Vixens. Bertrice Small

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СКАЧАТЬ of green-and-gold-embroidered velvet brocade. The fur-trimmed scooped neckline was made modest by her high-necked pale gold chemise with its pearl-trimmed neckline. The puffed sleeves of the gown were trimmed lavishly with wide bands of thick brown beaver. Her matching cloak was lined and generously trimmed with the same fur. Beneath the hood of her outer garment was an elegant lace veil covering her silver head. Emeralds and diamonds dripped from her ears and spread themselves across the golden lawn of her chemise. Her brown leather gloves were lined in delicate gold silk.

      The carriage departed Greenwood into the already dark winter streets and traveled through the city to Whitehall Palace. In the Great Courtyard, Jasmine alighted. A young page in the royal livery came quickly up to her.

      “My lady Leslie?”

      She nodded.

      “Please to follow me, madame,” the page said and hurried off. He led her into the palace, down several long corridors, finally stopping before a single door. He opened it, standing back, and gestured her into the chamber.

      The king immediately came forward to greet her as the door closed behind her. “Madame, I thank you for coming,” he said, leading her to a comfortable seat by the fire. “You must be cold. Did you come by the river?”

      “Nay, the water is too chilly for a lady of my years, Your Majesty,” she replied.

      He sat down opposite her, and it was then she noticed a tray by his side. “Tea?” he asked her.

      Jasmine was surprised. “Indeed, yes, Your Majesty,” she told him and accepted the handless cup of the steaming brew that he offered her. “I did not think Your Majesty was a connoisseur of tea.”

      “I am not, but I know from Charlie that you are. I thought a bit of something warm after your trip would please you,” the king replied. Then he raised a small tumbler of whiskey to her in salute.

      Jasmine sipped at her tea, letting the heat from the aromatic beverage seep into her bones. Finally she put the cup back down and said bluntly, “You have favored my granddaughter, Fancy Devers, Your Majesty. I must assume that you have asked me here with regard to her future welfare. Is that not unusual for you, Charles Stuart? It is not your habit, I believe, to say, ‘May I?’ ”

      The king laughed aloud. “Kings do not ask, madame, as you well know. But yes, I do want to speak to you about Fancy. I have given her rooms here at Whitehall. I will continue to favor her as long as it pleases both of us that I do so. But there is something that I must share with you, madame, for I suspect you did not know it.”

      Jasmine sat silent and waited for the king to speak further.

      “Your granddaughter was a virgin when I took her last night,” the king told the astonished dowager duchess of Glenkirk.

      “It cannot be!” Jasmine finally burst out. “She was a bride. There was a wedding night.”

      “Madame, knowing my reputation, can you believe that I would be mistaken about a thing like this?” the king said.

      “But when my daughter wrote to me she did not tell me this,” Jasmine said slowly. “It cannot be possible that she did not know.”

      “When I realized the truth,” the king continued, “it was too late for me to cease. You understand that? And afterward Fancy told me what had happened to her on that infamous wedding night. And her mother did not know, for there was so much ta-rah about the death of the bridegroom your granddaughter was both embarrassed and afraid to say anything more than she had already said,” the king explained.

      “Did she tell you all of it?” Jasmine asked him quietly.

      “No. Only most briefly what he had done to her,” the king admitted. “Madame, I know you have vowed to allow your granddaughter to tell her own tale, but I wonder if she will ever be able to do so. I would know the whole truth of this matter not just for curiosity’s sake, but for Fancy’s sake. I have never willingly brought pain to a lady who shared herself with me. I cannot force you to tell me, but if you could, I should be content to keep the lady’s secrets.”

      “Give me some of that whiskey you are drinking,” Jasmine said, holding out her little teacup. She sighed, her look troubled. “What else didn’t she tell my daughter?” Jasmine asked. “And why did she believe herself not a virgin when she was yet one?”

      “Your daughter assumed Fancy knew what was involved in the marriage bed,” the king began. “She believed that Fancy had learned what she would from her older sister. She informed her that a girl of good family should not be very knowledgeable in such matters and told her to put herself in her husband’s tender care.”

      “God’s blood,” the dowager swore. “I know I did not teach my daughter, Fortune, to be so foolish or lackwitted. What on earth could have possessed her to send her youngest daughter to the marriage bed uninformed? This new generation has, I fear, no common sense at all. What happened to my granddaughter?”

      “Her husband sodomized her madame. What happened afterward I do not know,” the king said. “Fancy knew that a man enters a woman’s body. She knew it should give her pain the first time. That is why she believed she was no longer a virgin.”

      Jasmine’s beringed hand flew to her mouth, but it could not prevent the cry of anguish. Tears welled up in her turquoise eyes. For the moment, she was rendered speechless.

      The king leaned forward and took her hand in his, rubbing and patting it in an attempt to comfort her. “I should kill him myself were he not already in hell, madame,” he said. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his coat and gently wiped her cheeks free of the silent tears now rolling down them. “Will you tell me all of it?” he asked her again.

      Jasmine nodded. “But swear to me that you will never reveal that I have,” she said to the king.

      “It will be our secret, madame,” the king replied, and he kissed the elegant hand in his, smiling warmly into her eyes.

      “No wonder the ladies adore you so, Charles Stuart,” the dowager duchess of Glenkirk told the king. “Your uncle had the same charm. Now give me my whiskey, and I will tell you everything you need to know about the scandal surrounding my granddaughter.”

      He poured some of the smoky peat-flavored whiskey into her outstretched cup. She drank it down in one gulp, holding the cup out for more, which he immediately supplied.

      “Did she really kill her husband?” he asked. “She told me she did not, but that she was responsible for his death.”

      “Her sense of responsibility is too deep,” Jasmine began. Then she continued. “Parker Randolph appeared to be a perfect match for my granddaughter. He was the only son. His two sisters had been married off. The family owned several thousand acres of land in the Virginias. This boy was handsome, well mannered, and there was not even the faintest whisper of anything unsavory, or untoward about him. At twenty-five he was yet unmarried. When last year he set his sights on my granddaughter, it appeared that he had just been waiting for the right girl to come along. They had met at several parties. He asked my son-in-law’s permission to pay court to Fancy. Under the circumstances, and especially as Fancy seemed to favor Parker, her father agreed. At Christmas last year they became engaged. The wedding was set for the month of June.

      “My daughter and her husband spared no expense. The wedding was a lavish affair, marred only by the fact that the morning after it had taken place СКАЧАТЬ