Just Beyond Tomorrow. Bertrice Small

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СКАЧАТЬ Leslie looked up at his mother. He was a handsome man with his father’s dark hair and green eyes. “Where will ye go?” he asked her. “I dinna want ye to go, Mother. I know I am a man long grown, but we hae just lost Father. I dinna want to lose ye, too.” Reaching out, he took her hand in his and kissed it tenderly.

      The Duchess of Glenkirk swallowed back the tears that threatened to break forth. She had to be strong now for her son, as well as herself. “The dower house at Cadby is mine,” she said. “I intend making it my home. You must remember I am the Dowager Marchioness of Westleigh as well as the Dowager Duchess of Glenkirk. I like England, and God only knows the climate at Cadby is far more suitable for my old bones than here at Glenkirk.”

      “What of the civil war, Mother? I dinna want ye rushing headlong into danger just because of yer grief,” he said.

      “Your brother, the Marquis of Westleigh, has been wise enough to avoid all factions in this dispute. He is loyal to the government in power. Besides, like the rest of us, he has kept from court for many years now. As Glenkirk and Queen’s Malvern are isolated to a degree, so is Cadby. Besides, who would disturb a widowed and grieving old woman?”

      “Ye are nae old!” he exclaimed. Then he smiled. “Ye begin to sound like my great-grandmother, the formidable Madame Skye, Mother.”

      She laughed and gave his hand a little squeeze. “I am sixty,” she said, “and certainly past my first bloom. Patrick, you are the only one of my children left in Scotland. Two of your brothers are Englishmen. The other two are lost to me in Ireland. India and Autumn are in England, but Fortune is in the Colonies. It is past time that you were settled. The responsibilities of Glenkirk have fallen, suddenly, but hardly unexpectedly, upon your broad shoulders. You should have married long ago. You need a wife, and you need an heir.”

      “I need my mother,” he told her.

      Frowning, she withdrew her hand from his. “No, you do not, Patrick. You are Glenkirk and must take your responsibilities seriously. Try to understand. I have to go to England for several reasons. Firstly, Scotland is too sad a place for me now. Secondly, I must be absolutely certain that Henry, and India’s Deverall, and my grandsons do not become involved in this religious and political folly. Charlie, my not-so-royal Stuart, I know, debates the wisdom of taking up the banner for his kingly cousin. I must dissuade him if I can, which brings me to something I must say to you.

      “You must never, ever, become involved with the royal Stuarts, Patrick. Even without meaning to be, they are dangerous to know. You do not need to hear the history of the Leslies and the royal Stuarts repeated, for you know it well. Your father did not heed my warning, or his family’s own chronicle, and disaster has once again been the result of this association. We deliberately kept you from the court to protect you, and Glenkirk.

      “You do not know the royal Stuarts. They are charming, but treacherous. Please God you shall never know them! Your first loyalty is to God. Your second is to this clan, to Glenkirk. Do only what is best for them and for your family. The Stuarts have great charisma, but they are heedless of everything and everyone but their own desires. Remain at Glenkirk where you will be safe.”

      “What will I do wi’out ye, Mother?” he asked forlornly. He was going to be alone. He had never been alone.

      “You must find a wife, Patrick. Glenkirk needs a new, young duchess, not a grieving old dowager,” Jasmine sighed. “Find a bride, making certain that you love her. Perhaps one day I shall return home to you.”

      “I am nae happy wi’ yer decision, Mother,” he attempted to argue with her.

      “That is unfortunate,” Jasmine said softly, “because, dear Patrick, my decision is not yours to make. I have always run my own life to suit me, as your father well knew. You cannot stop me, nor, I know, would you even attempt to do so. It is time, my son, that you accepted the less joyous responsibilities of your manhood. Why is it you have never found a woman you wanted enough to wed? God only knows there have been enough women in your life. Although I will not ask it, I suspect that more than one Leslie bastard of your loins resides hereabouts.” She gave him a faint smile.

      “It was nae important that I wed and hae a legitimate heir until now,” he said frankly. “Women can be troublesome, Mother.”

      “Indeed, we can. Especially when our men are being such stubborn fools,” she told him seriously. “The world would be a far safer and better place if men would listen more often to their women, than to the sound of their own loud, braying voices. If your father had listened to me instead of being so stubborn . . . but ’tis water beneath the bridge now, Patrick. I am leaving Glenkirk. Find a wife. Get on with your life, remembering to avoid the royal Stuarts and their ilk.

      “Unless I am very mistaken, this son of the first Charles will not be able to stomach those narrow-minded and falsely pious fools who currently attempt to control him. I know the Stuart mind well. This laddie has come to Scotland to regain a foothold and obtain an army so he may go down into England to avenge his father, to take back what is now his very tottery throne. He will not succeed. At least not now. These fanatical bigots will hold tighter to what they have stolen, destroying, or attempting to destroy, all who stand in their path. Beware of them, too. Be wise and take no side in this. Support the legitimate government by not rebelling against it, but neither publicly cry for it. It is the best advice I can give you. You would be wise to heed me.”

      A week later the dowager duchess departed Glenkirk, accompanied by her faithful servants, including Fergus More-Leslie, who was a good man and went for not just her sake, but his wife’s, too.

      So it was that Patrick Leslie found himself alone and bereft of a family for the first time in his life. The parents he had loved were dead or gone; siblings all scattered to the four winds. There had never before been a time like this for him. He quickly learned that he didn’t like it. Sprawled in a high-backed, tapestried chair before one of the two fireplaces in the Great Hall of Glenkirk, he contemplated what lay ahead.

      The hall was silent but for the sharp crackle of the dancing flames, the occasional scratching of sleet on the windows. The candles flickered spookily as tendrils of the late autumn wind managed to slip through the thick stone walls. At his feet, two dogs, a rough-coated, dark blue-gray deerhound and a silky-coated, black-and-tan setter, lay comfortably sprawled, snoring. In Patrick Leslie’s lap, however, there was ensconced a large, long-haired orange cat, a descendant of his mother’s beloved Fou-Fou and some wandering orange tom. The cat, its eyes no more than golden slits, purred softly as the duke thoughtfully scratched it between its shoulder blades with the fingers of one hand. In his other hand was an ornate silver goblet which he now raised to his lips. The smoky whiskey slid down his throat like an unrolled length of burning silk, hitting the hollow pit of his belly like a hot stone, spreading its heat throughout his long, lean body.

      His mother was right. He should take a wife and raise a family. It was what was expected of him. Glenkirk had always, in his memory, rung with the shouts of children and the laughter of family, not just Leslies, but Gordons of BrocCairn, too, his maternal grandmother’s family. Since the wars had begun, however, most people kept to their homes, not just simply to protect themselves, but to protect their property as well from marauders. It was not as it had been in his grandparents’ day when families and friends knew each other all their lives, visiting back and forth regularly. They had arranged betrothals for their children when they were barely out of the cradle, thereby allowing those children to grow up experiencing each other’s company, so that by the time the marriages were celebrated, they were comfortable with each other. No, it was different now.

      For one thing, many of Scotland’s noble families had gone south into England when King James had succeeded the great Elizabeth. Many had remained, thereby gaining СКАЧАТЬ