Skye laughed. “There are none,” she chuckled. “I just wanted Jasmine to consider what had happened without further distractions. ’Twas nicely done, my lord. You were forceful, yet loving. Continue on in that manner, and you will gain your objectives.”
Eventually, he joined Jasmine and the children, all of whom were delighted to see him, and rushed at him, crying, “Papa! Papa!” He shook young Henry’s hand and kissed the others warmly. The four youngsters were in excellent health and obviously having a wonderful time with their de Saville cousins.
“We’re going home to England soon,” Henry said.
“I know,” the earl answered him. “Your mother and I will come shortly afterward, and be married at Queen’s Malvern on the fifteenth day of June. Will you stand by my side as my witness, Henry?”
The boy marquis of Westleigh nodded enthusiastically. “Aye, Papa, I will, and gladly!” Then he sobered a bit. “Do you mind that we call you Papa? I know you are not yet wed to our mother, but . . .”
“I am pleased and honored that you would accept me in such a capacity, Henry,” James Leslie answered.
“Will you teach me to use a sword properly?” Henry asked.
“We will begin this summer,” the earl promised him.
The rest of the day sped by. They partook of a lavish meal with the comte de Cher and his wife, Helene. The comte’s heir, Phillippe, his wife Marie-Claire, and the comte’s two daughters, Gaby and Antoinette and their families were also there to meet the earl of Glenkirk.
“We know your cousins, the Leslie de Peyracs,” Gaby said. “There is the possibility of a match between our two families.”
“May it prove advantageous for both sides,” the earl murmured politely. “My mother’s uncle is, of course, long gone, but I am not particularly fond of his widow, the ancient dowager, Adele. She rules the roost, or so I am told.”
Gaby nodded. “I know the old witch well, but ’tis one of her great-granddaughters who is to wed our middle son. They will live here in the Loire with us, and not at Château Petite.”
The conversation continued on in such a vein. The comparison of families, local gossip, and curiosity as to when the wedding between Jasmine and the earl would take place. The de Savilles were filled with regret that it would not be celebrated at Belle Fleurs, but they understood, and wished the couple well. Finally their departure could be delayed no longer. Jasmine appeared close to tears.
“Do not distress the bairns, sweeting,” the earl said softly.
“You are always telling me not to weep over my children,” she snapped at him, but her melancholy was already gone.
“Let me know when you intend arriving,” Skye said cheerfully. “ ’Twill be good to have you home again. Remember, your mother and your brothers will be arriving May first. How delighted my Velvet will be to see her grandchildren at long last!”
“I cannot help but think that you and Jemmie have somehow manipulated me, Grandmama,” Jasmine muttered darkly.
“Why, darling girl, what a dreadful thought,” Skye protested. “I am doing you a great favor. If you think it is easy for a woman of my years, yet in deepest mourning, to travel with four active children, then keep them and bring them yourself!”
“You would swoon if I agreed to such a thing,” Jasmine teased her grandmother. “Nay, I do appreciate your kindness, but I will miss them.” She hugged the older woman warmly.
“Get on with you, you clever vixen,” her grandmother said. “I will see you in England, and do not dally too long with that delicious man you are to marry, although I should not blame you if you sampled a few of the honeymoon delights while still here in France. Spring is coming, Jasmine, and the sap is rising in all living things!”
She and the earl laughed at Skye’s parting remark as they rode back to Belle Fleurs. “Can you imagine her in her youth?” Jasmine said.
“The thought is absolutely terrifying,” he replied, grinning. Then, “Are you game for some chess this evening, madame?”
“After I have bathed,” she said. “Do you not tire of being beaten, Jemmie?” She giggled mischievously and, kicking her mare into a canter, let him chase her back home. This time, however, he did not stop until his horse had reached the inner courtyard of the château, beating her by several lengths.
“Your stallion’s legs are much longer than my mare’s,” she complained prettily. “Just wait until I have my great beast back under me. Only then will we be evenly matched.”
“I already think us evenly matched,” he said, lifting her down from her horse. Then he kissed her in a slow and leisurely fashion, letting his lips taste her mouth with outrageous sensuality. “You do not have to wait to return to England, Jasmine, to have this great beast beneath you,” he murmured softly, nuzzling at a strand of hair that had come loose in their ride. His big hands remained still, molding her slender waist between his fingers.
Was she breathing? Aye, she was breathing, but barely. His hands were burning through the soft tanned deerskin of her jerkin, through the cambric of her shirt. His mouth on hers had been startling, but when he pushed at her hair with the tip of his nose her head had swum tipsily. She reached out to put her hands upon his shoulders, steadying herself against his bulk. “I think you go too quickly with me, Jemmie,” she whispered breathlessly.
“And I think you go too slowly with me, Jasmine,” he quickly countered. “We are neither of us children and know the path we are taking.” A slow smile lit his features, crinkling the corners of his green eyes. “Let us make a wager on the outcome of tonight’s chess match between us. Are you game?”
She nodded. His hands felt so strong on her flesh. “What hazard do you propose, sir?” She suddenly had the most incredible urge to be naked before him. And have him naked before her. What madness was this? She struggled to put the wicked images invading her mind aside.
“If I win,” he said softly, “I will enter your bed this very night, my darling Jasmine.” His gaze engaged hers.
“And if you lose?” she asked low.
“The stake is yours to choose,” he replied.
“You will not enter my bed until we are wed.” The words were out of her mouth before she even had time seriously to consider them. Why on earth had she said them, she wondered, feeling a sense of loss as his hands fell away from her waist. Did she really want to hold him off until the middle of June? It was too late to recant.
He chuckled. “Done, madame!” he said, leading her into the château. “I look forward to our match—and to after the match.”
“For so mediocre a player you are overconfident, Jemmie,” she said sharply. His attitude was mightily irritating.
“I do not intend losing tonight, Jasmine,” he answered her. “The prize is too tempting and delectable a one to forfeit.”
She pulled from his grasp and ran up the staircase to her bedchamber, ordering her servants to prepare her bath as she entered her quarters. Rohana and Toramalli hurried to do her bidding.
“You are disturbed,” Adali noted. “What has upset you, mistress?”
“I have agreed to a chess match with Lord Leslie, and we have made a wager to make our game more interesting. I think I have been foolish, Adali, for I am not certain if I want to win.”
The eunuch chuckled as he helped her to divest herself of her garments. “Tell me,” he said, and then burst into laughter when she had finished. “Ahh, my princess, once long ago, when your father sought to bed your mother for the first time, he played a game of chess with her. It was in the royal city of Fatehpur-Sikri. Together your parents stood on a balcony. The courtyard below them was a chessboard of black-and-white marble squares. The pieces were live slaves, naked but for the jewels they wore, except, of course, the king and queen pieces, who were magnificently garbed and bejeweled.”
“Did my mother win?” Jasmine asked Adali.
He shook his head. “Nay, she did not. The wager between them, however, was but a kiss. It was several nights later before your f
ather gained his objective, and then only through the aid of the pillow book that Jodh Bai gave your mother.”
Now it was Jasmine’s turn to chuckle. “So history is about to repeat itself, Adali,” she said.
“Are you certain you wish to lie with him now, my princess? I have seen your reluctance to accept this man.”
“I must wed him, Adali,” she replied, “and I find that I do like him. He loves the children, and they love him, and he would have me give him sons. The wedding date is set, and I suddenly find I do not wish to postpone the inevitable. When we were speaking just now in the courtyard, I had the most disturbing thoughts regarding James Leslie. I believe it is time to end my celibacy, Adali.”
“You will have to be very clever, my princess,” the trusted servant responded. “If Lord Leslie believes for one moment that you have allowed him to win the match, he will be most offended.”
Jasmine smiled as he helped her into her waiting tub. “My father was the best chess player in all of India,” she reminded Adali, “and he never once knew that I let myself lose more often than not, did he?”
Adali grinned. “Nay, my princess, the Mughal never knew that the student surpassed the master. You were adroit in your duplicity.”
“I have not forgotten those skills,” she assured him.
He left her to set up the chessboard in the hall.
Rohana and Toramalli bathed their mistress carefully, having been party to her conversation with Adali. Afterward, wrapped in a towel and seated by her fire, Jasmine thought drowsy thoughts as Rohana slowly brushed her long black hair, drawing the perfumed brush through the silken swath until it gleamed. She yawned. It had been a long day, and she suddenly realized she was tired. “Give me some wine before I collapse,” she said to Toramalli. “The bath has rendered me weak.”
“What will you wear?” Toramalli asked her as she brought her mistress the requested goblet of wine.
“A chamber robe, I think,” came the reply.
The servingwoman nodded and, choosing a silk garment in a rich plum color, brought it to her mistress, who stood up and let her towel fall, holding out her arms to don the robe. It had long flowing sleeves and closed with a small gold frog just below Jasmine’s breasts. Rohana then tied back her mistress’s hair with a silver ribbon. Plum-and-silver silk slippers completed Lady Lindley’s ensemble.
Finishing the wine which had revived her, Jasmine instructed her servants to prepare the bed with fresh linens. “The lovely lavender-scented ones we just obtained from the convent nearby,” she said. Then she departed the bedchamber for the hall, where she found him awaiting her. She stared at his clothing. “A kilt?” she queried him.
“A Scotsman always wears his kilt into battle, Jasmine, and so I am prepared to go to war with you this evening over the chessboard.”
His shirt was open at the neck. She could see the dark hair upon his chest. Her eyes strayed to his long, sturdy legs, which were covered in dark hair. His knees were shapely and rounded. Forcing her eyes away from his form Jasmine tried to quiet her thoughts. She was suddenly behaving like a bitch in heat. She felt both hot and cold at the same time. What had her grandmother said about spring, and sap rising? “You are, as usual, my lord, overconfident,” she murmured with what she hoped was unconcerned disdain.
The laugh that rumbled forth from his broad chest was openly knowing. “I have the strongest desire,” he told her, “to kiss that little mole of yours, darling Jasmine,” and, before she could evade him, he did just that, pressing his mouth against the teasing little beauty mark nature had placed between her left nostril and her upper lip.
“You are too bold, sirrah!” she scolded him, pushing away. “Come, and let us begin our game.” She seated herself in the tapestry-backed chair by the hall fire, motioning him to the seat opposite her. “You may begin,” she told him.
He calmly moved a pawn in a familiar and quite typical opening move. Then his eyes met hers.
“ ’Tis hardly a challenging beginning,” she mocked him, but her own move was quite similar to his.
The play now began in earnest. Jasmine kept up a taunting verbal assault as she played. Her tone was overbearing and overweening. She played hard, and he had not the slightest inkling that she was leading him carefully so that he could shortly capture her queen and win the match between them. She made a move, and then swore softly, reaching out to correct the apparently foolish maneuver, but he stopped her with his hand, shaking his head.
“But I did not mean it,” she objected strongly. “I was distracted. Surely you will not hold me to such a play, Jemmie? ’Tis not fair!”
“You removed your hand from the piece,” he said quietly.
“But I did not mean to, sir! I was distracted,” she cried.
“If our positions were reversed, Jasmine, would you allow me to replay the move?” he demanded of her.
Her small white teeth worried her lower lip, and she did not answer him.
James Leslie reached out and, taking the black onyx piece belonging to him, silently completed the winning move, palming her ivory queen gravely. Jasmine leapt to her feet and, turning, attempted to make her escape. He was quicker, however, and his hard arm wrapped itself about her slender waist, drawing her back against him. “Nay, madame, you cannot go until you have paid your forfeit,” he said softly, and his other hand firmly cupped one of her breasts. His warm breath in her ear sent a shiver up her spine. “Ya-sameen,” he murmured the name she had been given at birth, “how I long to possess you again. I have never forgotten that night we shared so long, long ago.” His thumb rubbed her nipple until it was stiff, and tingling.
“The servants . . .” she protested.
“Are too well trained by your Adali to enter the hall unless called,” he told her even as he pushed the chess table aside with his big stockinged foot and drew her down upon the thick sheepskin rug before the fire. His elegant fingers fumbled a moment with the golden frog closure of her gown, finally releasing it so the plum-colored silk fell away, revealing her naked form to him. He stared at her, almost awed.
“How is it that after four bairns you still have the figure of an exciting young girl?” he wondered aloud. His fingertips caressed the generous swell of her bosom.
“I do not,” came her soft reply. “My belly is no longer flat, and my breasts are much fuller than the last time we found ourselves in this situation. I have the body of a woman, Jemmie Leslie.”
“To my eye you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” he assured her. His dark head bent to press a kiss upon her left breast. “I like your sweet titties,” he said.
“You cannot continue to have me at such a disadvantage,” she told him, her fingers unlacing his shirt, her hands pushing it from his shoulders. It fell about his waist. “What does a Scotsman wear beneath his kilt, Jemmie Leslie?” she teased him provocatively.
With a grin he stood, loosening the garment so that both it and his shirt fell about his ankles. “Only the badge of his manhood, madame,” he answered her, stepping away from the discarded clothing.
“Take your stockings off,” she ordered him. “I’ll not make love to a man with a bare bottom and stockings on his feet.” She kicked her slippers off as she spoke.
Chuckling, he complied with her request, finally joining her upon the sheepskin. “Do you remember the last time?” he asked her.
A small smile touched Jasmine’s lips. “Aye,” she said. “It was after my uncle’s Twelfth Night gala. We seduced each other, and Sibby caught us and raised such a ruckus. My stepfather wanted us to wed to save my reputation. Poor Alec, caught between his two girls. One who wanted you desperately, or so Sybilla thought.”
“And one who refused to wed me,” he reminded her. “You said you would not be forced to the altar.” He smiled at her wryly. “Yet now you are, and with the same man you refused those years back. I fell in love with you then. Did you know it?”
Jasmine shook her head. “Nay,” she admitted, �
�I did not.”
Bending, he brushed her lips with his. “Well, I did, my darling Jasmine. I fell in love with you then, but when I finally gathered up my courage to go to your grandparents, you were to wed with Rowan Lindley. I was too late. A laggard in love. That is why I cannot let you go now, Jasmine. I will never let you go again!”
“How fierce you sound,” she told him, her hand stroking his handsome face. “Am I to have no say in this matter, Jemmie Leslie?”
“Only if you swear to belong to me forever,” he replied, catching her hand in his, kissing each knuckle upon it, then turning it over to kiss her palm ardently. “Swear!” he growled at her.
In response Jasmine laughed softly. “Not yet, I think,” she replied. “If I allow you to become too certain of me, Jemmie, then you will grow careless in your affections and actions toward me. Better I keep you dangling. At least until we plight our troth come summer.” She retrieved her hand with a seductive smile.
“You are a bitch,” he said, half-amused, half-angry.
“Aye,” she drawled slowly. He lay by her, half-raised upon an elbow, looking into her fair face. Drawing his head down, she kissed him a deep, sweet kiss. “Would you have me be some simpering fool of a woman, my lord? Best you know what you are getting. Perhaps you will even change your mind and ask the king for release from this match.”
“Nay, madame,” he told her, looking into her turquoise-colored eyes. “I am no easier than you are. We are well matched, I believe.” His head dipped, and, taking a nipple in his mouth, he began to suckle upon her while his hand kneaded her other breast.
The first strong tug on her flesh sent a frisson of pleasurable sensation through her body. It had been so long since she had been with a man that it almost seemed as if it were the first time. Jasmine drew in a deep breath and exhaled it, feeling the tingle all the way to her toes. Her fingers threaded themselves in his dark hair, pressing into his scalp. “Ummmmmmmm,” she sighed, enjoying his attentions. The last time they had made love, the only time they had made love, she amended to herself, James Leslie had ended a period of celibacy in her life that began with the murder of her first husband, Prince Jamal Khan. Now he was ending another love drought for her. She wondered if her pleasure in him came from the cessation of her passionless state, or if he would indeed prove to be an excellent lover.
Darling Jasmine Page 9
