Read Bedazzled Online

Authors: Bertrice Small

Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Fiction

Bedazzled (5 page)

“Why not?”
India was curious as to what her mother had heard.
“His father’s family is a respectable one,” Jasmine said. “They are Glocestershire people. I am sure you know about his brother, Deverall. It was quite a scandal, and such things do not die.”
“Deverall Leigh murdered a rival,” India said.
“So it was said, and the fact that he fled England did nothing to erase that impression. Many, however, did not believe it. Deverall Leigh was an honorable young man, but still it was his knife found in the victim’s chest, and he ran away. A convenience for his stepmother, and her son, Adrian. No one saw or heard the murder of Lord Jeffers. His serving man was away that night, and there was no one else in the house. And, of course, there was the knife. Deverall Leigh can never return to England without facing the hangman’s rope, for there is no one to attest to his innocence, if indeed he is innocent. I had heard that his father had disowned him. What choice did the poor man have? So your friend, Adrian, will one day be the earl of Oxton, and sooner than later if the rumors are to be believed,” Jasmine finished.
“But why do you hold Adrian to account for his brother’s behavior, Mama? You have said the Leighs are a respectable family,” India replied.
“I said his
father’s
family was respectable. His mother, however, is another thing. She is a foreigner. Her family is not the equal of her husband’s. She is said to take lovers. Men of low station. Her husband is a broken man. Some say her behavior is as much to blame as the alleged behavior of Deverall Leigh. This young man who has caught your fancy is
her
son.
Raised by her
. What kind of man can he be? The acorn, India, does not fall far from the oak. Besides, the Leighs are not a family of wealth, and you have always sought to avoid those young men who were fortune hunters. What makes you think Adrian Leigh is not?”
“Because he is obviously interested in
me
, Mama! The others were always asking about my lands, and my other holdings, and what kind of income I had from my inheritance. Adrian never asks such things.”
“Then possibly he is different, India, but he is still not suitable,” Jasmine responded. “Still, as long as his behavior is correct toward you, I see no reason you should not continue to enjoy his company.”
Better she think I have no violent objection to this young man
, Jasmine thought.
I do not want to drive her into his arms. He is clever
,
this Adrian Leigh
.
He has to know that India is very
,
very wealthy. It has never been a secret. He is willing to wait
,
and see just how wealthy she is until he has her securely netted
.
A dangerous opponent
,
I fear. Damnation! Why could not the perfect man come along, and sweep India off her feet? Jemmie’s mother was right. My daughter is ripe for the taking
,
and a girl in love for the first time is not always prudent
.
James Leslie stood with his wife the following day, waving the majority of their children farewell as they set out with their servants for Queen’s Malvern. “I should just as soon go wi them,” he said dourly, but he understood the importance of their remaining. Come autumn, though, they would return north whether it pleased India or not. And he agreed with his wife that they would allow India a certain measure of freedom, for nothing was more embarrassing to a young girl than to be obviously overseen.
India danced that same evening away, in a magnificent gown of peacock-blue silk with a silver lace collar, the bodice of which was embroidered all over with pearls and diamante. She wore pearls in her dark hair, and her lovelock was tied with a silver ribbon studded with twinkling crystals. About her slender throat was a choker of creamy baroque pearls. She was flushed with pleasure, and her creamy cheeks were rosy.
“You are the most beautiful girl in the entire world,” Adrian Leigh told her passionately, his sapphire-blue eyes glittering.
“I know,” India replied, and then she laughed at his surprise. “Do you want me to demure, and giggle like some little ninny?” she teased.
“No,” he said, surprising her. “I want to steal you away and make love to you for hours on end. Would you like that, my India?”
“As a virgin, I have no idea whether I would like it or not,” India replied pertly, “and I am not
your
India. Even when I am married, I shall belong to no one but myself, Adrian. The women in my family have always been both independent of spirit, and independent in their own wealth. I see no reason to change such a fine custom, do you?”
“I would change nothing about you,” he told her fervently. “I adore you just as you are, India.” He bent his blond head, and brushed her lips impulsively with his.
India tossed her head, half avoiding him. “I have not given you permission to kiss me,” she said, tweaking the fabric of his sky-blue silk doublet.
“I should be a poor suitor if I meekly waited for your permission,” he said, pulling her into an alcove and pinioning her against the wall. The blue eyes stared down into her gold ones. “You are ripe for kissing, India, and I vow that no lips but mine shall ever touch yours,” Adrian Leigh said, his mouth fully touching hers for the first time.
Warm
.
Firm
.
Not at all unpleasant
, India thought. Her heart raced madly with her first kiss. Her stomach felt as if the bottom had suddenly fallen out of it.
Then he took his lips away, smiling down at her. “Did you like it, India?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“You have nothing to say to me?” he said.
“Again,” she commanded him. “I want to see if it’s as nice the second time as it was the first.”
Adrian Leigh laughed. “Very well,” he acquiesced, and kissed her a second kiss, encouraged this time when her own lips pressed back against his. He raised his head up. “That’s it, India. Kiss me back.” Then he kissed her a third time, and India’s arms slipped about his neck. Her little round breasts pressed against him.
“Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! I think that is quite enough,
chérie,”
India heard her cousin, the chevalier St. Justine, say with a feigned sigh of exasperation.
Guiltily India pulled away from the viscount.
“René!”
He drew her blushing from the alcove. “You must have a care for your good name,
chérie,
even if Monsieur le viscount does not.”
“My intentions are honorable, Chevalier,” Adrian Leigh protested.
“If they are indeed, Viscount,” René St. Justine said, “you surely know better than to take a well-bred virgin into a dark alcove and enflame her innocent passions with kisses.”
“René!” India was mortified. “I am not a child, damn it!”
“The gentleman knows what I am saying, India, even if you do not understand,” he replied. “Now, come and dance with me, Cousin.” He led her off, leaving Viscount Twyford standing in the semidarkness. India was certainly well guarded, Adrian Leigh thought to himself, but he meant to have her for his wife. Much to his surprise, those unschooled little kisses she had returned his kisses with had aroused him.
“Was it your first kiss,
chérie?”
René inquired, curiously.
“I will be so glad when I do not have to answer to my family for my every action,” India muttered as they walked together. “How did you know we were there, René?” India was torn between irritation and outright anger.
“I saw him push you into the alcove, and when you did not emerge as quickly as you should have, I came to rescue you,” he told her. “If I saw it, India, then others certainly did. You are not a girl of easy virtue,
Cousine,
but if you allow gentlemen to take you into dark places, you will gain a reputation whether you want one or not. Your viscount sought to put you at a disadvantage, I fear, and you are too innocent of the world to understand that. Now, however, you do, eh?”
“Why does everyone think Adrian is bad?” India asked him.
“Perhaps not bad,” the chevalier said thoughtfully, “but he is, mayhap, opportunistic. To catch an heiress such as Lady India Lindley would be quite a coup for him.”
“But I haven’t said I wanted to marry him, René, nor has he even mentioned the subject,” India replied.
“He does not have to,
chérie.
If he sullies your good name, then no one else will have you despite your wealth and your beauty. You would fall into his lap like a ripe fruit,
ma petite
. I do not think you want anyone to manipulate you like that, India, eh?” René St. Justine’s brown eyes were questioning. Bending, he kissed her cheek.
“But I do like him, René,” India said. “Still, you are correct in realizing that I don’t like being beguiled into an untenable position. So, I suppose the answer is not to allow gentlemen to put you in dark corners.” She laughed. “I thought I was so grown up, René. It seems I am not. I am glad I have you for my guardian angel. Henry has gone to the country with my siblings. Court did not suit them at all.”
“Alas,
chérie,
I shall only be with you for a little while longer. The gentleman whose place I took has recovered, and will be coming from Paris soon; and I am needed at home. I may be a chevalier of France, but I am also the finest wine maker at Archambault. I must return to France in time for the harvest, and you will be returning to Scotland.”
“The king wants Papa here for the coronation,” India said. “I hope I shall be allowed to come from Glenkirk then.”
“If you behave, and do not give your mama and papa any difficulty,
chérie,
I suspect they will allow you to come,” René said, his eyes twinkling, a small smile upon his lips. “But you must be very,
very
good, eh?”
India laughed. “I will be, Cousin,” she promised him, “because in a few weeks’ time I shall go north, and unless I can come to court this winter, I shan’t ever see Adrian again. Then I shall die an old maid, eh?” she mimicked him teasingly.
“Non, non!”
the chevalier protested. “You shall not die an old maid,
chérie!
Somewhere in this world is a wonderful man just waiting to make you happy. You will find him, India. Never fear. You will find each other. This I know!”
Chapter
3
G
eorge Villiers, the duke of Buckingham, had come to court as a young man. He had found favor with old King James, worked his way up the social ladder from the second son of a knight to a dukedom, and married an earl’s daughter, Lady Katherine Manners. But James Stuart was old, and having gained his favor, George Villiers set out to win over the king’s only surviving son and heir, Charles. In this endeavor he was successful, and now George Villiers was, next to King Charles, the most powerful man in England.
Wealth and power had bred in him the desire for more wealth and power. In the young queen he sensed a rival, and so he set out to destroy any small influence she might gain with her equally young husband. His tactic with King James had been to subtly create a conflict between the old man and his son. When the disagreement was full blown, the king’s beloved Steenie would step in and mediate between king and prince. It was clever, and neither James Stuart, or Charles Stuart ever realized they were being cunningly maneuvered by the wickedly adroit Villiers.
The duke attempted to work the same tactic on the queen, but Henrietta was far more clever than her husband, and quite used to such court intrigue. She resisted George Villiers strongly, and he, fearful of losing his position, set out to destroy her marriage to Charles Stuart by deliberately fostering misunderstanding between the two. Henrietta could not complain to her husband, for, like his father before him, Charles was of the firm belief George Villiers was his true and best friend.
Both king and queen had been virgins on their wedding night, for Charles was far too prim to have taken a mistress or tumbled a servant girl in a dark stable. As neither his father nor Buckingham wanted any other influence in Charles’s life, they had discouraged his involvement with women. The young couple dared to speak to no one about this painful experience. They stumbled along in their physical relationship; the sixteen-year-old queen shy of her equally shy but demanding husband who had been told by Villiers that what the man wanted was what God approved of, for man was superior. Villiers then convinced Charles that his wife’s shyness was a refusal of his wishes, and an attempt to gain the upper hand. Things went from bad to worse.
“Whoever heard of a name like Henri-etta?” Villiers said one day to the king. “It’s so
foreign
. The queen is English now, and really ought to have a good English name. Perhaps we could call her Queen Henry.”
Henrietta, of course, as the duke had anticipated, fell into a terrible rage upon hearing the suggestion.
“Mon nom est Henrietta!”
she screamed.
“Henri? La Reine Henri? C’est impossible! Non! Non! Non! Je suis Henrietta!”
Charles found her passionate Gallic outburst distasteful. “We will speak when you are calmer, madame,” he said coldly. Then his gaze swept the queen’s chamber. “All these
monsieurs,”
he said in reference to his wife’s French attendants both male and female. “They really must go, madame. It is time you were served by your own people.”
“These are my own people,” the queen answered him sharply.
“These persons are French, madame. You are England’s queen, and should be served by good Englishmen and -women,” the king replied, his tone equally sharp.
“It was agreed,” Henrietta said, struggling to remain calm, “that I should have the right to choose my own household, sir.”
“It was not agreed that they should
all
be French,” the king snapped. Buckingham has sought a place for his sister, the countess of Denbigh, within your household, and yet you have been adamant in your refusal, madame. I like it not.”
“The comtesse is a Protestant, sir,” the queen said. “You cannot expect me to be served by a Protestant.”
“I
am a Protestant, madame,” the king replied. “It did not stop you from marrying me, nor will it stop you from having my heirs one day, and they will be Protestant.” He glared at her.
“Marie, Your Majesty,” said Madame St. George, who had been the queen’s governess, and now sought to turn the argument back to the original, and less volatile ground. “If the queen’s name, Henrietta, seems unsuitable for a queen of England, would not Marie, Mary, Queen Mary, be better? I know Your Majesty is not so petty that he would insist upon calling the queen by any other name but her own in private, but Queen Mary would be her official title,
if it would please Your Majesty.”
She curtsied. “Mary is English, is it not? And it is my mistress’s second Christian name.”
“It seems a good compromise,” the king said, pleased to have gotten his way, and not wishing any further outburst from his wife, who nodded mutely in agreement.
The duke of Buckingham was equally pleased, but for a different reason. The English had long memories, and they had not forgotten Bloody Mary Tudor, the last Roman Catholic English queen who had persecuted the Protestants. She had not been popular, and neither would this Queen Mary be. He chuckled to himself, well pleased.
When parliament opened, the queen was not present, for her confessor, Bishop de Mende, had somehow gotten the idea that a Church of England religious ceremony was central to the occasion. The king was furious. The parliament was offended, and granted the king only a seventh of the monies he needed. He adjourned the session, and moved his household to Hampton Court, for the plague was still rife in London.
Buckingham continued to undermine the queen, advising her that her clothing was far too lavish, and unsuitable for an Englishwoman. Her hairstyle was too foreign. Her temper too quick. He advised her that she should be more amenable to her husband, or Charles would send her back to France. Then he attempted once again to gain a place in her household for not just his sister, but his wife, and his niece as well. The queen was outraged, and this time did complain to her husband. In response, Charles went hunting to avoid the uproar, and while he was gone, the countess of Denbigh held a public religious service in the royal household. The queen and her people interrupted it, not once, but twice, trekking through the hall chattering and laughing, their dogs in their wake, as if nothing unusual were taking place. Buckingham dutifully reported this to the king, making certain Charles’s anger was well roused.
The king was indeed outraged, but not at Lady Denbigh for deliberately baiting the queen. His anger was directed solely at his wife, whom he decided to punish by sending her entire retinue of French back to Paris. Now Buckingham realized he had gone too far. He did not wish to be responsible for endangering the alliance between England and France, which this marriage represented.
In Paris, King Louis and his mother had heard of the discord between the recently married couple. They were not at all pleased, and decided to send an envoy to investigate. Buckingham quickly persuaded the king to allow the queen’s household to remain for the time being.
The plague having finally subsided, the coronation was set for February second. At Glenkirk, James Leslie grumbled loudly at having to make the trek from the eastern highlands of Scotland down to London at the midpoint of the winter. The snows were deep. The trip would be cold, and take forever. They would have to leave immediately after Twelfth Night.
“I dinna intend taking all of you bairns,” he said to his assembled family.
“I am perfectly happy to remain home,” Fortune Lindley said.
“Henry, Charlie, and Patrick shall go, because the first two are English, and the last my heir,” the duke of Glenkirk said.
India held her breath, and threw a beseeching glance at her mother. Adrian Leigh had been permitted to correspond with her, and had kept her apprised of all the gossip, and the coronation plans.
“I think India should go, too,” Jasmine finally said.
“Why?” James Leslie demanded.
“Because she is Rowan’s firstborn, and an English noblewoman of an old and respected family, who certainly should see her king crowned,” Jasmine said quietly. “Besides, this is an excellent opportunity for us to look over the young men from suitable families. Many will be at the coronation who do not as a rule come to court. It is a wonderful chance for her. Besides, it will please me to have my daughter with me, Jemmie.”
“Verra well,” he said grudgingly, “but I dinna want to see that fancy young viscount hanging about India.” He looked directly at his stepdaughter. “He’s nae for you, mistress. Do you understand me, India? I hae been patient allowing him to write to you once a month, but you will nae wed such a fellow. This time I would see other suitors at our door. Ye dinna hae your cousin, René, to hide behind any longer. Did you nae know I knew ‘twas young Leigh who you were so anxious to be wi, and nae the chevalier?”
India bit back the quick retort on her lips, and hung her head in a contrite fashion. She would damn well do what she wanted to do, but she would wait to get to England before she made that announcement. “Yes, Papa,” she said meekly, “and thank you for allowing me to go.”
“And ye’ll pick a husband, India,” James Leslie told his stepdaughter. “Either down in England, or here in Scotland, lassie. You’ll be eighteen this June, and you canna wait any longer.”
“Mama was only eighteen when I was born,” India noted.
“But she hae already hae two husbands,” he said. “And, besides, it takes time to make a bairn and birth it.”
“I want to love the man I marry,” India told him.
“I’ll nae force you to the altar, lassie.” James Leslie said, “but you must be more tractable and practical in this matter.”
“I will try, Papa,” India promised him.
“What a little liar you are,” Fortune mocked her sister afterward when they were alone in their chamber. “You want to marry Adrian Leigh, India. I know you do! And he would like to marry you, although I do not think he loves you. Just your wealth.”
“Of course he loves me,” India said angrily to her sister. “He has told me so in his letters, Fortune.”
Fortune shook her head. “I do not understand you, India. You have always been so careful where fortune hunters are concerned, yet now you become clay in the hands of this viscount. What is the matter with you?”
“You don’t understand,” India began.
“I know I don’t,” Fortune agreed, “but I do want to, India. You are my sister and I love you. We are only two years apart, and while we are very different, it doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to you, because I do. Adrian Leigh writes you in a manner I do not believe he should be writing you. He behaves as if you were formally betrothed.”
“
You haven’t read my letters
,
have you?”
India was outraged.
“Of course I’ve read them,” Fortune said matter-of factly. “You don’t hide them very well, India. If Mama didn’t trust you, she probably would have read them, too, and then you should not be going to England for the coronation. This Adrian Leigh is very bold, sister.”
“He kissed me,” India said. “The first time René caught us, and scolded me roundly. After that we were more careful. Ohhh, Fortune, I cannot imagine my life without him! Papa simply has to change his mind about Adrian. I cannot bear to think of marrying anyone but him.”
“
But why?”
Fortune was entirely perplexed. Certainly Adrian Leigh wasn’t any more handsome than their brothers. His prose to India was just plain silly—her lips were two turtledoves—and his spelling was utterly atrocious. What in the name of all heaven was so special about him that India was behaving like a little ninny?
“I cannot explain,” India said helplessly. “He is just too wonderful, Fortune, and I love him. You will understand one day.”
Fortune shook her head. “You had best be careful, sister,” she warned her sibling. “If you don’t choose a husband, and you know it cannot be your swain, Papa will choose one for you. Parents still do, you know. It is their right. Mama and Papa have been very lenient with us.”
“
It must be Adrian,
India replied stubbornly.
Fortune shook her head again. “We shall have no peace in this house, I am thinking, until you are safely married, India.”
“To Adrian,” came the reply, and Fortune laughed.
“I hope to never have a daughter like you,” she said.

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