Wild Jasmine (81 page)

Then the king clambered clumsily to his feet, his goblet raised, and said, “To the health and long life of Lord Charles Frederick Stuart,
my firstborn grandchild!
”

The court rose as one. “Here! Here!” they said.

Henry Stuart was grinning ear to ear now, and graciously accepted the congratulations of those around him.

Then his mother hissed up at him, “Sit down, Henry! You are making a spectacle of yourself. You are certainly not the first man in the history of the world to sire a son, nor the first Stuart to sire a royal bastard. Sit down! God bless me, you are soaked clear through. Get up from the table and find dry clothes. Your father and I will see you in our privy chamber when the meal is finished.”

The prince was relieved to be released, and with a quick grin at his mother, he left the Great Hall.

Lord Chandos’s majordomo hurried forward. “Your Highness,
allow me to escort you to the apartments that have been prepared for your arrival. Your valet is already waiting, and I have given orders to have a tub and hot water brought, for he says you have ridden all day in this downpour.”

Once within the safety of the rooms that had been set aside for him, Henry Stuart found that his teeth were chattering. Muttering balefully, Duncan stripped the wet clothes from his master and settled him in the hot water.

“Ye’ve no more sense than an unbreeked laddie, my lord,” he said. “We’d have done better to stay at that wee inn instead of riding in the rain all these miles. My old bones are aching, and yer coughing again. Get yourself warm, and then I’ll tuck ye into bed.”

“My parents wish to see me in their privy chamber,” the young prince answered his valet. “We drank a health to my wee Charles in the hall, Duncan. The entire court drank, and my father led them!”

“Yer getting into bed, my lord, and I’ll hae no nonsense about it. I’ll tell yer parents myself. They can come to ye. Yer royal mam would agree wi me, and ’tis nae lie.”

Henry Stuart did not argue any further with Duncan. The truth of the matter was that as his euphoria faded, he was beginning to feel simply dreadful again. He remained in his bath long enough to let the hot water take the ache and the cold from his bones, and then he let Duncan dry him. Wrapped in a warm nightshirt, the prince climbed into his bed and accepted a small portion of Lady de Marisco’s cough mixture. He wasn’t even aware that he had dozed off until he realized that his mother was gently shaking him awake.

“Your cold is worse for your journey to Queen’s Malvern,” she said quietly, “although Duncan tells me old Lady de Marisco cared for you like one of her own, and you were better for a time.”

“I’ll be all right after a few days of rest, madame,” he assured her. “I helped birth my son, Mama. I took him myself from his mother’s womb even as he gave his first cry. It was magnificent!”

Anne of Denmark was astounded, and not just a little appalled. James had always fled the palace when she was giving birth. She was not even certain she would have wanted him there, let alone in the same room with her, helping her to bear her child. “Is the boy strong?” she asked her son.

“Strong, beautiful, and well-formed,” Henry told her. “He
has the Stuart auburn hair, and though his eyes are now blue, Jasmine says that they could change as he grows older.”

“That is true,” the queen agreed, and then she said, “How is Lady Lindley? She came through her travail easily?”

“Aye! She’s nursing the laddie already, but I have told her I want her at Bessie’s wedding in the winter, so she must wean our son to a wet nurse by Twelfth Night. How long are we to stay at Sudley?”

“Five days,” his mother said. “You need your rest, Henry. I am not at all pleased by your condition, and I will brook no defiance from you in this matter. You will remain abed until I say you may arise.”

“As you will, madame,” he said meekly, but his eyes were twinkling at her, and the queen knew that as soon as her son felt better, there would be no keeping him in one place.

In the morning, Henry Stuart awoke to find that his parents had left Sudley quite early.

“They’ve gone to Queen’s Malvern,” Duncan told him.

“Why did they not tell me?” the prince complained, and he gave a cough. “I would have gone with them.”

“They dinna tell ye because they dinna want ye running about the countryside sick as ye are, my lord. ’Tis twenty-five miles or more. They’ll nae be back for two days, and no one else must know. ’Tis being said the king is sick wi the headache, and the queen is nursing ye. Lord Chandos is part of the plot. He’ll keep the court busy wi hunting, and dancing into the night. They’ll nae miss the king.”

A rider had been sent ahead to Queen’s Malvern at first light to warn the de Mariscos of the impending royal visit. The king and the queen, incognito, traveled with just half a dozen retainers. Both were used to being in the saddle all day, and were hardly fatigued by the time they reached Queen’s Malvern in the late afternoon.

Skye and Adam de Marisco made an elegant obeisance to the royal couple as they entered the house.

“Welcome to Queen’s Malvern, sire,” Adam said. “I apologize that my granddaughter is unable to greet you, but she is not yet recovered from Charles Frederick’s birth but a few days ago.”

“We hae come to see the laddie,” the king said, stripping his gloves and his long cloak off.

“Will you have some wine and biscuits after your long journey, sire, madame?” Skye asked politely.

“May we see the bairn first?” the king asked, almost shyly.

“Aye, my lord,” Skye said, smiling. She remembered her first grandchild. “If Your Majesties will come with me,” she told them, and led them up two flights of stairs to Jasmine’s apartments. “The baby is with his mother now, nursing.”

Jasmine had known that the king and queen were coming, and so she was not surprised when her grandmother escorted the royal couple into her bedchamber. Her new son was cradled in her arms, sucking lustily upon her breast. She was looking extraordinarily beautiful, her long black hair full and loose about her. Soft color had returned to her creamy cheeks. She wore a white chamber robe whose sleeves were trimmed lavishly in fine French lace as she sat propped by her grandmother’s best pillows.

“Sire, madame,” she greeted them, and gave a small nod.

The queen hurried to the bedside and gazed down upon her grandson. “Ahh, he’s beautiful!” she said, and she smiled warmly at Jasmine, thinking that it really was a pity Henry could not have her to wife. She was not simply beautiful and fertile, she had dignity. She knew how to be royal. The situation was really very sad.

“Gie me the laddie,” the king said, joining them, and when Jasmine had detached Charles from her nipple, he picked the baby up.

Charles Frederick Stuart began to wail. He had been quite comfortable within his mother’s arms, suckling his supper.

“Nah, nah, laddie,” his royal grandfather crooned, and the baby, intrigued by the sound of an unfamiliar voice, ceased his howling to stare at the king. “Aye now, and he’s a beautiful laddie, as my Annie says, Jasmine Lindley. Ye hae done my son proud. I understand that Henry hae arranged wi Salisbury, before he died in May, that if he sired a son on ye, ’twould inherit yer grandfather’s title and estates one day. When that day comes, I will create the lad Duke of Lundy, and nae just Earl. For now, lassie, he will be known as Viscount Lundy. He’s a royal Stuart for all his birth. We Stuarts watch over our own, as yer stepfather BrocCairn can tell ye, madame.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jasmine said softly.

“Let me have him, Jamie,” the queen demanded. “Now just look at that! You are holding him all wrong. You would think you had never held a bairn before. Support his wee neck!” She
took her grandson from her beaming husband. “Your mother and stepfather have come with us, my dear,” she said to Jasmine. “I thought you would want to see them, and your mother, of course, is eager to see her grandchild.”

The royal couple stayed for a few minutes longer, promising to return on the morrow before they departed back to Sudley Castle.

“Please, madame, how is the prince?” Jasmine asked the queen as Anne prepared to leave the chamber.

A sharp retort was about to spring to the queen’s lips when she looked at Jasmine and saw the genuine love and concern in the girl’s face. “His cold lingers, my dear,” Anne of Denmark reported gently.

When they had left her, Toramalli took the baby and set him back in his cradle by Jasmine’s side. “He’s sleeping, my lady. No need to wake him up and continue feeding him. He’s full, right enough, else he’d howl to wake the dead. He’s a true Mughal.”

“And a not-quite-royal Stuart,” Jasmine said with a small smile.

Velvet now rushed into her daughter’s bedchamber, Alex behind her. “Let me see him!” she demanded. “Let me see my Stuart grandson!”

“Why, Mama,” Jasmine said with humor, “I did not know you were such a snob. He is in his cradle, having fallen asleep in his royal grandmama’s arms. The king will make him a duke one day, he says.”

Velvet looked down at the baby who lay upon his stomach, his small head turned to one side. “He’s lovely,” she said, “and I do not begrudge the queen her few moments with him. ’Tis I little Charles Frederick Stuart will call ‘Grandmama’; and ’tis I who will see him grow. I am glad I am not a queen. There are too many disadvantages to it, I fear.” She looked at her daughter. “You are content?”

“Aye,” Jasmine told her. “Why should I not be? Henry Stuart loves me, and I have his son. There is nothing more for me but Hal, and all my children. My life is complete.”

Velvet nodded, pleased with her daughter’s answer.

“Henry Stuart will make a good king one day,” Alex Gordon noted. “He considers everything. I understand he arranged through poor old Cecil before he died last May to gie the bairn yer grandfather’s titles one day. ’Tis just what my grandfather did for my father.”

“And ’tis as canny of him as it was of his grandfather,” Jasmine teased her stepfather. “By passing on a title that is already in the family, he does not have to create a new one, nor offer an allowance to support a new peerage. I am certain that Robert Cecil highly approved of that. He did so disapprove of my affair with Hal.”

The Earl of BrocCairn chuckled. “Aye,” he agreed. “ ’Twas a consideration that would hae pleased Cecil mightily, God rest him. He was always so careful of the king’s purse. Poor little royal beagle. He worked himself into the grave. The king hae replaced him with Robert Carr, and created that idiot Earl of Somerset to boot. A poor choice, I fear.”

“I hear that Frances Howard has divorced Essex and plans to wed Carr,” Jasmine said to her stepfather. “Is it so?”

“Aye, the bitch,” BrocCairn told her. “But ’twas nae a divorce. She had her marriage to Essex annulled, and not satisfied to seek the annulment on the grounds of
propter maleficium versus hanc
—that he was impotent only toward her—she embarrassed the man by declaring
propter frigiditatem
. She claims he is impotent to all women, and the whole damned court knows that isn’t so, but the archbishop looked the other way. The annulment is a fact, although it has not been declared so yet. She and Carr will wed next spring.”

“Jasmine needs her rest, Alex,” Velvet declared. “Let us go. We will see you in the morning, my dear.”

“Are you returning to court with the king and queen, Mama?”

“Nay, ’tis time we returned to Scotland,” Velvet told her daughter. “The boys have been running wild since spring without us, I can be certain. It is time to bring order to their lives. Sandy and Charlie must go to university. God knows what mischief they have gotten into in our absence. Or,” she said archly, “what girls they have impregnated at Dun Broc. Your stepfather does not see my concern.”

Alex grinned over his wife’s head, and winked at his stepdaughter.

“I am sure the boys have done fine, Mama,” Jasmine said.

“Aye, and I hope so,” the Earl of BrocCairn said.

“
Alex!
” his outraged wife declared. “This is why I have no control over our sons any longer. You encourage them to bad behavior.”

“There is nae wrong wi a lad chasing after a perty lassie,”
the earl said staunchly. “I did it myself before I wed ye, sweetheart.”

“You have two sons, Jasmine,” her mother said. “Do not let loose of the reins for one moment, or you will have chaos. I warn you.”

When they had left her, Jasmine considered that her mother was beginning to sound more and more like her aunt Willow.

In the very early morning, the king and queen came a final time to see their grandson before returning to Sudley Castle. The king gave Jasmine a purse, which she accepted although she felt uncomfortable doing so. The royal purse was always empty, or near it, she knew, and she was a very wealthy woman. She did not refuse, however, for she would not offend their majesties.

“There is the matter of the bairn’s baptism,” the king said.

“The prince and I had hoped that Prince Charles and Princess Elizabeth would be permitted to stand as our son’s godparents,” Jasmine said.

“And what Church will he be baptised in?” the king asked.

“Why, the Church of England, Your Majesty,” Jasmine answered.

“Is nae this family of the old Kirk, Madame?”

“We were all born into it, my lord,” Skye interposed, “but the politics of the times being what they are, sir, we worship with the Church of England now. Elizabeth Tudor was fond of saying that ‘there is but one lord Jesus Christ, and the rest is all trifles.’ ’Tis possibly the only matter on which she and I ever agreed. My family and I are peace-loving peoples. We wish to remain at peace.”

The king was forced to chuckle, and he nodded at Skye. “How well I understand, Lady de Marisco,” he said. “How well I understand. When will the baptism take place?”

“In a few days’ time, my lord,” Jasmine said. “We will, of course, have proxies stand in for Prince Charles and his sister.”

“They will be told, Lady Lindley,” the king said, and then he and the queen took their leave.

The Earl and Countess of BrocCairn stood in for the royal godparents at the baptism of their grandson, but Prince Charles and his sister each sent fine gifts to their godchild. From the princess came six silver goblets with the Stuart crest engraved upon them, and a length of fine lawn to make infant dresses. Prince Charles sent his namesake a dozen silver spoons, and a fine gold ring with a sapphire for a seal. The king and queen
sent a beautifully bound copy of the new Book of Common Prayer.