“I will try and send word of some kind,” James Leslie told his in-laws. “I’ll light a fire on the beacon hill for you to see when Jasmine has delivered the bairn. If it burns two nights running, then you will know it’s a lad. One night for a lass.”
“It’s a laddie,” Jasmine said stubbornly.
Now only Adam and Fiona Leslie remained at Glenkirk with them, and Jasmine was glad for the company of Jemmie’s aunt, who was set in years between Jasmine and Skye. She was a clever, wickedly funny woman, and through her Jasmine learned all about her husband’s mother. She was sorry that she could not know Cat.
“She would like you even if you are the exact opposite of the wife she picked for Jemmie. She did her best, though, aligning him to the more powerful branch of the Gordon Clan. Isabelle, however, hae all the common sense of a peahen,” Fiona declared bluntly. “Only a fool would hae gone to St.Margaret’s Convent that day. The Covenanters had been swaggering allabout the area, rooting out the poor hapless priests of the old kirk and their adherents. It was a particularly vicious band that had already committed several atrocities in the name of God, crucifying priests upside down, looting and burning. Jemmie told her nae to go, but she insisted, saying that the nuns had finished some linens for her, and she must hae them. So she went, taking her laddies wi her, and ye know the rest.” Fiona crossed herself. “God hae mercy on their guid souls,” she said.
“And they never found them?” Skye asked.
Fiona shook her head. “By the time the mischief was done, they were long gone back to whatever hell hold they had climbed out from,” she said.
“I do not understand this business of people believing one religion is superior to another, but then I was raised in my father’s court, and he was a very open-minded man,” Jasmine told Fiona.
The winter deepened, and reached its midpoint. The snows were piled high, blocking all travel. Some nights they could hear the wolves howling high upon the bens. Only the gentle lengthening of the days indicated that the winter would eventually leave the land. January passed. Then February. The life they led was peaceful and ordinary. Jasmine oversaw the household with Adali’s help. The children took their lessons with Brother Duncan in the mornings and early afternoons, and played with their puppies, who were growing by leaps and bounds, in the later afternoon. They rode their ponies about the courtyard of the castle, which was kept shoveled, and Jasmine could not ever remember seeing her children so happy. At last they had a normal life, and James Leslie was responsible for it.
In midmorning of the fifth day of March Jasmine told her grandmother and Fiona that she might be going into labor. By late afternoon she was absolutely certain she was in labor. The birthing table was brought from the castle attics and set up inthe dayroom of the Glenkirk’s apartments. Rohana, Toramalli, Adali, and the two older women stood in attendance.
“What can I do?” the earl asked of his wife, kissing her moist brow. “I know how hard birthing can be. I well remember Isabelle’s travails when she bore Jamie and George.” It was the first time Jasmine could ever remember hearing him speak of his dead sons by name.
“You and Uncle Adam keep the children amused,” she told him, drawing his head to hers, and kissing him lightly. “I have shamefully easy births when compared to most women, or so Grandmama says.”
“‘Tis true but for Fortune, who decided to be born wrong-way around. We were in Ireland, as you know, Jemmie, and had not my late sister, Eibhlinn, come from her convent and turned the babe about, it would have been an even worse situation. Both Jasmine and the baby might have died. Of course Fortune was born a healthy infant, thank God! This child is positioned quite properly,” Skye quickly reassured him.
“And will be born before much longer,” Jasmine assured her husband with a grin. Then she winced as a pain swept over her. “The little devil is anxious enough, my lord. Another determined Leslie for the world to contend with, I’ll vow.”
Patrick Leslie, destined to be the sixth earl of Glenkirk, was born three minutes after midnight on the sixth of March. He was his father’s image, with a headful of dark hair and eyes that, while a baby blue, already showed signs of darkening to green-gold in future. Cleaned and swaddled, he was put to his mother’s breast and suckled strongly from the start, causing his mother to declare him a little beast of a bairn. When she said it the infant stopped sucking for a moment and regarded his maternal parent with strangely intelligent eyes for a long minute, then turned back to the nourishing nipple.
“God’s nightshirt!” Jasmine said softly.
Her husband chuckled. “He’s a Leslie all right. He reminded me of my father just then, the little devil!”
“Strange,” Jasmine replied, “he reminded me of mine.”
Since the new heir to Glenkirk was to be named Patrick, he was baptized on the seventeenth day of March, the Feast of St.Patrick. Jasmine asked Skye to stand as Patrick’s godmother, and young Henry Lindley would be his half brother’s godfather. The baby shrieked properly as the water was poured gently over his head, indicating to all that the devil had flown out of him.
By mid-April young Patrick was in the care of his wetnurse, chosen by Adali, as all Jasmine’s wetnurses had been. Adali seemed to know everything that went on around them wherever they went. When Jasmine teased him about it, he smiled.
“If I am to protect you and yours, I must knoweverything,” he told her. “Mary Todd is Will’s niece by marriage. Her husband died soon after her child was born. Will brought her to Glenkirk to look after himself. I knew her child would be weaned by the time your new babe was born. Her milk is rich and plentiful. She’s a good, healthy girl, and is content to reside here in the castle until your lord Patrick is himself weaned from her breast.Andyou, my princess, do not have to be separated from your son. A most perfect arrangement, eh?”
“You are, too, Adali,” Jasmine said laughing. “I could not do without you, my old friend.”
“I pray God, my princess, that you will never have to,” he replied seriously.
By mid-April the snows were melting off the bens, and Adam and Fiona decided to return to Edinburgh.
“Find out if Piers St.Denis is still lurking about,” Jasmine said.
“If it was St.Denis,” James Leslie murmured.
“You know it was!”Jasmine said angrily. Then she said, “I am sending a Glenkirk man with you, Uncle Adam. He carries aletter to my friend, George Villiers, who is at court. Steenie will know what is going on if no one else does. See he gets safely out of Edinburgh and on the road to England.”
Adam Leslie nodded. “I will, lassie. Best weallbe reassured should we hae to defend ourselves from this Englishman.”
Spring began to evince itself on the hillsides which were now green with new growth. The roads were open, and Skye began to consider a visit to Dun Broc to see her daughter, Velvet.
“I will remain with Velvet a few weeks,” she announced to them, “and then we can all travel south to Queen’s Malvern for your English summer. It will be good to get home again.”
She was, Jasmine considered, finally recovered from the shock of Adam de Marisco’s death. Skye would mourn him for the rest of her life, her granddaughter knew, but the worst was over now, and she would finally get on with the business of living once again, Jasmine thought. It was a relief, for now she could get on withherlife, too. She did not know if she would always make the summer trip south into England because Glenkirk had gained a serious hold on her heart, but while Skye lived, Jasmine knew she would go.
