“M’lord?” Fergus More spoke low.
James Leslie signaled silently for them to move forward. The horses’ hooves echoed as they crossed the drawbridge and entered the courtyard, where the great traveling coach was now being unloaded. The servants looked curiously at the two travelers, but two stablelads hurried forward to take their horses, and the earl entered the building, his man behind him.
“Jesu!” Thistlewood, coming out of the stables where he and his assistant had been seeing to their own horses, said. “That looks like the earl of Glenkirk!”
“I thought we was being followed once or twice,” said his companion, then staggered with the blow the coachman gave him.
“Ye daft lad! Why did ye not say something to me then?”
“I wasn’t certain of it,” the younger man replied, rubbing his head. “It wasn’t until we left Paris, and this is a strange country.”
Thistlewood shook his head wearily. Well, it wasn’t his business anyway. His old mistress would take care of any trouble that came their way. She always had, and age hadn’t slowed her down like it had the rest of them, he thought ruefully. “Let’s go to the kitchens and get something warm to drink and some food,” he told his assistant.
Adali saw James Leslie first as he stood in the hallway of the château directing the servants with the luggage. His smooth face indicated immediate surprise, which he quickly masked, but not before the earl had seen it.
James Leslie smiled wolfishly. “Tell your mistress I am here, Adali,” he ordered the man. “Wait! On second thought take me to your lady. I cannot take the chance that she will evaporate before I have even seen her.”
“Follow me, my lord,” Jasmine’s most trusted servant said.
The château had a small hall, to which Adali led the earl and his servant. It was a warm and cheerful room. Madame Skye was seated in a high-backed chair by one of the fireplaces, her boots by her side, a silver goblet in her hand, her stockinged feet to the blaze. Next to her Jasmine sat upon a stool, looking almost girlish, although she was now twenty-five, and the mother of four children. She was wearing her dark hair in a manner he could not remember seeing before. It was braided into a thick plait and twined with red ribbon. His gaze softened a moment, but then hardened with his resolve.
“The earl of Glenkirk, my princess,” Adali said clearly.
Jasmine, dowager marchioness of Westleigh, jumped to her feet, turning to face him.
“You!” she spat angrily.
“Aye, madame, ’tis I,” James Leslie said with understatement. “You have led me a fine chase, but ’tis over now.”
“Get out of my house!” Jasmine shouted at him. “You have absolutely no jurisdiction over me. This is France, not England!”
“I beg to differ, madame. The king of England ordered our marriage two years ago, and the king currently treats with King Louis in the matter of a marriage between Prince Charles and the king’s sister.”
“King James seeks a Spanish match with the infanta, Doña Maria,” Jasmine snapped. “Even here in my backwater I know that!”
“Would you like to argue the point with me, madame?” Glenkirk said. “You are the wife chosen for me by King James, and you will wed with me, madame. Remember, I am your children’s guardian.”
“You are Charles Frederick Stuart’s guardian,” Jasmine replied, “although I do not know why the king felt he needed a guardian at all.”
“Nay, madame, I am guardian of all your children now,” the earl said with devastating effect. “Your foolish and unruly behavior convinced the king that you were not fit to guide your bairns. I hold the future of not just Charles Frederick Stuart in my hands, but that of young Westleigh, Lady India, and Lady Fortune Lindley as well.”
“You bastard!” Jasmine said furiously.
“Nay, madame,” he replied mockingly. “My parents were betrothed for some months, and wed at least ten minutes before my birth.”
Jasmine turned to her grandmother. “Madame, how could you bring him here? Is this why you have come? I shall never forgive you!”
“I did not bring him, my dearest girl,” Skye said quietly.
“I followed your grandmother from the moment she arrived in Calais,” the earl said.
“Robin?” Skye asked him.
He nodded. “He suspected you would not wait until spring,” James Leslie said. “He sent two servants to follow Captain O’Flaherty’s carriage, certain he would not go home but to Harwich instead.”
Skye nodded, a small smile upon her lips. “Robert Southwood is indeed my son.” She chuckled. “And he has his father’s guile.”
“If you did not bring him here to Belle Fleurs, Grandmama, then why have you come?” Jasmine inquired.
“Your grandfather is dead,” came the immediate reply.
Jasmine gasped, and her eyes immediately filled with tears that flowed down her smooth cheeks. “Oh, Grandpapa,” she half whispered. Then she turned on the earl of Glenkirk. “This is all your fault!” she cried. “If you had not hounded me from England, I should have had these last few months with him! Now, I shall never see him again, and it is all because of you, James Leslie! I hate you! I hate you!”
“Nay, madame,” he said in icy tones. “Whatever you have lost is your fault, not mine. You did not have to disobey the king and run from me almost two years ago. A marriage was arranged between us. I loved you. I was willing to give you all the time you needed to mourn Prince Henry Stuart’s death. I was not dragging you by force to the altar, Jasmine. You, however, took it upon yourself to gather up your children, and in direct defiance of King James’s order, decamp from England. I knew you were in France. Three times I came, but I could not find you, for your relations hid you well. Now, however, the game is up. We will return to England, where you will wed me in a large and public ceremony, standing before that same court who have found such amusement in the April Fool you made of me those many months back.”
“I will not!” she said angrily.
“Oh, but you will, madame,” he answered her.
“I am a royal Mughal princess . . .” she began.
“Who cannot return home to India,” he cut her off. “You have lived in Europe for ten years, Jasmine. You are an English gentlewoman now, and no longer an imperial Mughal. Your grandmother must have a few days’ rest, then we shall begin the return journey to England. Do not attempt to escape me again, my darling Jasmine. Cadby needs its young master, and would you keep Rowan Lindley’s son from his inheritance? And what of your daughters? I’ll wager you have let them run with the peasants’ children. None of them, I am certain, has begun any learning. They are English nobility, and you would do well to remember it!”
“I will kill you before I allow you control over my children,” Jasmine snarled at him.
“Be silent, both of you!” Skye’s voice suddenly cut into the conversation. “Adali, get Lord Leslie some wine, and then take his man to the kitchen for food. What is your name, Scotsman?”
“Fergus More, yer ladyship.”
“Go with Adali, Fergus More. Your master is safe with me,” Skye told him, and then, turning back to Jasmine, said, “I came to tell you of Adam’s death, my darling girl, but I also