to the sea, we'll create enough of a blow to send the French fleet back to Normandy.”
Jasmine had never seen anything like the games. There were footraces. The men stripped off their shirts and ran the different courses. There was wrestling. The man to beat was the Erskine champion, a tall, bare-chested beefy fellow in his red-and-green tartan. Young men of the Bruce, MacDuff, and Lindsay clans tried, but failed. Black Ewen Erskine remained champion for these games. There was the stone pitch, in which heavy, smooth round stones were pitched with one hand down the length of a field. Happily the host clan won that contest. Then came the tossing of the caber. Logs of even length had been hewn, and now each contestant lifted up his log in turn, ran a few steps, and heaved the heavy timber as far as he could. Adam Leslie, considered almost an old man by the young clansmen, pitched his caber farther than any of the younger men. There was one contestant left. His nephew, the earl of Glenkirk. His dark hairy chest straining and wet with his effort, James Leslie launched his caber with a fierce grunt. It soared through the clear air with what seemed exquisite grace, passing the log thrown only moments earlier by Adam Leslie.
“I declare James Leslie winner of tossing the caber,” said Jock Bruce, the master of the games.
The earl grinned. “At least it's still in the family,” he teased his uncle.
“Ye'll hae to beat me three times running, laddie, before I'll gie over to ye,” Adam said, laughing. “ 'Twas a lucky throw, I'll vow, Jemmie. There are games at Sithean next month. We'll see then.”
“One of these days yer going to pull something important if ye keep on like this,” Fiona muttered ominously.
Adam Leslie slid his arm about his wife. “Naught for ye to worry about, darlin',” he said gallantly.
James Leslie had also entered the archery contest. Jasmine stood by his side, fidgeting. Her father and her brothers had taught her to shoot .“Why can't women enter the games?” she demanded of her husband. “I'm as good an archer as any man, dammit!”
“Women don't come to the games to compete,” the earl said.
“Well I wouldn't want to in most of your sports,” Jasmine responded. “They're much too rough, but women hunt, too. They know how to use a bow. I think women should be allowed to compete in archery.”
“Next she'll be wanting to join the dancing,” Adam Leslie snickered. “Lassie, lassie, keep to yer place.”
“My place?”
Jasmine's turquoise eyes flashed, and in that moment her husband caught a glimpse of the Mughal's daughter. “And, what, pray, good uncle, is
my place?”
Adam Leslie had also in the same moment as his nephew seen something so fierce and so royal in his nephew's wife that he had almost been frightened. Drawing a deep breath he said, further compounding his blunder, “Why, lassie, 'tis yer place to be a good and obedient wife to Jemmie Leslie and gie the family healthy bairns.”
Fiona began to giggle. The earl groaned.
“In other words, Uncle, I should keep silent, bow to my lord's wishes, and spend my life up on the
ben enciente!”
She snatched her husband's longbow and notched an arrow into it. Drawing the string back, she let the missile fly. It hit the target dead center. Pulling another arrow from its holder she fitted it into the bow, and loosed it. It split the first arrow in the target. Shoving the bow back at her husband, Jasmine said scathingly, “Any man who can match that shot will have five gold pieces from me. Is there any man here who would try?” She looked about the dumbstruck men. “No one?” Jasmine Leslie turned her back on the astounded men and walked away.
“Jesu!” Jock Bruce said admiringly. “She's even more woman than yer mother was, Jemmie Leslie! Where the hell did she ever learn to shoot like that? And why would a woman want to shoot?”
“She was her father's youngest child, born in his old age, and he doted upon her as did her eldest brother. They taught her so she could hunt with them,” the earl of Glenkirk said.
“What a braw lassie! Ye'll get strong sons off of her,” the host of the games said, “and she'd be mighty handy in a siege, too.”
His remark broke the tension left by Jasmine's anger, and the men laughed heartily, but the earl of Glenkirk was not amused. His wife had embarrassed him publicly not just by her actions, which had been spectacular to say the least, but by her sharp words, heard by all. He turned and stamped back to their tent. There he found Jasmine calmly drinking a cup of wine. “Do wives in India shame their husbands publicly, madame?” he demanded of her.
“This is not India,” she said calmly.
“Nay, madame, it is not.
It is Scotland!
And in Scotland women do not discomfit their men before a crowd,” he told her.
“You are just angry because I am a better shot with the longbow than you are,” she said airily. Jasmine was feeling much better now.
“Aye, you are,” he agreed, “but your words were far sharper than your arrows, and wives here do not openly speak to their husbands as you spoke to me back at the archery trial.”
“ 'Twas not you with whom I was irritated,” Jasmine replied. “ 'Twas your uncle Adam. He thinks all women should be humble, meek, and barefoot wi bairns,” she gently mocked Adam's accent.
“My uncle is of the old school,” the earl told his wife. “He believes that a woman should defer to her lord.”
“Like your Aunt Fiona?” Jasmine replied scathingly. “She leads him by the nose, Jemmie!”
“Aye, she does, but he doesn't know it,” the earl said. “I will tell you something that few people know, or remember. My Aunt Fiona was a wild creature in her youth. They say her wifely ardor put her first husband into an early grave, but he was a weak creature. Widowed, she set her sights upon my father, and why not? She was every bit his equal in breeding, being an earl's daughter. My father entered his bedchamber one evening to find Fiona there, naked upon his bed, for she sought to compromise him before he could wed my mother. Uncle Adam was with my father. He had always desired Fiona, and so my father slept in his brother's room that night while Adam tamed his Fiona. In the early days of their marriage Fiona was his slave, but then one day she realized he needed her every bit as much as she needed him. From that moment on my aunt has manipulated my uncle, but she does it in such a way that he believes nothing has ever changed and that he is still the master of his house. Fiona is very clever, darling Jasmine.”
Jasmine put her silver cup down. “Are you suggesting that I
manipulate
you, my lord?” She smiled wickedly.
He laughed in spite of himself. “Be serious, madame,” he scolded her. “My uncle is of a different time and sees women as all men saw them forty years ago. As most men in Scotland today still see their women. This is not England, with its more liberal appreciation of the fair sex, darling Jasmine. What is between us is private, but in public I do not believe I am asking too much when I ask you to yield before my manly superiority.” His green-gold eyes were twinkling as he said these last words. “And you must find a way to make your peace with my uncle, sweetheart.” He took her hand in his and kissed it.
She poured him his own cup of wine, and handed it to him. “What am I to say to him?” she asked. “That I might be breeding again?”
“Aren't you?”
he said knowingly.
“Perhaps,” she said. “I am not certain yet.
How did you know?”
Pulling her from her seat, he sat down in it, drawing her into his lap and cuddling her. “Because there is nothing about you, darling Jasmine, that I do now know; no nuance of which I am not acutely aware. You are the breath I breathe; the very beating of my heart; a part of my soul.” He kissed her slowly, deeply, lingeringly; his big hand cupping her dark head, his fingers kneading her scalp.
She sighed, molding herself close against him. “Jemmie! Jemmie!” she murmured breathlessly, pulling away from him. “The whole encampment will see us! We are not alone. What will they say?”
“They will say the earl of Glenkirk is a fool for his beautiful wife, who talks far too much for her own good,” he replied, kissing her again, “and that the earl of Glenkirk should beat his beautiful wife occasionally to keep her docile and amenable to his will.”
“You would never beat me,” Jasmine said, dismissing his words.
“Nay, I would not,” he agreed, “but if you do not behave yourself while we are here at the games, I may be tempted to give your pretty bottom a smack, madame!”
She jumped from his lap. “You would not dare!”
James Leslie eyed her lazily from his camp chair and, reaching out, pulled her back into his lap, kissing her soundly. “A woman who says
you would not dare,
when she knows damn well that I would, is either asking to be spanked or is foolish. Are you asking to be spanked, madame,” he murmured, nuzzling her soft neck.
“No!” She giggled helplessly as he nibbled at her flesh.
“Then you are foolish, darling Jasmine,” he teased. His fingers were unlacing her shirt as he spoke, and now he slipped a big hand into the garment to cup her breast. It fit into his palm like a nesting dove.
“I am not!” she protested. Oh God! Her breasts were so very sensitive now. She was surely breeding again. He rubbed the nipped insistently, teasing at it until it was hard with longing.
“Jemmie!”
she cried out softly as he laid her back against his arm, and then, lowering his head, began to suckle upon her breast. “Someone will come! Someone will see us! Ohhh, God!” She could feel the wetness between her legs.
Raising his head, he tipped her from his lap and pushed her into the tent. There were no words for the moment between them. They both knew what they wanted. Sliding to her knees upon the grassy floor of the tent, Jasmine waited but a moment for her husband to join her. Kneeling behind her, he pushed up her skirts, gazing admiringly upon the twin moons of her bottom. He loosened his own clothing and moved himself into position, pushing himself slowly into her hot, throbbing passage, groaning with pleasure as she tightened herself about him. Completely sheathed within her, he let himself enjoy the sweetness for a long moment. Then he withdrew himself very slowly before thrusting himself back hard into her quivering body. Her back arced itself concave as she ground her buttocks into his belly.

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