“Oh, aye,” the old earl replied. “ ’Twas several weeks ago now, it was, my lord. Was it nae, my dear?” He turned to his wife.
“Aye,” she replied, dourly.
“A loovely lass, the new countess. Are ye acquainted wi her?” Sithean smiled pleasantly at Piers St. Denis.
“I have a royal warrant for your nephew’s arrest, and his wife’s as well,” the marquis of Hartsfield said irritably. “Do you not understand that I am on the king’s business?”
“Oh, aye, aye,” the old earl said. “How is Jamie Stuart, my lord? He is always getting in some sort of fret and ordering arrests. He was such an unruly and nervous bairn. He doesna love his homeland.”
There is obviously nothing here, the marquis thought peevishly. “I will be leaving in the morning,” he told his hosts.
James and Jasmine Leslie watched their enemy as he departed Sithean. They had come up into the hills above Sithean to A-Cuil. They had traveled without the trappings of their station. Adali had remained to watch over Glenkirk and coordinate their stream of information. Rohana was at the abbey with Mary Todd, Charlie-boy, and wee Patrick. Toramalli had gone with Skye and the children to Dun Broc. Only Fergus More and Red Hugh remained with them, which was providential, as Jasmine did not cook. Fortunately Red Hugh did.
A-Cuil was not a large lodge. Set in the hills above Loch Sithean, it had been constructed of stone, with a slate roof. Its first floor consisted of a tiny parlor and a kitchen. There was a single bedroom beneath the eaves on the second floor. Surrounded by a pine forest and set upon a cliff, A-Cuil had a panoramic view of Glenkirk, Sithean, and the countryside surrounding them. The lodge itself, however, blended into the landscape, and was rarely seen by passersby below. Jasmine liked it here, and even with the presence of Red Hugh and Fergus More, she found it romantic. The valet and the man-at-arms slept in two small loft rooms in the little stable belonging to A-Cuil.
“I could live here forever,” Jasmine told Jemmie.
He laughed. “Where would we put the children, not to mention Adali and the twins, madame?”
“If we lived here we wouldn’t have children, or servants,” she replied with what she believed was perfect logic.
“You would learn to cook?” he teased her. “These dainty beringed fingers would knead bread and peel carrots?” He caught her hands in his and kissed them, nibbling playfully upon her fingertips.
“Beast!” She snatched her hands away. “I could learn to cook if I wanted to learn to cook,” she told him.
James Leslie laughed. “Jasmine, my darling Jasmine, you have absolutely no talent for the culinary arts, but where the amatory arts are concerned, now there you are most facile.” He pulled her down into his lap, kissing her mouth and enjoying the breathless flush he brought to her cheeks. Pulling open the ties on her shirt, he slid his hand beneath the silk and fondled a deliciously plump breast.
“I didn’t know you peeled carrots,” she murmured, nuzzling his neck, then licking it.
He slid his tongue into her mouth, his thumb and his forefinger twiddling with her nipple. “Ummmmm,” he replied, his mouth working feverishly against hers.
The door to the lodge sprang open, and the earl of Glenkirk almost dumped his wife most unceremoniously onto the floor as Red Hugh, grinning from ear to ear, stomped in with a brace of rabbits.
“Dinner,” he said, swallowing his chortles. “Maybe I should skin ’em out back, my lord.” He moved through into the kitchen.
Jasmine, however, couldn’t control her fit of giggles as she laced up her shirt again. “Maybe living here forever isn’t such a good idea, Jemmie,” she said. “We don’t have much privacy, do we?”
“Nay, we don’t,” he grumbled. Dammit, he was hot for her! A-Cuil would be nice for a few days’ respite if they were alone, but he really wanted to be home at Glenkirk. His in-laws would have already departed for England and Queen’s Malvern; but they would be forced to run from here to there all summer long just because of that damned fool, Piers St. Denis.
“Why don’t we go home?” Jasmine said suddenly, as if reading his thoughts.
“To Glenkirk? We can’t,” he said.
“Why not?” Jasmine responded. “St. Denis has already been there, and is now off on a fool’s chase about the countryside. We are having him watched, and will know when he comes our way again, Jemmie. But I don’t want to bring the children home. Not until this matter has been settled. It is easy enough, however, for you and me to flee again if the marquis of Hartsfield comes in our direction once more.”
He considered it and thought that she was right. “We’ll spend one more night here, madame,” he told her, “but I shall send Fergus More and Red Hugh back to Glenkirk to advise Adali of our change of plans.”
“Not until after supper,” she chuckled, and he laughed, agreeing.
And when they had had their supper of broiled rabbit, oatcakes, cheese, and cider, they sent Fergus and Red Hugh back to Glenkirk with a message for Adali. Then they sat together on the edge of the hillside, watching the sun set in the west.
Jasmine sighed happily within her husband’s embrace. “The sunsets are so different here than in India,” she said. “In India the colors are lush and exotic, but not so vibrant and rich as here in Scotland. I love our Scots sunsets, Jemmie. I love Scotland. I have seen it at its best, and at its worst, and I love it! It is home! It is home as no place has been since I left India.”
“And yet so different,” he replied.
“Aye,” she said, but did not elaborate further. There was no need for her to do so.
They remained lying in the grass, listening to the small night creatures chirping and singing as the light from the sunset faded, and the skies above them were filled with a plethora of stars. They watched the moon rise.
“ ’Tis a border moon,” Jemmie said softly.
“A border moon?” Jasmine was puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“It’s large and full, and ’tis what the border Scots call it. They always went raiding with a border moon to light their way. My stepfather was a borderer. He took my mother raiding with him once.”
“Did she enjoy it?” Jasmine asked.
“Aye,” he admitted.
“I think I would, too,” Jasmine told her husband.
A wildcat, hunting its dinner, shrieked in the forest behind them, and the earl of Glenkirk rose, drawing his wife up with him. “Come,” he said, “let us go to bed, darling Jasmine.”
Together they made certain that the stable door was secure so that the horses would be safe from the marauding beast. They laid the heavy oaken bar across the front door of the lodge and, banking the fires in the parlor and the kitchen, climbed the narrow staircase to their bedchamber. The room was flooded with moonlight. James Leslie threw another log on the fire in the small fireplace near the doorway.
To the left of the doorway was a bank of casement windows. Jasmine opened them a crack. To the right of the door was a small single round window, beneath which was a little table. On the bit of wall space by the fireplace was a mirror, and a chair was set next the hearth. The curtained bed and the clothes chest were the only serious pieces of furniture within the bedchamber. They pulled off their clothing and slipped beneath the coverlet, their bodies immediately intertwined.
He cradled her, his big hand stroking her face. “Have you any idea how much I love you?” he asked her softly.
“At least as much as I love you,” she replied, slipping her arms about him.
He began to kiss her face. Slowly, tenderly. His lips grazed lightly across her cheekbones, brushed her eyelids, skimmed over her forehead, and finally found her lips. The sweet pleasure between their two mouths increased as their passions rose and soared. Her breasts flattened as he pulled her hard against his furred chest.
She was dizzy with his kisses. She ran the tip of her tongue across his sensuous lips teasingly. They parted, and she pushed within the cavity of his warm mouth to play, moaning into
his throat, for her breasts felt swollen, and were aching with her desire and becoming irritated rubbing against his chest.
He eased her back slightly, his free hand caressing her bosom. Jasmine’s body arched up to meet his touch, and she sighed as her head fell away from his. “Beautiful! Beautiful!” he murmured, and she sighed. His dark head dropped to feast upon her round, silken flesh.
“Ahhh, Jemmie, my love!” she cried softly.
When he finally lifted his head from her breasts, his green-gold eyes passion-glazed, she squirmed away from him, rolling, and then pushing him onto his back. A slow smile lit his handsome face.
“ ’Tis my turn, my lord,” she said softly to him. Then, seated upon her heels, she began to unplait the single braid into which her hair was fashioned. She moved deliberately and meticulously, unwinding the three thick strands until they were completely free of one another, and with her fingers she combed her hair. When it hung again in a single curtain of ebony, Jasmine lowered her head and began to stroke his body with sensuous movements of her long hair. Sometimes she would bend so low that she could kiss and lick at his torso with a hot, little tongue that darted here and there across his body, teasing at him, taunting his navel with its wicked point. Lower and lower she moved until she had grasped his manhood in her hand. Drawing the foreskin back she said, “Is this how I peel a carrot, my lord husband?” Then the tip of her tongue encircled beneath the ruby head of it before she took him into her mouth to suckle upon him.
His body arched beneath her wicked ministrations. His big hand fastened into her dark head, at first encouraging her in her actions, then finally forcing her to break off before he exploded in a frenzy of wild desire. Their eyes met, and her look was so lustfully primitive, her mouth wet with her unsatisfied hunger for him, that he lifted her up and lowered her slowly upon his raging rod, their eyes never breaking off contact. Only when she sheathed him completely did Jasmine’s eyes close, and, leaning back, she sighed deeply, contracting her inner love muscles about him, causing him to groan with utter pleasure.
She moved slowly on him and with great deliberation, stoking their fires carefully so they might have greater satisfaction of each other. Finally, however, he rolled her beneath him, never breaking off the contact between them, pushing her legs back so he might drive deeper into her. Her teeth sank into his shoulder as he began to piston her faster and faster. Her rounded nails raked at his back.
“Jemmie! Jemmie!” she gasped. “You’re killing me!” Yet he forced her higher up the mountain, and she could already feel the coming wave. Her nails dug deeper into him.
“Bitch!” He slapped her lightly, forcing her arms back so she do him no further damage. His buttocks contracted fiercely as he drove hard into her. His lust for her was uncontrollable. He groaned with frustration, not quite able yet to satisfy them, and desperate to do so. Jasmine was the most exciting woman he had ever known, and he wanted her delight in their conjunction to be every bit as wonderful as his was.
“Ohhhh! Ahhhh!” The wave was almost there. Stars began to explode behind her eyelids. “Jemmmmmie!” The wave had reached her. It burst over her, and she spiraled upward, then down into a swirling eddy of warmth and fulfillment. “Ahhhhhhhhh!”
“Ah, God! Ahhhhh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” he sobbed, his own desire cresting just behind hers. He collapsed atop her, panting. “Jesu, woman, you have nigh killed me!” Then, kissing her, he rolled off of her, clutching her hand in his. “I love you, my darling Jasmine,” he told her, kissing her fingertips passionately.
“I love you, Jemmie Leslie,” she responded. “Don’t you dare get murdered like poor Jamal and Rowan! And no dying suddenly either like my sweet Hal! I absolutely forbid it!”
He laughed low. “You have made your bed with me, madame, and you will have to lie in it for always. I will never leave you, my darling wife. It will take more than that fool, St. Denis, to part us. He has seriously begun to annoy me, disrupting our lives in this manner. I shall probably have to kill him eventually.”
“Good!” she told him. “I’ll help!”
“You are already a good Highland wife,” he teased her.
Jasmine slid easily into the curve of his arm. “Your Aunt Fiona says that Leslie women are every bit as hard and fierce as Leslie men,” she told him. “Besides, St. Denis really does deserve to be severely punished for being such a poor loser and so damnably troublesome.”
“I agree,” her husband said, “but we will probably just let the king decide the marquis’s fate, unless, of course, we are given no other choice than to protect ourselves. I believe, however, that we can probably just stay out of his way for the present.”
The following morning they rode back down from the hills to Glenkirk and took up residence once again. Word of their antagonists’s whereabouts was brought to them on a regular basis. He visited all the homes that Adali had listed and, unsuccessful, finally headed even farther north to the Huntley, to the Gordons. The summer bloomed about Glenkirk, and they had it all to themselves.
“Let us go down to Edinburgh,” the earl suggested one day. “There is but one road to travel, and if we do not meet our messenger returning from England, we will wait there for him.”
“I think, perhaps, that we should,” Jasmine agreed. “It will be better to resolve this matter most publicly, and thus put an end to it, Jemmie. I almost feel sorry for St. Denis. What will he do when he no longer has us to stalk and to hate? He will never be welcomed at court again, and it was his life. And no decent family will give him a female relation to marry. He might as well be dead.”
“His hate will eventually devour him,” James Leslie said fatalistically.
They departed for Edinburgh the following morning, arriving several days later. Adali accompanied them, along with a young servant, Maggie, Fergus More, and Red Hugh. There were two houses in Edinburgh that belonged to the Leslies of Glenkirk. Leslie House had been inherited by the earl’s aunt Fiona. She and his uncle Adam lived there when they were not visiting their various relations in the north. The other residence, Glenkirk House, had belonged to James Leslie’s mother, a gift from his father, the previous earl. Unlike Leslie House, which was set off the High Street, Glenkirk House was off Cannongate near Holyrood Palace.
Of brick, it stood five stories high and had a deep basement, where the kitchens, pantry, stillroom, storeroom, washroom, servants’ hall, and servants’ quarters were located. It possessed its own stables and was set amid its own gardens, both kitchen and flower. Unlike many town houses in Edinburgh, Glenkirk House had its own indoor sanitary facilities. They settled into it quite nicely and waited for something to happen. Most of the great families who lived in the city were gone to the north or to their homes in the borders, as it was deep summer. The weather was wet and mild, but the mists clung to the hills beyond the city and wreathed about the battlements of Edinburgh Castle.
Farther south, at Queen’s Malvern, Skye was pleased to be home again. Her grandson, Charles Gordon, had taken the Lindley children to young Henry’s seat at Cadby and was watching over them closely. The earl of BrocCairn, impatient, had ridden off to court to see whether the king had sent to Scotland to prevent any further mischief on the part of the marquis of Hartsfield. Only Velvet and her three youngest sons remained with Skye. Her daughter was so busy with her rambunctious offspring that she left her mother much to her own devices. Skye spent many hours seated upon a small stone bench she had instructed placed by Adam’s grave on the hillside. It was peaceful there, and she felt comforted despite the turmoil going on just beyond the fringes of her own life.
“I can no longer make everything all right for everyone, Adam. Am I getting old at last?” she said aloud to the stone marking his grave. She sighed deeply. “Our darling girl is in danger, and the king is obviously still dragging his feet. Ahh, Adam! Bess would have never tolerated such goings-on, even among her favorites, except for Dudley, of course. Dudley could do anything, and he did. We can but pray our son-in-law can move
poor old Jamie Stuart to action before it is too late.”
The earl of BrocCairn found the king in his hunting lodge near Winchester and had hurried to gain an audience with him. As he stood among the petitioning courtiers, George Villiers spotted him and wondered who the tall distinguished man in the kilt could possibly be. He asked the queen, with whom he was walking.
Queen Anne turned, and her eyes lit up. “Why that is the king’s cousin, the earl of BrocCairn. I wonder what he is doing here.” Catching his eye, the queen waved at BrocCairn and beckoned him over.
He came and, bowing to her, kissed her hand. “Madame, I am pleased to see you once again.”
“Alex, what are you doing here of all places? I would think you at Dun Broc; nay, ’tis summer so it would be Queen’s Malvern to visit your wife’s family. Oh! I am rude! This is George, Viscount Villiers, but we call him Steenie, for he has the face of an angel.”
The earl of BrocCairn bowed politely to Villiers, and then he said, “I hae come to importune the king, madame, for the marquis of Hartsfield is in Scotland causing much trouble. Can ye gain me my cousin’s ear, madame? And yer influence upon him would also be much appreciated by our family.”
Villiers was fascinated. He followed along as the queen bustled into her husband’s privy chamber, saying as she came, “Here is your cousin of BrocCairn, Jamie, and he brings wicked news. You must hear him at once!”
Viscount Villiers melted back against a paneled wall to listen.
“Alex!” The king came forward slowly. His joints were stiff from the damp weather they had been having. It was almost like being home in Scotland again, he considered irritably. “What news, mon? Ye dinna come to court anymore but rarely. It must be verra serious to bring ye so far south, eh laddie?”
Alexander Gordon bowed low before the king, kissing his cousin’s outstretched hand. “It is verra serious, Jamie,” he said.
“Sit! Sit!” the king invited him, and they sat together on a bench by the fire. “Now, laddie, tell me what troubles ye?”
Darling Jasmine Page 33
