Wild Jasmine (50 page)

“Do you love your wife, Alex?” he asked the Earl of BrocCairn.

“Aye!”

“From the beginning?”

“Aye!”

“I do not love Sybilla, Alex. I fear I am nae in the least attracted to her. I never will be.” Then, to end any future discussion of the matter, he told Alex Gordon a small lie. “I dinna like blondes.”

Alex Gordon drank down his wine in three gulps and nodded. “I canna change the color of the lass’s hair,” he answered. “A man could learn to like blondes if he so chose, but if ye dinna love my Sibby or believe ye can love her, ’tis better we end this discussion now. I dinna want my little lass unhappy. Ye’ll understand if ye ever hae a lass of yer own.”

“Aye, perhaps I will,” James Leslie agreed, relieved to have escaped the matter so easily. “There are nae hard feelings, Alex Gordon, are there? I would keep your friendship.”

The Earl of BrocCairn offered the Earl of Glenkirk his hand. “Of course there are nae hard feelings, Jemmie. I am a doting father, I fear, and Sibby fancies herself in love wi ye. I wanted to make her happy, but now I shall consider an offer I hae had for the lass and try to convince her to accept the gentleman.”

The two men shook hands and, after a few more minutes of conversation, returned to the party.

“You will keep this to yourself, won’t you?” Alex Gordon
said, thinking that he would not tell his daughter until the morrow. Let her enjoy the fete tonight. Tomorrow was time enough for a broken heart.

“Aye,” the Earl of Glenkirk agreed, his eyes already sweeping the room for Jasmine de Marisco. Now that this business with Sybilla Gordon was settled, he was free to pursue other delights. Then he saw Jasmine dancing a graceful lavolta with her grandfather, and his green-gold eyes lit with pleasure. She was certainly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, although he knew that the standard of beauty was very different for each man. When the dance was over, he approached her and bowed.

“Will you take supper with me, Mistress de Marisco?” he asked.

The elderly Earl of Lundy grinned, pleased, and said, “Aye, she will, my lord.” Then he kissed Jasmine upon the forehead. “Run along now, my girl, and enjoy yourself. I thank you for the dance.”

Jasmine laughed. “I can scarce refuse you now, can I? My grandfather has made it quite impossible, and I expect he knew just what he was doing. Grandmama says he was quite a wicked rogue in his youth. He possessed an island called Lundy, and being the last of his line, and with few funds, he pirated, she says.”

The Earl of Glenkirk tucked her hand in his arm and they walked slowly toward the buffet.

“Your heritage fascinates me, madame. The daughter of a king, the granddaughter of a pirate. And how quickly you have become proficient in our English dances. You grow more intriguing by the minute.”

“You should not be with me, I suspect,” Jasmine said, ignoring his teasing. “I saw my stepfather spirit you off before while the rest of the guests were overwhelmed by my parrot. Fortunately, Sybilla was not aware that you had gone, for Lord Ashburne was doing his best to amuse her.”

“I can trust you, I know,” James Leslie told her, and his voice was low. “There will be no marriage between Sybilla Gordon and myself, madame. Her father, however, will nae speak of it until tomorrow.”

“Poor Sybilla,” Jasmine said honestly. “She did have her heart set on you. She will certainly find a way to blame me for this turn of events, and particularly if she sees us together having supper.”

“I want to be with you, Jasmine de Marisco,” he said.

“My lord,” she answered him, “what is it that you want of me? You seek me out constantly, even knowing the distress it causes my stepsister, who, as you know, is not very fond of me.

“I do not know what I want of you. I only know,” James Leslie said, “that I would be with you. I would know you better. There must be someplace that we might escape prying eyes. Let us find our cloaks and walk together in the gardens. You do not mind the snow, do you?”

She half laughed. “You are mad, my lord. Besides, I have not the footwear for such a stroll. Diamonds are not particularly warm.”

I am mad, he thought. He could feel a rashness sweeping over him, and though unfamiliar, the sensation was not unpleasant. “There must be somewhere we may be alone, Jasmine de Marisco,” he told her. “Think quickly, or I may be forced to cause a scene.”

“We cannot leave before the king and queen,” she protested. “My grandmother told me that just this very evening.”

“Jamie and Anne will nae miss us. There must be over three hundred people here. Did you know that you have a mouth that I suspect was just made for kissing? I would like to kiss it very much.”

She stared at him, surprised, but at the same time she thought that she might like to kiss him too. How long had it been since she had been kissed? she wondered. When was the last time Jamal had kissed her? She could not remember, and felt a burst of sadness with the realization. Jasmine turned away from Glenkirk that he might not see the tears that sprang into her eyes.

James Leslie, however, had seen the change as it appeared upon her beautiful face. “Were you thinking of your husband?” he asked her with unfailing intuition. “You have not kissed a man since his death, have you, Jasmine de Marisco? I did not mean to make you sad.”

Wordlessly she shook her head at him.

The Earl of Glenkirk steered her away from the rooms where the Twelfth Night fete was in progress and led her up the staircase of Lynmouth House.

Halfway up the second flight of steps, Jasmine regained her senses and asked, “Where are you taking me, my Lord?”

“To my apartments,” he said bluntly. “I am staying here as your uncle’s guest.”

Jasmine stopped. “I do not believe it is wise that I continue to accompany you, my lord,” she told him. “In fact, I think it most unwise for me to accompany you.”

James Leslie said nothing. Instead he tipped her face to his with a strangely gentle hand and kissed her mouth with a deep, passionate kiss. Her lips yielded beneath his instinctively, and their breaths mingled sweetly. He lifted his mouth from hers just slightly, his green-gold eyes looking deeply into her magnificent turquoise ones.

“We are both very lonely, Jasmine de Marisco, yet neither of us is ready yet to remarry. Let us share our loneliness tonight. I want to make love to you, madame. Nothing more. Nothing less. I believe that you want to make love with me. If I am wrong, then you have but to turn about and go down the stairs. I will nae follow you, nor force you to my desire.”

She stared at him, speechless. How dare he presume. How dare he even suggest such a thing.… Then he touched her face with the back of his hand, gently stroking it from the jawbone up, and with his touch Jasmine realized, to her shock, that she did indeed want to make love with him. She was no stranger to passion, and her young body was at this very moment crying out to her for surcease.

“We are both free to indulge our desires,” James Leslie said quietly. “You are so beautiful, I cannot help myself. I know that you are no wanton and have been sheltered, but you are a woman, no maid, else I should not even suggest such a liaison, madame.”

She nodded, unable to find the right words. Then he took her hand again and began to lead her up the staircase once more. She followed mutely, knowing that there was now no turning back. Nor did she want to turn back. She did not believe herself in love with James Leslie, but she longed for the intimacy that could be shared by two lovers.

They entered his apartments, and a small man hurried forward. James Leslie said, “Go discreetly, Fergus More, and fetch us some supper. Leave it upon the board in the day room and then go to bed.” Drawing her along, he entered the bedchamber. It was a square room of medium size with paneled walls, A fire burned brightly in the fireplace. A great oak bedstead hung with crimson velvet took up almost an entire wall.
He closed the door behind them firmly and, turning, took her in his arms.

“I think I must be mad,” Jasmine said, finally finding her voice. “This cannot be right, my lord.”

“Are you afraid?” he asked her, and he undid the diamond button on her jaguli, bending and leaning forward to kiss the erratic pulse at the base of her slender throat.

“Nay,” she whispered, enjoying the sensation of his warm mouth on her skin. “I have never been afraid of what men and women do together.”

In answer he slipped the second diamond button open, and her gown was opened from neck to waist. James Leslie pushed the fabric off her shoulders, his hands sliding slowly down her torso until the jaguli slithered into a silken puddle about her ankles. “Do not move!” he ordered her harshly, and literally tore his own garments off until he was as naked as she.

Jasmine struggled for breath. She was simply burning with sudden and overwhelming desire. Her eyes took him in as he pulled his clothing away. He was so fair in comparison to Jamal. His body was tall and hard-looking, his shoulders broad, and a tangled mat of dark hair lay upon his chest. Indeed, his long, sturdy legs were covered in dark hair, as was the triangle between his legs where his manhood lay, already half rampant. She had never seen a man with so much hair! The men of her country had only hair upon their heads. At least the men she had known. James Leslie pulled her roughly against him, and the first impression she had had of hardness was at once borne out. He was hard. There seemed to be no fat upon him at all. The look in his eyes, however, was both admiring and tender.

She needed to touch him. Reaching up, she caressed his face, feeling the faint stubble of whiskers beneath her fingertips. His dark eyebrows were an unruly mass, and she smoothed them, but they immediately sprang back to their original disorder. Jasmine laughed softly, and he smiled down at her. Then, picking her up, he carried her across the room to where the large bed awaited them. He placed her gently upon it and followed, his own body sinking into the feather bed next to hers.

He cradled her in the curve of an arm, a hand reaching out to touch her breasts. Fingers lightly caressed her nipples, setting them aquiver with arousal. Bending his head, he took first one nipple and then the other within the warmth of his mouth, suckling upon them and tonguing them while she murmured
with pleasure. She caressed the graceful back of his neck, feeling the hairs erecting themselves beneath her touch.

His lips found their way into the cleft between her breasts. Pressing kisses upon the soft flesh, he murmured, “What is that intoxicating scent you wear, my love? It is so deliciously elusive, but most wonderfully seductive. I have never smelled its fragrance before.”

“I am named for that fragrance, my lord,” she told him. “It is the perfume of the night-blooming jasmine flower.”

“Then you are well named, for you are exactly as you have described it, Jasmine, although surely your mama could not have known that when she named you.” He placed another warm kiss upon her skin and then looked into her eyes. “My friends call me Jemmie. You and I would not be here in this bed, Jasmine, were we not friends, would we?”

She smiled back at him. “Nay, Jemmie, we would not.”

He bent his head once more to kiss her, the pressure of his mouth parting her lips, his tongue slipping between her lips to meet with her tongue. She shivered with delight at the intimacy of the embrace. When he had sated himself with the nectar of her tongue, he began a slow, leisurely exploration of her body with his kisses. Fascinated, she watched his deliberate progress as his skilled lips warmed her, moving over her breasts, her torso, her belly, her right thigh, knee, and from her shin to her foot. With a chuckle, he removed her right slipper, then transferring his attention to her left side, he removed that slipper also before continuing his progress back up her body to her mouth again.

Placing a playful kiss upon her lips, he said, “Delicious!” And then to her surprise he turned her over. Warm kisses played across her shoulders and down her spine, while ahead of them raced a series of very pleasurable shivers preceding his lips, right to the soles of her feet. Relaxed and emboldened by his love play, she rolled away from him with a laugh.

“You shall not have all the fun, Jemmie Leslie,” she said, and pushed him, surprised, upon his back.

The Earl of Glenkirk had enjoyed a loving marriage, but neither Isabelle nor the few women he had taken to his bed after her death had ever really made love to him as this beautiful girl was now doing. She covered his body with kisses and nibbles, and then taking his lance within her mouth, she drove him to near madness before mounting him and sheathing him within her wonderful young body. With a groan of pleasure
greater than he had ever known, he rolled her onto her back, pumping himself into her over, and over, and over again. He could not seem to get enough of her, and for a moment he believed himself incapable of release until he realized that he had been waiting for her to find her own pleasure.

Beneath him Jasmine writhed frantically. Dear God! It had been so long since she had felt a man’s passion. It had been so long since she had allowed her own passions to run wild as they were now doing. She had honestly forgotten how sweet the conjunction of two hungry bodies could be.
She had forgotten until now
. She could feel his hard thighs pressing against her, could feel the urgency in his manhood’s desire communicating itself to her by its insistent throbbing, throbbing, throbbing. With a cry of pleasure, she found her heaven, and in the misty satisfaction that followed and suffused her entire being, she heard him cry out his delight as well.

Afterward they lay together, holding hands, and he finally said, “I do not think I have ever known a woman like you, Jasmine de Marisco. No woman has ever been so free with me.”

She laughed softly. “I told you I was not afraid of what transpired between a man and a woman. In my land we are taught that such things are God-given and good. There is no wantonness, you understand, but passion is not thought of as wrong or wicked.”

“Stay with me tonight,” he begged her, and Jasmine agreed, feeling less on edge than she had felt in months, and realizing, to her amusement, what had been missing from her life. She knew now that once a girl becomes a woman, there could be no going back. Fearful and in mourning, she had come to England a year ago. She had reveled in the love of her grandparents and her mother. She had allowed herself to be a child again, but the truth of the matter was that she was not a child. She was a woman, and she had a woman’s needs. There was only one person who would understand that.
Her grandmother
. She would speak with Skye tomorrow about this turn of events.