Wild Jasmine (48 page)

“Aye, Velvet insists. Besides,” he lowered his voice, “ ’tis an excellent opportunity for us to present Sybilla to Glenkirk. She’s behaved herself quite well, Madame Skye, and the queen is very fond of my lass.”

At that moment Sybilla joined them. She ignored her grandparents and her stepsister, saying, “Did you see that vulgar pearl Jasmine gave the queen, Papa? I have never seen an uglier jewel.”

Skye arched an elegant eyebrow. “Your father has been telling us, Sybilla, of how well you have been behaving. Yet you have no greeting for your grandfather, your stepsister, or me?”

Grudgingly, the girl curtsied first to Skye and then to Adam.

“What, Sybilla?” her father pressed her. “No greeting for Jasmine?” He glowered threateningly at his daughter.

“I will not curtsey to
her
,” Sybilla snapped angrily.

“She is your stepsister, Sybilla,” Skye said quietly. “You have had more than enough time to resolve your feelings in this matter.”

“I will not like her,” Sybilla said pettishly.

“Are you this rude to all those you dislike, Sybilla?” Skye queried. “Perhaps you are not as mature as we believed you. Perhaps you are not ready for marriage after all. If you continue to allow your emotions to overrule your good judgment, you shall remain an old maid forever, I fear. What a pity!”

Sybilla sighed with irritation, but she finally curtsied to Jasmine, who quickly curtsied back with great annoyance.

“There,” Alex said. “ ’Tis how I like to see my girls.”

Sybilla gasped. “She is not your girl, Papa.
I am!
Ohhh, have I lost you to her as well as Mama?” Her eyes welled with tears.

“Your father is being kind to me, Sybilla,” Jasmine quickly spoke. “You and only you are his daughter, although I do have the honor of being Lord Gordon’s stepdaughter.”

Before Sybilla might think on her stepsister’s words, however, the Earl of Kempe arrived, sweeping his hat off in greeting to them all and then declaring, “Beauteous one, I have waited all evening to speak with you. But say a kind word to me, and I shall be satisfied.”

“Go away!” Sybilla demanded of him. “Is there no place I may be safe from your silliness? Why will you not believe me when I tell you I will marry the Earl of Glenkirk or no one?”

“He is a cold, harsh fellow, my beauty,” Tom Ashburne insisted. “He will freeze the blood in your veins, but I shall set you aflame with my passion and my love, I swear it! Just give me a chance, beauty!”

“God’s foot!” Skye declared. “I am inclined to side with Sibby against you, my lord. You babble like an idiot!”

“Madame, you devastate me,” the Earl of Kempe said, a twinkle in his eye. “I but seek to convince your granddaughter that I am the proper husband for her. Glenkirk cannot love her as I will love her, and my home, Swan Court, will be a fine setting for this beauteous jewel of a girl. My lord!” He turned to Alex. “Will you not reason with your daughter?”

Alex Gordon controlled his amusement. “My lord,” he finally said, “I think you a most fitting suitor for my daughter, but it is the custom of this family to allow their daughters to choose their own husbands, provided they are acceptable to us. Both you and Lord Leslie are eminently proper candidates, but I must listen to Sibby first.”

“Go away, Kempe!” Sybilla Gordon repeated.

“Nay, Sibby,” he told her. “You are young, and you have no experience in matters of the heart. Glenkirk will disappoint you, but I will not. I will be here for you when you want me.” Taking her dainty hand in his, he kissed it.

Sybilla snatched her hand away, glaring at Tom Ashburne as if he had done a terrible thing. “My
lord!
Cease, I beg you!”

Then suddenly into their midst came the Earl of Glenkirk. James Leslie was dressed in the height of fashion in very short, black velvet breeches, his dark stockings cross-gartered at the knee with cloth-of-silver bows. His tight, long-waisted doublet, embroidered with silver and small pearls, accentuated his elegant torso. The cuffs on the doublet were of the finest lace and matched the fraise that edged his standing collar. A short Spanish cape trimmed with marten completed his attire. About his neck he wore a heavy gold chain, but his long supple fingers were bereft of jewelry except for a single gold band. “My lord, my ladies,” he said.

Sybilla almost swooned at his dark-haired good looks. His green-gold eyes fascinated her, but she was also distressed to find that he made her uncomfortable. There was something forbidding about James Leslie, unlike Thomas Ashburne, who never made her nervous. Surprised by her own thoughts, Sybilla quickly pushed them away. She meant to be James Leslie’s wife. It was what she had always wanted.

“Mistress de Marisco,” the Earl of Glenkirk said quietly, “there is to be dancing. Will you allow me to partner you?”

Sybilla grew pale with her frustration at his words.

“Thank you, my lord, but I have not yet learned your English dances,” Jasmine responded politely. “It is not the custom of my native land for men and women to dance together as the
English do. Please excuse me.” She curtsied, keeping her eyes modestly lowered.

The Earl of Glenkirk bowed in return. Then with a nod to the others he moved away.

“Oh, bitch!” Sybilla hissed furiously, and, despite her best efforts to control them, tears slipped down her pink cheeks.

“Apologize to your stepsister, Sibby,” her grandmother said furiously. “Jasmine dances our
English
dances quite well, as you would know had you not been sent home to Dun Broc last summer. She has done you a great kindness in refusing the earl so cleverly.”

“Why did he not ask me?” Sybilla wailed softly. “
Why her?
”

“Who is to know why a man does anything?” Skye responded with a small laugh. She was most resplendent tonight in a midnight-blue velvet gown, the underskirt of which was fashioned from gold brocade designed in a pattern of swirls and decorated with tiny diamantés that sparkled with her every step. The neckline of the gown was square and low. Skye was quite proud of the fact that her bosom was still attractive despite her sixty-six years. The sleeves of her gown were leg-of-mutton, held by many narrow deep blue- and gold-striped ribbons. About her neck she wore a fine necklace of diamonds, while diamonds and rubies sparkled in her ears. Her hair was done in its usual chignon and dressed with hairpins studded with the same stones.

“Do not fret, Sybilla,” Skye continued. “If it is meant that Lord Leslie marry you, he will.”

“He does not even know I exist,” Sybilla said with a trace of self-pity in her young voice. “Why does he see
her
, and not me?” she demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at Jasmine. “I see the way he looks at her. He hardly looks at me at all.”

“You must know I am not encouraging him, Sybilla,” Jasmine protested. “I am not in the least interested in Lord Leslie, or any other man for that matter. I wish to be left alone to mourn my husband, Jamal.”

“You can hardly be said to look like a woman in mourning,” Sybilla said dryly, looking with a jaundiced eye upon her stepsister’s beautiful, rich burgundy velvet gown with its rose-colored ribbons and rose brocade underskirt.

“Jasmine’s husband is dead almost two years,” Skye quickly put in. “She is out of deep mourning and can certainly wear whatever she chooses, particularly here at court.”

“I mourn Jamal in my heart, Sybilla,” Jasmine said quietly. “The heart never really forgets.”

For the briefest moment Sybilla Gordon allowed her own basically good heart to sympathize, but just as quickly she put the feelings aside.
Jasmine was her enemy
. She had taken her mother from her, and even her father was now supportive of the bitch. As for James Leslie’s obvious interest, she would soon put a stop to it. Jasmine would regret coming to court!

With Christmas past, the entire court looked forward to the famous Revels and Fete to be held at the Earl of Lynmouth’s magnificent house on the Strand. Twelfth Night at Lynmouth House was legend from the time of the current earl’s father, and an invitation to the fete was eagerly looked forward to by all the courtiers. Even those who were not certain they would be invited had costumes at the ready. London’s dressmakers were booked for months in advance, designing and executing their creations.

Skye and her family always kept a dressmaker on staff. Bonnie had traveled with the family down to the city from Queen’s Malvern in late autumn, her materials and half-finished costumes, along with her young apprentice, Mary, snug in their own comfortable coach.

The gentlemen, of course, had complained bitterly, as they did each year, but they stood patiently for their fittings. Sandy and Charlie Gordon had been allowed to come to London for their first visit and would be allowed to go to their uncle Robin’s party. Like their father and their grandfather, they would be garbed in scarlet and orange silks, representing flames of fire. Skye, Velvet, and Jasmine would be costumed as colorful moths. Sybilla had been invited to join them, but she preferred to be dressed as a perfect English rose.

“There will be at least two dozen English roses,” Skye said, disgusted. “She will be disappointed, I guarantee it. Why could she not have chosen a more original idea? With her lovely coloring, she would make a perfect Dawn.”

Sybilla, however, could not be moved in her intent, until two days before her uncle’s fete when she learned from court gossip just how many perfect English roses would be represented at the party. “I am ruined!” she sobbed. “Glenkirk will not notice me at all, and I did so hope he would! What am I to do, Mama?”

They had been gathered at Lynmouth House for a family dinner.

“Wear my costume,” Jasmine said generously. “You are smaller than I am in stature and have not as much bosom as I do, but there is time for Bonnie to alter the garment to suit you. I was to be the silver and gold moth. The colors will suit you as well in this instance.”

“What will you wear?” Sibby demanded suspiciously. “Or do you intend drawing attention to yourself by your marked absence?”

Jasmine laughed. “I most certainly would not miss Uncle Robin’s fete for you or anyone else, Sybilla. I, however, can wear my native garb. It will seem like a costume to the other guests.”

“Well,” Sybilla considered, and her family held its collective breath, not daring to encourage her lest she turn petulant. “Very well, I will take your costume, Jasmine,” she finally decided.

“The wretched girl might have thanked you,” Skye fussed at Jasmine afterward.

Jasmine laughed. “Now, Grandmama, ’twas very hard for Sibby to accept my offer of help. Under normal circumstances she would have sooner died, but her desire to attract Lord Leslie is paramount. She will do anything to capture his heart.”

“The man is as cold as ice,” Skye said, “although when he looks at you, my darling girl, I see fire in those eyes of his. Poor little Sibby does not have a chance, but you, I believe, do, if you would show just the slightest bit of interest. If you will not have Westleigh, then why not Glenkirk?”

Jasmine laughed, but it was a forced sound, and Skye noticed it immediately. “He is attractive,” she said, “Glenkirk, I mean. But I am not ready to marry again quite yet. Besides, Sybilla Gordon would be driven to murder me if I stole the one man she desires.”

Jasmine did not tell her grandmother that she had been walking in the gardens belonging to Greenwood one afternoon recently when the Earl of Glenkirk had arrived on his first of several impromptu visits, coming through the park that surrounded the house, mounted upon a large dappled gray stallion. He greeted her, and she curtsied politely.

“Have you come to see my stepfather?” she asked him politely.

He dismounted, and putting his arm through the reins,
walked with her. “Nay. I have come to see you, Mistress de Marisco.”

“We are barely acquainted, sir, and I mourn my husband,” she answered him, her heart beating just a bit faster.

“We could be better acquainted, madame, if you would not work so hard to avoid me,” came the amused answer. “As for mourning your husband, I respect you for it. I mourn my Isabelle and the children we lost. The sadness, I think, will remain with me my whole life.”

“Aye,” she said softly. “Your wife and sons, I am told, died needlessly. I understand your sadness. My husband was murdered also, but worse, my lord, he was murdered by my own brother.”

“Ahhh, so that is a part of the mystery surrounding you, Mistress de Marisco,” James Leslie said.

“There is no mystery, my lord. If you ask, I will tell you. But you should not, I think, be here,” Jasmine told him. “It is an open secret my stepfather seeks to make a match between you and his daughter. Sybilla and I are not friends. She would be very distressed to learn that you were here with me.”

“Then we will not tell her, Mistress de Marisco, will we?” he teased her.

She had sent him away, of course, but he had come again. Believing her widowed state a neutral ground, Jasmine had shared her memories of Jamal Khan with him, and he had proved sympathetic. James Leslie, in turn, had told her of his sweet and merry Bella, and their two little boys.

This common bond between them, at first comforting, was beginning to prove difficult. Now, as she dressed for her uncle’s fete, Jasmine wondered if she would see James Leslie tonight. She was, to her deep distress, beginning to be attracted to him. She must put those feelings aside, she scolded herself. Alex Gordon had chosen this very night to speak with James Leslie. By morning a betrothal would be set between the Earl of Glenkirk and Lady Sybilla Gordon. It was how it should be, Jasmine thought reluctantly.

Toramalli poured jasmine oil in her mistress’s bath the evening of the gala. Rohana had already washed her lady’s hair, toweling it dry and brushing it with a boar’s-bristle brush by the fire until it was free of dampness. The serving woman then polished the raven tresses with a silk cloth until they shone. During the summer past, the ladies had made good hard-milled soap, scenting it with jasmine for their princess, and damask
rose for Skye. Jasmine’s hair was carefully pinned atop her head so none of it would get wet. Settling herself in her tub, she sighed.