She nodded, and, when she had drunk a bit of the amber liquid, she began her tale even as Daisy and Nora were telling it to Adali. Adali listened to the two women. He was pleased to see that Madame Skye had added Nora to her personal staff to be of help to Daisy. The girl was the daughter of the Queen’s Malvern housekeeper and majordomo, the Bramwells. She was no slattern, and could be trusted. They were going to need all the cool heads they could muster, Adali thought, until this business with the marquis of Hartsfield was settled once and for all.
Skye settled into Glenkirk Castle. Adali housed her in the west tower apartments, which had once been used by the fabled Janet Leslie. It consisted of three floors. On the first was an anteroom, and two small bedrooms which would house Daisy and Nora. On the second floor was a dining room with a pantry, and a lovely dayroom that had once been used for preparing food for m’lady Janet. On the top floor was a lovely airy bedchamber and a garderobe. All the rooms but the garderobe had fireplaces. It took several days to make these rooms habitable again. The draperies and the bed hangings had to be found, brushed,and hung. The dust sheets were removed from the lovely old oak furniture, which was then polished up. Wonderful oriental carpets were brought from the castle storerooms and laid upon the floors. They had belonged to the lady Janet, and when she had moved to her own newly built castle of Sithean, they had somehow been left behind. Skye’s clothing was stored in the garderobe. Her featherbed, pillows, and personal linens were used to make the bed, and the remainder of the linens put in a cedar-lined oak trunk. Silver candlesticks and shining brass lamps were brought to illuminate the rooms; wood was stacked by the fireplaces, to be replenished each morning and afternoon. A crystal decanter of wine and one of whiskey along, with four silver goblets, appeared upon the sideboard in the dayroom, along with a bowl of spicy potpourri.
“I am amazed that she would leave Queen’s Malvern,” the earl of Glenkirk said to his wife as they lay contentedly in their bed. Outside the northwest winds howled, and an icy rain pelted against the windows.
“I am not,” Jasmine said quietly, and snuggled against her husband’s shoulder. “She doesn’t want to be at Queen’s Malvern for the holidays this year, Jemmie. Can you understand that? And she would not go to any of my aunts, or uncles, for they will make a long face of it and her heart will break all over again. I am the only one who wasn’t there, and so she has come to me. I am glad! I have never had a baby without Grandmama nearby to watch over me.”
He put his hand upon her belly, feeling the child stir beneath his touch. “He’s a strong bairn, Jasmine.”
“You’re certain that it’s a lad,” she teased him.
“Aye,” he answered her with great certainty.
“So am I,” she said softly, and she put her hand over his. “Patrick, sixth earl of Glenkirk. He will follow a proud tradition of Leslies, Jemmie, won’t he? And he’ll be a grand man.”
“Like our other lads,” her husband answered her. “With you for a mother, he cannot help it, Jasmine, my darling Jasmine!” and he kissed her tenderly. He would not make love to her now, for her condition prevented it, but he enjoyed stroking her and kissing her, as did she. Her breasts were large and decorated with slender blue veins now. He found it very exciting to think that those beautiful breasts would shortly nourish his bairn. A wetnurse had also been found for the coming child.
The children had all settled well into Glenkirk, making friends easily with the castle and village children. India, who would be eight in March, and Henry who would be seven in April, were, along with little Fortune, receiving lessons daily from Brother Duncan. Little Charles Frederick Stuart, at age three and a half, was considered too young, but he was intelligent, and Brother Duncan said that perhaps next autumn, after the bairn’s fourth birthday, they might begin to teach him his letters. The little not-so-royal Stuart did not seem to mind waiting.
“He’s all Stuart,” the earl said of his stepson and ward. “Charm just like his father, and a smile that would break an angel’s heart.”
On the twelfth of December the Leslies celebrated Skye’s seventy-sixth birthday with a family gathering, now that Jasmine’s grandmother was well rested, and recovered from her long journey. This was the Leslies’ first opportunity to meet Skye, and she was warmly welcomed amongst them and quickly liked. The pipes, which Skye had known in Ireland as a child, were the entertainment, along with the men of the clan, who danced for her, much to her delight.
“I do like a man with good legs,” she remarked, “and you Leslies seem to be all well endowed with handsome limbs.”
“And other parts,”a female voice said pithily, to ensuing laughter from the women members of the clan.
India Lindley, her dark ringlets shining, cast her golden eyes up at her great-grandmother, and asked, “Are youveryold, Grandmam?”
Skye nodded. “I am very old, India.”
“Was Grandsire Adam very old, too?”
“He was eighty-four, India,” Skye said softly. Damn! She missed him, she thought sadly.
“Will you live to be as old as Grandsire Adam, Grandmam?” India persisted. “I do not like it that he has gone away from us.”
“I do not like it either, India,” Skye told the child. “And as for how long I shall live? That, child, is in God’s hands.”
“I hope God will let you live forever, Grandmam!” India told her.
“Thank you, child, but I do not. One is born to die, India. It is our fate, and no one lives forever, nor would they want to. When I die I shall be reunited with all those whom I have loved and who have gone through that door we call death into the next life. I shall not be sad about it.
“I will,” India said forlornly.
Skye laughed. “You will have your memories of me, child, and you will know, because I have told you so this night, that I am happy because I will be with my Adam again. But enough, India! This is a celebration of my birth, and I am here with you to enjoy it! Fetch me another piece of that apple tart with cream!”
“She’s a grand old lassie,” the elderly earl of Sithean remarked to his nephew of Glenkirk. “Is she here to stay?”
“I don’t know,” James Leslie said. “For the winter and the spring, at least. And I’m certain since she is here, BrocCairn will want her to visit them. She has never been to Scotland in all the years Velvet has been wed to Alex. They are coming for Christmas if it does not snow too heavily. And Uncle Adam and Aunt Fiona are coming up from their house in Edinburgh. We will have a full house indeed.”
And on the twentieth of December the Gordons of BrocCairn arrived with four of their five sons. Sandy, the eldest, had remained at Dun Broc with his pregnant wife and her family. Jasmine’s favorite half brother, Charlie, now twenty, lifted her up, and gently swung her around, while the twins, Rob and Henry, age eighteen, and Neddie, now fifteen, cheered his efforts.
“Put me down this instant, you loon!” she scolded him, but Jasmine was laughing even as she upbraided Charlie Gordon.
He set her gently upon her feet. “Yer as big as a year-old heifer,” he teased her. “How’s my namesake?”
“He’s named for Prince Charles, too,” Jasmine reminded her sibling. Then she drew forth the little duke of Lundy, who was peeping from behind her skirts at these four big fellows his mama said were his uncles. “Say hallo to your Uncle Charlie, Charlie-boy,” she encouraged him.
