Wild Jasmine (51 page)

They slept and awoke to make love again. They ate the food that had been placed upon the sideboard in the day room by the discreet Fergus More and made love again. They fell back asleep, only to be awakened by the sound of a woman’s outraged screams pealing over and over again in their brains until Jemmie Leslie and Jasmine de Marisco sat up in bed to find themselves facing a furious Lady Sybilla Gordon.

“
Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!
” Sybilla shrieked, tears pouring down
her face. “You had to steal him from me, didn’t you? First my mother, then Papa, and now the only man I have ever loved, or will love! I will never forgive you!
I will kill you!
” and so saying, Sybilla Gordon threw herself at Jasmine.

James Leslie leapt from the bed in an attempt to protect his lover, and, seeing a man stark naked for the first time in her entire life, Sybilla’s eyes grew wide with shock. She gasped and backed away. A hand flew to her throat and then, with another great cry, she fainted, even as her family, drawn by her screams, poured into the bedchamber. Jasmine, a coverlet clutched to her bosom in an attempt at modesty, did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Her eyes met those of her grandmother’s, and she would have sworn that Skye found herself in a similar predicament.

For a moment all was silence, and then Alex Gordon, the Earl of BrocCairn, demanded furiously, “What the hell is going on here?”

There were several snickers from among the people crowding into the room, and then Skye said dryly, “God’s nightshirt, Alex, is it not obvious? Sybilla has caught Lord Leslie and Jasmine in what can most certainly be called a very compromising situation. Velvet, see to Sybilla! James Leslie, either get back into bed, or put on your breeches. We’ve seen quite enough!”

The Earl of Glenkirk had the good grace to flush, and reaching for his breeches, drew them quickly on.

Skye turned about. “The rest of you go to bed! I can but thank God the guests are all gone and a serious scandal has been averted. Not one word of this is to be spoken of by any of you. Do you understand?” They nodded and departed.

Sybilla was regaining consciousness. “
Mama!
” she whimpered piteously. “
Ohhhhh, Mama!
”

“There, my darling, ’tis all right,” Velvet soothed the girl, stroking her blond head.

“It will never be all right again,” Sybilla sobbed. “She has stolen my betrothed husband from me! Ohhhhh, I shall die!”

Velvet patted her stepdaughter’s hand sympathetically and helped her up and into a chair. “Do not weep, Sibby. No man is worth that many tears. Jasmine has not stolen Lord Leslie from you. He was never really yours, dear heart.” She hugged the girl comfortingly.

“We were to be married! Papa promised!” Sybilla wailed, pulling away from Velvet.

“
Alex!
” Velvet looked to her husband. “Tell her the truth!”

Alex Gordon knelt beside his daughter’s chair. “He’ll nae hae ye, Sibby,” he began. “We spoke last night, but I didna want to tell ye until this morning. Ye were having such a good time at your uncle’s fete.”

“
He’ll not have me?
” Sybilla Gordon’s tone implied that such a thing could absolutely not be possible. “Why not? It is the bitch! He would have her instead of me! Is that it?”

“Nay,” her father answered.

“
Then why?
” Sybilla demanded. “Why will he not have me?”

“He doesna fancy blondes,” Alex replied helplessly. He would not hurt his daughter with the rest of Glenkirk’s answer.

“
He does not fancy blondes?
” Sybilla echoed her father’s words. She jumped to her feet, fully recovered, and stalked across the room to where James Leslie stood. “What, my lord,” she shouted at him, poking a sharp finger into his bare chest, “what do you mean you do not like blondes? What a ridiculous excuse! I am the only daughter of the Earl of BrocCairn. I am related to the king himself! How dare you refuse me!” She stamped her small foot, and her visage was crimson with her fury. No one in her family could ever remember seeing Sybilla so enraged.

“Very well then, Lady Gordon,” the Earl of Glenkirk said coldly. He, too, was angry. He had been publicly embarrassed by this irritating girl, as had Jasmine. He no longer felt the need for tact. “If it is the truth you want, ’tis the truth you’ll get.
I do not like you
. I find you spoiled and mean-spirited. I could not possibly ever love you, and I would not marry you if you were the last female on the face of the earth!
Do you understand now?
”

“I suppose you would prefer to wed with your whore?” Sybilla said acidly, casting a scathing glance at Jasmine and struggling to hold back her tears. She would not let him see her cry. She would never cry over a man again. Her mother was right. Men were not worth a woman’s tears. But God, her heart ached so from the blow he had delivered with his hard, unfeeling words! How had she ever believed herself to be in love with James Leslie? He was a terrible man!

“My daughter brings up an interesting point, my lord,” Alex Gordon said quietly. “You have most certainly compromised my stepdaughter. I think perhaps you must marry her now if the wrong is to be righted. We want no scandal.”

“But I do not want to many him,” Jasmine spoke up quickly.

“This is not your decision!” Alex Gordon snapped at her.
He was angry at the girl, and yet he had no right to be. James Leslie had been quite honest in his refusal of Sybilla last evening. He should be angry with Sybilla for causing all this furor. What the hell was she doing creeping about the Earl of Glenkirk’s bedchamber in the first place?

“It most certainly is my decision,” Jasmine told him. “
I am not your daughter.
”

“Nay, you are not,” the Earl of BrocCairn said. “But you are my wife’s daughter, and as such, you are legally in my charge. This man has seduced you. He can only restore your honor by marrying you.”

“You are wrong, my lord,” Jasmine told him with a little laugh. “Jemmie did not seduce me.
We seduced each other
. I am a widow, no virgin. We were lonely last night and but sought to comfort each other. I will not be forced into a marriage for such a trifle. I do not choose to marry Lord Leslie, and he, I am quite certain, does not wish to marry me.”

If Jasmine had fascinated James Leslie before, she fascinated him even more now. Any other woman of his acquaintance would have jumped at the chance to marry him. For his part, he said nothing, but his silence was far more eloquent than anything he might have said.

“Velvet, Alex,” Skye said, “take Sybilla to her room and put her to bed. Jasmine, get dressed and come home.”

“Yes, Grandmama,” was the obedient reply, but Jasmine’s eyes twinkled mischievously, even as did her grandmother’s.

The room emptied, but for the Earl of Glenkirk and Jasmine de Marisco. She stepped naked from the bed and began to quickly dress herself, for the room was cold and the fire had burned itself to embers.

“Why do you not wish to marry me?” he asked her, curious.

“There are several very good reasons, Jemmie,” she replied, buttoning her jaguli. “First, I am not yet ready to marry. Nor, I believe, are you. My family tells me there is no other life for a woman but marriage. I will accept their wisdom in the matter, but not quite yet. I am sure your family wants you to remarry and sire sons, do they not?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “They do. Isabelle and our lads will be dead five years this spring.” His handsome face was suddenly sad.

“Neither of us should be forced into another union for the sake of others, Jemmie,” Jasmine said wisely. “When we wed again, it should be because we
want
it. For me, I must be in
love! Perhaps I am a fool, but I do not believe I can be happy without love. I did, in my own way, love Jamal, but ’twas not, I think, a deep and abiding love. That is what I want next time. Every woman, I think, deserves that kind of love!”

“If you have not had it, how can you know of such love?” he asked her. He picked up the strings of Persian lapis and pearls that had been entwined in her hair and handed them to her. Her long, dark tresses had come undone during one of their love bouts, and the thin gold strands with their beads had become entangled with the sheets.

“My grandparents have such a love. Can you not see it? I can! I will have that kind of love when I wed again, and so should you, dear Jemmie! Do not settle for any less!” Jasmine slipped her slender feet into her diamond-studded slippers and smiled at him. “I have enjoyed our time together very much,” she said quietly, and then, blowing him a kiss, she left the room.

He felt strangely bereft at her departure. She was a most intriguing woman. He had been drawn to her from the first moment he had laid eyes upon her. He thought, perhaps, that he should get to know her better, and then he smiled at himself. After last night he knew her quite well. It was time, as his relations were forever reminding him, that he remarry. Jasmine de Marisco would certainly make a very elegant Countess of Glenkirk, but he would need, he realized from her words, time in which to court her, time to convince her that her place was by his side.

My God!
he thought.
Am I falling in love with her?
It would certainly not be hard to fall in love with her. Yet she was so very different from Isabelle. His marriage to Isabelle had been a carefully arranged one, and although they had liked one another, there had been no great passion between them. Bella had been more like one of his sisters, but for the children they shared. Still, he would have remained faithful to her had she not died.

Unlike his father, who had a roving eye, James Patrick Charles Adam Leslie was a one-woman man. Jasmine de Marisco would like that, he realized. Her involvement with him last night had not really been a casual one. She would not have given herself to him lightly. She would be, he instinctively knew, a one-man woman when she found the right man. He knew now it was up to him to convince her that he might be that one man who could make her happy. She would not have him otherwise.

Chapter 13

T
he falling snow made the January mid-morning seem darker than it actually was. Skye and Adam de Marisco, forced by circumstance to relent their decision in the matter of Sybilla Gordon, had allowed the girl to return to Greenwood House temporarily.

“It is simply not proper that she remain at Lynmouth while Lord Leslie is there,” Skye told her husband.

Sybilla Gordon now stood before her father in the library of Greenwood. Her grandparents and her mother were also present, as was her hated rival. If they had expected her to be chastened by all that had transpired earlier, they were mistaken.

“I want the truth, Sybilla,” Alex Gordon said in a hard voice that Sybilla had never heard him use toward her before.

“What truth, Papa?” she answered sweetly.

“Why did ye go to Lord Leslie’s room early this morning?” the Earl of BrocCairn demanded. “You certainly hae no business there.”

Sybilla bit her lip in vexation. Her father was correct. No virgin of good family and breeding would go to a man’s bedchamber, yet she had.

“Well, Sybilla? Hae ye no answer for me?” Alex pressed. “Am I to believe that ye went to play the wanton, the better to further yer cause wi Jemmie Leslie?”

Sybilla flushed. “I did not go to play the wanton,” she lied. “I simply wanted to say good-night to Lord Leslie. You said you would speak with him, and I believed a match had been made between us.” The truth was that she had indeed gone to compromise James Leslie in hopes that he would have no choice but to marry her. Sybilla was no fool, and she realized that all her maidenly wiles had neither impressed nor intrigued the Earl of Glenkirk. Then she noticed late in the evening that she had not seen either James Leslie nor Jasmine de Marisco for some time. She was desperate and she was afraid. But most of all, she had been enraged to think Jasmine might be with the man she loved.

Alex Gordon did not believe his daughter, but he loved her. Sibby was obviously hurt, and she was certainly angry. Whatever the truth of the matter was, it no longer mattered. He had come to a decision about Sybilla, and now he told her of it.

“I spoke wi the Earl of Kempe this morning. Ye will be married to him on St. Agnes Day, Sybilla,” he said. “Tom Ashburne is a good and decent man. He loves ye and will make ye an excellent husband.”

Sybilla grew pale. “No!” was the single word she uttered.

“This is nae your decision to make, Sybilla,” her father said firmly. “Ye hae made a fool of yerself over James Leslie, but now ’tis over, lassie. Ye’ll wed and settle down like a proper maid.”

“I’d sooner enter a convent!” Sybilla declared dramatically, tears filling her blue eyes.

“ ’Tis nae an option open to ye, Sibby,” her father replied, amused, his tone softening a bit. “Think about it, lass. Ye’ll be a countess,
and
an English countess to boot. Ye’ll be welcome at court, and Ashburne will dote on ye, I fear. He’ll gie ye the world.”

“He is very handsome,” Velvet volunteered. “You will make a most stunning couple, dear heart. Ohh, we have so much to do and such a short time in which to do it, but you will have a fine wedding!”