Wild Jasmine (44 page)

T
he Countess of BrocCairn sat beneath a willow tree in her mother’s garden working upon a tapestry. Beside her sat her two daughters: Sybilla, embroidering her monogram upon some fine linen pillow slips, Jasmine reading. The late afternoon was unusually warm. There was no breeze, and the air was somewhat heavy. The Earl of Kempe lounged lazily in the green grass by Sybilla’s side, gazing up at her admiringly while handing her fresh threads from her workbasket as she required them. He had made it quite clear to everyone in the de Marisco household that he was paying serious court to the young Lady Sybilla.

Sybilla pricked her finger and cried out. “Ohhh! How I dislike sewing, Mama! I shall be glad to go to court come the autumn.” She snatched her hand away from Tom Ashburne, who was ardently kissing the injured digit.

“Sewing is a skill that every gentlewoman should possess, my dear,” her mother told her. “What if some clumsy fellow should step on your gown and tear the hem from it? Your skill with a needle would enable you to quickly repair it, and you would not be thought a slattern.”

“I have never learned to sew,” Jasmine said, putting her book aside. “In India I had women to do such tasks for me.”

“Do you never stop your ridiculous boasting?” Sybilla asked nastily. “You may have been a princess in India, but here you are nothing more than a common ba—” She stopped short, seeing the dangerous look in Jasmine’s eyes, and smiled sweetly. “Well, we all know what you really are,” she finished.

“I cannot understand how so sweet a mother could have raised so spiteful a shrew,” Jasmine replied in equally sugary tones. “You must really be more careful, Sybilla dear. We all know what you
really
are. Your true colors are showing. You will surely frighten away my lord earl.”

“I should adore my darling beauty if she were naught but a beggar maid,” Tom Ashburne said gallantly.

“Well!” Sybilla huffed, rising to her feet and throwing down
the cloth upon which she had been working. “I am not a beggar maid, my lord. I am related to the king. I am the only daughter of the Earl and Countess of BrocCairn. Do not ever forget it!” Then she dashed off into the depths of the gardens, the earl in pursuit, eager to make his apologies and regain a place in Sybilla’s good graces.

“You should not bait her,” Velvet admonished Jasmine.

“She should not take every opportunity to attack me,” Jasmine replied. “I was not boasting about my life in India.” Her face grew hard. “I will not allow her
any
latitude, Mama. Even Lord Gordon was good enough to speak with her, but she will not obey him either. If I continue to defend myself, perhaps she will eventually cease. She is my elder by six months, although I am certainly far more grown-up than Sybilla. I would like to try and be friends with her, but she will not let me. Her jealousy eats away at her, and you know it.”

Velvet sighed deeply. “It is hard for her,” she began, but Jasmine interrupted her.

“It is hard for me also!” she declared fiercely. “Why should it be so unusually difficult for Sybilla? She is in her native land, surrounded by a family who loves her. She has a noble suitor and aspires to go to court, where I doubt not she will find more hopeful swains.

“I am half a world away from my homeland. I have been torn from the mother who raised me and whom I love. I am bereft of both my husband and my father. I have lost my unborn child. It is, I think, far harder for me than for Sybilla, but I do not use my situation to try to hurt her.

“Why should she strike out at me because I am your child too? She is spoiled, and she is unpleasant, Mama. I will not allow her to slander me or my good name in her petulance! If she continues to do so, I will find a way to punish her, I promise you.” Jasmine then arose and, with an angry swish of her skirts, returned to the house.

Velvet sighed again. She could not ever remember having been this uncomfortable in her entire life. Caught between her stepdaughter and Akbar’s daughter, she was trying, though unsuccessfully, to keep the peace between the two girls. It was, however, a waste of her time. Jasmine, to Velvet’s intense mortification, was correct in her assessment of Sybilla. She was behaving in a spoiled, unpleasant manner toward her stepsister. There was really no reason for her to do so. As each day passed, Sybilla grew more and more out of hand. No one, not
Velvet herself, nor Alex, could reason with her, for her jealousy was, as Jasmine had so wisely observed, all-consuming.

Jasmine
. Velvet smiled to herself. It was really very hard to think of that beautiful young woman as her daughter. There was so much of Akbar in her. I have missed so much, she thought sadly. Rugaiya Begum had done a wonderful job bringing up their shared child. Far better, Velvet considered guiltily, than I have done with Alanna Wythe’s daughter. Although the two girls were the same age, Jasmine had far more poise, and certainly more elegance than Sybilla. Jasmine also had a highly eligible suitor in the person of the Marquess of Westleigh, although she pretended not to realize Rowan Lindley’s intentions and did her best to ignore the handsome gentleman.

Alex, of course, was pleased to see the marquess’s interest. “Good!” he had said to his wife. “We’ll marry her off before the truth of her birth can cause us any embarrassment. Jasmine will be far more respectable as his marchioness than as Lady Gordon’s bastard get.”

It was then that Velvet had struck her surprised husband. “My daughter,” she said in a low, tight voice, “is no bastard. Why, my lord, do you persist in this? This is why I cannot bring Sybilla to heel, and she continues her assault upon her stepsister.”

He rubbed his cheek ruefully. “I dinna mean to offend you, sweetheart. I am trying to accept the girl, but she will nae give an inch, and I fear for Sibby. She hae her heart set upon Glenkirk, and the Leslies of Glenkirk are a proud clan. If James Leslie sniffs any hint of scandal around Sibby, he will nae even consider my proposal. ’Twould break my lass’s heart.”

Velvet sighed. If only she could get Sybilla and Jasmine to cooperate. If Jasmine said black, then Sybilla said white. Her stepdaughter was constantly baiting her daughter, who would not ignore the girl, but like a cobra, struck back with all her own venom. Sybilla did not seem to have the good sense to cease her vindictive behavior, but it had to stop before the autumn, when they went to court. If the girls did not stop their backbiting, a scandal was certain to ensue. Alex would be furious if his Sybilla lost her chance to marry Glenkirk.

“Why are you frowning so?” Skye asked her daughter as she came to join her. “Have Sybilla and Jasmine been quarreling
again? My granddaughter returned to the house with an expression as dark as a thundercloud.”

“I cannot seem to exercise any control over them,” Velvet admitted wearily. “How can I take them to court if they continue to behave like two squabbling wildcats?”

“It is Sybilla’s fault,” Skye said bluntly.

“Jasmine gives back as good as she gets,” Velvet replied, defending her stepdaughter.

“Sybilla begins the contretemps every time,” Skye answered firmly.

“Where is she now?”

“Somewhere in the gardens with Tom Ashburne. He truly seems to adore her, but she will give him no quarter. She claims to want only Glenkirk, and yet I think she would be happier with Tom,” Velvet told her mother. “He is warm, and amusing, and so devoted to her.”

“What of Glenkirk? Tell me about him,” Skye said, and she took the small low-backed chair previously occupied by Jasmine.

“I knew his mother briefly,” Velvet began. “Next to you, Mama, she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Dark, honey-colored hair and leaf-green eyes. She was my senior by some eleven years. Like me, she had been betrothed in the cradle and pushed to the altar, for like me, she resisted her first husband Patrick Leslie.”

“Did she love him?” Skye wondered aloud.

“Aye, Mama, she did. Unfortunately, the king interfered in their marriage, and it led to terrible unhappiness for them all. It was then that she fell in love with Alex’s and the king’s cousin, Francis Stewart-Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell. She is his wife now. They live in Italy with their children, as Bothwell was banished by the king from Scotland.

“Her son, James Leslie, is the current Earl of Glenkirk. He married another of Alex’s cousins, Isabelle Gordon. They had two sons. Five years ago Bella was enceinte with her third child when she paid a social call to a nearby convent where a cousin was a nun. While she was there, it was attacked by a large group of religious fanatics. These zealots had been terrorizing the countryside for weeks, targeting the old Kirk and its institutions. They were utterly merciless and set the convent aflame.

“Both of Bella’s sons had accompanied her. They died in the fire. Bella herself was found within the smoking ruins of the
convent’s courtyard, violated and hacked to bits. About her were the bodies of all of the nuns. The youngest of them had been first raped, Mama, and then crucified. It was the most horrendous atrocity ever perpetrated in our region. Even the preachers of the new Kirk were outraged. What was worse was that afterward these fiends disappeared and were not heard from again.

“Jemmie Leslie was, as you can imagine, totally devastated by his tremendous loss. He and his clansmen rode the highlands for weeks afterward, but they could not find the criminals who had murdered his family and done those other dastardly deeds. It was as if the earth had opened up and swallowed them. Perhaps if he had been able to take his revenge, it would have helped purge the blackness from his soul. I have known him since I first came to Dun Broc. He and Bella were our nearest neighbors. After his family died, however, the gentle man with the delicious sense of humor that I knew turned into a cold, harsh creature. I hardly recognize him. Yet I cannot blame him.”

“And he has never remarried,” Skye said thoughtfully.

“Nay. His family has begged him to take another wife, but he will not. He has two Leslie brothers, both with children, who could succeed him. When Jamie became King of England, Glenkirk accompanied him south. It was something he would have never done if his family were alive. He serves as the king’s unofficial minister of foreign trade for the New World and the East. ’Tis all he does these days, I am told. Work, work, and more work. ’Tis his life.”

“Then why on earth does that silly chit Sybilla want him?” Skye demanded irritably. “He hardly sounds like a good catch to me.”

“Sibby visited Glenkirk Castle with us when she was just a little girl,” Velvet explained. “Jemmie was always particularly kind to her as he had no daughters and very much desired one. I think she fell in love with him when she was four. She believes that if he can just see her grown, he will fall in love with her. She thinks she can ease his grief and make him happy again. She is so very hopeful, Mama. She has prevailed on her father to pursue the matter, and frankly, Alex likes the idea of marrying his only daughter to Glenkirk. He loves her very much and it would mean he would not really lose her. He thinks if Jemmie had a new wife, he would return home to Glenkirk.”

“And what do you think, Velvet?” Skye looked sharply at her youngest daughter. “Are Alex and Sibby wasting their time?”

Velvet’s brow wrinkled as she considered the question. She nibbled upon her lower lip with little white teeth. Finally she said, “I am not certain, Mama. Have not you and I known love to conquer the worst of troubles? Yet Jemmie has lived five years with his grief and bitterness. He seems to grow harder with time rather than softer.” She shrugged. “Perhaps Sibby can win him over. I do not know.”

Skye nodded her understanding. “I hope the chit will not break her heart over the man. Though she be difficult and wickedly rude to my darling Jasmine, I cannot wish her ill.”

“Mama,” Velvet teased her mother gently with a smile, “I have never seen you so taken with a grandchild as you are with Jasmine.”

“Aye,” Skye admitted grudgingly. “I love the girl greatly, and I’ll not deny it to please any! I thank God your father and I lived to see her.” Skye chuckled. “Adam dotes on her almost as much as he doted upon you, Velvet. Jasmine delights him with tales of her childhood escapades. Did you know that she first went tiger hunting with her father when she was only three? And she learned to shoot at five? Musket
and
bow! And how that big blue and gold parrot of hers can make Adam laugh! Why, he’s almost human with his talking. He has learned to imitate my voice, which drives Daisy wild. She is never certain if it is me calling or that wicked bird!”

“Jasmine will not remember it,” Velvet said with a sad smile, “but Akbar took her tiger hunting when she was just an infant. I roasted him for it, as did Rugaiya Begum and Jodh Bai. Imagine taking a baby up upon his great fighting elephant! Ohh, Mama! I have lost so much!”

“Aye, you lost much with Jasmine, but ’twas not your fault,” Skye sympathized. “And you have much with Alex in return. My poor Velvet, you were placed in a position I cannot envy any woman. Caught between two men you loved. Fate made the decision for you, and it has now all worked out for the best. You have
all
your children with you at last, and a husband who loves and adores you. You are certainly to be envied, Velvet!”

At that moment the Earl of BrocCairn exited the house and, walking across the lawns, called to his wife and mother-in-law. Velvet arose from her seat. She ran to him, holding her face up
for a kiss, which he most willingly offered. Skye smiled. All her children had found love, and it made her happy to know that they were happy. Together the BrocCairns came to join her.

“You are going to hae company, madame,” Alex Gordon informed his mother-in-law, and he bent to kiss her cheek.

Skye arose from her seat. “
Who?
” she demanded of him.

“The king.”

“
The king?
” Skye was truly astounded. “Why on earth would James Stuart want to come to Queen’s Malvern? Did you invite him? I most certainly do not want to entertain a king! God’s nightshirt! It is the terror of every good family that the king should want to come and visit. It will cost us a fortune to entertain him! The lawns will be ruined! His retainers will eat us out of house and home! And nine months from the day, the housemaids will start giving birth to a flock of bastards, you mark my words, Alex Gordon!”