“Rowan, my love!” she answered, sighing gustily with a
shudder. “I adore you, husband, and I should even if you were not the most wonderful lover any woman could have!”
He lay pillowed upon her breasts for a few moments and then reluctantly arose. “I would rather remain here abed with you, Jasmine, and you know it, but we do have guests. You invited them.
All of them!
Even now your grandfather, your stepfather, your brothers, your uncle, and Tom are making their way downstairs that I may take them hunting this morning. As their host, I cannot fail to appear and do my duty, having done it here with you now!”
“Oh, villain!” She threw a pillow at him as he left the room, laughing, to quickly bathe and dress. Jasmine lay back amid her pillows. She loved him. Aye, she did. When she had married him, she had not been certain that she was going to truly love Rowan Lindley, but after two years of marriage she knew she did indeed love him. Was it a deep and abiding love? She was not certain, but she had to admit that she was happy. Her mind turned to more frivolous things.
What had he gotten her for her birthday?
The weather was lovely and warm and Jasmine had arranged for her birthday celebration to be held that evening upon the green lawns of Cadby overlooking the river Avon. Paper lanterns had been strung through the trees, and a high board and tables had been set up with a view of the river. The day being a long one, archery butts had been placed about for sport. Jasmine’s brothers were playing a game with a ball, dashing around and shouting noisily.
“Have you no control over those wild creatures?” Skye demanded of Velvet. “Sandy is fifteen and certainly past games. Why is he not at court? How do you expect him to get ahead if he does not make the proper friends? He will not find them at Dun Broc.”
“Sandy will be the Earl of BrocCairn one day,” Velvet told her mother irritably. “He’s a Scot, and not an Anglicized Scot like those who hang about the court currying favor with the king. Court has changed, Mama. ’Tis not like it was in the queen’s day. I want no children of mine there. It has become a cesspit of immorality.”
“My lads went to court and lived to be gentlemen,” Skye said sharply. “The court has always been a dangerous place, Velvet.”
“ ’Tis different today, Mama, than it was in your day,” was the reply.
“
My day
?” Sky looked mortally offended, and seeing it, Jasmine hurried to defuse the situation.
“The king, they say, Grandmama, is partial to handsome young men these days. ’Twas not always so, my stepfather tells me, but ’tis now.” She sighed dramatically. “I think perhaps Mama is correct in keeping Sandy and the others from court. I would not want one of my sons—if I had sons—involved in such goings-on. Don’t you agree?”
Skye looked at her granddaughter and chuckled. “You know better than any of them how to get around me, Jasmine de Marisco Lindley. Aye, I agree with you. You make it impossible not to agree with you. Ah, you would have driven old Bess Tudor mad, even as I did in ‘my day.’ ”
Jasmine kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “I may be breeding again,” she said. “I wanted you to be the first to know after Rowan. I told him this morning before he took the gentlemen hunting.”
“I am not surprised,” Skye replied. “You can scarce keep your hands off each other, my fine young marchioness, but should you have another babe so soon after India? ’Tis not easy, I know.”
“Perhaps if India had been a son instead of a daughter,” Jasmine said thoughtfully, “but Tom and Sybilla have two lads already.”
“Nonsense!” Skye told her. “India is a wonderful child, and if you had none but her you would be fortunate.”
“This will be a son,” Jasmine said, “and then I shall rest upon my laurels for a time. I love children, Grandmama! I want a houseful of them. Besides, did you not produce Uncle Ewan and Uncle Murrough within fifteen months of each other? And Uncle Robin’s little brother who died was born the year after he was, wasn’t he?”
“Murrough and Ewan could not be helped. I knew no better. As for Robin and my wee John, God rest him, I was young, and I was a foolish woman in love with a fascinating man,” Skye said, defending herself.
“So am I, Grandmama,” Jasmine said softly. “So am I!”
Skye O’Malley de Marisco put a loving hand upon her favorite grandchild’s cheek and said, “May your happiness come sooner and stay forever, my darling girl. You are so like I was at eighteen.”
The gentlemen had an archery contest while the servants brought the food from the kitchens. It was more of a picnic
meal than a formal dinner. There was fish caught that morning in the river, a roe deer roasting over an open pit as well as a suckling pig. There were capon and rabbit pies; beef and pheasant; beets, carrots, and turnip from the gardens; loaves of fine white bread; tubs of butter; and a variety of cheeses. Fresh fruit in large silver bowls decorated the tables: peaches, pears, apples, and grapes. There were cakes soaked in marsala wine; puddings of eggs, dried fruits, and bread with clotted cream. The best wine from Archambault filled the goblets, although some among the guests preferred Cadby’s fine ale instead.
They ate in a leisurely fashion, and when at last the tables had been cleared, a moon was rising over the river, dappling the placid waters with a pearly iridescence. Jasmine’s family had gifted her throughout the day. Velvet had given her daughter all the exquisite jewelry Akbar had once given her.
“I have never been able to wear it since my return, as you must understand,” she said. “It is a part of my life that is so far from me I can barely remember it, but I do remember some things that might make an interesting tale for your children one day. When you were four and half months of age—India’s age, in fact—your father learned that gifts were appropriate on each of the twelve days of Christmas. These emeralds were my first day’s gift. On the third day he gave me this carved ivory box filled with these strands of pink pearls. The sixth morning he presented me with diamonds; on the tenth a necklace of rubies with matching bracelets,” Velvet told her daughter, sliding the jewels through her fingers. “On the twelfth day of Christmas I was weighed three times. I received my weight in gold, silver, and precious gems. They are now all yours, Jasmine. They have not seen the light of day in many years. Wear them and be reminded not just of Akbar, but of me as well and the love we once shared. A love, my dearest, that gave us you.”
“Mama!” Jasmine kissed Velvet sweetly. “When India is older I shall enjoy telling her that story of her grandmother and grandfather. She will be a most proper little English girl, but I do not want her to forget that other part of her heritage. That is why I called her India. It is unlikely she will ever see that land.”
“Do you miss it?” Velvet asked her daughter.
“Aye, but not greatly, and less as time goes by. Perhaps if I had not had a family to come to here it would have been different for me, but even Toramalli and Rohana have grown used
to England, and as for Adali, he would never go back even if he could,” Jasmine said.
Wearing the rubies her father had once given her mother, Jasmine smiled. Gazing about the lawns at the small part of her family gathered tonight, she felt a deep sense of contentment.
Sybilla and Tom looked every bit as happy as she and Rowan were. Petite, elegant Sybilla was plumper than she had been just two years ago, but she did not seem to mind, and certainly neither did Tom. Her Gordon brothers were growing up so quickly, Jasmine thought, looking at them. Sandy was fifteen now, almost a man, and Charlie at thirteen was not far behind him. Neddie, chubby with baby fat at six, was as thin and wiry at eight as his ten-year-old twin siblings were.
Uncle Padraic and Aunt Valentina had left their children at home, but Bessie and Adam Burke had a third sibling, young James, a russet-haired toddler just a year old. Her stepfather Alex was showing silvery strands in his hair, but her mother seemed to grow lovelier with the passing years, even as did her grandmama. The patriarch of the family, however, seemed ageless, Jasmine thought. Her grandfather, but for his white hair, was young as ever despite his seventy-eight years.
“You are happy,” Rowan said, kissing her shoulder as he came up next to her. “I am happy, too, my love, and ’tis because of you. Would you like your birthday gift now,” he asked her, “or shall I put it aside for another time, mayhap?”
“No! No!” Jasmine cried, and then she said to her assembled guests, “Rowan has a special gift for me. He would not present it to me until tonight.” She stood and grabbed at his pockets. “Where is it?”
He laughed. “Such insatiable greed, madame.” He signaled to a waiting footman, who came forward with a silver tray upon which rested a sealed parchment. “This is yours, Jasmine, my love. A most happy birthday and may we celebrate many more together.”
Jasmine reached for the parchment. “What is it?” she asked, breaking the seals. Her eyes scanned the document.
“Well?” demanded her grandmother. “
What is it?
”
“It is a deed to three thousand acres, a village called Maguire’s Ford, a small castle in a place called Ulster. Where is Ulster?”
Skye grew pale. “It is in Ireland,” she said.
There was a deathly silence among the guests, and then Jasmine said, “What is wrong? Why are you all so quiet?”
Finally Padraic Burke spoke up. “King James is giving away land that does not belong to him, Jasmine. ’Tis stealing.”
“That is not so!” Alex Gordon replied angrily. “James Stuart is an honorable man.”
“What else would you call it?” Padraic Burke said quietly. “
Maguire’s Ford, Alex
. ’Tis Maguire land and not James Stuart’s land to parcel out as he desires. The Irish are being driven off their property and it is being repopulated by foreigners—Scots and English.”
Alex Gordon looked at his brother-in-law as if Padraic had just lost his mind. “What the hell has Ireland to do with you?” he demanded. “You were raised in England. You possess an English estate given you by an English queen, Padraic.”
“Both my mother and father were Irish,” Padraic Burke said. “My maternal grandfather was Dubhdara O’Malley of Innisfana; my paternal grandfather, the McWilliam of Mid-Connaught. I was raised in England because Elizabeth Tudor willed it so. I possess English lands because she gave them to me to replace my hereditary lands, which she stole from me and turned over to English settlers. It pains me to see the same thing happening to others who, God help them, are not even compensated for their loss, and if I were not an English-raised Irishman, Alex, I should still object to what is happening in Ireland because it is wrong!”
“Rory O’Donnell, Hugh O’Neill, and Conor Maguire left Ireland almost a year ago,” Alex Gordon replied. “Barely ahead of the king’s men coming to arrest them for treasonous activities, so ’tis said. Papers were found in Dublin Castle implicating them all in some new plot. Sir Cahir O’Doherty testified against them himself.”
“My God, you cannot believe that dirty traitor!” Padraic Burke said. “The charges were fraudulent, as any intelligent man could see. O’Doherty lied and then revolted against the king this April past, when, having served his vile purpose, he decided his reward wasn’t great enough.”
“Well, he is dead now,” the Earl of BrocCairn said matter-of-factly, “and the assizes just held have declared that the bulk of the land in Fermanagh, Tyrone, Coleraine, Donegal, Cavan, and Armagh be forfeited to the king because of the former owners’ treasons.”
“Guilty or innocent, the Irish must suffer,” Padraic said.
“Jasmine’s grant is one of the very first given,” Rowan Lindley told them. “I was able to gain it through the kindness of the queen. A friend at court wrote me that these lands would be parceled out by the end of the year. The competition for the acreage is quite hot. The northern bishoprics of the Church of Ireland will get some. Trinity College in Dublin will have a share. The more deserving of the Irish who fought on the king’s side, some former landowners, and the lord deputy must all be compensated first.”
“But why did you want this land for Jasmine?” Skye finally spoke up. “The king will give much of it to the hangers-on and the adventurers who have besieged him ever since he came to the throne. I can only imagine the sort of people they will send to Ireland. It is a disgraceful project, and no decent person should want to be connected with it in any way! I was born Irish. It is true I have lived most of my life in England. Fate made it so, but my heart is Irish, and my soul is Irish and will ever be, no matter where I reside!”
“I never meant to offend you, madame,” Rowan Lindley said quietly, “but I wanted a very special gift for my wife’s eighteenth birthday. Jasmine has all the jewelry a hundred women could want due to her heritage. There was nothing I could think of until my friends at court told me of these lands. They are in Jasmine’s name alone, not mine. I went to Queen Anne and explained my plight. It was she who gained the king’s permission and his signature on the documents making Jasmine Lindley, Marchioness of Westleigh, the new owner of Maguire’s Ford, and all that goes with it.”
“What is the land like?” Jasmine asked, surprising them all.
“Very fertile,” was her husband’s reply. “A small village with a church surrounded by meadows, gentle hills, well-watered and green. ’Tis on the shores of Lough Erne. The castle, I am told, is several hundred years old, but livable.”
“I shall raise horses there,” Jasmine said. “We will take Nighthawk, the young stallion Grandpapa gave us as a wedding gift, and the best of the Cadby mares to be bred to him.”
Skye looked distressed but said nothing. What could she say that would have made any difference in the matter? The deed was done.
Padraic Burke, however, said angrily, “How can you speak so dispassionately about raising horses on stolen lands, Jasmine?”
Jasmine looked at her uncle, puzzled, and then she replied,
“Uncle Padraic, it is the way of the world that one people conquer another, and when that happens, the land exchanges hands. It has always been so in India. Has it not been so here? I seem to remember from the history lessons that Father Cullen taught me that your Irish ancestors came to Ireland from another place. The English who inhabit this land today are descendants of both Norman and Anglo-Saxon invaders who came to these shores, not of the original tribes who once populated it. Nothing is graven so deeply in stone that it cannot be changed.