“On your knees,” he ordered sternly. Then he pulled his limp manhood from his clothing. “Not enough to unman me,” he warned her, “but skillfully enough to give me a frisson of pleasure so that my trip into Leith will be a happy one.” His hand fastened into her hair, and he forced her head forward. “Open your mouth, my pet, and show me just how truthful your words are. Or are they false, and you seek to lull me into a stupor?”
Jasmine blanked her emotions and took him into her mouth. For a moment she was unable to act, but then she began to suckle hard upon him, her tongue teasing at him, her teeth grazing him just enough to arouse him. If this was the worst, she thought, then it would be worth it. She drew fiercely upon him, and he began to moan, his fingers kneading into her scalp, pressing her nearer and nearer to his groin. Jesu, she thought! Would he never let her stop. In a moment he would surely burst in her mouth, and she didn’t believe that she could bear that sort of torture.
“Enough!” he finally ground out, and allowed her to fall back upon her heels. He looked down at his organ, and was amazed. It was larger than he had ever known it to be. “You are a sorceress,” he said low. “I have never known a woman who could please a man so well.”
“I have kept my part of the bargain,” she said. “Now go and fetch us some food and wine, my lord marquis, before I expire both of hunger and of cold.”
“Very well,” he said, and, bending he retied her hands. “I do not want you getting into any kind of mischief while I am gone,” he told her with a chuckle.
“Go,” she said stonily. “I am growing fainter by the minute.”
He left her alone in the darkness, no fire, no candle for light. Her last glimpse of him was of the marquis outlined in the door as he went through it. Then he was gone, the door closing behind him. Immediately Jasmine began to work her wrists together in an effort to loosen the rope with which he had bound her. Outside she heard the muffled clop of his horse’s hooves as Piers St. Denis rode off down the hill. She had no idea how long he would be gone, how much time she had to escape him. The rope began to ease its grip. Jasmine breathed deeply and slowly, calming her beating heart, clearing her mind so she might act expeditiously and not lose this chance. Finally, she was able to slip one wrist free of its bonds. Quickly she pulled the rope from her other wrist, rubbing them both to ease the chafing they had taken this afternoon between being bound to the pommel of a horse, then hung from a hook. The skin was raw with the abuse she had suffered.
With gentle fingers she felt all around the leather collar he had put about her throat. It was fastened in the back of her neck by an iron padlock that was attached to a chain which was affixed into the wall of the cottage. It would be impossible to remove it without either the key to the lock or a knife with which to cut the leather. Her only option, therefore, was to somehow get the chain out of the wall. Turning about so that she faced the wall she felt it. Stone, worse luck. Jasmine almost cried with her frustration, but then she began to run her fingers slowly over the wall, seeking the ring that held the chain. Finding it she felt around it, and a slow smile lit her features. The ring’s bolt had been set into the mortar holding the stones. The mortar was dry and old, and crumbled beneath her very touch. She pulled at the ring, but while it wriggled about, it held fast.
I need something to help me loosen the mortar, she thought, and was immediately discouraged. If there was anything useful within the cottage, she couldn’t see it, and besides, the chain allowed her no latitude farther than a few feet. There was nothing within her reach. She shivered, yanking her shawl about her shoulders. As she did, her hand made contact with the clan badge Jemmie had given her, which was pinned to the Leslie tartan of her shawl. She almost cried aloud with relief.
Quickly she undid the badge and, with the pin, began to chip away at the crumbling mortar. She had to force herself to work carefully, for the badge was her only weapon. The town was at least two miles away. By the time Piers St. Denis rode down into Leith, found an inn, obtained food and wine, and rode back again, it would be at least two or more hours. There was time, provided she did not panic and damage the pin. Jasmine chipped, and chipped, stopping every now and then to wriggle the ring. The sound of the pin scraping against the mortar seemed at times very loud, for there was not another sound to be heard but her anxious breathing. She had to get away from St. Denis. This was likely to be her only chance, Jasmine sensed. If he violated her further, she would never again be able to face Jemmie. And what if, by his brutality, the marquis harmed the child she was now carrying?
And then, when she thought she would never be able to free herself in time, the ring slid loose from the mortar in the wall, and the chain fell with a noisy clank onto the floor. Jasmine scrambled to her feet, legs trembling with her excitement, gathering up the links as best she could. Her shoes? Where were her shoes? She moved carefully about the small room, seeking, feeling. Then she found them, first one, then the other. She eased her way until she reached the single chair and, sitting down, pulled her footwear on quickly. Standing, she considered her next move. She must leave the cottage, of course, but where was she to go? Down to the Leith Road? And once there, what? To Leith or back to Edinburgh?
The first thing was to get out of the cottage, and so, gathering up the chain, Jasmine went to the door, opened it, and moved through. Her horse was unsaddled beneath a small shed at the rear of the cottage, but she would not take him. It would be the first thing that the marquis would notice when he returned. Jasmine hurried off down the path that led back to the road. Once there, she briefly hesitated. If she went toward the port, she was likely to run into Piers St. Denis returning from his mission, but if he returned to the cottage and found her missing, he would probably think she was on the road toward Edinburgh and go in that direction to seek her out and bring her back.
Jasmine turned toward Leith. If she heard a horseman coming, she would hide in the ditch beside the road. There was no moon, and it was a dark, misty night. It was very unlikely she would be seen. She could surely gain the town and obtain help. The first thing she wanted was to have this damned collar off her neck. It was rubbing her delicate skin most. She walked swiftly, and, as she did, she contemplated how she would kill Piers St. Denis, for she knew now for certain that she would never again be safe unless he were dead and in his grave.
What a pity this wasn’t India. She would have had him thrown into a pit with a dozen cobras to be stung to death. She contemplated what terror would look like on his handsome face. But she wasn’t in India. Perhaps they could return him to England and have him dragged along behind one of her grandmother’s trading vessels as it made its way out to sea. It would be a most terrifying and slow death. Quite fitting, she thought, for the presumptuous creature who had brutalized the Mughal’s daughter. The Leslies, however, would probably just hang the bastard as she had hanged the man who had murdered her second husband, Rowan Lindley, she finally decided.
The lights of the town were drawing nearer, and she had to consider what she was going to do next. She would make an odd sight, leather collar about her neck, chain still attached to it, as she walked about the streets. She stopped a moment and pinned her blouse together as best as she could. Then she wrapped the chain about her waist, tucking the end into her skirt, and drew her shawl up over her head to hide the leather collar about her neck. It might not have done in the daylight, but in the dim, poorly lit streets of Leith, it would do quite well. Coming into the town itself, she stopped a woman selling herbs and asked her for directions to the harbor.
“East-Street, mistress,” the herb woman said, pointing.
Jasmine hurried onto the narrow street. It had suddenly occurred to her that there might be an O’Malley-Small ship in port, and if there was, she was safe. She gained the docks and, outside the harbormaster’s office, was a large slate board upon which were chalked the names of the ships at dock. Jasmine stopped, and ran her finger down the board. She was almost weeping with nervousness, and disappointment
until she reached the last name on the board. Lord Adam! The little coastal freighter her grandmother had named after her grandfather, for he would have no great vessel called by his name. Adam de Marisco had thought it presumption. Noting the location, Jasmine made her way down the docks to where the small boat sat bobbing at its mooring. Who was the freighter’s captain? She didn’t know. Jasmine picked her way up the gangplank. There was only a single lad on watch, but there was a light in the captain’s cabin. Seeing her, the lad on watch came forward.
“We don’t allow no women on board, mistress,” he said firmly.
“I am Jasmine de Marisco Leslie, the countess of Glenkirk,” Jasmine said. “Where is your captain? I must see him at once!”
The lad looked at Jasmine critically. “You don’t look like no countess to me, mistress,” he said boldly.
“Nevertheless I am,” Jasmine replied, drawing herself up proudly. “Now take me to your captain before I box your ears, presumptuous boy! Your manners are wanting, and I shall tell him. And you will address me as my lady, not mistress. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, mis . . . my lady,” the boy said. “If you will follow me.” Well, it wouldn’t be his fault if she was some town whore, he thought. The captain could deal with her, the uppity bitch.
Jasmine followed the lad across the deck. He flung open the door to the cabin house, and motioned her through. She stepped into the cabin, and relief washed over her so hard that her legs buckled, and she had to grab on to the table in the room’s center. “Geoff!” she managed to say. “Thank God it’s you!”
Captain Geoffrey O’Flaherty turned at the sound of her voice. His eyes widened in surprise. “Jasmine? Jesu! It is you!” Then, seeing her obvious state, he put his arms about her. “Cousin, what is it? Why are you here? What has happened? What the hell is this thing about your neck? Ewan,” he called to the boy. “Fetch some wine for her ladyship.” He settled her in a chair and waited while she recovered herself. “Now, tell me, cousin,” he said when she had quaffed the goblet the cabin boy had given her, “but first let me cut that leather from your neck.” Carefully he sliced through it with his knife, and, pulling it off flung it, chain and all onto the floor.
Jasmine took a deep breath. What on earth had happened to her? She had been so strong up until the moment she had seen her cousin. “I thought you were on the East Indies run,” she began, rubbing her neck gingerly.
“I am,” he replied, “but the captain of this vessel fell and broke his leg. I was in port with not another run scheduled for the Cardiff Rose for several weeks. We didn’t have another captain, and mother would not let father take Lord Adam up the coast, so I did. This is my son, Ewan. It’s his first voyage, and if he likes it, he’ll come out the Indies with me in another year. But you did not come to visit, cousin. Tell me what has happened.”
“What do you know of my return from France?” she asked him.
“Precious little,” he answered her. “I returned to learn that you had come back, and you had married Lord Leslie. What else is there, cousin?”
Jasmine told him. She told him of the king’s foolishness and of Piers St. Denis’s refusal to accept defeat, which had led to betrayal and murder. “Jemmie and I have spent the entire summer traveling about Scotland just to avoid him until our messenger could return from England. We have spent the last few days across the Forth at Lord Bruce’s games and planned to leave Edinburgh tomorrow for Glenkirk. I had to go to David Kira before we left, however, and, as I was leaving his house, I was set upon by the marquis and his cutthroats,” Jasmine told him. Then she went on to tell him of her kidnapping, leaving out the more unpleasant details, for she was, she found, uncomfortable even thinking of them.
“Jemmie must be frantic,” Geoffrey O’Flaherty said.
“Maggie, my maid, was with me. They didn’t see her, and I know she hurried right to my husband.”
“But how did St. Denis know where to find you?”
“I think simply bad luck on my part,” Jasmine said. “Just mere chance that I was leaving Goldsmith Alley as St. Denis was passing by it. I don’t know what I would have done, Geoff, if one of Grandmama’s ships hadn’t been in port. I took a chance, and this time my luck was better. Not only a ship, but a cousin who knows me.”
“You will be safe here,” he told her, “for I doubt that this marquis would even consider that you had found such a safe refuge. And you are right, I expect, that finding you gone, he would assume you would attempt to get back to Edinburgh. Where do you think your husband is, Jasmine?”
“Possibly in Edinburgh, Geoff. He could not know that St. Denis had brought me to Leith. The Leslies will probably think we are headed for the borders. They will have alerted their friends there.”
“I want to remain here with you,” Geoff O’Flaherty said, “but Ewan is an excellent horseman and can ride to Edinburgh to alert the earl as to your whereabouts and that St. Denis is still in Leith, if, indeed, he has not fled, being unable to find you.”
“I am so tired,” Jasmine said, and indeed her eyelids were drooping.
He settled her into his bunk, and said quietly to his son, “Go to the harbormaster and tell him that Captain O’Flaherty needs a horse. Then get directions to the Leith-Edinburgh Road. It is not a great distance to ride.”
“How will I know where to find the earl when I get there?” young Ewan asked.
“Ask for Glenkirk House,” Jasmine said sleepily. “It’s on a side street as you go toward the Cannongate.” Her dark head fell back upon the pillow once again.
Obeying his father, Ewan O’Flaherty went to the harbormaster and asked for the loan of a horse. “I must ride to Edinburgh, and fetch the earl of Glenkirk,” he told the harbormaster self-importantly.
“Ye’ll nae find his lordship in the town,” the harbormaster said. “He is here in Leith, laddie, for he sent to me this very evening asking if any vessels were leaving tonight, or on the morrow. Then he and his men came down to these very docks and searched the two ships going out on this evening’s tide just before they sailed,” the older man finished.
“Oh, sir,” Ewan said excitedly, “can you please tell me where the earl is now? It is very important that I find him!”
“Why, laddie, ye’ll find him at the Mermaid, which sits just off the docks,” the harbormaster said, pointing a gnarled finger.
“Thank you, sir!” Ewan said, and he set off at a run for the Mermaid tavern and inn. Dashing into the taproom the boy called out, “I am seeking the earl of Glenkirk. Is he here?”
James Leslie arose from the table, where he had been sitting with his father-in-law, his uncle, and several other men. “I am he, lad,” he said. “What is it you want?”
Ewan O’Flaherty hurried over to the table, and bowed as his mother had taught him. “My father, Captain O’Flaherty, would speak with you, my lord, on a matter of import to your lordship.”
“And who is Captain O’Flaherty that he would speak with me?” the earl asked the boy. “I do not know him.”
“He is my great-grandmother’s grandson,” the boy replied, “and you are well acquainted with my great-grandmother.”
“Who is your great-grandmother?” the earl asked, smiling slightly.
“Lady de Marisco,” Ewan said, jumping back, frightened, as the earl leapt to his feet.
“Jesu, lad! Why did you nae say so in the first place?” He pushed Ewan gently. “Lead on then, laddie, and take me to your father.”
“We’ll go wi ye in case this is some sort of trap,” Adam Leslie said, standing up and beckoning to his companions.
The men, led by the boy, trooped from the Mermaid, and onto the docks, following Ewan to where the Lord Adam was moored. As the sound of their booted feet hit the deck of the small ship, Geoffrey O’Flaherty emerged from the cabin, sword in hand.
“Nay, father,” the boy cried. “This is the earl of Glenkirk. He was here, and the harbormaster told me where to look!”
Geoffrey O’Flahe
rty sheathed his weapon and held out his hand to James Leslie. “Jasmine is in my cabin,” he said without further explanation, for he knew that was what the earl wanted to know.
The earl nodded, and, moving past the captain, entered the cabin. Jasmine lay sleeping upon the captain’s bunk. He went to her and, kneeling down, kissed her cheek softly. “Darling Jasmine,” he murmured low. “I have come to take you home.”
The turquoise eyes opened slowly and filled with recognition. Jasmine smiled. “Jemmie! I knew that you would find me!”
Chapter 20
They returned to Glenkirk Castle, and it was as if Piers St. Denis, the marquis of Hartsfield, had disappeared off the face of the earth. He was nowhere to be found either in England or Scotland. BrocCairn and Adam Leslie had gone back to the cottage where Jasmine had briefly been held captive. It was as empty as when she had left it but for a jug of wine, a stale loaf of bread, and a bit of cheese lying upon the table. The wine carafe was full, and neither the bread or the cheese had been eaten. St. Denis had obviously returned to find Jasmine gone, deposited their meal upon the table, and sought after her. Not finding her, he had himself vanished.
George Villiers returned to England, his mission for the king successfully completed, and his only rival for James Stuart’s attention vanquished. Shortly after the new year the king, with the urging of the queen, created Villiers the earl of Buckingham. The king then pronounced Kipp St. Denis legitimate by virtue of his father’s public affection for him and the fact that his father had allowed his eldest son the benefit of his name. Kipp was then made marquis of Hartsfield, as he had been firstborn of the previous marquis’s sons.
The queen, who had made Kipp her especial pet, for Kipp, following Villiers’s lead had given Her Majesty much time, respect, and attention, found him a suitable wife. Kipp had, the queen was fond of saying, a good heart, and he had endured much under his brother’s wicked domain. The bride, a beloved bastard daughter of one of the favorite courtiers, came with a suitable dowry. She was delighted with her good fortune and devoted to her husband, who was equally pleased with her.
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