Jasmine had never experienced anything like the games, and the only time in her entire life she had slept in a tent was during the weeks in which she made her way from her father’s court to Cambay on the coast. It had been a dangerous adventure then. Now, she decided, it was fun. Their hosts, the Bruces, were providing both food and drink for their guests. Great cook fires burned night and day. The fare was simple. Hot oat stirabout, oatcakes, and cider in the morning. Mutton, oatcakes, and ale in the afternoon. Many of the guests at the games supplemented this rather spartan fare. The Leslies had brought a half a wheel of cheese, fresh bread, a fat, cooked capon, wine, apples, and pears.
“All those oats give me the wind,” Adam Leslie complained. “After five days if we all turn our arses to the sea, we’ll create enough of a blow to send the French fleet back to Normandy.”
Jasmine had never seen anything like the games. There were footraces. The men stripped off their shirts and ran the different courses. There was wrestling. The man to beat was the Erskine champion, a tall, bare-chested beefy fellow in his red-and-green tartan. Young men of the Bruce, MacDuff, and Lindsay clans tried, but failed. Black Ewen Erskine remained champion for these games. There was the stone pitch, in which heavy, smooth round stones were pitched with one hand down the length of a field. Happily the host clan won that contest. Then came the tossing of the caber. Logs of even length had been hewn, and now each contestant lifted up his log in turn, ran a few steps, and heaved the heavy timber as far as he could. Adam Leslie, considered almost an old man by the young clansmen, pitched his caber farther than any of the younger men. There was one contestant left. His nephew, the earl of Glenkirk. His dark hairy chest straining and wet with his effort, James Leslie launched his caber with a fierce grunt. It soared through the clear air with what seemed exquisite grace, passing the log thrown only moments earlier by Adam Leslie.
“I declare James Leslie winner of tossing the caber,” said Jock Bruce, the master of the games.
The earl grinned. “At least it’s still in the family,” he teased his uncle.
“Ye’ll hae to beat me three times running, laddie, before I’ll gie over to ye,” Adam said, laughing. “ ’Twas a lucky throw, I’ll vow, Jemmie. There are games at Sithean next month. We’ll see then.”
“One of these days yer going to pull something important if ye keep on like this,” Fiona muttered ominously.
Adam Leslie slid his arm about his wife. “Naught for ye to worry about, darlin’,” he said gallantly.
James Leslie had also entered the archery contest. Jasmine stood by his side, fidgeting. Her father and her brothers had taught her to shoot .“Why can’t women enter the games?” she demanded of her husband. “I’m as good an archer as any man, dammit!”
“Women don’t come to the games to compete,” the earl said.
“Well I wouldn’t want to in most of your sports,” Jasmine responded. “They’re much too rough, but women hunt, too. They know how to use a bow. I think women should be allowed to compete in archery.”
“Next she’ll be wanting to join the dancing,” Adam Leslie snickered. “Lassie, lassie, keep to yer place.”
“My place?” Jasmine’s turquoise eyes flashed, and in that moment her husband caught a glimpse of the Mughal’s daughter. “And, what, pray, good uncle, is my place?”
Adam Leslie had also in the same moment as his nephew seen something so fierce and so royal in his nephew’s wife that he had almost been frightened. Drawing a deep breath he said, further compounding his blunder, “Why, lassie, ’tis yer place to be a good and obedient wife to Jemmie Leslie and gie the family healthy bairns.”
Fiona began to giggle. The earl groaned.
“In other words, Uncle, I should keep silent, bow to my lord’s wishes, and spend my life up on the ben enciente!” She snatched her husband’s longbow and notched an arrow into it. Drawing the string back, she let the missile fly. It hit the target dead center. Pulling another arrow from its holder she fitted it into the bow, and loosed it. It split the first arrow in the target. Shoving the bow back at her husband, Jasmine said scathingly, “Any man who can match that shot will have five gold pieces from me. Is there any man here who would try?” She looked about the dumbstruck men. “No one?” Jasmine Leslie turned her back on the astounded men and walked away.
“Jesu!” Jock Bruce said admiringly. “She’s even more woman than yer mother was, Jemmie Leslie! Where the hell did she ever learn to shoot like that? And why would a woman want to shoot?”
“She was her father’s youngest child, born in his old age, and he doted upon her as did her eldest brother. They taught her so she could hunt with them,” the earl of Glenkirk said.
“What a braw lassie! Ye’ll get strong sons off of her,” the host of the games said, “and she’d be mighty handy in a siege, too.”
His remark broke the tension left by Jasmine’s anger, and the men laughed heartily, but the earl of Glenkirk was not amused. His wife had embarrassed him publicly not just by her actions, which had been spectacular to say the least, but by her sharp words, heard by all. He turned and stamped back to their tent. There he found Jasmine calmly drinking a cup of wine. “Do wives in India shame their husbands publicly, madame?” he demanded of her.
“This is not India,” she said calmly.
“Nay, madame, it is not. It is Scotland! And in Scotland women do not discomfit their men before a crowd,” he told her.
“You are just angry because I am a better shot with the longbow than you are,” she said airily. Jasmine was feeling much better now.
“Aye, you are,” he agreed, “but your words were far sharper than your arrows, and wives here do not openly speak to their husbands as you spoke to me back at the archery trial.”
“ ’Twas not you with whom I was irritated,” Jasmine replied. “ ’Twas your uncle Adam. He thinks all women should be humble, meek, and barefoot wi bairns,” she gently mocked Adam’s accent.
“My uncle is of the old school,” the earl told his wife. “He believes that a woman should defer to her lord.”
“Like your Aunt Fiona?” Jasmine replied scathingly. “She leads him by the nose, Jemmie!”
“Aye, she does, but he doesn’t know it,” the earl said. “I will tell you something that few people know, or remember. My Aunt Fiona was a wild creature in her youth. They say her wifely ardor put her first husband into an early grave, but he was a weak creature. Widowed, she set her sights upon my father, and why not? She was every bit his equal in breeding, being an earl’s daughter. My father entered his bedchamber one evening to find Fiona there, naked upon his bed, for she sought to compromise him before he could wed my mother. Uncle Adam was with my father. He had always desired Fiona, and so my father slept in his brother’s room that night while Adam tamed his Fiona. In the early days of their marriage Fiona was his slave, but then one day she realized he needed her every bit as much as she needed him. From that moment on my aunt has manipulated my uncle, but she does it in such a way that he believes nothing has ever changed and that he is still the master of his house. Fiona is very clever, darling Jasmine.”
Jasmine put her silver cup down. “Are you suggesting that I manipulate you, my lord?” She smiled wickedly.
He laughed in spite of himself. “Be serious, madame,” he scolded her. “My uncle is of a different time and sees women as all men saw them forty years ago. As most men in Scotland today still see their women. This is not England, with its more liberal appreciation of the fair sex, darling Jasmine. What is between us is private, but in public I do not believe I am asking too much when I ask you to yield before my manly superiority.” His green-gold eyes were twinkling as he said these last words. “And you must find a way to make your peace with my uncle, sweetheart.” He took her hand in his and kissed it.
She poured him his own cup of wine, and handed it to him. “What am I to say to him?” she asked. “That I might be breeding again?”
“Aren’t you?” he said knowingly.
“Perhaps,” she said. “I am not certain yet. How did you know?”
Pulling her from her seat, he sat down in it, drawing her into his lap and cuddling her. “Because there is nothing about you, darling Jasmine, that I do now know; no nuance of which I am not acutely aware. You are the breath I breathe; the very beating of my heart; a part of my soul.” He kissed her slowly, deeply, lingeringly; his big hand cupping her dark head, his fingers kneading her scalp.
She sighed, molding herself close against him. “Jemmie! Jemmie!” she murmured breathlessly, pulling away from him. “The whole encampment will see us! We are not alone. What will they say?”
“They will say the earl of Glenkirk is a fool for his beautiful wife, who talks far too much for her own good,” he replied, kissing her again, “and that the earl of Glenkirk should beat his beautiful wife occasionally to keep her docile and amenable to his will.”
“You would never beat me,” Jasmine said, dismissing his words.
“Nay, I would not,” he agreed, “but if you do not behave yourself while we are here at the games, I may be tempted to give your pretty bottom a smack, madame!”
She jumped from his lap. “You would not dare!”
James Leslie eyed her lazily from his camp chair and, reaching out, pulled her back into his lap, kissing her soundly. “A woman who says you would not dare, when she knows damn well that I would, is either asking to be spanked or is foolish. Are you asking to be spanked, madame,” he murmured, nuzzling her soft neck.
“No!” She giggled helplessly as he nibbled at her flesh.
“Then you are foolish, darling Jasmine,” he teased. His fingers were unlacing her shirt as he spoke, and now he slipped a big hand into the garment to cup her breast. It fit into his palm like a nesting dove.
“I am not!” she protested. Oh God! Her breasts were so very sensitive now. She was surely breeding again. He rubbed the nipped insistently, teasing at it until it was hard with longing. “Jemmie!” she cried out softly as he laid her back against his arm, and then, lowering his head, began to suckle upon her breast. “Someone will come! Someone will see us! Ohhh, God!” She could feel the wetness between her legs.
Raising his head, he tipped her from his lap and pushed her into the tent. There were no words for the moment between them. They both knew what they wanted. Sliding to her knees upon the grassy floor of the tent, Jasmine waited but a moment for her husband to join her. Kneeling behind her, he pushed up her skirts, gazing admiringly upon the twin moons of her bottom. He loosened his own clothing and moved himself into position, pushing himself slowly into her hot, throbbing passage, groaning with pleasure as she tightened herself about him. Completely sheathed within her, he let himself enjoy the sweetness for a long moment. Then he withdrew himself very slowly before thrusting himself back hard into her quivering body. Her back arced itself concave as she ground her buttocks into his belly.
“Oh, witch!” he groaned, his hands fastening themselves strongly about her hips as he began to piston her fiercely. If she were not already with child, she soon would be, he thought randily.
Her body was bent in a posture of complete submission, and yet she did not feel as if she had surrendered, Jasmine thought. They had suddenly wanted each other, and it was she who had chosen the path that they would take. She who had knelt and offered herself to him. She was gaining every bit as much pleasure from this mad encounter as he was. His love rod was so strong. It pierced her to her heart. She could feel every one of his fingers, single and individual, as it pressed into the soft flesh of her hips. She would be marked for several days, for her creamy skin was very fine.
The heat of his body was burning her. He drove himself deeply into her, withdrew, and propelled his length hard once more. The walls of her passage clutched hungrily at him, seeking to capture him. “Don’t stop,” she begged shamelessly. “Ohh, Jemmie, don’t stop!”
He sought to please her, please himself, please them. Back and forth he slid his manhood, back and forth, until he could suddenly feel himself expanding, feel the tremors of excitement from Jasmine as she began to slide over the edge into the white hot pleasure, and, unable to restrain himself any longer, he let his love juices burst forth with a loud groan. “Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh! Ah! Ah! Ahhhhhhh!” Falling away from her, he rolled onto his back as she collapsed facedown into the soft green grass.
They lay panting for a short time, and then Jasmine said weakly, “You will not control me with your passion, my lord.”
James Leslie burst out laughing. “And here I thought you sought to cajole me with yours,” he teased her.
“Oh beast!” she cried, and pretended to smack at him.
Defending himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her once again. “Madame! Madame! ’Tis not fit you beat your husband.”
She lay contentedly in his arms. “You are the most aggravating of men, Jemmie Leslie, and always were. You are only fortunate in that I love you to distraction, and above all others, else I think I should kill you.” Rubbing her face against his silken covered chest, she kissed it.
He stroked her dark head, entwining her thick plait about his hand and arm. “I have never needed a woman before, my precious, darling Jasmine, but I need you,” he admitted. “Until I set eyes upon you for the first time, I did not know what happiness could be. I am jealous of any man who gazes at you. I resent the years we have not spent together. My love is for you alone.”
“Oh, Jemmie! Sometimes I think I am not worthy of such a love from such a man. I am very spoilt and imperious, and I hurt without meaning to hurt; but I love you, my darling husband!” Jasmine declared passionately to him, and she kissed him hungrily.
“Ah, here ye two are,” they suddenly heard Adam Leslie’s voice, and he entered their tent as the earl scrambled up, pulling his wife with him. Adam’s eyes twinkled mischievously.
“Uncle,” Jasmine brushed the grass from her skirts, and attempted to smooth her hair, “I would apologize for my outburst earlier.”
“Och, lassie, ’tis naught,” he replied graciously. “Yer breeding again, I expect, and a breeding woman is apt to be testy and a wee bit skittish. Yer forgiven. Now come gie us a kiss to seal the peace between us, eh?” He held out his arms to her.
Laughing, Jasmine went into them and kissed his cheek. “Is nothing a secret in Scotland, Uncle?” she asked him.
“Verra little,” he said, and he chuckled.
In the evening the men danced to the wailing of the bagpipes beneath the August full moon, the light from the fires casting wild shadows over everything in their path. Jemmie pointed out to her the distinctive plaids worn by the different clans. The Bruce tartan was red with white lines separating the red into boxes, and in the center of each square was a smaller green box separated by red lines. The MacDuffs had worn their hunting colors—a plaid of dark blue, green, medium blue, and red. The Erskines’ tartan was red with black; the Lindsays’ a similar design but in red and green. Jasmine’s shawl was the Leslies’ hunting colors—boxes of medium blue and green with broad bands of dark blue, and narrow bands of red and yellow.
On the last night of the games Jasmine stood with Fiona Leslie watching the men as they danced. Gracefully they stepped between the crossed swords, never once moving the blades with their feet. The pipes played with fierce intensity. A soft wind brought the fragrance of heather from the hillsides. The flames from the fires leapt as madly as did the dancers. There was something wonderfully wild and primitive about it, and that part of Jasmine that was Celtic was moved and touched.
When the dawn came, however, the skies, bright for several days, had lowered, and rain threatened. The encampment began to break up, and Bruce’s meadow began to look like one again as they packed their belongings and prepared to return to Edinburgh.
“Ye can save yerselves a day if ye leave directly from here,” Adam Leslie suggested to his nephew. “We’ll follow in a few days’ time and bring yer steward, Adali. He can close up Glenkirk House.
Ye’ll be home all the quicker wi’out the baggage carts.”
The earl turned to his wife. “Jasmine?”
“It would be easier, but I have to go back to town, my lord. I have business with my bankers, the Kiras, that I must conduct in person.”
They crossed the Firth of Forth once more and rode back into the town. James Leslie went directly to his home, but his wife went to her bankers, in Goldsmith Alley, off the High Street, so that they might leave the city all the sooner, and return home to Glenkirk. Stepping back out into the street, her business complete, Jasmine suddenly found herself surrounded by a party of rather nasty-looking men. A familiar voice greeted her sneeringly.
“So, madame, we meet again,” Piers St. Denis, the marquis of Hartsfield, said. “I have a warrant for your arrest. Take her and put her on the horse,” he commanded his men.
Maggie, behind her mistress, and unseen, pressed herself back into the shadows of the doorway. To her surprise, a hand caught at her arm and slowly eased her back into the building. Startled, she turned about to see David Kira, a finger to his lips, warning her to silence as he quietly closed the door behind them. He drew her back down the hallway of the building, and into a side room.
“Why did ye nae help my mistress,” Maggie demanded.
“One man, and a Jew? It would have been worth my life, mistress. You, however, I have saved. I will let you out the back door, and you must run to your master and tell him what happened. Your horse will be returned to Glenkirk House by nightfall,” he said. Then, opening a small door in the room’s outer wall, he beckoned her through. “Go down the alley, lassie, and you’ll find yourself back on the High Street. You know your way from there, do you not?”
Maggie nodded. “Thank ye, sir,” she said, finally, remembering her manners, and giving him a smile.
“Hurry!” he told her. “I expect there is a need for urgency.”
The door closed behind her, and Maggie did just as the banker had advised her. She ran. Down the alley and out onto the High Street, but she did not go directly to Glenkirk House, which was located off the Cannongate. Instead she ran to Leslie House, which was set on a small street that bisected the High Street. It was nearer, and Master Adam would have a horse to get her to Glenkirk House all the quicker. Maggie ran on, praying that she would remember the right street. Then she recognized it, and, turning, she dashed down it, swiftly reaching the door of Leslie House, and pounding upon it with all her strength.
Darling Jasmine Page 35
