“Not yet,” the young man replied. “He’s a Puritan for certain. Whip him, keep him on bread and water for a week, whip him again, then let him go. By then the new earl will be in London, and his grieving but susceptible mother will be safe from the likes of Pastor Goodfellowe.”
“Yes, m’lord,” the captain of the guard replied.
With a nod George Villiers turned away, thinking even as he did that he very much liked the sound ofm’lord.He must be patient, he knew. The queen said by Christmas, and he knew that she knew. Everything might have been perfect in his life but that Piers St.Denis was trying to weasel his way back into His Majesty’s good graces. Villiers knew that the marquis needed a rich wife, and only the king could provide one. Thequeen, however, was adamant that no decent girl be put in Piers St.Denis’s care.
“He is said to have unnatural desires,” she told the king. “I am told he even shares his women with that villainous half brother of his, Jamie. You cannot entrust him with some poor young girl.”
“But I canna get rid of him unless I gie him a bride,” the king complained to his outraged wife.
“Of course you can!” the queen responded. “After all, my lord, you are the king. Is not your word law?”
“I hae favored the laddie, Annie, for months now. If I send him away empty-handed, I will seem mean-spirited, and I will nae be! We must find him a wife.”
“A well dowered widow, perhaps?” George Villiers suggested. “One yet young enough to give him an heir, of course; but old enough not to be intimidated by him, or his brother.”
“Aye!” the king said enthusiastically. He turned to his wife. “I will leave the choice in yer hands, Annie, but the bride must hae gold and be able to gie him bairns.”
“Very well, my lord, I will do as you ask me, but I still think if it were up to me, I should send him away empty-handed,” the queen replied. “I do not trust your marquis at all. He is too eager to place the blame for Richard Stokes’s death on Jasmine and James Leslie.” The queen arose from her chair. “He is too anxious for revenge, and I do believe that he thinks he can still get his hands on our grandson.”
“Nah, nah, Annie,” the king said. “He’s a sensitive lad, is our Piers, but I am certain his heart is good. He is just disappointed over losing Jasmine Lindley.”
“He is and has always been too good-hearted,” the queen told George Villiers later that evening. “I had thought that St.Denis would be dismissed and sent home by now. Howwas he able to worm his way back into the king’s favor again, Steenie?”
“While I was on His Majesty’s business in the matter of the Puritan pastor,” George Villiers told the queen. “I think the king feels guilty over the matter of Lady Lindley. He knows it was a mistake to even to have suggested St.Denis court her, and now he is eager to make it up to him that the marquis not think badly of him. St.Denis was so adamant about Glenkirk’s possible involvement in Lord Stokes’s death, that the king dictated a message to James Leslie and his bride asking them to remain in England until the matter was resolved. Then the marquis took the king’s message, and personally had it dispatched to Queen’s Malvern. I’m certain it was just the wedding gift the bride and groom were expecting,” Villiers concluded.
“Wretched creature!” the queen said, irritated. “I can only imagine what Jemmie and Jasmine must have thought when they received such a message. Well, I hope the matter will be settled before the autumn, when they intend to leave for Scotland.”
“When is their wedding?” Villiers asked.
Queen Anne thought a moment, and then she said, “Why, I do believe it is tomorrow, Steenie. Tomorrow is the fifteenth day of June, isn’t it, my dear boy?”
“It is,” he agreed.
“Then it is tomorrow. Ohh, I hope they will be happy, Steenie! Jasmine has had enough sorrow in her life for any woman. I just want her to be happy. Our Hal would want it too, may God assoil his sweet soul.”
“Amen,” said George Villiers, who had not known Prince Henry, except by reputation. “And may Lady Lindley and Lord Leslie have a long and happy life together!”
“Amen to that, Steenie,” the queen replied.
“A long and happy life, my dears,” said Robin Southwood, the earl of Lynmouth, as he raised his goblet to his niece and James Leslie.
She was a wife once again, Jasmine thought, smiling happily as she accepted the toast and good wishes from her family. Standing before the Anglican priest saying her wedding vows for the third time, with a third husband, Jasmine prayed that this marriage would not end in disaster as her previous two had. She was struggling very hard with herself to believe what Jemmie and her grandmother said. That the deaths of Jamal Khan and Rowan Lindley had been mischance, and nothing more. Were they right? She had certainly been happy with both of her previous husbands. Now she was being given a third opportunity. Was three the charm for her? Jasmine Leslie prayed it would be so.
“You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen,” the earl of Glenkirk whispered in her ear.
“I have certainly had enough practice,” she teased him with a radiant smile.
They exited the small chapel at Queen’s Malvern. Once again, as at her wedding to Rowan Lindley, the four carved oak benches had not been enough to hold all the family, and they had stood about the room and spilled out into the hall. Her wedding to Rowan had been at dawn, and the rising sun had come through the stained-glass windows, casting shadows of color on the marble altar with its Irish lace cloth; reflecting off the gold crucifix and the tall candlesticks. Today, however, the wedding had been celebrated at noon, and outside of the house a soft rain was falling. Some remarked on it, hoping it did not portend any misfortune, but Jasmine laughed away their concerns. Her first two marriages had been held on perfectly beautiful days, and each had ended in violent death. A gray day was the least of her concerns.
The wedding feast, originally scheduled for the lawns, had now been set up in the hall, and the busy servants were dashing back and forth with food and drink. Skye had spared no expense with this celebration. Because it was summer, all her children had come to see their niece married to the earl of Glenkirk. Even Ewan O’Flaherty and his wife, Gwynneth Southwood, had arrived from Ireland. The Master of Ballyhennessey was fifty-nine, a large, ruddy-featured man with iron gray hair. He was a plain Irish country squire and happy to be so. His brother, Murrough, age fifty-eight, was virtually retired from the sea now; and content to remain in Devon, supervising the comings and goings of the O’Malley-Small trading fleet. His wife, Joan Southwood, was glad to have her husband home after all his years at sea; yet despite his comings and goings, Murrough had managed to sire three sons and three daughters on his adoring wife.
Willow, the countess of Alcester, and her husband, James Edwards, had arrived several days earlier with four of their eight children, three in-laws, and several grandchildren. Only their youngest son, William, was yet unmarried, but then he was only twenty. Of all Willow’s children, it was William whose looks betrayed his Spanish ancestry. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Willow’s father. Just looking at him took Skye back decades in time to when she had been the adored wife of the man known as Khalid el Bey, the Great Whoremaster of Algiers, who was in actuality a renegade Spaniard. Willow, of course, had never been told her father’s more colorful history, and believed him to be nothing more than a merchant, who was estranged from his family. Watching her prim and oh-so-proper English daughter attempting to manage everything and fussing at everyone, Skye wickedly considered that one day before she died she must tell Willow of Khalid el Bey. That would certainly take her down a peg or two.
And following the fifty-five-year-old Willow was Robin Southwood, the earl of Lynmouth, now fifty-two, and his still beautiful wife, Angel. Then came Deirdre Burke, age forty-seven, and her husband, Lord Blackthorne; and her brother, Padraic, Lord Burke, forty-six; and his wife, Valentina; and of course, lastly, Velvet de Marisco, the countess of BrocCairn, at forty-two, the youngest of Skye’s children, with her husband, Alexander Gordon, the earl of BrocCairn. They had brought with them Jasmine’s five half brothers, who ranged in age from twenty-two to fifteen. Sybilla, Jasmine’s stepsister, the countess of Kempe, and her husband, Tom Ashburne, had also come to the wedding, along with Jasmine’s great-uncle Conn, Lord Bliss, and his wife Aidan. And, of course, Jasmine’s devoted servants, Adali, Toramalli, and Rohana, were in attendance.
Willow had fretted privately to her siblings that holding the marriage feast in the hall would bring back unhappy memories for Skye. It would be the first time the family had gathered together since Adam de Marisco’s unexpected death five and a half months ago. “She is old, and this could hurt her,” Willow said, genuinely concerned for their mother.
“She has planned everything herself, sister,” Deirdre ventured, gently. “She wants it this way. She cannot avoid the hall forever because Papa died there, can she, Willow?”
