Just Beyond Tomorrow. Bertrice Small
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Название: Just Beyond Tomorrow
Автор: Bertrice Small
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Исторические любовные романы
Серия: Skye's legacy
isbn: 9780758272966
isbn:
To his family’s distress, he had remained unmarried for a number of years until King James I had personally chosen Patrick’s mother to be James Leslie’s second wife. His wealthy widowed mother had resisted being told whom to wed. It had been several more years before James Leslie had been able to convince her that they had to obey their king. It had been a love match, however, and his parents had sired three sons and two daughters, of whom four had survived into adulthood. And they had done it at Glenkirk, rarely leaving Scotland once they had returned home all those years ago, but for summers in England at his great-grandmother’s estate of Queen’s Malvern, and once to France for the late king’s wedding, and one year to Ireland.
It was his duty, Patrick Leslie realized, to take a wife. Duty was something that the Leslies of Glenkirk understood very well. But duty to whom? His mother believed that a man’s duty lay first after God with his family, and she had been absolutely right, the second Duke of Glenkirk decided as his gaze swept his empty hall. I will owe my loyalty only to this family, Patrick vowed silently to himself. I hae never met this king. I dinna care what happens to him. The duke looked up at the portrait over the fireplace. It was of the first Earl of Glenkirk, his namesake. Turning, he looked across to the other fireplace and the portrait hanging above it of the first Earl of Glenkirk’s daughter, Lady Janet Leslie. He knew their history well. It was Janet who had gained the Earldom of Sithean for her descendants. It was Janet with her strong sense of duty who had saved both the Leslies of Glenkirk and the Leslies of Sithean after the Scots’ terrible defeat at Solway Moss in 1542 against the English. All the adult men in the family had died in that battle, but Janet Leslie in her old age had gathered their sons and daughters about her, raising them until they were old enough to take their rightful places, teaching them how to rule their small domains, making the most advantageous marriages for them all.
Unfortunately, too many of the Leslie descendants had become careless with wealth and success. They had forgotten the cardinal tenet of the family and suffered by it. But I will nae forget, the second Duke and sixth Earl of Glenkirk promised himself. I will nae forget. To hell wi’ the royal Stuarts and all their ilk!
Outside the hall, the wind rose, rattling the windowpanes noisily. The duke drained his goblet, his other hand stroking the great orange cat whose rumbling purrs were now quite audible. Suddenly the beastie opened its eyes and looked up at the duke. Patrick smiled down at the creature who now kneaded the duke’s thighs so contentedly.
“Ye’ll hae to stay wi’in the castle tonight, Sultan,” he said, “but I’m certain ye’ll find a nice mouse or rat to amuse ye, eh? As for me”—he arose from his chair, gently setting the cat upon the floor—“I’m off to bed, old friend. If the weather clears by morning, then I’ll hunt early. We could use a deer or two in the larder for winter.”
The cat shook itself, sat a moment to contemplate the two dogs, vigorously washed its paws, then stalked off with great dignity into the shadows. The duke chuckled. He knew it wasn’t considered manly, but he actually liked cats better than dogs. Dogs, God love them, were loyal creatures to any who fed them. A cat, however, had to actually like you to be your friend. As he made his way up to his own chamber, the deerhound and the setter arose to follow him. The castle was so very quiet. One could actually sense there was hardly a soul in residence.
He had sent his servant to bed earlier, for he was quite capable of taking his own clothing off and washing himself. Pulling on his nightshirt, Patrick Leslie lay down in the big bed in the ducal bedchamber. Until several months ago these had been his parents’ apartments, and this his parents’ bed. His mother had insisted upon his moving into it after his father had been buried. He was still not quite comfortable in the great bed. Still, he was soon asleep this night, and his sleep was dreamless.
Chapter 2
When Patrick Leslie awoke the following morning, he found the day very gray and overcast. There was neither rain nor snow, but the wind had disappeared as he discovered standing in the open window of his bedchamber. “Tell the stables I will hunt today,” he told his manservant, Donal, who had been his boyhood companion and was distantly related to him. Donal’s family, the More-Leslies, had served the lords of Glenkirk for many generations.
“Cook thought ye’d be out early, m’lord,” Donal said. “There’s a fine meal awaiting ye in the hall. Will ye be wanting to take food wi’ ye? ’Tis deer we’ll be after, and apt to be gone the day long.”
“Aye, ye’re right,” the duke replied. “We’ll want oatcakes, cheese, cider. Tell the men to provision themselves in the kitchens before we go, Donal.”
“I’ll see to it, m’lord,” Donal said, handing Patrick his drawers and breeches first, then a white shirt with full sleeves and a drawstring neck. He held the leather jerkin with the horn buttons in reserve while Patrick pulled the breeches on over his heavy, dark knit stockings.
The breeches were wool, dyed a nut brown color. After tying his shirt at its neckline, Patrick sat down to draw on his brown leather boots, which covered the stockings and rose to his knees. Standing, he put on the jerkin and buttoned it up. Taking the fur-lined cloak and leather gloves Donal handed him, he exited his apartment, descending into the hall where his breakfast was awaiting him.
Solitude had not deterred his appetite. Patrick wolfed down the oat stirabout with honey, several poached eggs in a cream sauce flavored with Marsala wine, three slices of ham, and a whole cottage loaf he spread with both butter and bits of hard cheese. There was a steaming mug of tea, a brew from his mother’s native land that he had grown to favor in the morning. It set better on an empty belly than ale or wine. His two youngest brothers had often teased him about his habit of wanting a hot drink in the morning, for they, like their father, had favored brown ale with their breakfast. He smiled at the memory, wondering how well Duncan and Adam fared in Ireland with its constant sectarian violence and warring. They, too, were yet bachelors. He sighed, resigned. It was certainly up to him to set them a good example.
Finishing his meal, he noted uncomfortably that his cook had quickly learned to do for just one. He found it disquieting. As he rose from the board, his eye swept the hall, seeing the thin layer of dust on the ancient oak furniture. The castle definitely needed a woman’s touch. Without his mother’s majordomo, Adali, the servants were grown slack. They had no one to guide them. He needed a wife, but where the hell was he to find one?
Glenkirk was well isolated deep in the hills of the eastern Highlands. His holdings stretched for miles in all directions, which was good, but it also meant that he had no near neighbors. The nearest, in fact, were his Leslie cousins at Sithean and his Gordon cousins at BrocCairn. He was on good terms with both families, which gave them all an added measure of safety. His paternal grandmother’s family had sold their lands at Greyhaven to the lords of Glenkirk and gone down into England with King James I to seek their fortunes. Their old manor house, not in particularly good repair, had been demolished.
He rarely saw his cousins now, and he couldn’t recall if there were any lasses of marriageable age among them. So how did one go about finding a wife these days? Perhaps he would go to the games this summer and pick out a pretty girl. He would ascertain beforehand, however, that she knew how to keep house. Almost any lass could be cajoled into being good bedsport, but if she couldn’t rule his servants, or at least delegate authority among them, she would be of little use to him.
While isolation was preferable in these dangerous times, it did leave him with certain disadvantages. He considered again if there were any female unmarried cousins at Sithean or BrocCairn. Nay. His generation had been all males, and they were all, he recalled, wed. Where the devil had they found СКАЧАТЬ