Darling Jasmine. Bertrice Small

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      Taking the little hand in his, he replied, “How do you do, my lord duke. I am honored to meet you at last.”

      “Play ball!” Charles Frederick Stuart said, squirming to escape his mother’s arms and finally succeeding. He ran to fetch a small brightly colored wooden globe, looking hopefully up at the earl. “Play ball?” he repeated, his blue eyes bright.

      Chuckling, James Leslie seated himself upon the floor, cross-legged. “Aye, laddie. We’ll play ball,” he replied grinning.

      The little boy rolled the shiny orb across the floor to the earl, who stopped it neatly and rolled it back to him.

      “I shall leave you to entertain each other,” Jasmine said. “Grandmama will be waiting.” She hurried from the nursery, leaving James Leslie to entertain her son. She had been surprised by his easy agreement to Charlie’s request to play ball. She had been touched to see them both seated upon the floor rolling the round toy back and forth between them. James Leslie did indeed have a heart, at least where her children were concerned. Absently Jasmine stroked the silky head of the spaniel she had once again picked up. “What do you think, Feathers? Is this is a man we can live with?”

      The dog looked up at her with soulful brown eyes.

      Jasmine moved along the corridor of the upper hallway to her grandmother’s bedchamber and, knocking, entered. Skye was comfortably ensconced in the large bed, her eyes closed. Daisy had just removed the breakfast tray. “Is she sleeping again?” Jasmine whispered.

      “I am quite awake, darling girl,” Skye said, opening her eyes, “and well rested. I always sleep well at Belle Fleurs.”

      “I wanted to put you in the master chamber last night, but Daisy told Adali no,” Jasmine began, putting the dog down.

      “And quite right, too!” came the reply. “I do not need to be reminded of your grandfather, Jasmine. He is always and forever in my heart. To sleep in that magnificent bed he commissioned built for us when we were wed would have undone me entirely. I have no memories of this room. Some of the children slept here, but I do not recall which of them. It was so long ago. Adam and I were happy here.”

      “I am so sorry, Grandmama,” Jasmine said. “I did not say it last evening when you arrived. I was so stunned by your news, and then by Lord Leslie’s arrival. I allowed my own problems to overwhelm me. I should have been at Queen’s Malvern for you, Grandmama. I should have been there for Grandfather. Now I shall never see him again.”

      “Neither will I,” Skye said softly. “Of all of them, I loved him best of all, darling girl, but don’t ever say I said such a thing, for your aunts and uncles would be heartbroken.”

      “I understand,” Jasmine said. “I loved my first husband, Jamal, and yet I loved Rowan Lindley better. No disrespect can be intended in such an admission.” The younger woman climbed onto the bed next to the older. “What am I to do about Lord Leslie, Grandmama?” she asked. “Oh, I know I must wed him now, and this morning he has shown himself to be kind and patient with the children, but what am I to do about him? He really is most arrogant. Do you know he told me he is descended from an Ottoman sultan, and is as royal as I am? Is it true, I wonder?”

      “I wondered about his lineage,” Skye said, fascinated by her granddaughter’s revelation. “A Scot without a doubt, but there is that slight, almost imperceptible slant to those green eyes of his. A tiny bit of Tartar in the blood. Interesting, indeed. Now what to do about him indeed, darling girl. Since you must wed him, you have no choice but to win him over, I think.”

      “Would the king not reconsider, Grandmama?” Jasmine wondered.

      “Nay, he would not. James Stuart is every bit as intractable as his late cousin, Elizabeth Tudor, and the truth of the matter is that you must have another husband, Jasmine. I would have liked it if you could choose for yourself this time, but it is not to be. You must marry James Leslie, so the sooner you begin to soothe his ruffled feelings the better. I think I may have an idea,” she chuckled.

      “What?” Jasmine asked, curious in spite of herself.

      “I think that you and the earl would do better without the encumbrance of an old lady and four children,” Skye said. “In a week or two I shall take the children to visit their relations over at Archambault, and then we shall go on to Paris. By then the worst of winter will be over, and I shall return to England with my great-grandchildren. You and James will follow when you will. You will have all the time in the world that you need to become reacquainted. Then when you return to England to marry it will be a happy occasion. I would like you wed at Queen’s Malvern, and I shall make my desire known to the earl.”

      “He wants us wed before the entire court,” Jasmine said glumly.

      “A wish hatched in the heat of anger,” Skye replied. “If I say Queen’s Malvern, he will acquiesce,” she concluded with a smile.

      Jasmine laughed at the arch tone in her grandmother’s voice. “Even at your age, madame, no man will refuse you,” she said. “God’s blood, I wish I were more like you!”

      “You are too much like me, I fear,” Skye chuckled. “I hope you will attain a degree of wisdom far sooner than I did. I look back upon my life, with all its wildness and adventures, and I am amazed that I am here today to tell the tale, darling girl.”

      Jasmine looked up into her grandmother’s face. “Don’t ever leave me,” she said quietly.

      Skye patted the younger woman’s hand comfortingly. “One day I will go,” she said, “but not yet, darling girl; and even when this weary old body of mine has released its hold upon my soul I shall yet be with you, Jasmine. You will only have to remember me, and I will be there to whisper in your ear.” Then she chuckled again. “There is one very good thing about your marriage to Lord Leslie,” she told her granddaughter. “You shall not have to change your monogram. Lindley and Leslie both begin with L!”

      Jasmine laughed in spite of herself. “You are extraordinary!” she said to Skye.

      “Indeed I am,” the older woman agreed. “And you are not the first to tell me so, darling girl. Oh, no! You are not the first.”

      “Shameless when she was young, and still shameless,” said Skye’s elderly tiring woman, Daisy Kelly. “Well, lady, are ye going to lie abed the whole day, or shall I prepare yer bath?”

      “A bath, you old harridan,” Skye told her servant and friend. Then she turned to Jasmine. “Where is himself?”

      “In the nursery,” Jasmine replied, “playing ball with Charlie. He is quite amazing with the children. I came into the hall this morning to find him teaching Henry a proper court bow, and both of the girls are taken with him, too. How many children did he have, and how did he lose them?” she wondered. “You know, grandmama, ’tis the only time I see him soften, with the children. He is hard otherwise.”

      “You cannot rely upon the children to soften him,” Skye counseled wisely. “They will grow up and leave you together. If you have nothing to begin with, there will be nothing when the children are gone. Now as to James Leslie’s history, I can remember this. He was wed to a cousin, a Gordon, I believe. There were two sons, and his wife was with child a third time when she took her lads and went visiting at a nearby religious house. The place was attacked by fanatics belonging to the Calvinist faith. They raped, slaughtered, and burned. The young countess and her sons were murdered СКАЧАТЬ