“Your Highness,” Jasmine began, but the king waved her into silence, and the warning pressure of Jemmie’s hand on her arm cautioned her to be quiet and make no more protest.
“Piers, my dearest laddie, where are ye? Come and meet the dowager marchioness of Westleigh,” the king burbled, his tone almost coquettish.
A tall, fair young man stepped from the crowd of courtiers about the throne. He was dressed all in blue, and Jasmine would have sworn that the silk exactly matched the color of his blazing blue eyes. He was probably the most beautiful man she had ever seen, yet she was instantly repelled in the same way that she had been repelled by cobras in India. They, too, were beautiful, but dangerous. The marquis of Hartsfield bowed low before the king. “Sire,” he said. The voice was pleasant enough.
“Make yer bow to Lady Lindley, Piers,” the king girlishly encouraged the young man. “If ye please her, she may choose ye for her mate.”
Hartsfield obeyed the king, giving him a quick smile as he did so. Then he turned to salute Jasmine. “Madame,” he said.
“Now take her off, and chat wi her, Piers,” the king instructed. “Glenkirk, ye stay by the queen, and gie yer rival a chance now. Ye’ve been wi the lady for several months in France now. Let my Piers hae his opportunity. Dinna fret, Jemmie Leslie, if she chooses my Piers, I’ll gie a nice heiress to compensate ye.” He chortled, well pleased with himself.
Masking his anger, James Leslie went to the queen’s side, and, taking her hand, kissed it. “I am happy to see you looking so well, ma’am,” he told her with a forced smile.
“You do not have to smile, Glenkirk,” the queen said. “Having gotten what he thought he wanted, Jamie is now making a right mess of the situation, isn’t he? I knew nothing about this, I assure you, else I would have talked him out of it. He will indulge his young men. Young George Villiers, whom I far prefer over Piers St. Denis, has lost his heart to Lady Katherine Manners, the earl of Rutland’s daughter. He isn’t good enough for her yet, but Jamie will see to it that he gets a title soon enough. Fortunately Villiers was clever enough to make his desire for Lady Manners known to the king else he should find himself another of poor Jasmine’s suitors in this marriage-go-round.”
“I should have married her in France,” Glenkirk said irritably. “It was my first inclination, but she wanted her family about her, and I wanted her to be happy, ma’am.”
“Ahhhh,” the queen replied softly, “you love her, don’t you?”
“I do,” he admitted.
“And does she love you?”
“Aye, she does,” he answered her. “I am the most fortunate man alive, ma’am. You do not think the king will force her to marry this marquis of Hartsfield? I have heard . . .” Glenkirk stopped, not knowing if he should reveal his knowledge of the gossip to Queen Anne.
“You have heard that Piers St. Denis and George Villiers have found favor with my husband,” she responded. “It is true. You know that James is deeply passionate in his friendships, my lord. I do not mind at all, for it is easier to cope with these charming young men than it would be to cope with a maîtresse en titre. I was quite very relieved when your mother left Scotland. How is she these days?”
The earl of Glenkirk swallowed hard. So Queen Anne had known all along about her husband’s youthful passion for his mother, yet she had said nothing. His respect suddenly grew for this woman, whom most considered silly and childish. “She is well, ma’am,” he replied. “A widow, but content to remain in the kingdom of Naples. My younger brother and two sisters are there with her. She says she could not bear Scotland’s climate after so many years in the warmth of Naples.”
“How long has it been since you saw her?” the queen asked.
“I visited shortly after my wife and children were killed,” he said quietly. “I needed her counsel then, but it has been many years since I beheld my mother’s face.”
“The Leslies of Glenkirk will be quite relieved that you are finally marrying again,” the queen noted. “I assume you and Lady Lindley are already lovers. She is quite fecund, and you will undoubtedly have sons off her. Her children are delightful. Not simply fair of face and form, but bright and clever for such little creatures. Do they like you, James Leslie? It is important that you get on well with them.”
“I believe we have already formed a comfortable attachment, ma’am,” he replied. “They have taken to calling me Papa. Young Henry wants me to begin his lessons in swordsmanship this summer.”
“That is to the good,” the queen said approvingly. “You will be an excellent father to the young Lindleys and my grandson.” She noticed that his eye was straying to Jasmine and the marquis of Hartsfield. “If she loves you, you need have no worry,” Queen Anne told the earl of Glenkirk, but James Leslie could see Jasmine growing impatient, and his concern was not whether she could be suborned, but how soon it would be before she hit the marquis and caused a row.
Piers St. Denis had firmly eased Jasmine from before the king’s throne, walking her across the room. “You are far more beautiful than I was led to believe,” he said, “but then, of course, you know how beautiful you are. I know you have been told it many times, madame.”
“Your compliment is accepted,” she replied. “I am marrying the earl of Glenkirk on June 15. We love one another. I cannot imagine why the king, having insisted on this marriage, is now playing this coy game with us. I am furious!”
“The king seeks to please me,” the marquis said, “especially now that the country bumpkin has dared to look above his station, and cast his net for the earl of Rutland’s daughter. God’s blood! Villiers doesn’t even have a title. Rutland will hardly give his daughter to a backwater squire,” Piers St. Denis sneered. “But, old king fool has promised his Steenie that he will make it all right, and the bumpkin bragged on it, so now the king must make it all right for me as well. Are you and Glenkirk lovers? You have the ripe and lush look of a woman who is very well loved. Ahh, you blush. How charming!”
“Why does the king call George Villiers Steenie?” Jasmine asked the marquis, ignoring his query by substituting one of her own.
“Have you met Villiers? Obviously not. Look over by the king’s left hand. The young man with the face like an angel. Old king fool says he is reminded of St. Stephen when he looks at Villiers. Hence, Steenie, a diminutive of Stephen. It is sickening. Now, answer my question, beauty. Are you and Glenkirk lovers?”
“It is not your business,” Jasmine replied tersely.
His fingers tightened upon her arm. “If you are to be my wife,” he told her, “I need to know everything about you, my beauty.”
“I am not going to be your wife,” she said angrily. “Release my arm. You are bruising me, you brute!”
“Ahh, so you are lovers. Well, it matters not. You weren’t a virgin anyway. Not with four children, and one of them a royal bastard,” St. Denis said. “You are a passionate little bitch, aren’t you, my beauty?”
“Let go of my arm,” Jasmine replied. “If you do not, I shall scream, and cause a lovely scandal, placing you at center stage, my lord!”
He released her arm, laughing. “I do believe that you would,” he told her. “When we are married I shall beat you if you misbehave.”
Jasmine looked absolutely outraged. “A man who would raise his hand to a woman is no real man at all,” she said. “Now, go find yourself some silly little heiress to wed. I am pledged to Lord Leslie.” Then, turning on her heel, Jasmine hurriedly made her way across the room to where James Leslie stood by the queen. She curtsied low to Anne. “I am happy to see you again, ma’am,” she said.
“You do not like the marquis of Hartsfield,” the queen said bluntly.
“No, ma’am, I do not,” Jasmine replied with equal frankness.
“Neither do I,” Queen Anne answered.
“Will the king force me?” Jasmine asked.
Queen Anne shook her head in the negative. “Since Steenie has been promised that eventually he shall have
Rutland’s heiress, Jamie feels he must give St. Denis a bride of equal value. This is really your own fault, my dear. If you had married Glenkirk when we expected you to marry him, you would not have been vulnerable now to St. Denis; but Jamie has a good heart, as you well know. He will not force you. He does mean the choice to be yours, but he will try to get you to approve his beautiful marquis in order to please St. Denis. I did not know he was going to meddle in this affair, or I should have convinced him otherwise. After all, our meddling after dear Henry’s death, may God assoil his sweet soul, caused you to run away in the first place. I don’t want you to run away with our little Charlie-boy again.” She patted Jasmine’s hand with her slender fingers. “It will be all right, my dear. I am certain of it. But you must not run off, and I shall charge you, Jemmie Leslie, with the responsibility for Lady Lindley.”
Across the room the marquis of Hartsfield watched the exchange. He could not hear what was being said, but he would wager his name had come up in the intense discussion between the queen, and the beauty. “What do you think of her, Kipp?” he asked the man by his side.
“She’ll want serious taming,” his companion said, “but I imagine that you’ll enjoy that, Piers,” and he laughed.
Kipp St. Denis was the marquis’s bastard half brother. The two men had been raised together; the bastard being taught complete and total obedience to his father’s only legitimate heir. Kipp’s mother had been the personal maid of the young marchioness of Hartsfield. Her mistress’s betrothed husband had raped her a week before the wedding. She had been a virgin. After the wedding night, the previous marquis had insisted upon having the two women in his bed each night. He was a violent, amoral man. His bride, an orphan whose dowry consisted of the acreage adjoining his estates, loved her husband and was willing to do what he wanted. The estate was isolated, and there was no one to gossip but the servants, and they rarely did for fear of their master.
The half brothers had been born an hour apart, in the same bed, as the two women labored side by side. Had Kipp been the legitimate son, it was he who would have been the heir, as his was the first birth. Piers had joined him in the same cradle in the next hour, and they had been rarely separated since. Kipp was his mother’s image while Piers was his father all over again. Both men, however, resembled their father in temperament. Despite the difference in their stations, the half brothers were completely loyal to one another, and there was no trace of jealousy between them. Kipp went where Piers went, serving his brother as secretary, valet, and general confidant.
“Ahh, Kipp, this is no ordinary mare to be tamed, but a finely bred creature who will take special handling,” the marquis said. “Did you notice her breasts as they overflowed her gown’s neckline? Little creamy love cones that were just begging to be caressed.”
“If you want to win her over, you’ll have to get rid of the earl of Glenkirk, Piers,” his half brother said. “As long as he is here, you will have not the slightest chance with her. I heard her when you had her by your side. She is completely determined to wed him. And, brother, he is living in her house on the Strand with her—probably sharing her bed and giving her a good fucking every night. We don’t want her with child—his child—do we? Tell the king, and he will see to the rest, I promise you. Does not old king fool love his darling boy, Piers?” Kipp St. Denis laughed suggestively.
“You are right,” the marquis agreed. “I don’t want to lose this chance. Lady Lindley is fabulously wealthy in her own right, and of even greater importance, she had the king’s only grandson. A bastard like yourself, Kipp, but a royal bastard. Until little baby Charles gets himself a wife out of Spain, or France, and has a child of his own, the little duke of Lundy will remain his grandpapa’s darling. To have control of that laddie is to have real power, Kipp! Villiers can have his whey-faced little heiress. I will have both a fortune and power over the king!”
“Only if you can convince Lady Lindley to marry you. I already see you cannot bully her. She is, the gossip tells me, a king’s daughter herself; and her relatives are influential with the king. Her stepfather is his cousin, the earl of BrocCairn. Her uncles are the earl of Lynmouth and Lord Burke of Clearfields. Her grandmother is the old countess of Lundy herself. Why she locked horns with Gloriana, Bess Tudor, brother, and has not only outlived that queen, but survived to tell the tale. Lady de Marisco dotes upon this particular granddaughter, Piers, and the family does what she tells them. If you threaten Lady Lindley, they will gather about her to protect her, then reach out to destroy you for your impudence. It is a very large family. There’s an aunt married to the earl of Alcester, and another who is Lord Blackthorne’s wife. Jasmine Lindley is extremely well connected. You will have to charm her into marrying you, and you are quite capable of such an act.”
“I must have her!” Piers St. Denis said fiercely. “She excites me as no other woman ever has. Her wealth, her beauty, her royal bastard. But even without the brat, I would desire her, Kipp.”
“First the earl of Glenkirk,” his half brother counseled. “If he remains too near Lady Lindley, you will have no chance at all. Look!” He pointed across the room. “The earl and Lady Lindley are departing even now. Quickly, Piers! You must see the king now!”
The marquis of Hartsfield moved gracefully across the room, blocking the earl of Glenkirk and Jasmine even as they turned away from bidding the king farewell. “Sire!” he said loudly. “If Lady Lindley is to give me a fair chance at courting her, I do not believe that Lord Leslie should be living in her house and sharing her bed, do you?”
“What’s this?” said the king. “Jemmie, is it true? Yer at Greenwood wi Lady Lindley?”
“Aye, my lord,” the earl of Glenkirk said tersely, casting an angry glance at the marquis of Hartsfield.
“Nah, nah, Jemmie, we canna hae that,” the king replied.
“Sire, he may be my guest,” the earl of Lynmouth said coming forward, and bowing low. “Jemmie and I are old friends.”
“Excellent, excellent,” said the king. “Ye’ll stay wi Robin Southwood, Jemmie, eh? ’Tis a fair solution, is it nae?”
The earl of Glenkirk bowed to his king. “I will, of course, escort Jasmine home,” he told James Stuart.
“And I shall come, too,” the earl of Lynmouth said, “and we’ll get you settled at Lynmouth House.” His look warned both his niece and Lord Leslie to silence.
“Lynmouth’s house is next to Lady Lindley’s,” murmured Kipp in his brother’s ear. “Is that not a little too near?”
“If I speak further, I shall appear to whine,” the marquis said low. “I will not debase myself with any further puling complaint.”
“My lord,” Jasmine said to St. Denis as they departed the room, “you are wasting your time, and will make a fool of yourself. Let matters rest as they are. The king will find you an heiress of your own if you ask him prettily, and I am certain you know how to beg, do you not?” She smiled sweetly at him as his handsome features darkened in anger.
But then Piers St. Denis laughed, sweeping the ire from his handsome face. “Ahh, madame, you but fascinate me with every word. I do not believe anyone has ever been able to infuriate me as you do. I shall not give up my pursuit of you. You are much too intriguing, and I vow I shall win you from Glenkirk.”
“Never!” Jasmine said vehemently.
The marquis of Hartsfield took her arm, edging out the earl of Glenkirk, who fell angrily behind with the earl of Lynmouth. “Now, madame, do not be unruly with me. You will like me. Everyone likes me, except perhaps Villiers, but then I see him for what he really is when others do not. He is naught but an upstart. I am a most charming fellow as you will learn if you will but give me a chance.”
Jasmine laughed in spite of herself. “My lord,” she said quietly, regaining her composure, “this is a difficult situation in which we find ourselves. I must seem a shrew to you, but you must understand that I have known James Leslie for years. I have come to love him. Ours is an ideal match. My children
adore him. I cannot be swayed even by your most prodigious charms. This is a futile quest upon which you embark, and, frankly, I am furious with the king for proposing it.”
“You are adorable when you are angry,” he purred.
“God’s blood!” Jasmine swore.
Piers St. Denis chortled, his blazing blue eyes dancing devilishly. “Your little son swore in Hindi,” he said. “Can you swear in Hindi, too? He was quite a delightful little fellow, your royal bastard.”
“I can swear expertly in at least seven languages,” she replied.
They had reached the courtyard, where their carriage was awaiting them. He helped her in, smiling toothily. “I shall call upon you tomorrow, madame,” he said. “If the weather is fair, perhaps we shall lunch along the river somewhere. I will come in my barge.” Slamming the door shut, he signaled the coachmen to depart, waving gaily at Jasmine, then turning about and saluting both earls as he made to retrace his steps back to the king, and the court.
“The bastard!” Glenkirk swore. “I came with Jasmine, and have no horse. How the hell am I supposed to get back to Greenwood?”
“In my coach,” Robin said. “I didn’t ride. Clever of Hartsfield to edge us out so neatly. I have noticed that he is not a man who likes to lose. He will drive Jasmine to distraction until you leave for mother’s.”
Darling Jasmine Page 13