Chapter
18
S
he was cold. Cold as ice. The fire Caynan Reis had roused in her had been extinguished when they had kidnapped her son, Rowan. She felt nothing but emptiness, and for a time did not care if she lived, or died. It made no difference. None of it made any difference. Her eyes, once an unusual gold, were now dulled amber. She spoke only when spoken to, and then her answers were monosyllabic, or as brief as she could make them. She wept more often than not. The day her breasts finally dried up of their milk she was completely inconsolable, and attempted to fling herself from the battlements of Glenkirk Castle.
The duke of Glenkirk was furious and frantic by turns. He had done what he truly believed was best for his beloved stepdaughter, yet she would not see it. India was no longer in the first flush of her youth. The marriage offer he had received from England had been the answer to his prayers. India would have the noble husband she deserved, and none but a sworn-to-secrecy few would be the wiser of her misadventures. Her intended had agreed to all the conditions laid down by the Leslies of Glenkirk in order to protect their daughter and her personal wealth. The large dowry had already been paid, but here it was the beginning of May, and the bride was nowheres fit to travel south to her new lord. Indeed, she grew thinner and paler with every passing day. A large-eyed, dark-haired wraith whose only show of spirit was the look of hatred she fastened on her parents whenever they came into her view.
“I tried to stop him,” Jasmine attempted to explain to her eldest child as she sat with her one afternoon, trying to reach her. “For the first time in all our marriage, I could not reason with him, India. I am attempting to find out where they have taken your son. When I do, I swear to you that the lad will lack for nothing!”
“Except his mother,” India responded bitterly. “How could you, madame? You of all people, who was forcibly taken from her own natural mother. How could you rob me of the only thing I had left of Caynan Reis? At least my grandmother had the comfort of knowing that you were with your father, and your foster mother was her dear friend, Rugaiya Begum. I have no such comfort. My lawful husband is dead in an uprising, our son is stolen from me, and I am to be sent as wife to some stranger.
I want my child returned to me!”
She had not spoken so much, or so very passionately, since they had brought her back to Glenkirk from A-Cuil.
“I do not know where Rowan is,” Jasmine repeated. “I am trying to find out, India, but I am not capable of miracles. Jemmie has been most adamant in this matter. As for your betrothed husband, you have little time left to dissemble on the subject. Your marriage has been arranged, and you will go to England as soon as you can travel. No later than the end of the month, your father says.” She caught her daughter’s hands in hers, and looked into those dreadful, dead eyes India now possessed. “It is a good match, India, and he agreed to all our terms. Considering your age, we are very lucky.”
“I was content to take my child, find my own home, and live a quiet, discreet life, madame,” India replied. She was ready at last to voice her anger.
“How would you have explained Rowan?” her mother asked.
“Why would I have to explain my son?” India snapped. “Did not my great-grandmother return from Algiers
enceinte?
And who dared to challenge her story of a Spanish merchant who had been her husband? Aunt Willow was accepted to polite society. She even served the old queen as a maid of honor, and married quite well, too. Why was I not believed? Why was my son ripped from my breast just hours after his birth and hidden away as if he was something shameful?”
“There has never,
ever
been any question regarding my aunt’s parentage,” Jasmine said defensively.
India snorted derisively. “I suppose it was a
simpler
time,” she said mockingly. “It would have been better if I had lived then rather than now. Then I should have my child with me.”
“I am doing my best,” Jasmine wearily told her daughter.
“Your best is not good enough, madame,” India answered her coldly. “You should have prevented your husband from kidnapping my son.”
“India, your father did what he thought was right to protect you!” Jasmine cried.
“James Leslie is
not
my father, madame. Rowan Lindley was my father. As for you, you may have given me life, but I should have been better off being raised by a she-wolf as by you. You, who played the strumpet before the whole court with Prince Henry and bore his bastard openly and proudly. You, who kept the child of that liaison, yet, I, who was lawfully wed to my husband, has been robbed of our child. Now you want me to marry a husband of your choosing, and go off to England as if everything is perfect so the bloody Leslies of Glenkirk, and their overproud duke, will not be put to scorn and shame. Well, madame, I shall indeed go, and do your bidding, but for one reason, and one reason alone.
To get away from you and James Leslie
. You will never be welcome in my home. I never want to see either of you again once I have departed this place!”
Jasmine staggered back as if her daughter had physically assaulted her. India’s words, cold, hard, unforgiving, battered her. Her chest felt tight, and she could barely breathe with the pain.
“Who is he?” India demanded.
“What?”
Jasmine croaked the single word.
“Neither you, nor your husband have bothered to tell me who this paragon is that I am to wed,” India said. “Who is he?”
“The earl of Oxton,” Jasmine began, only to be interrupted by a screech from her outraged daughter.
“The earl of Oxton?
Adrian’s father? He is a dying man, and he has a wife!” India shrilled.
“Adrian’s father is dead. He died some months ago,” Jasmine murmured. “His second wife, the Italian woman, was returned to her family by the current earl, Lord Deverall Leigh.”
“Adrian’s
brother? The murderer?
Really, madame, this is too much, even for you and your husband to have done!” India was outraged to her very core. They would marry her to a murderer?
“Lord Leigh has been cleared of all the charges concerning Lord Jeffers’s death,” Jasmine began hesitantly, waiting for India to shriek again, and when she didn’t, continued hurriedly. “He returned to England several months ago with the information that exonerated him, and the king gave him a pardon. He was reunited with his father, who died shortly thereafter. The dowager countess was then sent to Italy, banished by royal command from ever entering England again. Lord Leigh saw you at court when you were a child. He inquired regarding your marital status, and when he learned you were not wed, offered for you. It is an ideal arrangement, India. Despite the royal pardon, he is slightly tarnished by the matter that threatened his good name for so long. Respectable families will not consider him as a son-in-law. As for you, while there is no firm ground upon which you may be charged with misbehavior publicly, there are too many suspicious, and enough wagging tongues who remember your less-than-discreet conduct regarding Adrian Leigh, which renders you equally difficult to match no matter your vast wealth and excellent connections,” Jasmine concluded.
“You would not let me marry Adrian, but you will allow me to marry his wastrel half-brother? I am confused,” India said sarcastically.
“The earls of Oxton are a reputable family,” Jasmine explained, ignoring her daughter’s caustic tone. “Deverall Leigh’s mother was Susanne Deverall, daughter of the marquise of Whitley, another eminent family. The unfortunate Adrian had a foreign mother of less-than-distinguished lineage. According to Lady Stewart-Hepburn, the di Carlo family in Naples were merchant-traders less than two generations ago.”
“Both the Leslies and the O’Malley family are in trade,” India said. “What makes us any different from the di Carlos?”
“Really, India,” Jasmine answered her daughter, surprised. “Our families were noble first, and merchant-traders only because we enjoy it, and the gold that flows into our coffers from our endeavors. Had the di Carlos not helped some duke avoid a scandal, they could not have climbed as high as they did, and they have come no further. Had not their daughter’s youth and beauty captivated the late Lord Charles Leigh, who knows what would have happened to her. As it was, she was no better than a whore in her behavior, which undoubtedly drove poor Lord Charles to his death. His eldest son, however, is a very suitable match for you. He is, I am told, a pleasant-looking man, whose youthful exuberance has been long since tempered by his adventures.”
“It matters not,” India said stonily.
“He wants children,” Jasmine said softly.
“Do you think another man’s child will make me forget my firstborn?” India replied icily. “Did Grandmother really ever forget you, madame? How many tears did she weep in hidden silence? I will weep far more not even knowing the fate of my son.”
“I will find him, I swear it!” Jasmine promised her daughter.
The dead eyes flicked over the older woman. “I expect a trousseau, madame, and
all
my possessions, jewels, plate, linens, furs, whatever is mine I will take with me, for I shall never return here again.”
“You shall have everything, everything you want, dearest,” Jasmine said. “You are an heiress in your own right, and the duke of Glenkirk’s stepdaughter. We will not allow you to go to your husband in a beggarly fashion.”
“I wish to leave the thirtieth of May. I shall go to Queen’s Malvern first. Where is Oxton Court, madame?” India asked.
“Not far from Queen’s Malvern, but not in Worcester, in Gloscester,” Jasmine told her daughter. “The estate is very lovely and rural, I am informed. I believe you will like it there.”
“It matters not if I do, or nay,” India replied. “It will be my home until I die and am reunited with my beloved Caynan Reis.”
“If you die,” Jasmine said pithily, “then what will become of young Rowan Lindley? Will you not live on the hope of finding your little son one day, India? Perhaps if the earl of Oxton is a kind man, and you win his favor, the child can come and live with you. Do not, I beg you, tell your stepfather that I said that! He would be angry with me for even thinking it, and then I would have no chance of finding your son for you, my daughter.”
“Do you think it possible?” India asked, her voice hopeful for the first time.
“If you gain your husband’s love and trust, it might be possible,” Jasmine encouraged her daughter.
“I must tell him immediately, else he wonder why I am not a virgin,” India said. “I am certain that the duke has not even considered my predicament in that matter. How am I to explain such a thing if I have never been wed? He will think me a wanton, but your husband did not think of that, did he? All he considered was a good offer and a chance to rid his conscience of my presence!”
Jasmine had no answer to her daughter’s accusation, for the truth of the matter was, India was absolutely correct. James Leslie had been so delighted by a decent offer for India that he had snatched at it like a drowning man at a straw. When she had brought up the fact of India’s womanly condition, her husband, in one of his maddeningly rare bouts of Scots logic, had suggested ways to give India the appearance of virginity, and Jasmine should see to them. The duchess of Glenkirk had swallowed back her humorous retort, because she could see her Jemmie was deadly serious, and that he wanted this match for India.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that you might tell the earl of Oxton that you contracted a marriage while abroad, but that your bridegroom died shortly thereafter. There are ways of restoring the tightness of your love sheath, India, and I would advise we consider them. There is no reason you should not like your husband. Mayhap you will come to love him. As you are aware of the pleasures a man and a woman’s bodies can give each other, you will surely want to give the earl sweet enjoyment. It cannot help but win him over so that he will want to please you
in all matters
, even that of little Rowan.”
“And when do I explain
that
to my new husband?” India asked, half sarcastically, half warily.
“Only when you have gained his full respect and confidence,” her mother advised. “India, wherever your son is, he is safe. Jemmie may be a hard man, but he has never been deliberately cruel. The child is unharmed, and well cared for by some cotter’s wife, delighted to have the extra income. This woman knows she must take good guardianship of her ward else she lose the silver paid her and be severely punished. Remember, the duke’s own man brought her the child. I have told you, and you cannot say I ever broke a promise to you, that I will find your Rowan. Then I will begin to make personal visits to him, impressing upon his caretaker the importance of this child, his health and his happiness. While I am doing that, it is up to you to make your husband love you, or, at the very least, want to please you enough so you may ask to have little Rowan brought to you.”
“I shall tell the earl
before
we wed that I have a son,” India said stubbornly. “I cannot be happy without my child, and I cannot marry this man unless he agrees to allow me to have Rowan with me.”
“India, in God’s name,” the duchess of Glenkirk pleaded with her daughter, “wait before you inform Lord Leigh of your child! If you ruin this proposed marriage, where will you be? Jemmie will lock you up in Glenkirk’s highest tower, and you will never see your child again. He will make certain of that. If you are clever, you can gain everything your heart desires. Do not spite yourself, and your son, simply to gain a moment’s revenge on your stepfather.”