Authors: Heather Graham
“Yes, it is wonderful.”
“Come, we’ll see it.”
“Oh, we cannot! I don’t wish—”
“Don’t worry. Jamie is in London now. The king’s council is in session, and the Duke of Carlyle is in council, and Jamie is with his father, advising him. Lymon Miller is the steward of the estate; he will take us through it.”
Jassy could protest no more, for Elizabeth nudged her mount forward and they raced together to the grand
wall and the massive wrought-iron entry with its emblem of the lion and the hawk. A gatekeeper recognized Elizabeth and welcomed her with respect, letting them through. Then they approached the steps to the manor itself. Grooms appeared quickly to take their horses, and even as they removed their gloves a spry bald man in handsome dark livery came hurrying down the many steps. “Lady Elizabeth!” he said with delight. “Welcome. Lord Cameron will be so sorry he missed you. He’s not at Castle Carlyle, no, I’m sorry to say. They’ve gone on to London.”
“Oh, I know that, Lymon. This is my sister, Jasmine. I wanted to show her the manor. May I?”
Lymon cast Jassy a quick and curious stare, and she knew that the entire region must have heard of her sudden appearance from a sordid past. “Miss Jasmine,” Lymon said. “You must do as you wish, Lady Elizabeth. Will you have coffee? Lord Cameron has just acquired some from his ships in the Mediterranean.”
“Yes, Lymon, thank you. In the blue room, I think.”
Jassy followed Elizabeth up the grand stone stairway and past the concrete lions guarding the double doorway. There was a rich red runner sweeping down the length of a grand hallway, so wide and huge that it could easily accommodate a hundred guests. Portraits lined the walls, and doorways opened on either side to various other rooms. A great curving stone stairway rose from the rear of the hall, and it, too, was covered in the rich red velvet runner that came to the door. Elizabeth smiled as Jassy gaped. “It is lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is exquisite.”
“And imagine. He is hardly ever here. When he returns from his journeys, he spends time with his father. He keeps his belongings here, and that is it, so it seems.” She laughed. “Ah, well, if Lenore has her way, they will marry, and he will have to come home more often, don’t you agree?”
Jassy nodded, but she didn’t want to agree. She didn’t want to think of Lenore in the manor, she wanted to imagine that it belonged to her. It was fun to close her
eyes and see herself in silks and furs, walking down the stairway greeting her guests. They would toast her; they would say that she was the grandest hostess in all of King James’s realm, the poor little bastard serving wench who had pulled herself up and proved that a commoner could rise above her lot to grace the society of nobles and gentry.
The house belonged to Lord Cameron, she reminded herself.
“Shall we have coffee? The blue room.” Elizabeth directed her to the left, where the walls were covered with light blue silk and the floor by a braided rug. Shining wooden chairs were pulled before a low-burning fire. The ceiling was molded and the mantel was made of marble. A cart that held a silver service was pulled before the fire.
“Sit. I shall pour.” Elizabeth indicated a seat. Jassy bit her lower lip and smiled.
“Please, Elizabeth, may I pour?” Jassy said. She’d never had coffee before. It was an Eastern drink, and only the very wealthy were beginning to import it from places in southern Europe.
“Why, milady, do go right ahead!”
And as Jassy poured their coffee she discovered herself every bit the actress that her mother had been. She spoke about Lord so-and-so’s day on the floor at Parliament, and how Lady da-de-da had been presented before the king and queen. “And where was it? Oh, they were at the Tower, I believe. And did I tell you that Lady Cauliflower stayed there recently—the queen insisted, of course—and claimed that the Tower Green was definitely haunted? Well, it is Catherine Howard who screams along the corridors of Hampton Court, but it is Anne Boleyn who carried her head about the Tower Green!”
Elizabeth convulsed with laughter. “Oh, Jassy! You would make a great lady. A very great lady, indeed!”
“Oh, indeed, she would,” came a sudden, masculine voice from the doorway.
Jassy jumped up, spilling her coffee. Elizabeth dropped her cup. They both stared at Jamie Cameron.
He entered the room, stripping away his gauntlets. Lymon followed after him, ready to accept the gauntlets and take his black cloak as he cast it off. Beneath the cloak he was clad in knee-high riding boots, crimson breeches, a slashed doublet, and a fine white shirt. He handed his plumed hat to his steward, too, thanking Lymon cordially for the service.
Then he was staring at the two of them again, and though he greeted Elizabeth warmly enough, he seemed to view them with displeasure.
“Do forgive me—” Elizabeth began, but he interrupted her with a kiss on the cheek.
“Elizabeth, you are always welcome in my home.”
Jassy had not said a word. She clenched her teeth and held her hands folded before her. She hated that he had come upon them. Always! Always! He destroyed her dreams. He broke into them with harsh reality, and with his ever-present mockery and scorn. Nor could she forget when they had parted. Seeing him brought back a wave of emotion, and she trembled inside. He stared at her now with polite inquiry, and without a word of welcome to her.
“I did not expect you back.”
“Matters in London were solved much more quickly than I expected. Are you—er, ladies having coffee? Forgive me if I indulge in a whiskey.” He went to the sideboard and poured himself an amber drink from a crystal decanter. He turned, leaned against the sideboard, and watched them both again, yet Jassy felt his acute gaze fall her way, and his lips curled into a mocking smile.
“Elizabeth, I think that we should be leaving,” Jassy said.
“Yes, perhaps—” Elizabeth said, but as she spoke, she turned, catching her fragile coffee cup with her skirt, and the contents spilled upon it. “Oh, dear! Henry has so recently bought this fabric from Flanders, he will be furious with me—”
“I’m sure that Lymon can quickly catch the stain, Elizabeth, and I’m equally certain that Henry could not
be distressed with you.” He called for Lymon. “See, Elizabeth, it is just this bit, here, that is stained.”
“If you’ll come with me, Lady Elizabeth, we shall solve the problem in moments.”
“Jassy, I shall be right back.”
“Oh, Elizabeth, perhaps I can help—”
“I’m sure, Miss Dupré, that they can manage,” Jamie Cameron said. He smiled and blocked her way when she might have followed the two of them out. She did not try to barge past him. She turned with a rustle of fabric and wandered to the rear of the room, ostensibly studying the wall cloth.
“You’re good, Jassy. Very good,” he said softly.
“Am I?” It seemed better to face him then. She was distinctly uneasy with her back to him. “At what?”
“At all of it. At aping your betters.”
“I have no betters, Lord Cameron.”
He started to laugh, and then he inclined his head slightly to her. “Perhaps you don’t, ‘milady.’ Perhaps you don’t. Your mother was an actress. You have her talent. I believe that I would dare to take you to Court upon my arm, and have little fear that your manners would be anything but perfectly correct. But you are dreaming still, Jassy.”
“Do you think so?”
He approached her, and she backed away from him nervously, but then there was nowhere left to go, and so she stood her ground. He cornered her. He placed his hands on either side of her head, and he smiled, his face very close to hers. “May I tell you exactly what I read in the beautiful, cunning, and oh so betraying eyes? You love the elegance of this house, and you imagine yourself mistress here. Ah, but the house would not come with someone so loathsome as me. Oh, no! It would be Robert Maxwell’s estate, and of course, he would not dishonor you with any kind of licentious proposal, but he would forget fortune and class and the society of princes and kings to make you his wife. And you and he would rule here forever and forever.”
“Maybe someone will shoot you in a duel,” Jassy said
sweetly. “And maybe Robert Maxwell cares more than you might think.”
He turned away from her, negligently returned to the sideboard, and sat before the fire with a casual air, dangling one leg over the side of the chair. He smiled, watching her where she still stood against the wall. “Robert will never marry you. He must marry elsewhere, and quickly. He needs the income. He has gambled away a great deal of his income.”
“You are a liar. You are rude and uncouth and as savage as the heathens in that godforsaken land that so excites you. You are determined to drag Robert Maxwell down at every opportunity.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, Jassy. Robert is my friend. I do not seek to hurt him. I was just in London to bail him out of difficulty.”
“You were there to meet your father.”
“Have it as you will.”
“I should be better off to come and sleep with you, right?” she said scornfully.
“Actually, yes. You could indulge in great fantasy. You could imagine that you had done away with me yourself, that the manor was entirely your own, and that you could reign here as a gracious queen forever.”
“I should dearly love to do away with you,” she replied.
“But then, I’m afraid that the fantasy couldn’t last forever. You see, I intend to marry soon.”
“The great and wondrous Lord Cameron deigns to take a wife. I hope that you shall make each other entirely miserable for a lifetime.”
“No one shall make me miserable for a lifetime, mistress,” he advised her. “You see, a wife has certain functions. To bear heirs, to be her lord’s hostess, and his supporter in all things. And above all, of course, she is to obey him, and follow him wherever he shall choose to lead. Then again, if she should prove not so gentle and not so kind and not so pretty as she seemed before the binding words were spoken, she may be left at one estate while her lord travels on to another.”
“Then the man has married himself a fool,” Jassy said. “And, my Lord Cameron, you do deserve one.”
His laughter followed her as she left the room at last, determining that she would wait for Elizabeth outside. A servant opened the door for her and she fled down the steps. Even as she reached the ground, the grooms were hurrying out with the horses. Elizabeth did come right along. She said good-bye to Jamie at the steps. Jassy was mounted when Elizabeth reached her. A groom quickly helped Elizabeth upon her mount.
“It’s a glorious place, isn’t it?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Glorious. Let’s please do go!”
That night Jassy had the first of her nightmares. She saw the attic room at Master John’s again, and she saw the blond figure lying there. She came toward the bed, knelt beside it, and touched the covers. Linnet turned to her, and Jassy began a long, silent scream, for her mother’s flesh had rotted from her face, and she touched her upon the breast with a bony finger. Then she fell back against the pallet, and when Jassy looked again, it was not Linnet lying there at all, it was her, and she was dying just as her mother had died, in filth and poverty. For days the nightmare haunted her.
But a week later the flowers came from Robert Maxwell, and she forgot the horror, for fantasy was awakened inside of her once again.
She was at the stables when the boy arrived, a young lad with a limp and a wool cap pulled low over his forehead. He carried a handful of roses, and he came to her swiftly, nervous that someone else might be about.
“Jasmine Dupré?”
“Yes?”
He thrust the flowers to her. “Compliments of Robert Maxwell, with his greatest regard.”
And that was it. The boy turned and ran away, but Jassy was left with the flowers, and they seemed the greatest gift that any woman could receive.
She brought them back to her room and laid them out on her pillow. She breathed in their sweet scent, thinking that winter was indeed gone, and spring had come.
Perhaps the cold had gone from her life forever, for Robert loved her, she was certain.
She carefully pressed the flowers into the one true gift her brother had given, a copy of the King’s new Bible.
The days began to rush by; they fasted for Lent, and they atoned for their sins on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Easter was soberly celebrated with a long Mass, and when that day came to an end, the household began to plan for May Day with exuberance.
Even Elizabeth was excited, though she had no intention of being part of the dance. The tenants were raising a giant Maypole with brightly colored streamers to hang from it. For them it would be a grand holiday. They would all receive a measure of rum, a silver coin, and a bolt of cloth. A village girl would be proclaimed Princess of the May, while the title of Queen belonged indisputably to Lenore.
The family and the invited nobility and gentry would sup in the dining room, while a banquet for the servants and tenants would take place in the courtyard area between the hall and the stables. To attend, the duke’s dependents were all to bring him a gift, and so he would hold court outside, since the gifts would most oft consist of little piglets.
“You needn’t fret that you’re not actually dancing,” Elizabeth told Jassy. “You shall enjoy it. There’s ever so much activity. Henry has hired an animal keeper with a dancing bear and ever so many musicians. There will be numerous puppeteers, and all manner and sort of entertainment!”
“Yes, I’m sure it will be wonderful,” Jassy told her.
Lenore announced that she would be dressed in white, and that she would attend as a white dove. She didn’t wish to leave her suitors with any doubt as to who she was.
One afternoon as the day neared, Lenore summoned Jassy to her rooms. “I have the most hateful headache,” she complained. “Jane tells me that you can soothe the pain.”
Jassy had little desire to soothe any of Lenore’s pain. She shrugged. “I am not so talented.”
“Would you try, please? I am in agony.”
While she rubbed her sister’s temples with mineral water, Jassy remained silent. Lenore leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Oh, Jassy, you are very good! Sometimes I wish that you were my true sister—you’d have been fun, I’m certain. Not like Elizabeth, who is too timid ever to defy Henry! Then I am glad that you are the bastard child, for you might have been some wicked competition.” She laughed openly and honestly, then twisted around. “If Henry makes life too unbearable for you, you shall come and live with me when I have married. I shall keep you merely to cure headaches!”