Bedazzled. Bertrice Small

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      Among the chosen to view the wedding, India Lindley stood shivering as she drew her cloak about her. She should have worn her rabbit-lined cape, but it was not nearly as fashionable as the one she was wearing. She looked at the French courtiers in their magnificent clothing. She had never seen anything like it. It was utterly spectacular, and she felt like someone’s poor country relation. Her mother, of course, had fabulous jewelry which covered a multitude of fashion sins, but she and Fortune looked positively dowdy even in comparison to the bosomless eleven-year-old Catherine-Marie St. Laurent, whose claret-colored silk and cloth-of-gold gown was delicious.

      “Here comes the bride,” Fortune singsonged next to her. Fortune was enjoying every moment of this colorful and marvelous show. It didn’t matter to her that her mother and sister looked like a pair of burgher’s daughters.

      India focused her eyes upon Henrietta-Marie, who was escorted by both of her brothers, King Louis XIII, resplendent in cloth-of-gold and silver, and Prince Gaston, elegant in sky blue silk and cloth-of-gold. The petite sixteen-year-old bride was dressed in an incredible gown of heavy cream-colored silk embroidered all over with gold fleurs-de-lys, pearls, and diamonds. The dress was so encrusted with gold and diamonds that it glittered as she walked. On her dark hair was a delicate gold-filigreed crown, from whose center spire dripped a huge pearl pendant that caused the watching crowds to gasp.

      “I have better,” murmured the duchess of Glenkirk, and her mother-in-law restrained her laughter.

      Behind the bride and her brothers came the queen mother, Marie di Medici, wearing, as always, her black widow’s garb, but dripping with diamonds in recognition of the occasion. Finally came France’s queen, Anne of Austria, in a gown of cloth-of-silver and gold tissue, sewn all over with sapphires and pearls, leading the French court. The few English guests had already been brought to the raised and canopied dais to await the arrival of the bridal party now come.

      The cardinal performed the wedding ceremony, and then the bride, her family, and the French court were escorted into the cathedral for the celebration of the Mass. Inside, the cathedral was filled with other invited guests: members of the parliament, other politicians, and civic officials, garbed formally for this occasion in ermine-trimmed crimson velvet robes. The walls of the cathedral were hung with fine tapestries, and the bridal party was seated upon another canopied, raised dais. Having settled the bride upon a small throne, the duc de Chevreuse departed her side to escort the two English ambassadors and the few English guests to the archbishop’s palace for they would not attend the Mass.

      “Ridiculous!” Jasmine muttered beneath her breath.

      “Be silent!” James Leslie said softly, but sharply. While he agreed with his wife that this prejudice between Roman and Anglican, Anglican and Protestant, was absurd, it was a fact they had to live with, and to involve one’s self in the sectarian fray was to make enemies. It was better to remain neutral. Lady Stewart-Hepburn nodded her approval of her son’s wisdom.

      “Did you see the gowns?” India said excitedly to her mother. “I have never seen such clothing!”

      “A bridal gown should be beautiful,” Jasmine replied.

      “Nay, not the bridal gown,” India responded. “It is lovely, of course, but it is the gowns worn by the women of the French court that I am envious of, Mama. Your jewels, naturally, always overshadow anything you may wear, but Fortune and I look like two little sparrows compared to the French ladies. Why, even flat-chested Catherine-Marie outshines us. It is most embarrassing! We are here to represent our king, and we look like two serving wenches!”

      “What’s wrong with our gowns?” Fortune asked her elder sister. “I think we look quite nice. I do like Queen Anne’s short hair, though. Can I cut my hair like that, Mama?”

      “No,” Jasmine said. “Your hair is beautiful, child. Why would you cut it? If this Spanish queen of France would cut and frizz her own hair, it is because her hair is not as fine as yours, Fortune.”

      “Nor as red,” Fortune grumbled.

      “I am going to have an entire new wardrobe made when I get home to England,” India said. “I shall dazzle King Charles’s court, Mama, with my French fashions and their vibrant colors. Our countrymen wear such dull colors. Pale blue, rose, brown, and black. And, Mama, you have so much jewelry. Would you not let me have some of it, please?”

      “She is certainly not shy about asking for what she wants, is she?” Cat said to her son. “She has been, I imagine, quite a handful to raise, Jemmie, eh?”

      The duke of Glenkirk smiled. “She is nae worse, Mother, than any other girl,” he told her. “She hae always been an obedient lass.”

      “Give her what she wants, and then find her a good husband,” was his parent’s advice. “She will not be obedient much longer, I think.”

      “I agree with your mother,” Jasmine said. “There is a wild streak in India that I have never really recognized before. Perhaps I have not wanted to see it because it reminds me of my brother, Salim. But suddenly I see familiar traits in India, and I remember that my father indulged Salim, even when his disobedience was unforgivable. And yet our father forgave him. Drunkenness, lechery, theft. Even murder. There was only one thing my father would not forgive him.”

      Curious, Lady Stewart-Hepburn asked, “What?”

      “Salim desired me as a man desires a woman. My father could not countenance it, and I was married to my first husband, Prince Javid Khan. Salim had him murdered, and knowing he was near death, my father smuggled me out of India. When I was India’s age I was about to be wed to my second husband, who was India’s father.”

      “Then you must find a husband for India,” Cat said. “It is obvious it is time for her to be settled before she causes a scandal. I wish I knew a suitable match for her in Naples.”

      “Oh, no!” Jasmine cried. “I should not want her so far away from us. Like my grandmother, I want my family about me, and we have all our family in England and Scotland, madame. All but my Uncle Ewan O’Flaherty, who lives in Ireland. And, you, madame, who remain in the kingdom of Naples. Jemmie has told me of your, ah, difficulty with the late king, but now that James Stuart is dead and buried, would you not consider coming home to Scotland again? There is a place for you at Glenkirk always.”

      “Bless you, my dear Jasmine,” Cat said, her voice thick with emotion, “but my beloved Bothwell is buried in Naples, at the foot of our villa’s garden, and that is where I will lie one day, beside him in death as I was in life. Besides, my old bones are too used to the warmth of the south to tolerate the damp and chill of Scotland any longer.”

      “Your great-grandmother returned home from a warm climate,” the duke said quietly.

      “I am not Janet Leslie,” Cat said as quietly.

      Outside the salon where they were waiting, a canon boomed.

      “It would appear the Mass is finally over,” the earl of Carlisle noted dryly.

      “Took long enough,” Viscount Kensington responded. “Do these Catholics really think God is going to overlook their fornications and other mischief just because they spend so much time in church on their knees? Well, let’s hope this little queen we’ve gotten proves as fecund as her old mother.”

      “Come to the windows,” the earl called to them. “The rain has finally stopped, and there are fireworks being shot off.”

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