Wild Jasmine (64 page)

Jasmine hugged her cousin warmly. “Grandmother said that Great-Uncle Michael would not let you leave him, but I did return you to Ireland so you might have your little stone church, cousin Cullen. Now you do! The people of Maguire’s Ford have been eagerly awaiting you. There are over a dozen babies to be baptized, and at least two unions to be properly blessed. Isn’t that so, Rory Maguire?”

“Aye, m’lady, it is.”

“Cousin Cullen, this is Rory Maguire, the estate manager. My cousin, Cullen Butler, is the priest I told you I had in mind for Maguire’s Ford. Father Cullen was my tutor in India.”

The priest shook hands with Rory Maguire. “Lady Lindley,” he said, “has told you of her childhood, I assume.”

“Aye, Father, she has. I would have never imagined such a place as she describes existed. It sounds like a fairyland.”

“India is certainly exotic, and exciting, but it is no fairyland, my son,” the priest told him.

Afterward he asked Jasmine, “Just who is this Rory Maguire, my child? Where did you come upon him?”

“Actually the royal estate agent, Feeny, brought him to us. Feeny was such a fool, cousin Cullen. He did not realize that Rory Maguire was the lord of Erne Rock. Rowan and I quickly perceived it, for he is better spoken than most, and can speak the English. He asked to remain on this land, and we agreed. He is a good manager. His father, the former lord of Erne Rock, his mother, and a younger brother, along with his three sisters, their husbands, and families, left Ireland last year with Conor Maguire. Only Rory remained. Is that not sad, cousin Cullen? Why can the Irish not learn to get along with the English? One nation conquering another is nothing new.”

Cullen Butler smiled at Jasmine’s reasoning. He had almost
forgotten what it was like to be Irish during all those years he had spent in India, but these last months at home had brought it all back to him. He despaired for the people of this green island. Religion now divided them, but even when it had not, there had been an antipathy between English and Irish seemingly too great to overcome. The Irish race was simply not one to easily, if ever, accept a conqueror. The Anglo-Norman peoples seemed to antagonize the Celts more than anyone else could. Although he had lived with it most of his life, even Cullen Butler did not understand why that was so. It simply was.

The priest settled comfortably in Maguire’s Ford. He was finally doing what he loved best, ministering to the souls of his fellow man. The babies, some as old as four years, were quickly baptized, the two unions formally sealed, and just in time, he thought, for both of the brides were visibly great with child. He celebrated mass each morning and vespers each evening. Rowan and Jasmine rarely came, for the marquess was Church of England, and Jasmine—Cullen Butler smiled to himself—like her grandmother, trod an individual path toward God’s door. He knew he should admonish her, but he did not.

Jasmine desired to remain in Ireland until her mares had been safely delivered of their colts. “At least until next year,” she told her husband. “There is a magic to Ireland, and I like it.”

“But the children are English,” he said. “I want them raised in England. Ireland is never safe for very long.”

“Do you think the hereditary earls will return, my love?”

He shook his head. “Nay. Not this time. The heart is gone out of them, as it would have gone out of me had I been in their position. The Irish population, however, will chafe beneath our rule; and sooner or later the matter of religion will rear its ugly head, Jasmine. Then there will be fighting again. I do not want you or the children here when that happens. The past history of this land is one of incredible cruelty on both sides when they war. It would be difficult to get to the sea and make an escape should fighting break out. For now I believe there will be peace, but in a few years …”

“India loves it here so,” Jasmine noted.

Her husband laughed. “Aye, she does. She races about the village just like all the other little children, but she is not like them, Jasmine. She is Lady India Anne Lindley, the eldest child of the Marquess and Marchioness of Westleigh. She must learn her place.”

“Rowan!” Jasmine didn’t know whether to laugh or to scold him. “India is not even two yet. Surely there is time for her to ‘learn’ her position.”

“You were taught from birth to never forget that you were a king’s daughter, Jasmine,” he said quietly, reminding her.

Now she did laugh. “So I was,” she agreed, “but this is such a different place, Rowan, that I thought perhaps I might raise our daughter more gently. Look how happy and healthy she is.”

He smiled, but said, “She looks like a little urchin. No shoes, no napkin on her, and when she wants to pee, she lifts her skirts and squats with all the other little girls. ’Tis hardly dignified.”

Jasmine giggled. “But it is far more healthy and practical than running about with a soggy napkin, Rowan.”

“You are going to defend her, I can see,” he said.

“Oh, my love, if she plays with the village children another year it matters not. Little ones are very adaptable, and she will readjust to life in England again just as easily as an apple falling from a tree.”

Autumn came, and with it several mild and surprisingly sunny days. The Marquess and Marchioness of Westleigh rode out each afternoon with Rory Maguire to inspect their mares as they grazed contently in the meadows. The scene was bucolic: the villagers working in the nearby fields, the children playing, while in the background Lough Erne shimmered deep blue. The sight never failed to fill Jasmine with a sense of overwhelming contentment.

“Will there be enough grain for winter this year, Maguire,” the marquess asked one afternoon as they walked their horses down the road, “or shall I send to market for more? I want no hunger among either the animals or the villagers.”

“ ’Tis been a very substantial harvest, m’lord. We can more than make do with our own grain,” Rory assured him.

“Mama! Mama!” Little India came from the fields, her skirts flying, trailed by Bride Duffy’s eldest girl, Sine, who was ten and had taken to watching over the child.

“Barefooted as usual,” Rowan said, half laughing.

“ ’Tis the custom in India to be barefooted except on formal occasions,” Jasmine defended her daughter.

“Well, I cannot argue with that since I like the other Indian customs you’ve so kindly shown me, my love,” he teased her,
and Jasmine blushed becomingly, remembering the passionate night they had just spent.

India had finally reached them, and holding out her arms, she demanded, “Up! Up! Mama, up!”

Sine Duffy grasped the little girl about her waist and lifted her as high as she could as Jasmine bent, in her saddle, reaching out for her daughter. At that moment a shot rang out, and looking into Sine Duffy’s face, Jasmine saw the young girl’s eyes widen with horror even as her mouth made an almost silent O. Straightening, Jasmine turned. Her husband’s mount was sidestepping nervously, its saddle empty. Rory Maguire was already dismounting, and Jasmine, her heart pounding, let her eyes slide to the ground where her husband lay, a bright crimson blossom of blood staining his doublet.

“
Mama! Dia wants up!
”

Jamal
. His name slid unbidden into her consciousness even as she stared down at Rowan Lindley.
This was not happening
. It could not be happening. Why was her husband lying so still? Why did he not get up? “Rowan, my love!” Her voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance away. “
Rowan!
” Why was she screaming?

Rory Maguire knelt by the marquess’s body. He leaned forward, as if listening for something. He felt for a pulse, but there was none. Jesu, he thought!
Jesu!

“
Rowan!
”

Rory Maguire looked up into her beautiful face. “He’s dead, m’lady,” was all he could say to her, watching helplessly as she slid from her saddle.

“
There!
” Fergus Duffy came running, pointing to a man running through the brush on the slope. “Up on the hillside, Rory lad!”

Bride Duffy was immediately behind her husband. “I’ll take care of her ladyship, Rory Maguire! Find the devil who did this!” She knelt by Jasmine’s side, then looking up, said to her daughter, “Sine, take her little ladyship back to the castle and fetch Father Cullen. Quickly, lass, or I’ll whip the flesh right off yer bottom!”

Rory Maguire quickly remounted his horse and with Fergus Duffy running ahead of him, he directed the beast up the hillside. It did not take either of the men long to spot the culprit, a small man running for all he was worth, ahead of them. Rory Maguire urged his horse ahead of Fergus Duffy, easily riding down his prey. Leaning from his horse, he grasped the man by
the back of the collar and hauled him across his saddle. As he turned about, smacking the man none too gently on the head when he attempted to struggle, he heard Fergus Duffy call out to him, “I’ve his musket!”

When they reached the spot where Rowan Lindley had been murdered, Jasmine was regaining consciousness. For a moment confusion reigned in her eyes, but then a look of intense pain filled them. With Bride Duffy’s aid she struggled to her feet, her gaze avoiding her husband’s prone body.

“Here’s yer murderer, m’lady,” Rory Maguire said, yanking the man from his uncomfortable perch and flinging him at her feet.

“Stand up,” Jasmine said to the man. “
Stand up!
” Her voice was stronger now.

The fellow struggled to his feet, glaring at her. “Ye must surely be a witch, woman, to have escaped my bullet.”

“
Feeny!
” Jasmine and Rory Maguire said the name in unison.

“Aye, ’tis me,” the little man answered them.

“Why did you kill my husband?” Jasmine asked him. She could feel her legs shaking beneath her skirts, and prayed that they would not give way beneath her. She needed her strength to deal with this.

“I did not intend to kill his lordship,” Feeny replied. “ ’Twas ye I sought to kill. Ye had no right dismissing me as yer agent. I’ve not had a day’s good luck since ye did it. Yer a witch! Ye must be to have so enchanted a king into giving you a plantation this size; and yer husband who told me I must obey ye.
Obey a woman?
What nonsense!”

“Hang him,” Jasmine said tonelessly.

“With pleasure, m’lady,” Rory Maguire answered her.

Feeny stared at them, open-mouthed. “Ye’ve enchanted him, too, have ye? I must go to the authorities about this!”

“
Now!
” Jasmine spat the word.

“We have no rope, yer ladyship,” Fergus Duffy ventured.

“Take my husband’s belt, then,” Jasmine said coldly, “but I want this creature dead. That he has lived any time beyond my Rowan’s departure is a sin. Hang him from that tree over there.”

Feeny, realizing that the village men who had gathered from the fields would obey their mistress, began to babble. “Ye can’t hang me! I am a representative of the king’s government!
This is king’s business! No! No! I am Eamon Feeny of Belfast town. No! No!”

A strong young man scrambled up the designated tree, the marquess’s leather belt in his hand. Feeny was boosted into the saddle of Rowan Lindley’s horse, his hands bound behind him with a strip of Bride Duffy’s petticoat, and was then led beneath the tree. The belt was carefully fastened about the condemned man’s neck, the long end returned to the man in the tree, who carefully drew it around a strong, thick limb, still holding it. Without a word Jasmine slapped her husband’s horse upon its shining rump. The beast cantered off while the man in the tree, his arm straining, bore the burden of Eamon Feeny’s swinging body.

Jasmine watched dispassionately as the Belfast man struggled, his face slowly turning from rose to red to blue. His tongue shot out of his mouth, and an unpleasant odor filled the air as his bowels emptied. Still she stood and watched, as if the murderer’s own pain could ease hers, but it did not. The man in the tree looked nervously to Rory Maguire, who nodded. With a deft crack of his wrist upon the leather belt, the executioner snapped Feeny’s neck, breaking it, and dropped the body into a heap upon the ground.

“It was too soon,” said Jasmine bleakly, and then she collapsed, unconscious, onto the ground beneath the tree.

Rory Maguire and the villagers crossed themselves even as Fergus Duffy asked, “What do we do with the body, m’lord?”

“Bury it in the woods in an unmarked grave, Fergus. Let the grave be deep and impossible to find by either man or beast. I don’t want her to ever see it, lest she remember.”

“She’ll remember,” Bride Duffy said wisely. “ ’Tis her husband, Rory lad, that’s been murdered this day. She’ll never forget, but yer wise to try to make her forget, poor lady.” Bride Duffy’s blue eyes filled with tears. “Poor, good lady to suffer so, and what’s to become of the wee ones? Why, the lad will not even remember his father, and the lassie is so young too. She’ll remember only because her mother teaches her to remember. Ahhhh! This is such a great tragedy!”

Cullen Butler came running up. His horrified gaze moved from Rowan Lindley’s dead body, to his cousin, still unconscious, to Feeny, at the base of the tree, the belt wrapped tightly about his neck. “God almighty, and His blessed Mother have mercy on us all,” he said, crossing himself. “What has happened, Rory Maguire?”

“Feeny, the former estate agent, shot the marquess, but it was actually her ladyship he meant to kill. Her ladyship ordered his execution. We, her loyal servants, obeyed her, and with great pleasure, I might add, Father. If ever a man deserved hanging, it was Feeny.”

There was nothing Cullen Butler could say in response that would have suited the moment. Kneeling, he gave his cousin’s husband absolution, for although Rowan had been born into the Anglican communion, Cullen could not allow Jasmine’s husband to lie unshriven. He would have to bury him, too, for the nearest Church of Ireland cleric was in Enniskillen, too many miles away to be called. The priest next moved to Feeny, and made the sign of the cross over him, his lips moving in silent prayer.

“Don’t waste yer prayers on that one, Father,” Fergus Duffy growled.