“Bitch!” he groaned, and his mouth descended upon hers in a fierce kiss that left her almost breathless, until he finally rolled off of her and lay panting upon his back. “My God,” he at last managed to gasp. “What has happened between us? Is it always going to be so . . . so . . . so wild?” His heart was hammering against his ribs.
“I . . . I . . . don’t know,” she half sobbed. Dear heaven, it had been wild. She didn’t understand this fierce desire between them. Jamal, her first husband, had been a gentle lover. Rowan Lindley, her second husband, had been passionate and tender, as had Prince Henry, when she had been his mistress. This was beyond anything she had ever known. It was a savage passion with each of them trying to gain a mastery over the other. Would it always be this way between them she wanted to know? Did they want it always to be this way? Could they survive if it remained this way? Jasmine just did not know.
He reached out and took her hand in his. “How can you not love me when our passion is so deep?” he asked her.
“I mustn’t love you,” she whispered. “I mustn’t!”
“You do love me,” he insisted. “I know you do!”
“I am afraid, Jemmie!”
He cradled her in the curve of his arm. “Why? And do not say it is because the men you love die, sweetheart.”
“But they do, Jemmie,” she said desperately. “Each time I have been given to a man, first by my father, and then by my grandparents, I have fallen in love, and I have been happy. All I have ever wanted was to love my husband and bear healthy children to love and raise. When Jamal was murdered I lost the child I was carrying. When Rowan was killed by that fanatic I was left with two children and was carrying a third. I almost died myself that time. And finally Henry Stuart. He should not have died! He should not have lived to be England’s king, but he did not. He loved me, and he died.”
“The prince died of an illness contracted by swimming in the river when he was overheated from sport. It was unfortunate, but you cannot be held responsible for young Hal’s death, Jasmine; and the fact that he was in love with you is inconsequential to the matter. As for your first husband, he was assassinated on the orders of your brother. The bullet that killed Rowan was meant for you, and not the marquis. Both incidents were lamentable. Jamal, Prince Henry, and Rowan Lindley were unlucky, but that is all there was to their deaths, Jasmine.” He kissed the top of her head. “We are being married on June 15, sweetheart, and we are going to live a long and happy life together, darling Jasmine, because I will not have it any other way,” the earl of Glenkirk concluded. “Now, tell me you love me, you impossible wench! I have certainly waited long enough to hear the words from your mouth.”
“You are too sure of yourself, my lord,” she replied.
“Jasmine!” His tone was threatening.
She looked up into his handsome face. “I do want a long and happy life together with you, James Leslie. I do!”
“Do you love me?” he persisted.
Jasmine nodded. “Yes, Jemmie, I love you,” she told him, “and I always will.”
Chapter 7
Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester and earl of Somerset, was losing the king’s favor, and he knew it. He was a desperate man. He had begun his career at court as a page. By twenty he was a groom of the bedchamber, having caught King James’s eye when he broke his arm jousting. The following year the king gave the young man a tablet of solid gold set with diamonds. Three years later he was made a viscount. When his eye fell upon Frances Howard, the married countess of Essex, nothing would do but that he have her for his own wife.
Frances Howard had, at the age of fourteen, been literally forced to the altar by her family. She and Robert Devereaux, the earl of Essex, detested each other. She had dallied with Prince Henry before he had met Jasmine. Then she and Carr had fallen in love. There would be no divorce, however. Frances Howard demanded an annulment from her husband, claiming that he was impotent, not just with her, but with all women. It was a lie, of course, but the king and the archbishop looked the other way. The annulment was granted, and Frances married Robert Carr, who by this time had been created the earl of Somerset. She was sixteen, and he was twenty-six.
One of Robert Carr’s friends, Sir Thomas Overbury, had objected quite vocally to the match between Frances Howard and her intended. He had spoken out publicly, slandering the lady, whom he very much disliked, and had even appealed to the king to save Carr from Frances Howard. His efforts were useless, and shortly after the happy couple were united in marriage, Sir Thomas Overbury found himself arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. There he remained for the next few months cooling his heels until one morning his jailers found him dead in his cell. He had been poisoned.
An investigation was called for by the shocked king, and it was quite thorough. It was determined that Sir Thomas Overbury had ingested poisoned sweetmeats. It had taken some time to learn who had sent the deadly treats, but now the rumors were rife that they had come from the earl of Somerset’s household. It could not be ascertained if either the earl of Somerset, or his countess, had ordered the sweetmeats supplied to Sir Thomas—the box had been given to a street urchin outside the Tower for delivery to Overbury, according to the yeoman of the guard who had received the gilt paper box. It was indeed quite possible that the messenger had himself been disposed of to avoid being found and used to identify the miscreant. But the gilt paper box was one that Frances Howard was known to favor when presenting gifts to friends. Indeed, its maker declared that he made the boxes only for her ladyship and no one else. And while it was indeed possible that someone had stolen one of the boxes, it was not thought probable. Still, neither the earl nor his countess had yet been charged in the matter because neither could be tied absolutely to the crime.
But Robert Carr was well aware he was losing James Stuart’s favor. Since the Overbury scandal had broken, the king called upon him less, pointedly ignoring his old favorite. The royal and rheumy amber eyes were filled with interest when either of two young men came into his view these days. George Villiers, an unimportant little country nobody, was obviously fast gaining favor with his royal master. How this bumpkin had gained the sought-after position of royal cupbearer only last year was a mystery to Carr. Now he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber. Oh, he was handsome enough with his sparkling dark eyes and wavy chestnut hair, but Carr didn’t trust the damned upstart.
And even worse was Piers St. Denis, the marquis of Hartsfield. With his ancient title he didn’t appear to need the king’s favor, and yet he was gaining it every bit as quickly as Villiers. St. Denis had great charm and amused the king more than any man in the court’s memory. Where George Villiers had the face of an archangel, it was said; Piers St. Denis was spectacularly handsome, with perfect features. His nose was just the right length and as straight as a die. His blue eyes were evenly spaced. His mouth was big and narrow, and he had a single lock of honey-colored hair that insisted in falling into a single small curl upon his high forehead.
With both of these men intriguing and amusing the king, what chance was there for Robert Carr to regain his master’s royal favor? Frances was not happy about the latest turn of events. She had expected that her husband would always have the royal favor. She had, after all, been born a Howard. Two of her cousins had been queens of England. Unsuccessful queens, to be sure, but they had been queens.
“How could you have been so stupid as to use one of my boxes?” she demanded of her spouse one night as they sat ensconced in their bed, the velvet curtains drawn to give them privacy. “Now the damned thing has been traced to us. What are we to do, Rob?”
“They cannot prove anything,” he said. “Unless, of course, your hysteria gives us away, Frances. The box could have been stolen from your supply or from the boxmaker’s shop. No one can prove anything.”
“What of the damned boy?” she demanded.
“I told you I strangled him when he returned for his coin. I threw his body in the river. He was just
some nameless urchin, of no import to anyone. He was not missed, and if by chance he was, then it would be thought he fell victim to foul play as so many of these street brats do, or, perhaps, ran away to find his fortune. There is no one to trace those sweetmeats to us. We were careful, and we were clever. You made the treats, and I saw to their delivery. No one can trace them to us, Frances. Now cease your fretting,” the earl of Somerset told his worried wife. “The matter of the box is just conjecture.”
“The queen has barred me from her presence,” Frances told him. “I am forbidden the royal apartments! Me! Frances Howard! I knew those apartments long before Queen Anne even came to England! It matters not, Rob, if they can prove we killed Overbury. They know we did! We are ruined, I tell you! Ruined!”
“It is but a temporary setback, Frances,” he replied. “The king cannot do without me. Jamie Stuart is my friend.”
“Why did you have to have Overbury sent to the Tower, Rob? God’s blood, it was so public! Did I not say have the king appoint him to some minor position in Ireland, and then have him murdered there? We could have blamed it on the Irish! Now we will be blamed. I am surprised we haven’t been arrested yet! ’Tis we who will end up in the Tower, Rob, and all because you would not listen to your wife!”
“The king loves me,” Robert Carr said stubbornly.
“Loves you?” Frances, countess of Somerset, snorted with derision. “It is over, Rob. Over! He is besotted with both Villiers and St. Denis and concerned only with which one of them he desires more. You have broken the king’s heart, Rob, and he will never forgive you. He will replace you, and he will forget you. And it need not have happened at all but that you would not listen to me!”
“Go to sleep, Frances, and cease your nagging,” the earl snapped at his wife. “Tomorrow the earl of Glenkirk returns to court with the dowager marchioness of Westleigh. They are, I am told, to be married at last. I would not miss Jasmine Lindley’s submission for anything!”
“Perhaps,” his countess considered, “just perhaps such an occasion will divert the king, and he will forget about us.”
“If he forgets about us,” her husband said, “then we have lost his favor. Is that what you would like, Frances?”
“At least we would be alive,” she retorted. “I don’t want to end up on Tower Hill like my cousins, Anne and Catherine!”
“You worry too much,” he laughed, but then the morning came and the earl found little to laugh at. When he and his wife arrived to join the day’s activities, they were told to go home. They were not welcome at Whitehall any longer. They were to keep to their London house and await the king’s decision as to their fate. Stunned, they retired, not even noticing the earl of Glenkirk’s carriage as they passed it by in the road. Several days later the earl and countess of Somerset were arrested and lodged in the Tower.
“Was that not Frances Howard and her new husband?” Jasmine wondered aloud, leaning out the coach’s window to view the departing vehicle.
“I would be very much surprised if it were,” he answered her. “Robin tells me he is quite out of favor with this Overbury thing. Then, too, the king is newly besotted of two young men come to court recently. I’m certain after today we shall know everything there is to know about the whole situation. I cannot believe that Carr was so stupid as to poison an enemy and get caught; but then I always thought him a fool.”
“Do I look all right?” she asked him for the third time since they had left the house.
He nodded, grinning. “Aye,” he said shortly.
She had, she told him, attempted to dress modestly as befitted a penitent, but there was no way Jasmine could appear really contrite. She was too beautiful. Too elegant. Too much the Mughal’s daughter. Yet she had tried. Her gown was subdued, of burgundy silk, and had a bell skirt. The waist was narrow, the sleeves had small slashes and puffs with black silk showing through; the stomacher was long and pointed, and decorated with black jets sewn in a geometric pattern, and matching the design on the bodice, which had a low square neckline. About her neck was a long rope of perfect black pearls, and from a shorter rope about her throat hung a large round ruby known as the Eye of Kali, which Jasmine had brought with her from India years earlier. Pear-shaped rubies hung from her ears. Her hair was fixed in its elegant chignon, and on her feet she wore black silk shoes ornamented with pink pearls. Her fingers were decorated with several rings, a black pearl, a ruby, and a large baroque pink pearl. She would be the envy of all the women who viewed her today, and the desire of all the men, James Leslie thought.
He had dressed himself in black and white, as much to complement her outfit as to appear serious himself. One of them had to look properly remorseful and apologetic for all the difficulty they had caused the king and his good intentions. As they moved along the hallway toward the chamber where the king was receiving that day, James Leslie could hear the hissing whispers of the courtiers as they passed by. “Courage, darling Jasmine,” he murmured to her, patting the elegant hand on his heavy silk sleeve. “We are simply today’s divertissement.”
The king and queen sat on their thrones. James Stuart had aged. He was now forty-nine. The queen, a handsome woman, but certainly never considered pretty, was forty. She appeared very much the same to Jasmine as when she had last seen her. Neither the queen nor her husband had a great deal in common but their love of hunting, and their children. They led fairly separate lives, but were, nonetheless, devoted to each other. What was good for James pleased Anne, and vice versa. They had not been lovers for some time now, but they were very good friends.
James Stuart gazed dispassionately upon the newly arrived couple at the foot of his throne. The earl of Glenkirk bowed with an elegant flourish. The dowager marchioness of Westleigh made a deep curtsy, her sleek dark head slightly lowered, not looking at either of the royal couple as she dipped, and then rose gracefully. The room had grown very silent as the court strained to hear what would be said.
“So, madame, ye hae finally returned,” the king began. His look was surprisingly mild. “I hae met yer whelps. Ye’ve done well wi them, madame. All of them. Our wee grandson is a braw laddie for one so young. Spoke French to me, he did.” James Stuart chuckled. “And told me he could teach me to swear in Hindi. Now where would he have learned Hindi, I wonder?” The king cocked his head to one side questioningly.
“Most likely from my steward, Adali,” Jasmine said softly. “Adali likes to remind Charlie-boy that he is the grandson of two kings.”
“Aye,” James Stuart agreed. “Our wee duke of Lundy hae much royal blood in his veins, but he is English-born, madame. Ye will remember that, won’t ye?”
“Yes, Your Highness, I will remember it. I could hardly forget it,” Jasmine replied. “His father will remain in my heart always.”
For a brief moment the king looked sad. “Aye,” he told her. “In all of our hearts. England lost a great king, but perhaps if I can live long enough, our bairn, Charles, will make a good king.”
“Oh, Your Highness,” Jasmine told the king, “I am certain Prince Charles will be of great credit to you and the queen.” Then to everyone’s surprise, even Glenkirk’s, Jasmine flung herself before the king in a gesture of abasement, her burgundy silk skirts spread artfully about her. “Your Majesty,” she said in her clear voice, “I beg that you forgive me my disobedience. The only excuse I can offer to you is that my heart was broken over Prince Henry’s death, and I was not ready to go into another marriage so quickly. I am but a frail woman, Your Highness, and I have suffered much in my short life. I am ready now to do my duty, and marry the earl of Glenkirk; and I vow never to disobey Your Highness again.” Jasmine bent low so that her head touched the tip of the king’s shoe, and there she remained, waiting for him to speak.
The king was astounded, but he was also pleased. The young woman before him understood his total authority even if she had bridled against it. He had been very angry when she had fled England two years ago. But then two weeks ago he had se
en his grandson, and the child had softened his heart toward Jasmine de Marisco Lindley. And now here was the very miscreant he had intended to punish but a short month ago, publicly humbling herself before his throne. James Stuart was mightily pleased and filled to overflowing with the milk of forgiveness.
“Get up, lassie,” he said good-naturedly. “Help her, Jemmie.” And when Jasmine stood before him once again, he continued, “It was a pretty apology and astutely delivered. Yer forgiven, madame.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jasmine replied simply, curtsying again.
“A woman, especially a beautiful woman such as yerself,” the king said, “should hae a husband to guide her; but perhaps I was hasty when I chose for ye, madame. I realize now that I should hae given ye a choice of gentlemen from whom to choose a new lord and master. I shall gie it to ye now.” James Stuart looked very pleased with himself.
Everyone else in the room looked astounded, including the queen herself. She glared furiously at her spouse, but he ignored her.
“Your Highness,” Jasmine said quickly. “I am content to wed with Lord Leslie. We are old friends and have come to a complete understanding. Our wedding is planned for June 15 at my grandmother’s home, Queen’s Malvern.”
“There will be nae wedding, madame, until ye hae made yer decision about a groom,” the king said stubbornly.
“But I have!” Jasmine almost shouted.
“James!” the queen hissed at her husband.
He ignored her again, saying to Jasmine, “Yer a good lass, madame, and willing to do my bidding, I understand. Unlike many in this court, ye understand my divine right over my subjects. Two years ago I acted expeditiously, or so I thought, in my effort to protect both ye and my grandson. My rashness sent ye fleeing to France. While I know ye understand the reasons for my actions, I will now admit to having acted too swiftly in the matter. Therefore, I offer ye a choice of husbands, madame. Not only is the earl of Glenkirk a candidate for yer hand, but Piers St. Denis, the marquis of Hartsfield, will also present his suit to ye. I would offer ye my Steenie as well, but he tells me his heart is engaged elsewhere. So now, madame, ye hae two gentlemen from whom to make yer choice.” He grinned at her, quite pleased with himself as if he had done something wonderful. “Ye’ll find my Piers a delightful lad, and quite near yer own age, which Glenkirk is nae.”
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