“Your Irish lands were taken from you, and Clearfields, the lands you now possess, once belonged to someone else. What happened to them? Did you ever consider them or their feelings?” Jasmine turned to her husband. “Thank you, Rowan. I am thrilled with my gift! I have never had one better in all my life.” She then kissed her husband, and turning about, looked at her family defiantly. “I shall keep my new lands.”
Skye shook her head. “Her damned logic is flawless,” she said, “and I find I cannot argue with it.” She gave a sharp bark of a laugh.
“
Mother!
”
“Do not glower at me, Padraic Burke. God, how like your father you look at this very moment! Jasmine is correct. As long as O’Donnell and O’Neill and Maguire remained, their lands were theirs. By fleeing, they forfeited everything. ’Twas winner take all, and Scottish James did.”
“They made it impossible for the chieftains to remain,” Padraic answered his mother. “When O’Neill submitted to James Stuart in 1604, the English, though allowing him to retain the lands, took control by installing all the adjuncts of English government. They appointed sheriffs for each county; coroners; justices of the peace. They weakened the authority of O’Neill and the other earls. My God! What could they do but leave? There was no other choice!”
“How typically Irish of you, my son, but Irish pride offers little comfort to the widows, the orphans, the dispossessed. There are always choices, Padraic,” Skye told him. “When Elizabeth Tudor stole your lands, and broke her promise to me, I made her give you English lands, that you not be dispossessed, and vulnerable.
“O’Neill and his cohorts could have stayed, but they departed because times were changing and they did not want to change with the times. They left their people alone, helpless, to
struggle on while they reestablished themselves in comfort in Rome. The Irish, God help them, cannot survive on tales of their former greatness, Padraic. If they continue to live in the past, allowing the bards with their songs of Celtic heroism, and the Church with its narrow view of life, and the English in their arrogance to rule them, Ireland will never know peace again, nor will her people be truly free.”
“Your mother speaks wisely, Padraic,” Valentina Burke told her husband. “Remember that the survival and prosperity of this family has always been first and foremost in her mind and heart.” She turned to her niece. “When will you go and see your new acquisition, Jasmine?”
“Not until after the baby is born,” Jasmine told her. “This one will be a son, I am certain of it!”
“I felt the same certainty when I was carrying little Adam after Bessie was born,” Valentina told her, and suddenly the tension surrounding Rowan Lindley’s gift was dissipated.
Several musicians came from the house and, settling themselves, began to play the spritely tunes that were the accompaniment to the country dances so favored by the family. Partners were chosen and the evening progressed upon a more pleasant note.
On Rowan and Jasmine’s second wedding anniversary, Lord Henry Thomas Lindley made his first appearance. He was a healthy, ruddy baby with a large appetite and sweet disposition. Although, like his elder sister, he possessed a headful of dark curls, his eyes were blue like his mother’s. India Lindley had their father’s golden eyes.
“You see,” Jasmine said smugly. “I told you I would give you a son this time! Is he not the most beautiful baby you have ever seen?” She touched her son’s cheek, and he turned his perfect little round head toward her breast, nuzzling at her. “Just like his papa,” she teased Rowan with a smile.
Rowan Lindley gazed down at his son. The boy was big, they said, and yet he looked so small. Bending, he kissed his wife first and then the baby’s soft head. There were tears in his eyes as he said to Jasmine, “Thank you, my love.” He could scarce believe his good fortune. After all those years with his tragic first wife, he had finally found happiness with Jasmine and their children.
The Marchioness of Westleigh nursed her son for a month before turning him over to a wet nurse, a young farm wife
carefully chosen by both herself and Adali, The majordomo knew all the local gossip down to the smallest detail and was able to tell his lady that Mistress Brent had lost her new baby to a spring flux but was healthy herself and produced excellent milk that had already nourished three other children. The wet nurse was required to live at Cadby, but as her husband had both a mother and a younger sister in the house, he did not mind.
“I hate giving little Hal to someone else,” Jasmine fussed.
“You have no choice if we are to visit your estates in Ireland,” Rowan told her. “I can go alone if you desire, my love, and you come next year. Henry is too young right now to travel with us.”
“I know,” she sighed. “Hal will be safe with Mistress Brent. Adali and Rohana are here to oversee his and India’s safety. I want to go to Ireland with you, Rowan. ’Twill be the first time since the children came that we have had time alone to ourselves,” she told him with a mischievous smile. “Do you not want to be alone with me?”
Rowan Lindley smiled and shook his head. “Incorrigible,” he lamented. “You are simply incorrigible, madame, and I hope that you will never change. To think of you turning into the very model of your aunt Willow terrifies me.” Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her dark head. “I love you, Jasmine, but then you have always known that I did, from the moment I first laid eyes upon you that May morn.”
Jasmine closed her eyes and reveled in his warm strength. He loved her and she loved him, more than any man she had known. Her grandmother had never explained to her that a deep and abiding love is one that grows with each passing day with a sharing of joined lives, with the birth of wanted children. How could Skye have explained that to her? She had to learn it herself by living it.
The Marquess and Marchioness of Westleigh departed Cadby in late June, traveling north and west to Holyhead, where they embarked upon the
Cardiff Rose
for Dun Dealgan, which the English called Dundalk. The vessel had been refurbished that it might carry the Marquess of Westleigh’s great traveling coach; his carriage horses; the stallion Nighthawk, son of Adam de Marisco’s great stud Nightwind; and six young mares of the best breeding stock.
“ ’Tis a short voyage,” Michael Small assured them, “and
the weather is better than I’ve seen it in years here in the Irish Sea. We’ll be there in two days’ time, m’lady. So you’re to live in Ireland are ye?”
“Not all year, Captain Small,” Jasmine told him. “Cadby is the Westleighs’ seat, but ’tis said Ireland is a fine place for raising horses. The Irish are said to be good with them.”
“Aye, so I’ve heard,” the ship’s captain replied. Good with horses and good at fighting, he thought silently.
“This is the very boat that brought me from India,” Jasmine told her husband nostalgically. “Toramalli, Rohana, and I shared this cabin for all those months. It was our little home.”
“And it got littler with every mile of sea we traversed,” Toramalli said dryly. “The day we reached London, it was snowing and as damp a cold as I had ever felt piercing my bones, m’lord, but I was delighted to leave the
Cardiff Rose
, for all she’d brought us to England in safety. I certainly never thought to set foot upon her again!”
He chuckled. “ ’Twill be but a little while, Toramalli, or so Captain Small assures me. You’re becoming a most traveled woman.”
“Humph,” came the reply, but Toramalli was smiling. She and Rowan Lindley had become fast friends.
As they sailed into Dundalk Bay, there was a light rain falling. The
Cardiff Rose
, which normally would have anchored in the bay, was made fast to the dock so that the coach and horses could be off-loaded. The agent appointed by the crown to oversee the estate until its new owners arrived was awaiting them.
As Jasmine and Rowan disembarked, he came forward, a small, thin wisp of a man with sharp features and colorless hair, with eyes to match. He bowed, perhaps a bit too obsequiously, and identified himself. “My name is Eamon Feeny, m’lord. Welcome to Ulster. I stand ready to serve yer lordship in any way that I can.” He bowed again and smiled, showing a mouthful of rather bad teeth, and as an afterthought, snatched the cap from his thinning hair. “I’ve brought a coachman for ye.”
“Very good, Feeny,” Rowan Lindley said, “but before we proceed further, you must understand that the Maguire’s Ford plantation belongs not to me, but to my wife, Lady Lindley. Unless otherwise instructed, you will accept her authority in all matters pertaining to the plantation. Do you understand?” The marquess regarded the agent carefully. He did not like the look of the man at all, but what the hell did James’s government in
London know about the agents it appointed in Ulster? Very little, the Marquess of Westleigh suspected. Unless this Feeny proved himself a decent sort, he would have to go.
Feeny looked aghast at the Englishman’s words.
A woman in charge of Maguire’s Ford?
It had to be a joke. Women were good for several things—cooking, sewing, fucking—but a woman capable of overseeing an estate? It simply wasn’t possible. He cocked his head questioningly at his new master and said nervously, “
Lady Lindley in charge?
” Of course it was jest. The Englishman had to be testing him in some way.
The marquess, however, nodded his head slowly at the horrified royal agent. “Aye,” he drawled.
“Is the coachman familiar with the roads, Master Feeny?” Jasmine asked. “How long will it take us to reach Maguire’s Ford? I am told the castle is habitable. Is that so? And you have, of course, engaged servants for me, haven’t you?”
Feeny gaped at her like a fish out of water, and it was then that Jasmine noticed a very tall young man with a shock of red-gold hair standing nearby. As their eyes met, he stepped forward and bowed to her with an elegance that would have befitted a courtier at Whitehall.
“Rory Maguire, m’lady. I’ve been engaged to drive yer coach. There’s not a road between here and Lough Erne that I’m not familiar with, I assure ye. ’Twill take two days of hard driving if we start now, and three if we don’t.” He bowed again to her, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Then we had best get started now, hadn’t we?” Jasmine said. “But I prefer to ride one of my horses rather than sit in that stuffy coach. Can you ride, Rory Maguire?”
“Aye … m’lady.”
“And you, Master Feeny. Can you handle the coach by yourself? Of course you can!” she answered for him. “
Handle the coach?
” Feeny sputtered, outraged. “Madame, I am the royal land agent, not some stableyard servant!” The woman was obviously featherbrained, and shouldn’t be allowed to make any decisions outside of her house and garden. He pulled himself up straight and looked disapprovingly at Jasmine. To his shock, however, she did not wither beneath his stern condemnation; rather, those strange blue eyes of hers grew hard for a moment as she looked at him.
Then she turned to her husband. “Rowan, you take Nighthawk and I’ll ride my Ebony. Toramalli, you will ride in the coach. Master Feeny, take care—Toramalli has been with me
since my birth and is very dear to me; you must treat her as you would your own child.” Jasmine smiled brightly at the royal agent. “Choose yourself one of the mares, Rory Maguire,” she told him, “and use her gently. With luck, her children will soon be gamboling in Irish meadows and growing fat on green grass.”
Rory Maguire was unable to suppress a grin. The English lord must really have his hands full with this spirited filly. He cast a surreptitious glance at Rowan Lindley from under his outrageously thick eyelashes as he was choosing his mount. The man looked hard. She was obviously no English rose, but the Irishman could see that Lord Lindley had a soft spot in his heart for his beautiful wife.
And who was she?
She had the look of Ireland about her, and yet there was something else there as well.
Jasmine thanked Captain Small for a safe voyage.
“I can get you back to England anytime you want to go, but the seas get nastier between England and Ireland as the year grows older. Not all voyages are as smooth as this one,” he said.
“I may want my children once I see what kind of conditions we face at Maguire’s Ford,” Jasmine told him. “I do not like leaving them for a long period of time, and we must really remain a year or two if we are to begin a successful breeding farm.”
“Before September if you can, m’lady, else it will be too hard on the little ones,” Captain Small told her, and then he bowed respectfully.
The coach horses were being affixed into the carriage traces by two young grooms who had come with them from Cadby.
“The mares can be attached behind,” Jasmine told them. “Do not drive too quickly, Master Feeny. I do not want my little beauties winded.” She patted each of the mares affectionately.
Mounting Ebony, Jasmine smiled at her husband and then looked to Rory Maguire to lead the way. They were but a few miles from the bay when the sun began to shine, but several miles farther on the day clouded over and it once again began to rain. It was not really a heavy English rain. Rather, it was a fine mist of a rain.
“ ’Tis what we call a
soft
day,” Rory Maguire told them.
“Is it always like this, Maguire?” the marquess asked.
“Aye, most days, m’lord. Ireland is both a magical and a
most confounding place, or so the English have found,” was the bland answer from the young man.
“Are you the Maguire of Maguire’s Ford?” Jasmine asked, coming directly to the point. It was one thing to talk about invaders and lands changing hands, she thought, but it was another to come face-to-face with your property’s former owner.
“There are many Maguires in Ulster, m’lady,” he told her. “The former owner of your lands was Conor Maguire himself. He departed Ireland almost a year ago. You’ll not be embarrassed in any way, I assure you.” His blue eyes remained fixed on some distant horizon.
They rode for several hours before Rory Maguire led them into a farmyard. A tall young girl, her eyes lowered, ran out with tankards of ale while a smaller child followed, carrying a tray upon which were slabs of freshly sliced bread covered with cheese.