“Before first light, my lady. The skulking one had not yet returned to his post, nor has he come yet. I imagine his master will no longer require him to hide in the shadow of the garden wall now that the earl has departed for Scotland. He and Fergus More rode out just after dawn.”
“And now begins the tiresome task of outwitting the marquis of Hartsfield while I pretend to consider his silly suit,” Jasmine grumbled.
Adali made a disapproving motion with his mouth. “The gentleman has all the finesse of one of your father’s fighting elephants,” he observed. “A dangerous fellow, I sense.”
“Aye,” Jasmine told him. “Jemmie says he is deviant in his passions. I will have to be very careful about him.”
“Surely, my princess, you will not allow yourself to be alone with him,” Adali said, disturbed.
“I must at some point,” Jasmine told him. “That is why he has had Jemmie sent away; so he may have time alone with me. He believes he can convince me to marry him. Of course all he wants is control over my wealth, and my not-so-royal Stuart son. Obviously he has a poor opinion of women, another mark against him in my books.”
“You will want a bath,” Adali said, dropping the distasteful subject of Piers St.Denis.
“Ummmm,” Jasmine agreed. “I am deliciously battered, and replete with my lord’s loving, Adali.”
“Then you are truly content to wed with James Leslie next month? While I believe he is the proper husband for you, myprincess, I should not want you unhappy. Not I who love you like a father and have raised you from an infant,” Adali said, his brown eyes filled with tender emotion.
“I am content,” Jasmine told him. “Thank you, dearest Adali. I would have you know that I love you every bit as much as I loved Akbar, whose royal seed gave me life.”
He bowed low to her and, unable to say another word, hurried from the room, so overcome with emotion was he. Watching him go, Jasmine smiled. She could not imagine life without Adali by her side. He had always been there, with her and for her. He and her two maidservants. How would they adjust to life in the less civilized climes of Scotland? At least they would all be managing together as they always had, she considered with a small chuckle. Adali, Toramalli, and Rohana could make civilization anywhere.
Jasmine was just stepping from her bath when Adali entered her bedchamber, annoyance plainly written all over his light brown face. “The marquis of Hartsfield is here, my lady. Let me send him away for you. He has arrived in a most unseaworthy little bit of a barge, and says he wishes to take you on an outing today.”
Jasmine burst out laughing. “He is attempting to be romantic, Adali,” she giggled. “I shall go on his picnic, and as we are returning home I shall develop a cold, which ought to give me a few days relief from his company. Courting men don’t like sickly women.”
“Very well, my lady,” Adali said. “When will you be ready to go, for he will surely ask me. An hour? Two?”
“Let us make it two hours, Adali. As he did not request the pleasure of my company beforehand, he can hardly expect me to be available upon his immediate arrival. Have a footman bring him some wine and biscuits, and then leave him alone to stew in the library.”
Adali bowed and departed.
Dried, powdered, and wrapped in a chamber robe, Jasmine stretched out upon her bed and contemplated what she would wear on this outing. “Something girlish and countrified,” she said to her maidservants.
“You have a lavender-blue silk gown with a wide lace collar,” Rohana suggested.
“You could wear it with several petticoats and no farthingale,” Toramalli said. “The neckline is very low, however.”
“Hummm,” Jasmine considered, thinking what fun it would be to tease St.Denis with a glimpse of what he could not ever have. She was very proud of her bosom, which, despite her four childbirths, was still firm and creamy. “Let me see it,” she told Rohana.
Rohana brought forth the requested garment, laying it out for her mistress to contemplate. The gown was really quite simple. It was ankle-length, and its sleeves had slashes showing a fine creamy silk beneath. There was no decoration upon the bodice, which would be well covered by the beautiful lace, which formed a draped collar. The waist would be tied with a cream-colored silkgalant.
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “Do we have slippers to match?”
Toramalli shook her head. “Better you wear black with it, else you dirty them. You have a pair of new pantofles which will suit the occasion perfectly, my lady. What jewelry?”
“The pearl necklace with the pear-shaped pink diamond,” Jasmine said mischievously. “He’ll have a terrible time keeping his eyes off it, and yet will be desperate to appear disinterested in either my jewelry or my breasts.” She grinned at her two servingwomen, who burst into laughter at her reasoning.
“You are as naughty as you were when you were a little girl and used to hide in the palace gardens from Adali,” Rohana remarked.
For a moment a shadow passed over Jasmine’s face. How simple her life had been then as the youngest child of the great Mughal emperor, Akbar. It all seemed so long ago, so very far away from her adopted land of England. “I suppose,” she said, “that that little girl still resides somewhere within me, but don’t ever tell the children, Rohana.”
“They don’t need to be told how to be naughty,” Toramalli said. “It seems to be instinctive with them. I am amazed your old grandmother can control them, and yet she does.”
Jasmine laughed. “Nothing is too big a challenge for Skye O’Malley,” she told her servants. “They say I am like her. I love hearing it, of course, but I do not believe I have her greatness.”
“You are young yet, my princess,” Toramalli observed, “and you have the blood of conquerors in your veins from your father as well.”
Exactly two hours after the marquis of Hartsfield had been announced, Jasmine descended the stairs of Greenwood House and entered the library, where he was impatiently awaiting her. She looked dewy fresh and deceptively innocent. Her beauty literally took his breath away.He had to have her!
