“You will pay dearly for your wickedness, my lord,” she promised him, reluctantly removing her hand from his manhood.
“As shall you, darling Jasmine, for keeping me waiting,” he responded threateningly, his green-gold eyes laughing into her turquoise ones. “No matter how many years we are wed, I shall never tire of you.”
“A bold promise, but then you are a bold man, Jemmie Leslie,” Jasmine told him.
Suddenly the room was filled with a shrill and eerie noise. James Leslie looked quickly up. Into the hall came a man in a green kilt with a narrow red and a narrow white stripe identical to the one which James Leslie wore that day. He was playing the bagpipes as he came, each step measured, and dignified. He stopped before the highboard where the bridal party were seated, playing on, a sweetly melancholy tune. When he had finished, he bowed low to the earl of Glenkirk.
“Alpin More!”
James Leslie said, a smile upon his face. “How came you here this day? You are a very long way from Glenkirk.”
“Yer brothers and sisters thought I should be here this day, my lord, and Lady de Marisco agreed. She arranged for me to be brought south. I hae traveled a long way indeed, but we could nae hae ye wed again wiout yer piper, my lord. I played for ye when ye wed Lady Isabelle, may God grant her soul peace. Now I hae played for ye and yer new lady, may God bless ye both!” He bowed again.
“Jasmine, this is Alpin More, my piper,” James Leslie said to his bride. “Alpin, my wife, Lady Jasmine Leslie.”
“I have never heard the pipes played so beautifully, Alpin More,” Jasmine said. “I hope you will play for us again soon.”
The piper bowed once more to his new mistress. She was far more beautiful than the earl's first wife had been. He hoped she could have children, for his master needed an heir. The bride was not very young, but then neither was she very old, and she had already had children, or so he had been told. “I wish ye long life, and many bairns,” he told Jasmine gallantly with a smile.
“What a fine wish, Alpin More!” Jasmine told him. “I would have many sons for my lord, and may you play for them one day as well.”
The piper grinned broadly, well pleased by her words, which he would repeat to all when he returned to Glenkirk. Perhaps by the time the earl brought his bride home to Scotland she would already be ripening with the Leslie's heir. That would certainly please everyone.
“Now that you have heard the piper,” Skye said softly to the bridal couple, “would you not like to depart the hall?”
“But Grandmama, have you not planned for dancing, and for other entertainments?” Jasmine said, surprised at their dismissal.
“Darling girl, do you really wish to remain here when your new husband is in such a state of lust for you?” her grandmother asked, laughing. “Granted I have more years than anyone else in this room tonight, but my memory is still quite intact. A wedding night, be it the first, or the thirdâno matter you have been lovers beforeâis still a wonderful night. I remember all of mine in exquisite detail, even the unhappy ones. While it is true that being June it is still quite light out of doors; and the night when it comes will last but a short time, would you not prefer to spend that time alone with James Leslie? I know that if I were you, I should!”
The earl of Glenkirk arose from the highboard, drawing his countess up with him. He bowed to the countess of Lundy and, taking her hand in his, he said, “Madame, you are a woman of the utmost sensitivity. I salute you!” Then he kissed Skye's hand. “I am content to withdraw with my bride from this magnificent celebration that you have given us.” He then released her hand and, bowing again, departed the hall with his blushing bride in tow, the cheers of his new relations ringing in his ears.
Skye watched them go, her Kerry blue eyes misty, a smile of remembrance upon her lips.
Well, old man, are you satisfied now?
she said silently.
I have gotten her safely wed to Lord Leslie, and by this time next year we shall probably have another descendant for me to dote upon. God's boots, I wish you were still here with me, Adam! They say that time softens the pain of death, but I probably miss you more tonight than the night you left me so suddenly. And there is time for me yet before I can join you, Adam. I sense it. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about it.
She felt an arm go about her shoulders, and smiled up into her son Robin's handsome face. He bent his head and kissed her cheek.
“He would be pleased, Mama. This is what he wanted for Jasmine,” the earl of Lynmouth said. “He wanted her safe, and now she is.”
“I know,” Skye answered her son.
“But?”
he queried her.
“I do not know,” she said softly. “There is something. I sense it, Robin. Yet I do not know what, and I cannot imagine what.”
“Perhaps it is just your fancy, Mama. It has, after all, been a difficult year for you, beginning with Adam's death, and then your travels to France. You are not, after all, as young as you once were.”
“You sound like Willow,” she accused him.
“God forbid!” the earl of Lynmouth exclaimed.
“Nay, Robin, there is yet some shadow lurking about Jasmine,” Skye told him. “It is not the imaginings of an old lady.”
“Then when it comes, Mama, we shall, as this family has always done, rally about our own and solve the problem,” Robin Southwood said.
Skye smiled up at her third son. “Aye, my dear, I suppose we shall. Until then I intend enjoying the summer with both my daughter and my granddaughter about me. And come the autumn I shall be just as glad to see them return to Scotland, as I was to see them come to Queen's Malvern,” she chuckled. “Then Daisy and I shall settle down to a quiet winter, which I know will please my old friend. I was always too much for her, Robin, and I fear she has grown too old to cope with me.” Skye chuckled. “She is nearer to eighty than I am.”
“Boredom has never pleased you, Mama,” he said. “You will find some mischief to get into, I have not a doubt.”
Skye O'Malley de Marisco laughed at this observation. “Aye,” she agreed with him, “I probably shall, Robin.”
Chapter
13
J
asmine Leslie saw Glenkirk Castle for the first time on a sunny late-August afternoon. Of dark gray stone, it was battlemented and had four towers, one at each of the major compass points. It sat upon the crest of a hill, surrounded by forested hills. Its great oak drawbridge was down, welcoming her, and Jasmine Leslie knew in her heart as sure as she had ever known anything that she had come home. It was an incredible revelation for a princess, raised at the Imperial Indian court, who had known far greater palaces than the small stone edifice, topping the uneven green hill. And yet she knew!
Glenkirk was home!
How long had it been waiting for her? Her heart soared, beating just a little faster, and then she heard Adali say but one word.
“Yes.”
She turned and saw that he, too, felt the magic, and she smiled at him even as he smiled back.
“What do you think?” her bridegroom asked nervously. “Can you be happy here for almost half a year each year, darling Jasmine?”
Seated upon her stallion she turned her head to him, and nodded. “Aye, Jemmie, I can be happy anywhere as long as I am with you. The castle is beautiful. It's a wonderful place for the children.”
“You are seeing it at its best,” he told her. “I did warn you that the autumn is Scotland's best time. There is much gray and rain and mist the rest of the year.”
“I don't care,” she said. “It is the land, the castle, the forest, they all sing to me, my lord. Rain or shine, it will matter not to me.
I have come home.”
The earl of Glenkirk's handsome face split with a wide smile. He could not have been happier to hear her words. He had always loved his home, but after Isabella and the children had died it had seemed such an empty place and was suddenly unfamiliar. Yet this was where he had been raised with his three younger brothers, and his five younger sisters. It had, for many years, been a warm happy place. Now it would be again with Jasmine and her children and the children they would have together. His spirits rose, and his smile broadened once more.
“There are men-at-arms on the battlements!” young Henry Lindley said in an excited voice. “Oh, Papa, 'tis a grand castle!” His horse danced nervously next to the earl's stallion. “Can I ride ahead, sir?” he asked his stepfather.
“Nay, laddie,” Fergus More interposed. “ 'Tis the first time in many, many years that the earl has been home. 'Tis he who must be first of this party into Glenkirk.”
“But I could go ahead, and tell them that we're coming,” the boy said hopefully.
“They already know we're coming,” Fergus More said, and he pointed in the direction of the castle.
From Glenkirk's courtyard and out over the drawbridge they came, up the road that wound down from the hills and toward the mounted party that rode onward to the castle. Clansmen. Leslie clansmen. Mounted and on foot; banners flying; a troupe of pipers led by Alpin More, who was Fergus's kin, leading them as they came. The savage joy of the music rose on the wind, and instinctively the Scotsmen straightened in their saddles. The earl was dressed today as he had dressed every day since they had crossed over the border, in breeches and high boots, leather jerkin over his linen shirt, a cap with a chieftain's badge on his head. Long gone, it seemed to Jasmine, was the elegant English courtier James Leslie had previously appeared to be.
“See that green-and-white banner, Jasmine,” he said, pointing. “Those are the Leslies of Sithean. We all descend from the first earl of Glenkirk, but the second earl's sister managed to obtain Sithean for her son and his descendants. And I see my uncle Patrick riding at the head of his people. And I see my cousin, his heir, with his father. Behind the red, white, and green banner are the Leslies of Glenkirk. My uncles and my brothers will be there.” His voice had risen just slightly with his excitement.
“You should have come home long since, Jemmie,” Jasmine told him, reaching out to touch his hand.
“I almost did once, but then the king wept that he needed my acumen, with poor Cecil dead, and so I remained to serve James Stuart,” the earl told her. “But for our English summers, darling Jasmine, I do not think I shall ever leave Scotland again. My heart is full just looking about me, hearing the pipes welcoming me back.”
Now they drew to a halt, allowing the clansmen to come to them, and they did, surrounding the earl's party with shouts of joy to see him back amongst them and for having brought a new countess. They reached out to touch the earl and his wife, and Jasmine, following her husband's lead, reached back, her beautiful hand brushing the rough hands thrust toward her, a smile on her lips, her turquoise eyes dancing with an open delight that plainly told of her pleasure to be among them. When they had heard he had taken an English wife they had expected a haughty milady, a nervous creature who would recoil at their noisy earthiness, but this was no milksop. This was a real woman, and the clansmen were delighted.
The earl of Glenkirk and his party were escorted into the castle courtyard. Before either the earl or Adali could help Jasmine from her mount, she was whisked off it by a large, bushy-bearded clansman, who set her gently on her feet with a courtly bow and a grin.
“And who are you?” Jasmine demanded of him, eyes twinkling.
“Red Hugh More, madame, son and grandson of the same,” he said with another bow. “I'm the captain of yer guard.”
“The castle's guard,” Jasmine said.
“Nay, madame,
yer guard,”
was the reply.
“I have my own guard?” Jasmine was surprised.
“As hae every countess of Glenkirk before ye,” he said. “This is Scotland, and Scotland is nae always a peaceful place.”
“So my husband has told me,” Jasmine said, laughing. “Well, Red Hugh More, this is Adali, who has been responsible for my life since I was born. You will cooperate in the matter of my safety, eh?”
Red Hugh More looked over the half-Indian, half-French Adali. It was a swift, but skilled assessment that was returned in kind. “He looks like he can handle himself,” was his vocal decision.
“I can garrote a man without his even hearing me enter the room behind him,” Adali said softly. “It is a quick, silent death.”
A slow smile slid over Red Hugh's features. “We'll get on well,” he said. “I like a man who can kill wiout a lot of blood to clean up.” Then, bowing to Jasmine, and with a respectful nod to Adali, he withdrew, allowing them to enter the castle.
James Leslie surprised his wife by picking her up and carrying her into the building. “ 'Tis an old custom, carrying the bride over the threshold, darling Jasmine,” he said, setting her on her feet, then taking her hand and leading her up the wide staircase to the second floor of the castle. The children, Adali, Rohana, and Toramalli, came closely behind them, eyes darting this way and that. The earl led them four steps up into an anteroom, and then four steps down into the Great Hall of Glenkirk Castle.
Jasmine's eyes widened. It was an absolutely marvelous room. Huge fireplaces flanked by tall arched windows were set on each side of the room. Hanging from the hall's rafters were multihued silken banners which had been carried into the many battles that the Leslie clan had fought over the centuries. At the end of the room was the highboard which was set in a T-shape. There were arched windows behind it on either side. Over each fireplace was hung a full-length portrait. The painting on the right was of a handsome male in the full flush of his manhood. The painting on the left was of an exquisitely beautiful young girl with an innocent, yet haunting look about her.
“Who are they?” Jasmine asked her husband, mesmerized.
“He is Patrick Leslie, the first earl of Glenkirk, King James IV's ambassador to the duchy of San Lorenzo. He was my great-great-great-grandfather. She is Lady Janet Leslie, his daughter, my great-great-grandmother. She is dressed in her betrothal gown, for she was to marry the heir to San Lorenzo, but instead was the lady of whom I told you, who was kidnapped and became a sultan's favorite and a sultan's mother. It was her youngest son, Prince Karim, who was smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire as a little boy and became Charles Leslie, the first earl of Sithean.”
“She is wonderful!” Jasmine said.
“Aye, I am told she was. My father remembered her, for she did not die until after she had arranged his marriage to my mother, who was just a tiny bairn at the time. She was always arranging everything,” he chuckled.
“Something like my own grandmama,” Jasmine smiled.
“Aye, I expect Madame Skye and Janet Leslie would have gotten along very well together,” he agreed.
“My lord, welcome home!” An elderly man made his way forward.
“Thank you, Will. This is your new mistress, Lady Jasmine Leslie. Jasmine, this is Will Todd, the castle caretaker. He has faithfully looked after Glenkirk since I left it.”
“And right glad I am to see yer lordship home,” Will Todd said. “Now, with yer lordship's permission, and if I am no longer needed, I can retire to my wee cottage and go fishing for the salmon that hae gotten so fat in yer lordship's absence.”
“What?” the earl teased the old man. “There are still salmon left in my streams? I would have thought them all poached by now, Will.”
“There are plenty of fine salmon for yer lordship. As to poachers, it is difficult to say as we hae nae ever counted the fishies,” the caretaker teased his master back.
“Aye, Will,” the earl said, “you may go back to your cottage, and you will lack for nothing for the rest of your days, I promise you; but before you leave me, I would have your help a final time.” James Leslie drew Adali forward. “This is Adali, who has been in my wife's service since she was born. He will now take over the running of Glenkirk Castle for us, but he will need your help for the next several months that he know what to do, and where everything is, and who is to be trusted, and who will work hard, and who will not. Will you aid him, Will Todd?”
“Aye, my lord!” the caretaker said, and then he shook Adali's hand, looking him up and down as he did so. “Hae ye ever run a big house, Master Adali? As big as this one, I mean?”
Adali forced back a smile, and said gravely, “Aye, Master Todd, I have. My lady's childhood home was a large household.”
“Good! Good! Then ye'll nae hae difficulty in learning our ways, and I'll be fishing all the quicker,” he chortled.
“I have never fished, Master Todd,” Adali said.
“Will, me name is Will, Master Adali, and I'll be glad to teach ye. Our salmon and our trout are worthy opponents, not to mention verra tasty when cooked over a slow fire,” he chuckled.
“I shall look forward to it,” Adali said. “And you will call me Adali, Will Todd, for we are equals in this household.”
The old man nodded. He liked Adali's good manners and the fact that this stranger did not attempt to lord it over him. It boded well for all the servants that their new master was not just polite, but obviously a kind fellow. Then his eye lit on the children. “Bairns?” For a moment he looked a bit confused, but the earl explained.
“These are my wife's children from her previous marriage. Lord Henry Lindley, and the ladies India and Fortune Lindley, Will. The littlest bairn is a very special child.” He nodded to the duke of Lundy's nursemaid, who was carrying him, to come forward. “This wee lad, Will, is Prince Henry's son, Charles Frederick Stuart. We call him Charlie-boy. The king has done me a great honor by giving me his mother to be my wife; and he has put his only grandson under my protection.”
“Prince Henry's laddie?” Will Todd's eyes filled with tears. “Ah, 'tis sad, my lord. 'Tis sad, but we'll keep the bairn safe wi us here at Glenkirk. The king hae done us a great honor; but then when did the Leslies nae gie the Stuarts their complete loyalty?”
“Always, Will,” James Leslie agreed.
“The children are tired after our long journey, my lord,” Jasmine interposed. “I think they must have their supper and go to bed. Tomorrow they can explore, and see all of Glenkirk, but for now I think the day is over for them.”
“I'll show ye their quarters, m'lady,” Will Todd said eagerly.
“I will go with them,” Adali said, “and then return. The journey has been long for you as well, my princess,” he finished meaningfully.
She nodded.
“Come, and we'll sit by the fire,” the earl said. “Toramalli, there is wine on the sideboard. Bring us each a goblet. Already I can hear the family tramping up the stairs. There will be no rest for us for several hours, darling Jasmine, but we'll take a small respite.”
The children and their servants followed Adali and Will Todd from the hall even as a troupe of people began to enter it. It was going to take time to sort out all these new relations, but Jasmine could already recognize the Leslies in the crowd. James Leslie's paternal uncles all came forward. James, the Master of Hay; Adam, who had been closest to the earl's father; Michael, the youngest brother, a big, ruddy man in his middle fifties. There was his father's cousin, the old earl of Sithean, who was married to his father's sister; and his son, Charles, who was married to James Leslie's sister, Amanda. And, of course, there were his two brothers. Colin, the Master of Greyhaven, and Robert Leslie of Briarmere Moor. They clapped the earl of Glenkirk upon the back and embraced him happily.