Bedazzled

^{Chapter 16}

"Never, madame, did I expect to ever see you standing in this hall again," the duke of Glenkirk said to Lady Stewart-Hepburn. "Welcome home, Mother. Welcome home!"

"Thank you, Jemmie." Cat let her eye wander. Little had changed in all the years she had been gone. Her great-grandmother, Janet Leslie, still commanded the hall from her portrait above one of the two large fireplaces. God's boots, she thought. Did Mam ever face the problems I now face, and must solve? Cat doubted it. "Where is India?" he asked her.

"She is with her mother, Jemmie. They need to talk," Cat replied. "India has suffered greatly."

"Come and sit by the fire, madame," he invited her, leading her by the hand to a comfortable chair. He signaled a servant to bring them refreshment. "India deserves to suffer for her disobedience," James Leslie said harshly. "I suppose haeing had his way wi her, that young English fop deserted her. I always thought it was India's wealth that attracted him, nae just what was between her legs. I suppose when he discovered only her mother and I could release that wealth to her, he departed. Still, either way she's ruined herself, and I'll nae forgie her for it!"

"God's blood, Jemmie, you've become narrow and pompous in your old age. While it is true that India eloped with young Leigh, she was wise enough to do so on an O'Malley-Small vessel. She went aboard disguised as an old lady being escorted by her nephew to Naples. Fortunately, the captain was your wife's cousin, Thomas Southwood. Her ruse was quickly discovered, and India was taken into his custody while her equally foolish swain was confined to his cabin. The only intimacy between them were a few stolen kisses.

"Unfortunately, the ship was taken by Barbary corsairs out of the state of El Sinut. When he saw they would be captured, Tom Southwood advised his men to accept Islam and avoid the galleys. He did so himself, and was eventually able to steal back his own ship. Young Leigh, however, offended the dey of El Sinut, and is still today in captivity and chained to an oar. We don't even know if he is yet alive."

"And my daughter? What happened to India?" the duke asked.

"The dey was attracted to her, and took her into his harem. He fell in love with her, and made her his first wife. She was very much in love with him, but Tom Southwood kidnapped her when he and his men escaped El Sinut. He would not listen to her when she tried to tell him she was content and happy. He brought her to me in Naples. When I heard the story, I, of course, planned to send her home to her husband, but then we received word there had been some sort of civil unrest in El Sinut, and that the dey was killed trying to put it down. She has been inconsolable ever since. That was why I decided to bring her home, instead of keeping her with me in Rome this winter. India needs her family now more than she has ever needed them, Jemmie."

"We told all our neighbors that she hae remained in England, and that she was visiting her relations in France and Italy," he said slowly. "I doubt anyone in England knew of her foolishness since we hae planned to leave London, and hae already taken our leave of the court just before she ran away. This misadventure in Barbary can be covered up if we are clever and careful. She is close to twenty, but I believe I can still obtain a good husband for her. Her wealth will be the key to her salvation."

"Jemmie, there are things you don't know," Cat told her son.

"Do not be in such a hurry to find India a husband. She is not able to face such a prospect right now. Be patient with her."

"Madame, I hae surely been more than patient wi India, but my patience is at an end," the duke of Glenkirk said irritably. "There are several possibilities, and I'll hae the wench wed before Twelfth Night. Then she is nae my responsibility any longer, and whatever mischief she may get into 'twill nae be my problem. 'Twill be her husband's problem. I love her dearly, Mother. Every bit as much as I love the sons and daughters of my own blood, but India is a wild wench. I canna hae her disrupting my household. Jasmine would nae go to Ireland to find a husband for Fortune when India disappeared, and she, poor lassie, is eager to wed, and be gone to her own home. Nay, India must be wed as soon as possible, madame."

"And what man will have me, my lord, in my condition?" India said as she came into the hall. She walked directly up to her stepfather.

James Leslie's dark-green eyes grew almost black with his anger as he saw her rounding belly. "Jesu!" he swore angrily. "Whose bastard do ye carry, mistress?"

"How dare you speak to me in that manner," India said in cold, even tones. "I carry the son my husband and I joyously created. This child is all I have left of my lord, Caynan Reis. I had a husband, Papa. I will have no other. No man will ever take his place."

The duke of Glenkirk was speechless for a long moment.

"You have seen your mother?" Cat asked quietly.

"Aye, and I have told her all," India said. "She understands, and says I am welcome home. I have told her I do not intend to stay after the baby is born, but rather will purchase a house near my brother's seat at Cadby. I prefer English winters to highland winters."

James Leslie finally found his voice again. "And what will you tell people about your bairn, mistress? Who will ye say his sire was? Some infidel who took you into his harem? The child is a bastard, India, plain and simple. You will nae find a husband wi that bairn about yer neck like a millstone."

"I was wed to Caynan Reis," India said wearily.

"In a Christian church? By a Christian minister or priest?" he demanded furiously. His temples were throbbing as they had not throbbed in many months. He loved her. He had raised her, but she was the most irritating female he had ever known in his entire life.

"We were married by the grand iman of El Sinut," India said, "but my husband promised me a Christian marriage when we could find a Protestant minister who would be discreet."

"Why did the minister need to be discreet?" the duke shouted.

"Because for an Islamic ruler to wed in a Christian marriage ceremony would be a cause of strife. My lord was the sultan's governor in El Sinut," India explained. "God's blood, Papa, Mama's first husband, Prince Javid Khan, married her secretly in a Christian rite."

"The bairn will be thought a bastard, India," the duke said.

"As my mother was said to be a bastard?" India countered.

"Your mother was a royal Mughal princess," he replied. "She was raised by her father in India. Your grandfather, Akbar, was wise enough to know that if your grandmother Velvet had brought her daughter home with her to England, the bairn would hae been considered bastard-born. When your mother came to England, she was full grown, and none but your aunt Sybilla dared to question her birth, and she only because she fancied herself in love wi me, and was jealous of your mother, whom I preferred."

"I am a wealthy woman, Papa. I do not need another husband. I do not care what anyone may think of my son's parentage. If I find England unwelcoming, then I shall go to France or Italy," India told them.

"I think we should end this discussion for now," Cat said. "My granddaughter and I have had a long trip, Jemmie. Besides, I have another matter of great importance to discuss with you. India, my child, return to your mother while I talk with my son."

India bent to kiss Cat's cheek, and then she hurried off.

"You like her," James Leslie said.

"I do. She is honest, and loyal. Give her time, Jemmie, but now to that other matter. As you know, Bothwell is buried at the foot of our garden in Naples. However, his heart is in a silver reliquary that I have carried with me since his death. I have brought it home to bury in Scotland. The spot will be unmarked as will our future grave here. Grant me this request, and I shall never ask anything of you again," Cat finished.

James Leslie shook his head. "You nae ere asked anything of me, madame, ye always give wi yer whole heart. My father was a fool to ever let ye go."

"Nay," Cat said. "Do not criticize Patrick, for ours was a match made by our families when I was barely out of nappies, and he a young man. He was as set in his ways as you are, my son, and I was as wild as a highland pony. I loved him well until he betrayed me by allowing the king to victimize me, but the truth is, and we both know it, Jemmie, Francis Stewart-Hepburn was the great love of my life. Both of us would have gone to our graves never admitting that had your father not been so mindless and jealous in the matter of the king. Patrick Leslie was not foolish. He was simply stubborn, and every bit as wild and proud-hearted as I was, though he would not admit to it."

"We will make a place for ye both," the duke of Glenkirk said.

"Only you, Conall, and I shall know the truth," Cat told her son with a small smile.

"When do you want to do it?" he inquired.

"As soon as possible. I want to return to Rome before travel becomes utterly impossible with the winter weather. I only came to bring Francis home to Scotland, and India back to you," she told him frankly. "I'll sail from Aberdeen before Christmas."

"Remain the winter," he pleaded with her.

She shook her head. "I cannot take the weather anymore, Jemmie. I am no girl, but an old lady of sixty-five years. Rome is a milder climate, and better for me now."

" 'Tis a bad time to be on the sea," he noted.

"There is always that fair time in December before winter sets in," Cat said quietly. "I shall be in Calais in a shorter time than if I had to travel overland down through England to Dover. I shall visit your sister and Jean-Claude a brief time, and then go on to Marseilles, through Monaco, San Lorenzo, and Genova, and down the boot through Firenze and on to Rome. I have friends in Monaco, Genova, and Firenze. It will be an easy trip. We came that way, but only stopped each night to rest my horses, which are awaiting my return with my coach and coachman in Calais."

"How did you get from Aberdeen?" he asked her, surprised, for he had assumed she had traveled with her own equipage.

"The Kira bankers arranged everything," she told him. "They always do for me."

True to her word, Catriona Hay Leslie Stewart-Hepburn stayed only a brief time with her son and his family at Glenkirk. There was barely time to gather her family, but learning she was with Jemmie, they all came: her other sons, Colin and Robert; her daughters, Bess, Amanda, and Morag; all Patrick Leslie's children. She hadn't seen them in so long, and while they were her children, they were virtually strangers to her. And the grandchildren. There were so many grandchildren. Her brothers and their families came, and again there was the feeling of strangeness. They had always been good-hearted, rough highlanders. She had been the odd one. But still, there was that feeling of clan amongst them all, and she wept to see them go.

There was nothing Cat could do to ease the anger and the estrangement between her son and India. Even her daughter-in-law, Jasmine, was at a loss. It made no difference to James Leslie that both his mother and his wife counseled patience to each side. Jemmie was angry, and India was angry. A collision between these two strong wills was inevitable.

"Why would she nae listen to me?" the duke asked his wife for the hundredth time. "Did I nae tell her that Viscount Twyford was not suitable? Look now what her willfulness has cost her!"

"She is a widow having a child." Jasmine attempted to put a simple face on the problem. She looked at her husband's hands in hers, and looked into his face. "Jemmie, in El Sinut she was legally, and lawfully wed. And she was loved."

"By whom?" he demanded. "Some handsome renegade, nameless and of unknown origins," the duke despaired, pulling his hands from hers. "Jasmine, we canna allow her to go off on her own to raise her bairn. There will always be questions. How do we answer those questions? What man will take the lass to wife wiout the answers? We hae said she was in England, in France, and finally wi my mother in Italy. That she hae come home wi Mother is to the good. It gives substance to that lie, but there is nae way we can explain India's big belly, or the bairn she will hae in the spring. I canna let our lass ruin her life, and I will nae!"

"Then what are we to do?" the duchess of Glenkirk demanded of her husband.

"She must go up to A-Cuil where she will nae be seen once her condition becomes too obvious, and that will be soon. We will make some excuse for her absence. That she is in Edinburgh, perhaps, visiting family. When the bairn is born we will foster it out to some cotter's wife. Nae at Glenkirk, but perhaps at Sithean or Greyhaven. India is nae to be told where the bairn is. If the birth is hard, we will tell her that the bairn died, and that will be an end of it. Then we will seek a match for her. It is the only solution."

"Ahh, Jemmie," his wife said, "you make it all sound so simple, but there are factors you have not considered. How do we explain the loss of India's maidenhead to this new husband? And how will you get my daughter to give up her child so easily? My father drugged my mother so that he might take her from me, and she never forgot it. India loved her husband. She will never let you take her child from her!"

"She will hae nae choice, Jasmine," he said.

"If you do this thing, I will never forgive you!" the duchess of Glenkirk threatened her husband angrily.

"I do what is best for India," he countered. "If ye hae let me make a match for her in the first place, instead of allowing the lass to run wild, we would hae nae of this trouble, Jasmine. Now I will do what I know is best for our daughter!"

"What am I to do?" Jasmine despaired to her mother-in-law.

"Do not allow this situation to divide your house," Gat advised wisely. "I know you love your daughter, but you and Jemmie love one another, too. India has made her own fate, and now must deal with it herself. You cannot protect her forever, my dear."

"You agree with Jemmie?"

"Nay, I do not, but I know my son well enough, and so should you, Jasmine. You surely understand you cannot push him in a direction he does not choose to go. To get him where you will have him, you must draw him first down this path, and then the other, until you reach the destination that you wanted all along, and he is none the wiser." She laughed. "He is as stubborn as I was in my youth, and as heedless of the consequences of his actions as was his father, God assoil his soul. Jemmie is not an easy man, Jasmine. I know that, and so do you. Do not let your daughter and her problem blind you to the fact that you love your husband. India will recover from her broken heart sooner than later, marry and leave you and Jemmie. You do not want an estrangement between yourselves when that time comes."

"But India's child. What will become of that child if it is fostered out, and we do not know where?" Cat fretted.

"Just make certain you know where the bairn is," Cat said. "Do what you must, but learn where that child is. Then visit the cotter's wife who has it, and make certain she knows of your interest in the child and its well-being. It is the best you can do. Later you can educate it if it is a lad, and even tell of its heritage. If it is a lass, then educate her and see she has a respectable match one day. But never allow Jemmie to know of your interest, or your involvement."

"And India?"

"Tell her only one day when she is happy again so that her broken heart may be completely mended," Cat replied.

"I wish you would stay with us," Jasmine said, teary-eyed.

Her mother-in-law laughed heartily. "Nay, my dear, I far prefer the quiet life I now lead in Rome and Naples. I am not used to all this agitation, aggravation, and uproar any longer. Adventures aplenty I had in my youth, but now I simply enjoy sitting in my gardens, or watching the sea, or dining with friends, or reading and writing letters from family and friends. India is your problem, and while I was happy to help where I could, I shall be delighted to depart for Aberdeen tomorrow, and then home to Villa Mia, which with luck. I shall reach by February." She patted Jasmine's hand comfortingly. "You are a clever woman, Jasmine, but you have allowed your mind to stifle here in the safety of Glenkirk. Use your wits to help India now!"

Lady Stewart-Hepburn departed the following morning, her coach rumbling over the drawbridge of the castle and down the hill to the high road. Ten days later, a message arrived from Calais to say her voyage had been uneventful, and she would write from her daughter's chateau outside of Paris before she departed for Rome.

The weather was getting colder, and the rains icy and more frequent. One morning as India lay abed, her father came to her. They had managed to exist without shouting at each other in the time since Cat's departure, but neither spoke to each other unless it was necessary.

"Are ye well?" he asked her gruffly.

"Well enough," she replied.

"You're leaving Glenkirk, India," he told her. "I'll hae no gossip about yer big belly, and if ye remain any longer, we'll nae be able to disguise it. Ye hae to go."

To his surprise, she agreed, saying, "Aye. If Fortune is to have a decent husband, there can be no scandal about me."

"I'm glad ye understand," he said, relaxing his stern attitude just a little. "I'm happy to see ye thinking of yer sister before yerself, India. I'm nae angry wi ye anymore, lassie, but I must do what is best for ye now." He reached out to pat her hand, noting it was cold.

"Where am I to go, Papa?" she queried him. "To Edinburgh wi Great-uncle Adam and his Fiona? Or to Queen's Malvern? None come there now except in the summertime when my brother is in residence."

"Ye're going up to A-Cuil, India. Meggie will go wi ye, and Red Hugh's younger brother, Diarmid," the duke of Glenkirk told India.

"I'll freeze to death in that place!" India said. "Are you attempting to kill me then, Papa?"

"The house is stone," he said, "and there's a good fireplace in the main room, and yer bedchamber as well. Ye'll nae freeze, but ye'll be isolated, and yer shame well concealed. Nae one will know of the bairn. Diarmid will light a signal fire when yer time hae come, and yer mother will come to ye then."

"What will happen to my child?" India asked bluntly.

"We'll worry about the bairn when it's safely born," he soothed her, then put an arm about her. "Lassie, lassie, I just want to protect ye. Ye're my daughter, and I hae only wanted what's best for ye."

India suddenly began to cry. "Ohh, Papa, I am so unhappy! I loved him, Papa! I loved Caynan Reis! I should be in El Sinut, in the palace with Baba Hassan and the lady Azura, happily sharing the joy of our child with us." She looked up at him. "Papa, I don't even know what has happened to him! They said he was killed in the rebellion. What has happened to the ladies of the harem? To Baba Hassan and Azura? I should have been with them! If I had been, then maybe this would not have happened. Azura always said I was the stable influence in Caynan Reis's life."

The arm about her tightened, and then the duke said, "If ye hae been wi them, India, ye might hae been killed, or, worse, shipped off to some other man's harem, or sold on the block. Thank God ye are home safe wi yer mother and me than wi that rebel!"

"You don't understand, Papa! My husband was not a traitor," she explained, her face tear-streaked. "The janissaries were plotting against the sultan, and it was my husband who warned the valideh, and her son of the plot. He took a great chance, but he did it for us and our children. The valideh was certain to reward him for his loyalty, and he was going to ask for autonomy for El Sinut. The people of El Sinut would not have revolted. They were a peaceful, contented, and prosperous people. It is surely the janissaries who have killed my husband!"

"And there is nothing ye can do about it, lassie," he told her. "The man is gone, God help him, but ye're alive. I cannot weep for a man I dinna know, who took my daughter from me and got her wi bairn. I must protect ye, India. Tomorrow the weather will be fair, as it always is after two days of gray and rain. Ye'11 go up to A-Cuil then, lassie. Dinna fret, for ye'll hae all the comforts ye want. I'll nae hae my lass uncomfortable, India. I just want ye where there will be nae gossip."

"Yes, Papa." What else could she say? India thought sadly. She would be twenty in the summer, but had had only a small control over her personal fortune before she fled England with Adrian Leigh. Now she had not even that. They had made certain she had no access to her wealth, but for pin money, and she would not now until she married. Where could she and Meggie go without funds? She was trapped, and for the time being forced to cooperate with her parents. Let them think she was doing it willingly. And when they were lulled into believing her complacent, she would take her son, and find a safe haven where no one would care about her or her child. Eventually they would have to relent. There had to be someplace in this world where she could go. She would sell her jewelry to give them a new start. There had to be someplace where she could raise Caynan Reis's son in safety.

The duke of Glenkirk kissed his daughter's forehead. "I am glad ye're being reasonable, sweeting. I know ye've had a terrible misadventure, but dinna fret, sweeting. Papa will make it all right for ye just as I always hae done, eh?"

God's boots, India thought, as he left her, does he really still think of me as a child? Certainly he saw the woman she was, or did he? James Leslie had been a wonderful father. He loved all his wife's children. The three she had had by her second husband, Rowan Lindley; the son she had had by Prince Henry Stuart; the sons she had given him. He loved them so well that not one of them but India had left the comfort of their family.

Since her departure, however, her brother, Henry, the marquis of Westleigh, had made the decision to live at his seat at Cadby in England, but the rest of them were still at home. Papa might complain about Fortune's not being able to go to her estates in Ireland and seek a husband, and he might blame India's disappearance for it, but he didn't really seem too enthusiastic about sending Fortune off next summer. James Leslie was a patriarch, and he obviously enjoyed having his children about him.

But he would not welcome his first grandchild, India knew. What he meant to do with her child she had no idea, but she would have time to make her escape once the baby was born. Mama would protect them, she was certain. For now she knew she needed rest, and the security of knowing that she would be safe and well cared for while she carried Caynan Reis's son.

Who was he? she wondered not for the first time. While she had been with him, it hadn't mattered at all, for he was Caynan Reis, the dey of El Sinut. But he had been someone else before he had been Caynan Reis, and now she desperately wished she knew who that someone was. She wanted a name for her child who would never know his father.

The next day dawned bright and cold, as James Leslie had predicted. The small caravan was prepared by midmorning, and ready to depart. India had decided to accept the comfort of a cart as opposed to riding her horse. A baggage wagon was ladened high, as was another wagon with enough provisions to last them the winter. Jasmine was very teary, for she didn't approve of sending her daughter into the mountains to the family's hunting lodge. A-Cuil was small, she knew, for she had spent time there herself, but it was far more isolated than Jasmine would have wished. What happened if India's child decided to come in a snowstorm? How could she get to her daughter?

"Please, Jemmie, don't send her to A-Cuil," she begged her husband at the last minute.

"Mama, it's all right," India said. "I am quite content to go. Meggie will be with me, and Diarmid will do the heavy work, such as cutting us wood for our fire and hunting for our game. I won't be the cause of spoiling Fortune's chances in the marriage market. My situation is rather unique," she finished with a wry smile.

"The lass hae more sense than ye do, darling Jasmine," her husband chided his weeping wife.

"And I'm going, too," Fortune announced suddenly.

"You most certainly are not!" Jasmine snapped.

"Aye, I am, Mama," Fortune declared with a toss of her red head. "Come, Mama, we are very isolated here at Glenkirk. Who will know if I am here at Glenkirk, or in Edinburgh, or wherever? I want to be with India. I lost my sister once, and I'll not lose her again."

"There!" Jasmine cried to her husband. "Are you satisfied now, Jemmie? I will lose both my girls because of your stubbornness and excessive pride."

He knew better than to argue with her. He knew better than to argue with Fortune. "Go along, Diarmid, and take yer party of ladies up the ben." He looked to his second daughter. "Dinna come down the ben alone, lassie. If ye go, ye stay. Would ye miss Christmas and Twelfth Night at Glenkirk? 'Twill be yer last if I let ye go off to Ireland next year."

"I've enjoyed many a Christmas and Twelfth Night at Glenkirk, Papa," Fortune said quietly. "Now I would be with my sister, for I believe she needs me more than you do." Then Fortune climbed upon the large gray gelding she favored, and followed after India's little train.

Jasmine swallowed back her tears, saying to her husband, "Does she know what you intend doing with her child, Jemmie?"

"Nay," he said. "There was nae need to distress her. Ye saw. She was almost herself again. I dinna want to spoil it."

"Aye," Jasmine agreed. "You were wise not to do so." She looked after her two eldest daughters, and thought she heard India laugh as Fortune caught up with the cart.

"Is Mama still weeping?" the younger asked her elder sibling as the gelding danced dangerously near the wheels of the vehicle.

"No, she stopped," India replied. "What made you come with me?" she asked Fortune. "Have you ever been to A-Cuil? It's tiny, old-fashioned, and dull, not to mention very small. We'll probably end up killing each other."

"I'd rather be with you than stuck at Glenkirk all winter," Fortune responded. "You can tell me all about your adventures, and what it's like to be loved by a man. I have that ahead of me next summer."

"If Papa lets you go," India said.

"Mama won't let him stop us this time," Fortune replied. "So you noticed it, too; how suddenly he does not want to let his Iasses go away." She laughed. "Poor Papa. He really does love us all, doesn't he? But by this time next year, you and I will have husbands. Henry is already settled at Cadby, and the king has written to Papa that after this winter, Charlie must become part of the court and take his rightful place at Queen's Malvern as the duke of Lundy should. He'll just have to be content with Patrick, Adam and Duncan.

India laughed in response to her sister's question. "I don't know, but I think it will be up to us to help her escape, Fortune."

"It's so good to hear you laugh again," Fortune said.

"There hasn't been a great deal to laugh about lately," India answered. "But soon I will have my son, and then I will be happy."

"Beware," Fortune warned India. "Papa means to take the bairn from you. Mama is trying to change his mind in the matter."

"Mama will succeed, but in the event she does not," India said, "Papa will find a deadly enemy in me, for I shall not allow my child to be taken from me, Fortune. This is Caynan Reis's son, and I will protect him, as will the spirit of his father. We will let nothing happen to our son, and James Leslie be damned if he should attempt to harm my child!" India said fiercely.

"You have changed," Fortune said softly.

"Aye," India agreed. "I have become a hard enemy to any who would threaten me or mine."

Chapter 17

A-Cuil had come into the possession of the Leslies of Glenkirk through the current duke's mother, Lady Stewart-Hepburn. It had belonged to Cat's paternal grandmother, Jean Gordon Hay, who had given it to Cat. Its value was in its isolated beauty, and the mountain forest that belonged to it. It had been used as a hunting lodge by several generations of Gordons, Hays, and Leslies, and always kept ready for visitors. Once in the not-too-distant past, Jemmie and Jasmine had hidden themselves there to escape a rival for Jasmine's affections.

The small lodge itself was set upon a cliff that commanded a spectacular view of Glenkirk Castle, Sithean Castle, and Greyhaven, Cat's girlhood home, as well as several small lochs far below. The forest surrounded the lodge and its stables. It was beautiful, wild, and totally isolated. Built of stone with a slate roof, it was virtually undetectable nestled on its cliff, the endless sky spread out above it.

While knowing of its existence, neither India nor Fortune had ever been to A-Cuil. The well-marked trail from Glenkirk Castle grew fainter and fainter as they climbed into the hills, and finally up the steep ben. Several times the cart tilted so precariously that India thought it would tip over, casting her down onto the gorse and rocks. At one point, the forest was so deep that the sun scarcely penetrated to the forest floor. Up and up their little train climbed until finally they entered out into a sunny clearing where the lodge and its stables were set neatly awaiting them.

"God's boots!" Fortune swore. "It is small, isn't it?"

"You can go back with the provisions cart," India said.

Fortune shook her head. "Nay. 'Twill be an adventure, and, besides, the forest looks like good hunting. I've hunted with Diarmid More-Leslie before. Between us we'll keep in fresh meat."

India's cart came to a halt, and she exited the vehicle as Fortune slid from her horse's back. "Let's go inside," India said. "I want to see the living quarters."

Within the lodge was charming, but, as they had been warned, of insignificant proportions. On the main floor there were but two rooms. The smaller of the two served as a kitchen area with its tiny pantry. The larger room with its big fireplace and wall oven would be where they spent most of their time, and where they would cook their food, for the little kitchen had no hearth. The furnishings were simple, although over the years, a few more comfortable pieces had been added than were originally there. There was a small trestle and two chairs in the kitchen.

"Jesu," India grumbled, " 'tis colder than a witch's tit in January in here. Diarmid," she shouted, "bring some wood! We're freezing to death in here! Meggie, go and help him."

"Yes, my lady," Meggie said, running outside where she would have sworn it was far warmer than inside the damp lodge.

"Let's see what's upstairs," Fortune said, and began to climb the narrow flight of stairs followed by her elder sister.

At the top of the stairs they found a single bedchamber, and entered it. On the door wall was a fireplace. To the left was a bank of casement windows overlooking part of the valley view, and the forest. To the right was a single round window. It was not a large room, but it comfortably held several pieces of furniture. Opposite the door was a good-sized canopied and curtained bed. At its foot was a carved clothes chest. There was a little table beneath the round window, and a tapestried chair by the fireplace. There was a pier glass on the bit of wall to the left of the door. On the floor were several thick sheepskins.

"Everything is clean, even the windows," India noted. "Papa must have been planning this since I returned to Glenkirk." She turned and slowly descended into the main room of the lodge. "Even here, everything is dusted and swept. But it really is small. When I think of my palace in El Sinut… why, my personal apartments were larger than this by far, weren't they, Meggie?"

"Your day room was bigger than this," Meggie said frankly. "This is nae more than a wee mousie's hold, my lady, but more folk hae lived in smaller places, I can tell you. We'll manage."

Diarmid had brought the wood, and there was already a fire started in the large fireplace. "I'll begin a fire in the bedchamber, my lady," he told India.

"Put enough wood in there for the night," she told him. "I don't want to be frozen in the morning."

The carters from Glenkirk unloaded the provisions, and, directed by Meggie, brought them into the lodge where the serving woman put them away. There was flour for baking, salt, and spices. Bundles of herbs were hung from the kitchen's rafters. Several barrels of wine, ale, and apples were stored in the larder along with a large wheel of cheese and two whole hams. Two milk cows had climbed the ben tied to the back of the cart. They were now led into their barn. A coop holding half a dozen chickens and a rooster were uncrated in the yard. A haunch of beef and one of venison were hung in the larder next to the ham. There was even a block of sugar, and a small barrel filled with honeycombs. There was a large fat tomcat to keep the rodent population down, a small collie, and a deer hound for company, protection, and hunting.

"Last chance to go back to Glenkirk," India said to Fortune as the carts began their return journey. It was past the noon hour, and the sun would set in another two hours.

"I'm starving," Fortune said, ignoring the invitation. "What's for dinner?"

"I'll see what's in the basket," Meggie said. "Cook was kind enough to send something along so we would nae hae to fuss today." She bustled into the kitchen.

"What a treasure," Fortune noted to her sister. "You were fortunate to find each other. She isn't any older than we are, is she? What luck she didn't decide to return to Ayr, India."

"I don't think she would have left my service," India replied, "but when Papa inquired discreetly for her, we found her mother had died suddenly, even before Meggie was captured, and her father killed. Her betrothed, of course, had done exactly as she had anticipated, and wed with his second choice, Meggie's rival. There was nothing for her to go back to, Fortune."

Supper was a roasted capon, a rabbit pie reheated in the brick fireplace oven, bread, cheese, and apples. India insisted that Diarmid eat with them at the trestle, dragging two more little chairs from the common room so they might all sit.

"You must go back down to Glenkirk tomorrow," she told him, "and tell Papa we need carrots, onions, and leeks. We cannot live the winter on just meat, bread, and cheese."

"Aye, m'lady, but I dinna know why not. 'Tis good food," the clansman said. "Still, the duke hae told me to humor ye, and so I'll go for ye. As long as the weather is good, I can fetch up whatever takes yer fancy. Will there be anything else while I'm about it?"

"Pears. They'll keep in the cold," India said.

"And conserves," Fortune added. "And perhaps some jam. I like jam on my bread."

"Check in the kitchen, Meggie," India told her servant, "and see if there is anything else you'll need."

The clansman nodded, and, having finished his meal, took his leave of the women, saying, "I'll leave the collie wi ye. Bar the doors both front and back, m'lady. I'll be sleeping in the stable loft. There's a wee room there."

"Will you be warm enough?" India fretted.

"Aye, the room is tight, and I hae the dog for warmth," he told her with a small smile. Then he was gone out the door, which Meggie shut, and firmly barred.

The three young women slept in the upstairs bedchamber, India and Fortune sharing the big bed, Meggie on the trundle pulled from beneath the bed. The collie lay down at the head of the stairs, as if guarding them until sleep finally claimed her, too.

The following day dawned clear. After a meal of oat cakes and ale, Diarmid More-Leslie went down the ben to Glenkirk to fetch the required items. Meggie began to put her kitchen in order while India and Fortune explored the nooks and crannies of the lodge, discovering an old oak tub in a kitchen recess, and some woman's clothing in a small trunk in the upstairs hall.

"Do you think they were Mama's?" India wondered aloud.

"Nay," Fortune said, admiring the doeskin jerkin with the silver-and-horn buttons she had just pulled out. "Mama wasn't as long-waisted, and the style is old-fashioned. Besides, Mama never wore such a garment in her entire life. She is far more elegant." Fortune tried on the jerkin. "I think it may have belonged to Papa's mother. They say she hid herself up here to avoid marrying her first husband. I think I'll keep it. I like hunting clothes."

"It suits you," India said, smiling at her younger sister. Then she caught her breath suddenly.

"What is it?" Fortune said, seeing a strange look come over her sister's beautiful face.

"He moved!" India half whispered. "The baby moved within me, Fortune!" Then she burst into tears as she sat down upon the top step of the staircase. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" she swore softly. "My bairn is alive within me, and his father will never know him. It isn't fair, Fortune! It just isn't fair!"

"You have hardly spoken of him since you came home," Fortune said, sitting down next to her older sister and putting an arm about her. "Did you love him very much, India? What was he like? Was he handsome?"

India sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Aye, he was handsome. He was tall, and had hair like a raven's wing, and the bluest eyes you have ever seen. His nose was straight, and his jaw firm, and his mouth…" She paused a moment, then continued. "His mouth was the most deliciously kissable mouth in all the world."

"What's it like being kissed?" Fortune asked.

"Wonderful," India replied. "I cannot explain it. Someday you will kiss the man you love, and you will understand, Fortune."

"I suppose so," Fortune replied matter-of-factly.

Their days took on a comfortable cadence. By virtue of their social status, India and Fortune had never really done a great deal for themselves. Now, however, they arose each morning, and, after dressing, Fortune went down to the barn to gather eggs from their hens and drive the cows into the small pasture on sunny days. Until it snowed, the cows could forage, but once the winter set in, they would be confined to the barn. It became India's task to set the table for meals and gather up the clothing that would need laundering, but neither of the other two girls wanted India overtaxed for the sake of her child.

Some days Fortune rode off into the forest with Diarmid to hunt for small game. India and Meggie walked in the forest and high meadows most early afternoons. And Meggie cooked and cleaned and did the laundry. The sisters, however, kept the bedchamber neat and dusted. Each morning they shook out their featherbed as Meggie taught them, and then drew the bed clothes back over it smoothly and neatly. Neither had ever done such simple tasks, but it helped to fill the lonely hours. Fortune had requested her lute be sent up from Glenkirk, and on many evenings she played for them, and they sang the old songs of unrequited love, great battles, heroes, and kings. Diarmid had his pipes, and was easily encouraged to play.

Like his brother, Red Hugh, he was a big man of few words, but practical and kindly. His hair was a nut brown, and his eyes an amber hue. He wore a short beard with his hair drawn back, secured by a leather thong. He was popular with the ladies, the sisters knew, but he had never married. The winter would be lonelier for him than for his three female charges, who at least had each other. While deferential to the duke's two daughters, Diarmid had struck up a budding friendship with Meggie. Up before the first light each dawn, he had the fireplaces blazing and water brought into the kitchen even before Meggie came down to put the bread dough that had been rising all night in the oven to bake. While he spoke little to India and Fortune, Meggie could get him talking, and even bring a rosy flush to the big man's cheeks.

"You've made a conquest," India teased her maid servant.

"Hummph," Meggie replied, but she smiled.

Just before Christmas it snowed. They awoke to find the white flakes swirling about the lodge. Diarmid found a Yule log for them in the nearby forest, and dragged it into the little house on Christmas Eve, setting it in the fireplace where it burned merrily for almost two days. They took turns telling the Christmas story, and sang Yule songs. They lit a fire outside on the cliff top on Twelfth Night, and watched as the other fires sprang up for as far as the eye could see, vying to identify the Glenkirk fire first.

Now the winter set in hard. India insisted that Diarmid sleep before the common room fire at night rather than in his stabletop loft. It was just too cold. Even the cows, horses, and poultry were brought into a small shed attached to the lodge on the kitchen side. It was warmer for them there than the stables. The lodge took on an earthy smell, but it did not bother either India or Fortune. Survival was more important.

By February, the days were beginning to grow longer again, but the weather remained cold and snowy. By March, the snow came less frequently, more often than not mixing with the rain. India's belly was now enormous, and she waddled when she walked, but she never complained. Instead, she would lie upon her bed, her hand protectively cradling her stomach, a dreamy expression upon her face as she wondered what her child would look like. It would be a boy, of course. Her instinct told her that. What would she call him? She knew that Caynan Reis had been a European by birth, but that was all she knew. His origins, and his name remained a mystery to her. If she had known his name, she would have named her child after his father, but she hadn't a clue.

Finally, she decided. "I shall call him Rowan after our own father," India told her younger sister one rainy March afternoon.

"Rowan what?" Fortune asked frankly.

"He'll have to have my name, as I don't know his father's," India replied just as frankly. "Rowan Lindley. I like it!"

"And what will you do after Rowan Lindley is born? You don't still mean to go off by yourself with your child, India, do you?" Fortune was beginning to worry about her sister.

"It is what I want to do," India replied calmly. "I will not bring shame upon you, and ruin your chances of marriage because of my adventures."

"God's blood!" Fortune swore. "Do you think I care what people may say? I am Lady Fortune Lindley, daughter of the late marquis of Westleigh, an heiress in my own right, and anyone who does not love my family-all my family-can go to the devil. Think about it, India. Our heritage is greater than anyone's. Our grandfather was a great ruler of a great land. Our great-grandmother bested a mighty queen, and lived to tell the tale. What a woman she was, Madame Skye! We are women who make our own rules in life, and then live by them. We are not mealymouthed, pious little kirk-goers who live dully, and sin in the shadows. We live as we please, do as we please, and the devil take any who would dare to criticize us!"

India burst out laughing. "Do you know how much I missed you when I was away, Fortune?"

"Well," Fortune replied. "I am your sister!" Then she jumped up. "It isn't raining hard. Get your cloak, and let's go for a walk."

"Take your boots off before you come into this house then," Meggie warned them. "I'll nae hae you two tracking mud all over my clean floors!" She glared at them sternly.

"Come with us," India begged.

"I'm nae a duck, my lady," Meggie said, "and besides I hae to start the dinner. Rabbit stew."

"Again?" the sisters chorused.

"Be glad spring is here," Meggie said sharply. " 'Twill be the last of the carrots and onions you see in that stew tonight, and lucky we are to hae it. Almost everything is gone, and only that Diarmid trapped the rabbit this morning, we'd be haeing bread and toasted cheese."

The sisters walked through the forest to a high meadow. The light rain stopped, and the sun peeped out now and again from behind the thinning clouds.

When they returned to the lodge, Meggie's stew was bubbling in the pot, and it smelled wonderful. India slowly climbed the narrow little staircase to the bedchamber to lie down, for she was tired and her back hurt. She awoke to a piercing pain.

"Meggie! Fortune!" she called, struggling to sit up.

Hearing her call, the two girls raced up the stairs, and into the bedchamber. One look told them that India was probably about to have her child early.

"Do you know what to do?" Fortune asked Meggie.

Meggie swallowed hard, saying, "I think so. I was there when my mother birthed her last child. We'll need hot water, clean clothes, and, for God's sake, send Diarmid down to Glenkirk to tell the duchess. She'll want to come and be with my lady India. This could take hours."

Fortune flew from the room, dashed down the stairs, filled the cauldron with water, and set it to boil. Then out into the stable yard she ran, calling to Diarmid as she went. The big man took one look at the girl, and knew the reason for her fright and excitement.

"Get yer horse, Mistress Fortune, and ride to fetch yer mam and yer da. Ye're no use here, I can see. I'll be more help to Meggie than ye will, lassie, meaning no offense to ye."

Fortune didn't argue with the big man. She knew he was being kind, and, more important, speaking the truth. "I've put a kettle on to boil, and there's a stack of clean cloths we prepared for this occasion in the cupboard in the fireplace wall, Diarmid."

He nodded, and walked toward the lodge as she hurried into the stable to saddle her gray. It was a two-hour ride to Glenkirk, but she would make it before sunset. Still Mama would be coming up the ben in the darkness, but come she would. Fortune tightened the cinch on the gray, and clambered onto his back, riding him right out the stable doors and onto the track that led down the ben toward Glenkirk.

India's labor was hard, but very, very short. She sweated, and she swore blue oaths that turned Meggie's face bright red, and set Diarmid to chuckling as he encouraged her onward.

"Ohh, m'lady, dinna let the bairn hear such words, and him just coming new into the world," Meggie pleaded with her mistress.

"Bloody hell!" India snarled. "It hurts, damn it! Why won't the little wretch be born? Ahhhhh! Merde! Merde! Merde!"

"Ye're doing fine, lassie," Diarmid said quietly. "Now, when ye feel the pain again, gie us a hard push to help the wee laddie along."

India nodded.

"I dinna think you should be here," Meggie fretted.

"He stays!" India snapped. "He obviously knows more about this than you do. Besides, I suspect there's nothing I have that Diarmid hasn't already seen. Ooooooooh!"

"Push, lassie! Push! Ah, there's a good lass," Diarmid said calmly in the very same tone India had heard him use with the collie. "And here's his wee head, dark as a raven's wing, it is. Gie us another push, lassie." And when India complied, he said, "he's half born now," and, bending, he opened the infant's mouth and pulled a clot of mucus out of it.

The baby took a breath, and began to wail.

"Ohhhh! Ohhh! Ohhhh!" India cried, and, feeling herself swept by another spasm, she pushed hard again, and felt the baby sliding fully from her body. "Is he all right? Let me see him!" she cried out to them.

Meggie had caught the child in a linen cloth as it was born. She wrapped it about the baby, and lay him on his mother's belly. "Here he is, my lady," she said, tears in her eyes.

India cradled her son for a long moment. He did have black hair, and the blue eyes that looked up at her were the eyes of Caynan Reis. Tears slipped down her face as she looked at this miracle their love for each other had wrought. The baby had stopped crying now. "Rowan Lindley is your name, my son," she whispered to him.

"Gie me back the laddie, my lady," Diarmid said. "I must cut the cord, and ye must let Meggie finish what ye hae started. Ye dinna need me here now." He took the child, neatly cutting and knotting the cord. Then, without another word, he left the bedchamber.

"Thank you, Diarmid More-Leslie!" India called after him.

Meggie now wiped the baby free of the birthing blood with warmed oil and wine. Then she swaddled the infant, giving him back to India, who pushed the afterbirth from her body into the basin Meggie held. Setting the ewer aside, the servant took the child again, and set him in his cradle by India's side. Then she helped her mistress up, bathed her, gave her a fresh shift, settled her in the chair by the fire, and changed the linens on the bed. Finally she helped India back into the bed, returning the baby to her to cuddle. Then, gathering up all the debris of the birthing process, she said, "I'll leave you wi the bairn, m'lady. I'll come back shortly wi a nice hot posset to nourish you, and put wee Master Rowan in his cradle then."

India lay quietly cuddling her newborn son. He was everything Caynan Reis would have wanted. Beautiful and strong of limb. She searched his small face for some sign of his father, but only the blue eyes reminded her of her husband. The little baby face was entirely unfamiliar, but the look he suddenly gave her was direct and fierce. "We will do fine, you and I, Rowan, son of Caynan Reis," she told him. The infant closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep, safe in the comfort of his mother's arms. Looking through the window, India could see a magnificent sunset.

She was half dozing when Meggie returned, bringing with her a mixture of herbs, eggs, and rich red wine. The servant took the baby and set him in his cradle which she moved to the warmth of. the fireplace. India drank down the nourishment, and, handing the goblet back to Meggie, fell asleep. Meggie tiptoed from the room, and back down the stairs to join Diarmid in the common room.

"I'll get us some supper," she said. "My lady and the bairn are sleeping. "Tis been a long day. Do you think the duke and duchess will come tonight, Diarmid?"

"Aye," he answered her. "The duchess will be anxious over her eldest lass. They'll come. Mistress Fortune will hae reached Glenkirk long since, I'm thinking. 'Tis only sunset now, and the twilight will last a bit longer. They'll come wi torches up the ben. The dogs will let us know when they approach."

She served them up plates of rabbit stew, bread, and cheese. They toasted Rowan Lindley in the last of the brown October ale. He helped her with the washing up, and then together they sat companionably by the fire, talking low.

It was dark when the dogs began to bark. Diarmid arose, and, going to the lodge's door, opened it. He could see the flickering of the torches through the trees as the duke's party came out of the forest and into the clearing.

James Leslie, duke of Glenkirk, pushed his horse forward, stopping by Diarmid More-Leslie's side and asking, "Is the bairn born yet?" He dismounted.

"Several hours ago, my lord. A laddie, strong and sweet," was the reply.

Jasmine dismounted her stallion. "Is my daughter all right?"

"Very well, my lady. She's sleeping. Come into the house. Meggie can tell ye more," the clansman told his duchess.

"See to the men," the duke commanded him, and, taking his wife's arm, entered the lodge.

Meggie bobbed a curtsey. "My lord. My lady."

Jasmine smiled at the serving girl, and then hurried up the stairs to the bedchamber. Entering it, she saw India, sleeping soundly. She looked into the cradle and smiled. The baby was absolutely beautiful.

"Mama?" India suddenly called to her mother.

"Sweeting, he is a lovely lad," Jasmine said softly.

"His name is Rowan," India murmured, then fell back to sleep.

Jasmine's heart contracted painfully. Her daughter had named this infant after her own true father. She doubted India could remember anything of Rowan Lindley, but she had chosen to name her child after him. The duchess of Glenkirk went back downstairs again.

"How is our lass?" Jemmie asked his wife.

"Sleeping, though she woke a moment. She has called her son Rowan. He is a beautiful boy," Jasmine told her husband.

"You know what must be done," the duke said stonily, his handsome face set.

"Jemmie, in the name of God I beg you not to do this thing. India will never forgive you. Is that what you want? For your daughter to hate you for the rest of her life?" Jasmine pleaded with her husband.

"Jasmine, we hae no other choice. We hae discussed this all winter long. There is nae other way if India's reputation is to be salvaged. We hae had a good offer for the girl, and I've taken it, but she canna go to her husband wi her bastard."

"My grandson is no more a bastard than I was, James Leslie," Jasmine said angrily.

"But her marriage to this infidel, and this child, are nae easily explained," the duke said. "India will be wed as soon as we can manage it. The earl is willing to do it by proxy, and then she will be gone down into England before the summer hae come in, Jasmine." His tone softened. "Do ye remember the time that A-Cuil was our refuge?"

"Do not attempt to wheedle me, Jemmie," his wife said harshly.

Meggie was totally confused, but rather than tax herself with the meaning of the conversation between the duke and the duchess, she brought them wine instead. They thanked her, and then the duke told his daughter's serving woman to go upstairs and remain with her mistress for the night. He and his wife would remain here.

The baby was beginning to whimper when Meggie entered the room. India was instantly awake, and Meggie brought her child to her to be put to the breast. The infant nursed until he fell asleep, and Meggie returned him to his cradle.

Twice more before the dawn, the boy was fed at his mother's breast, India speaking softly to her son, gently touching his soft downy dark hair.

The sun was just beginning to peep through the bedchamber windows when the duke of Glenkirk entered the chamber. India awoke as her father reached into the cradle and, taking the baby out, made to leave the room.

"Give me my son," India said, frightened, and Meggie, sleeping by the fire, awoke, and looked from her mistress to the duke.

"Ye hae nae bairn, India," the duke said, and departed, his booted footsteps echoing as he went down the stairs.

India scrambled from her bed, and after him. "Give me my son!" she shrieked. "If you hurt him, I shall kill you, Papa! Give me my son!"

The duke of Glenkirk handed the baby, now awake and crying, to Diarmid More-Leslie. "Ye know what to do," he said.

The clansman took the swaddled infant, and exited the lodge through the front door.

Weakened, India lurched down the stairs, screaming, "Bring Mm back! Bring my son back!" She fell the last few steps, but, struggling to her feet, tried to follow after her child.

The duke shut the door, and, blocking it with his large body, said to her, " 'Tis for the best, lovey. Ye're to be wed in a few weeks' time. The lad will be taken care of, I promise ye." He reached out for her.

India shrank back, her eyes wild. "Get away from me, you bastard! Get away! I want my son! I want my son!" She flung herself at him, and tried to claw him aside.

"There, there, lassie, 'twill be all right," he promised her, and caught the hands that would beat at him in her effort to follow Diarmid and her child. "Jasmine!" he called to his wife. "Come and take yer daughter back to her room. She will need her rest now if she is to recover and be wed on time."

Jasmine glared at her husband. She had never known Jemmie to be such an insensitive clod. She tried to cradle her daughter, but India flung her mother away.

"How could you let him do this, madame?" the distraught girl sobbed. "How could you allow him to take my son? Iwill never forgive you. I will never forgive either of you!" Then she collapsed to the floor, sobbing bitterly.

^{Chapter 18}

She 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 Glosces-ter," 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."

India was silent for what seemed a very long time to her mother. Then, at last, she said, "You are correct, madame. I would be very foolish indeed should I act in haste. Now, tell me, when is my marriage to be celebrated, and where?"

"Here, at Glenkirk, by proxy, prior to your departure," Jasmine answered. "The earl has left the choice of a proxy to you."

"Since neither Henry nor Charlie are here, I think the best choice would be my brother, Patrick Leslie," India said. "It will be good practice for him when he weds one day. Patrick and my younger brothers seem to know little of the niceties of polite society, although I know you strive hard with them, madame. Still, they persist in being wild Scots. Fix the day for the thirtieth of May, at dawn, and then I shall depart immediately thereafter for England. Will the earl send an escort for me?"

"You will be escorted as far as the border by Glenkirk men, and the earl's men will meet you there," the duchess told her daughter.

"I am taking Meggie with me, and Diarmid More-Leslie would come, too. He and Meggie have asked my permission to wed. I have given it. They will marry immediately after I have been wed. It is far more practical that they travel as man and wife."

Jasmine nodded, agreeing with her daughter. "Your father… stepfather, must give his permission to Diarmid," she said.

"Surely he can have no objection," India replied.

"Oh, I am sure he does not," Jasmine replied quickly lest India fly into a temper again.

"We haven't a great deal of time, madame. We should begin my trousseau immediately," India announced. "And I will want a full accounting of my possessions as well. Nothing of mine is to remain at Glenkirk."

"I am giving you the Stars of Kashmir as a wedding gift," Jasmine said softly. "You are my eldest child, and my first daughter. When your first daughter weds one day, see that you give the jewels to her. They are to remain in the female line. Jamal Khan's father gave them to his mother, and he gave them to me. Now I give them to you, India."

"Mama!" India was overwhelmed. "Surely you do not want to part with the Stars of Kashmir now, do you?"

Jasmine laughed. "I always meant them for you," she said. "Besides, we live simply here at Glenkirk. I have no occasion to wear them anymore, and they simply lay alone in their case. You will enjoy them, I am sure. Perhaps the earl will take you to court, and you can dazzle everyone there with them."

"It would be amusing to visit court as the countess of Oxton," India remarked. "I hope, however, this earl prefers the country. I will not leave the raising of my children to others."

Jasmine nodded in agreement.

The next day, seamstresses arrived from the local villages to prepare the trousseau India would be taking with her to England. She stood patiently, being measured, and pinned. She chose the finest and richest fabrics in the castle storerooms: jewel-toned velvets, and rich brocades, and silks. The farthingale was no longer fashionable. Skirts were flowing. Numerous under-petticoats were required to support the gown skirts. These were made of fine lace-trimmed cotton, and soft white flannel. The skirt petticoats, which topped the under-petticoats, were of silk and brocade. There were chemises perfumed, and plain but for a lace frill at the neck. The necklines were cut low with a short V opening in front where it was tied with silk ribbons. The large, balloon sleeves of the chemises were finished with lace ruffles. India also insisted upon a dozen pairs of calescons, or silk drawers, and a matching number of half-shirts. She had at least two dozen nightgowns, all lavishly trimmed with lace.

"There shall be nothing left in the storerooms for my trousseau," Fortune complained, watching enviously as the bejeweled bodices and matching skirts, the fur-trimmed capes and newly made leather boots and shoes with silver buckles piled up. The bodices had beautiful buttons of precious stones, as well as ivory and bone. There were combs with pearls around the arch, lawn handkerchiefs trimmed in lace, muffs of fur, and luxurious fabrics, beautiful fans, and painted masques.

The duchess had gathered all the jewelry that had been given to her by her second husband, Rowan Lindley, the marquis of Westleigh. The pieces that belonged to the Lindley family she put aside for the bride her son, Henry, the current marquis, would choose one day. The jewels that Rowan had given her, she divided equally between their two daughters, India and Fortune. Dark-haired India favored the sapphires and rubies. Flame-haired Fortune preferred the emeralds and diamonds.

There were other things that belonged to India as well. Large carved chests of embroidered linens, featherbeds, pillows, and bed coverings, with matching draperies. There were silver candlesticks, and candelabra, as well as ornate silver salt cellars. There were decorated cups of both silver and gold, Florentine forks, table knives with bone handles, and silver spoons. Porcelain bowls, plates, and matching cups. Silver bowls. All were gathered and packed carefully. The days flew by with a rapidity that even surprised India.

"She will nae forgie me, darling Jasmine, will she?" the duke sadly said to his wife.

Jasmine shook her head. "Nay, Jemmie, she will not forgive you, and you cannot blame her that she does not. Do you think a husband can make up for the loss of her firstborn son?" The duchess of Glenkirk touched her husband's face with a gentle hand. "I love you, Jemmie Leslie, but I agree with my daughter. You have been monstrously unkind. Even I don't know where our grandson is. It would be better if I knew, so I might make certain that he is well cared for, my lord. A man's eye is never as keen as a woman's in matters like this. I should know if the cottage was truly clean, and if the woman into whose hands you have put our grandson is really kind-hearted, or an abusive slattern. India says the laddie was born in true wedlock, and I believe her. Our grandson cannot be raised nameless, or of little account, Jemmie."

He nodded. He did not tell her but he had been to see the child several times now. His grandson was safe, but in a remote area of the estate lands. The cotter's wife thought his interest in the lad stemmed from the fact that the duke was his father. She treated the child kindly, envisioning an even greater reward one day. It was not necessary that James Leslie enlighten her otherwise. Rowan was a bright wee bairn, his blue eyes darting about at every sound, a thatch of black hair upon his tiny head. "When India is safe away in England," James Leslie said to his wife, "I will tell ye where the bairn is. I know ye well, darling Jasmine, and ye'll nae be satisfied until ye can see him again for yourself." He caught the hand that caressed his cheek, and kissed it.

The duchess smiled at him. "I am satisfied then," she replied, and later when she was alone with her daughter, she told India of his words. "Let it set your heart and mind at ease now, my daughter," she said gently to India. "Jemmie is feeling guilty, for he knows I thoroughly disapprove of his actions, but he will not relent until he sees you happy again, and wed. You must make an effort, India, for all our sakes, especially wee Rowan's."

"I will," India promised her mother. "More than anything, I want my son back again!"

Two wedding gowns had been made for India. She would wear the simpler one at her proxy wedding. The bodice of the rose-colored silk gown had a square neckline, and the bride wore a wired lace collar about her slender throat. The opening of the skirt was decorated with an embroidered golden braid trim. The skirt petticoat was silver and gold tissue. The puffed sleeves were decorated with cloth-of-gold bows to match the trim. About her neck, below the lace collar, India wore a single strand of fat pearls with matching ear bobs. Her hair was dressed in a simple chignon on the nape of her neck. On her feet she wore rose-colored silk slippers.

Her half-brother was dressed in his blue-and-green kilt, his white shirt trimmed with lace on the sleeves, silver buttons on his sleeveless velvet doublet. Patrick, with his father's dark hair and his mother's turquoise-colored eyes, proudly escorted India to the altar, where the Anglican minister awaited them. He made the responses required of him as the earl of Oxton's representative in a clear, loud voice. India's voice was less sure. The memory of her marriage day to Caynan Reis flooded her senses so painfully that she almost wept, and was unable to speak for a moment.

When it was finally over, she stood motionless, receiving the congratulations of her family, and wondering why they bothered tendering their good wishes when they knew she had been forced to the altar. Wordlessly she witnessed the marriage of her two servants, Meggie and Diarmid, a happier event for her as she knew the two were in love. The formalities over, they repaired to the Great Hall to break their fast.

The duke of Glenkirk toasted his stepdaughter. "May ye be happy always, and may ye hae healthy sons." He lifted his goblet to her, and then drank it down.

India glared, outraged, at him. Then she lifted her goblet. "To my son, Rowan, wherever he may be," she said softly.

James Leslie's eyes darkened with anger, but then he laughed. "Ye're nae my problem any longer," he said honestly. "Eat yer meal, India, and then Godspeed to ye, lassie."

Jasmine squeezed her daughter's hand beneath the highboard, silently begging India not to quarrel with James Leslie. The younger woman squeezed back her reassurance as the wedding breakfast of poached eggs in heavy cream and Marsala wine was served, along with baked apples flavored with cinnamon, freshly baked bread still warm from the ovens, newly churned sweet butter, thick slices of ham, and thin slices of salmon simmered in white wine with dill. There was a honeycomb for the sweet tooth. Ale, cider, and wine were served to drink.

India gazed about the table; her eyes lighting upon her siblings. Henry and Charlie were in England. She would see them soon enough. Her half-brothers, Patrick, Adam, and Duncan, now eleven, ten, and seven, she would probably see rarely, if ever again. Patrick, of course, would one day be the second duke of Glenkirk. The younger two would have to marry heiresses. We'll never really know each other, India thought sadly. How lucky Fortune and I were to have each other!

Fortune. Beautiful, practical, yet impulsive Fortune. What did fate have in store for her? MacGuire's Ford, its castle and lands in Ireland, were, of course, her marriage portion, but Ireland was such a disturbed land. Still, her parents had always spoken of seeking a husband for Fortune in Ireland. Her sister wasn't getting any younger. She would be seventeen in July. But who on earth was there in Ireland who might make a suitable husband for Fortune? She looked at her sister. Fortune gazed up at that moment, and smiled encouragingly at her. Whatever was meant for Fortune, she obviously had no fear of it. I envy her, India thought, and how Fortune would mock and tease her if she ever knew that, India considered with a wry smile.

"Now that you have married me off, madame," India said to her mother, "I expect Fortune will be next, eh? What have you in mind for my sister? As you have obtained an earl for me, certainly you must do as well for her."

"I don't care who he is as long as he has a brain in his head and a good heart," Fortune replied, laughing. "I don't need some man's title to make me presentable. I have my own title."

"We plan a visit to MacGuire's Ford this summer," Jasmine said. "We will not be coming to Queen's Malvern. I have been in correspondence with Rory MacGuire, our estate manager. As Fortune is the heiress to those lands, the folk are very interested in meeting her, as they have not seen her since she was an infant."

"I remember when Fortune was baptized," India said. "It was in the church at MacGuire's Ford. I remember telling Great-grandfather Adam that I had wanted a pony, not a baby sister. A black pony! Who baptized Fortune, madame?"

"My cousin, Cullen Butler," the duchess replied.

"A Papist?" Fortune looked shocked. "I was baptized by a Papist, Mama? Why was I never told?"

Jasmine spoke quietly. "You certainly know how I feel regarding religion, Fortune. I hold to the old queen's maxim that there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, and the rest is all trifles. My father held to such thought, allowing all faiths to be practiced in his kingdom. It is outrageous arrogance for any one faith in God to believe it is the be-all and end-all of religion. That all other faiths are wrong. Did not our Lord Christ Himself say that in His Father's house were many mansions? Surely He did not lie. And if there are many mansions, then there must be many paths leading to the doors of those mansions in God's kingdom. Aye, you were baptized in what is referred to as the old faith. Your godparents are a good lady named Bride Duffy, who is the most respected woman in the village, and Rory MacGuire, our estate manager. Before the English took away his lands, and gave them to me, Rory was the lord of Erne Rock Castle. He has cared for your lands with honest diligence. I am very grateful to him, as you should be. The descendants of Nighthawk and Nightbird are the most sought-after horses in both England and Europe. Rory MacGuire has made you a rich woman, Fortune. Remember it well. As for your baptism by a Papist, it is a valid one, even in England."

Fortune flushed. "I think I am going to have a great deal to learn about Ireland, Mama. I hope Master MacGuire will help me so I do not offend the people I must care for; but tell me this: How is it that there has been peace on my lands all these years?"

"Because both the poor beleaguered Catholics and our Protestant tenants have been taught to respect one another. Each has a church. The village elders are equally divided, and we keep our people as isolated as possible from the rest of the area so they will not be contaminated by the hate generated by the political and religious factions. Anyone unhappy with our rule is free to leave and go elsewhere," the duchess of Glenkirk said. "I will not have our lands in constant turmoil. It is unproductive and wasteful. That dreadful hate was responsible for your father's death. I will never forget that."

"I do not know if I can keep such order," Fortune said nervously.

"You are the lady of Erne Rock Castle," her mother told her. "With Rory MacGuire's aid, and the right husband, MacGuire's Ford will continue to flourish." She now turned to India. "It is time for you to change your gown, daughter, and leave us. You have a long trip ahead of you, and the sooner you are on your way, the better."

India arose from the highboard, and departed the hall. She found her bedchamber virtually bare, and quite sparse, for all her belongings, had, in accordance with her instructions, been packed. The baggage train that would accompany her was large.

Meggie helped her from her gown. "Shall I pack it?" she asked.

"Nay, leave it. I do not want it," India said. "I would give it to you, but I don't ever want to see it again to remind me of this day."

" 'Tis too grand for me," Meggie said cheerfully. "And, besides, when and where would I wear it? I laid out yer riding clothes. I thought you would prefer to be a-horse as to being in a closed carriage."

India nodded in agreement. She pulled on the doeskin breeches and stout woolen socks. Her leather boots were more comfortable than the slippers she had worn. A white shirt, and doeskin jerkin with silver-edged horn buttons completed her outfit, along with the small green velvet cap with a single eagle feather she clapped upon her head. She took the perfumed leather gloves Meggie handed her, and then stopped a moment to look about the room. Meggie discreetly withdrew.

While India was still furious with her stepfather, she did have mixed feelings about departing Glenkirk. It had been her home for many years. She had come as a child with Henry, Fortune, and Charlie. They had all grown up here, chasing through the hallways, playing hide-and-seek in the largely unused tower rooms. She had been happy here. Glenkirk had been her refuge, but she would now forever associate it with the loss of her son, Rowan. For that she could thank her stepfather. In one brutal act he had wiped away all those happy years. No. She would never forgive James Leslie.

Without a backward glance India swept from the room, hurrying downstairs and out into the courtyard of the castle. She bid the servants she had known since childhood a gracious farewell, accepting their good wishes for her happiness. She kissed her youngest brothers, Adam and Duncan, but Patrick, the eldest of the Leslies, thrust out his hand at her. Brushing it aside, India hugged him hard. "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up, Paddy," she whispered. "It's hard to be grown, as you'll find out one day too soon, I fear."

"Dinna saw at yer horse's mouth," he replied, squirming out of her grasp. "Yer too impatient with the beastie, India, and its puir mouth is sensitive. Will ye remember now?"

"Aye," she said, ruffling his dark head. Her glance swung to her stepfather. She nodded curtly at the duke of Glenkirk. "Farewell, sir," she said coldly, and then turned to her mother. "Remember your promises to me, madame. I shall send a message when I have arrived at Queen's Malvern, and afterward at Oxton Court."

Jasmine put her arms about her eldest child. "You were born from a deep and great love, India. I have tried, whatever you may think, to be a good mother to you. I do love you." She kissed her daughter's smooth cheek. "May the God of us all guard and guide you, India. May that God keep you safe, my child."

"I love you too, Mama," India replied, feeling the tears pricking behind her eyelids. While she was angry at James Leslie, the anger she had felt toward her mother had dried up over these past few weeks. She kissed her mother back, and then India turned, mounting the horse that Diarmid held for her. "Farewell," she said, raising her hand to them, and then she moved off through the portcullis and over the drawbridge of the castle onto the road south.

She was surrounded by over a hundred Glenkirk men-at-arms who would accompany her to the border with England. There was a large and comfortable traveling coach, should she choose to ride in it with Meggie, who now sat alone within the vehicle, and a great train of fifteen baggage carts holding all her possessions, as well as a dozen fine horses that were part of her dowry. India sat straight in her saddle, her eyes forward, taking in the familiar landscape. In her heart, however, she could not help but wonder where amid those green hills her son was now hidden. She would find him. Whatever the cost she would find her son. Caynan Reis's son. No stranger would raise or claim her blood. Rowan was out there amid the bens, or in some hidden glen, and she would find him. Her intentions resolute, the newly married countess of Oxton turned her horse south for England.

Chapter 19

Deverall Leigh, earl of Oxton, had spent the morning riding across his estates. After eleven years on the Barbary coast, he couldn't get enough of the wonderful green of England. His lands, set in a verdant valley between the rivers Severn and Avon, were both beautiful and fertile. The meadows were filled with sheep. His vast orchards of apples and pears, for which the region was famed, were even now at peak bloom. There were lush green pastures awaiting the arrival of the horses his bride would bring him, and with which he intended to begin breeding race horses.

His bride. Lady India Anne Lindley, daughter of a duke, sister to a marquis and a duke. A conniving, deceitful little bitch who had swooned in his arms and sworn she loved him. But she hadn't. She had taken the first opportunity presented to her to flee El Sinut with his child in her belly-if indeed there had been a child, and that was not just another lie to lull him into trusting her. God only knew he had learned early that women could not be trusted, and yet he had allowed the golden-eyed vixen the opportunity to dig her claws deep into his heart; and once she had him, she had wantonly flung him aside.

He well remembered his return from the mountains with Aruj Agha. The town was in an uproar for two nights before a group of English captives had taken back their round ship and sailed out of El Sinut. It had been cleverly executed, a well-thought-out workmanlike plan that had given the English many hours' advantage. It wasn't worth going after them. It was unlikely he would find them in the vast sea. He chalked the loss up to fate. Then he learned that India had disappeared on the same night. As it had been her relation, Captain Southwood, who had made good the escape, it was obvious where she was. He was both devastated and furious by turns.

"She was kidnapped, my lord," Baba Hassan insisted, and Azura strongly agreed with him.

"She loves you, Caynan Reis," the older woman said. "She was so happy about your coming child. She would not have left you of her own free will. She was taken. You must go after her, my dear lord!"

"A part of the garden wall was not secured," Baba Hassan continued on. "We did not realize it, my lord. I hold myself completely responsible. They came over the wall using grapnels and stout ropes. Only when we discovered the lady India missing did we search the garden and find the evidence. One grapnel and rope remained, and so it is obvious that there were two of them. When the second man slid down into the street, it was impossible to release his grapnel from the top of the wall, and so it was left behind. The marks of the second grapnel were plainly visible in the top of the wall. Both your wife and her servant were stolen away. They could not leave the girl behind, and since she was one of their own, they would, of course, take her, too, rather than kill her."

"Why did India not scream?" the dey demanded angrily. "Surely she could have cried out and alerted the guards."

"She would not have wanted to endanger her blood kin, my lord. I am certain that was her reasoning. She is a woman, and soft of heart. And then, too, there was that terrible storm that night. It is doubtful if she had cried out that anyone would have heard her call," the eunuch replied logically. "We must find her, my lord!"

"She had the advantage over her captors," Caynan Reis persisted. "They could not have gotten her over that damned wall, nor the servant girl, either, if she had not gone willingly. She has betrayed me, the false bitch!"

"What if the two women were rendered unconscious?" Azura suggested.

"Both of them?" the dey scoffed. "It would be difficult enough climbing that wall alone, or with someone on your back, but with a dead weight, I think it improbable. Nay, my good Azura. India was always determined to escape El Sinut, though she learned to hide her true thoughts from us. She has betrayed me. She has betrayed you who were her friends. She is no better than other women, whatever we may have previously thought."

"Improbable, but not impossible," Baba Hassan persisted. "Those hooks on the grapnels were dug deep into the wall, my lord."

"Proving what? That each rope held two people? That we already know, my good friend. I know you do not like to admit that we have all erred in our judgment, but we have. She bedazzled us with her beauty and charm, and then deceived us. I do not wish to hear her name ever again, Baba Hassan. Do you understand me?"

"But what of the child?" Azura cried out to him.

"I suspect she cozened us there, too," the dey replied sadly.

"Nay, never!" Azura said boldly. "Not India!"

He sent them away. His heart was broken. He had loved her. Nay, he loved her yet, despite her behavior. If she walked into his chamber this moment he would forgive her. And as for the child, he might deny it to ease his own heart, but he could not believe that she would have lied to him about that. There was no way she could have been privy to her duplicitous cousin's plans until the moment the captain appeared in her apartments to help her escape. If she had lied about the child, what excuses could she have made when there was no child?

The earl of Oxton turned his horse toward home as his thoughts moved on to the events that had brought him back to England. Knowing of his interest in the young English milord, Aruj Agha had, shortly after their return from the mountains, brought the dey word that the young man had a serious fever, and was in the slaves' hospital by the harbor.

"The physician does not think he will live," the janissary told the dey.

"Allah!" the dey swore. "I must go to him. I meant to ransom him long since, but in my happiness I completely forgot. Perhaps if he has the hope of going home, he will rally himself. Now my joy is ashes, and the same woman who brought me such misery can also be said to be responsible for Adrian's demise."

"Adrian?" Aruj Agha was both fascinated and mystified. "Is that his name? And how do you know it, my lord?"

"He is my younger half-brother," Caynan Reis admitted. "I believe that he and his mother are responsible for my having had to flee England. I took India to my bed originally to spite him. He did not recognize me, of course, when we met in my audience chamber. He was still only a boy when I left my homeland, and I did not wear a beard. I meant to tell him after I took his betrothed for my own. I thought to hurt him as he had hurt me, but then things did not go as I had planned. I decided I would release him from the galleys, and hold him here in El Sinut until the ransom had been paid. Then I would reveal myself to him, and tell him how happy I was with my beautiful English wife, who might have been his wife. Both he and his greedy mother would have been quite piqued to learn that not only had I taken a ransom from them, but an heiress as well. But in my happiness I forgot about him! Now you tell me he is dying? I must go to him at once! He is my father's son, too, and my brother, for all he and his mother have done to harm me."

The aga brought the dey to the slave hospital. Caynan Reis stood by the younger man's pallet gazing down upon him. Gone was the soft and foppish arrogant milord. A lean, hard-muscled young man lay flushed and quiet upon the straw mattress. The dey's blue eyes filled with tears as he remembered the little brother he had taught to ride. He sat heavily when a stool was brought for him, waving everyone else from his presence.

"Adrian," he said quietly. "Open your eyes, Adrian. We must talk together, you and I." The English words felt strange on his tongue.

Adrian Leigh's purple-shadowed eyelids fluttered open, then closed, and then open again. "Who are you?" he asked softly.

"Your brother, Deverall Leigh," was the reply.

Adrian Leigh stared hard, and then hot tears rolled down his gaunt cheeks. "Forgive me, Dev!" he said.

"Forgive you? I should be asking your forgiveness for having so cruelly condemned you to the galleys, little brother, but I was still angry at what your mother had done to me."

"You knew?"

"I knew what poor old Rogers babbled to me that night," Deverall Leigh told his brother. "That Jeffers was to be killed, and I would be held responsible. That I must flee, or die on the gallows. One way or another I was to go else I stand in your way. MariElena was quite determined that you succeed our father as earl of Oxton. Of course, with my usual stubbornness, I waited hidden to see what would happen, but when I heard of Jeffers's death, and that my dagger had been found in his chest, I boarded the first ship I could."

"How came you here?" Adrian asked, curious, and then he coughed.

The dey of El Sinut held a cup to his brother's lips, feeding him cool water, and when the fit had subsided, laid him back on his pallet. "My ship, like yours, was bound for the Mediterranean. Like yours, it was captured, and I began my service in the galleys. When I proved trustworthy, however, I was released because I accepted Islam. I served the captain of the vessel as secretary because of all the languages I speak. One day we were anchored in the harbor here when the dey Sharif came out in his barge to speak with my captain. A freak wave overturned the barge, and all were cast into the sea. I dove overboard, and saved the dey Sharif. In gratitude he freed me, and took me into his service. We were close, he and I, and he formally adopted me as his son, and asked the sultan in Istanbul if I might succeed him as he was ill and wished to retire. Permission was given, and that is how I became the dey of El Sinut, little brother."

"I am dying," Adrian Leigh said softly.

"We will heal you," the dey replied. "You will not go back to the galleys, but rather home to England."

Adrian Leigh shook his head slowly. "Nay, I shall never see England again. I must right the wrong that my mother and I perpetrated upon you all those years back, Dev!" He coughed again, but manfully regained control of himself despite his weakened state. "I need someone to write it all down, Dev, and then I will sign my name to it. Father has suffered greatly since your departure. You must succeed him as it was always meant to be. You are Viscount Twyford, not I."

"I am the dey of El Sinut, Adrian. It suits me. You are going to get well, and return to England," the dey replied.

"No!" Adrian cried out weakly but desperately. "I must clear your good name, and you must go home again! Can you tell me that your heart is really not in England, but in this hot and sandy land? Please, I beg of you, fetch someone to write down my tale so I may go to my God with a clear conscience. Do not let me die with this stain on my immortal soul, Dev!"

"I will send for your secretary," said Aruj Agha, who had not gone and had been privy to all that had been said.

The dey nodded, and took his brother's hand in his to comfort him. "Go," was all he said.

When the scribe finally arrived, and was seated cross-legged, pen and parchment at the ready, the dey asked him if he could transcribe what was said in the English language. The scribe nodded.

"I can, my lord, as well as French and Italian, too."

Adrian Leigh began to speak in a low and halting voice. He told how he had, at his mother's instructions, stolen into his brother's chamber and taken the Deverall dagger, so prized by his sibling, because it had belonged to his mother's family. He told how Mari-Elena had become Lord Jeffers's mistress for a brief time in order to gain his trust. Of how she had killed him by putting a mixture of finely ground glass and hair into his wine. Of how when he was dead, she had instructed her child to push the dagger into her lover's chest so it would be thought he had died at the hand of his rival for Lady Clinton's favors. The dey's secretary wrote on, his wrinkled face impassive, his only acknowledgment of the tale the occasional raising of his iron-gray eyebrows. Adrian continued that by making her son wield the dagger, his mother had hoped to bind him to her forever. It had disturbed him to see his father's pain over the charge that Deverall Leigh had murdered another man, and he had felt great personal guilt for his father's decline.

Growing up, he had gone to court, escaping his mother's constant company. He had caroused with new friends, and had a fine time. Then he had met India Lindley. She was beautiful. She was wealthy, and she was innocent of men. At first it had been a game to see if he might seduce her, succeeding where others had failed. Then it had dawned on him that this beautiful girl might actually make him a good wife, and that her wealth would give him the power over his mother that he had never had. India, he learned, had never been courted. He courted her with charm and passion, yet he could not convince her to go against her family. She was extremely close to them.

Finally his mother, hearing of his attempts with India, had hurried up to London with the perfect solution. He had followed her advice, and convinced India to elope with him to his uncle's home in Naples. Actually, it had been her father's unqualified disapproval, and plans to return India immediately to Scotland, that had done the trick. But the captain of the vessel upon which they had sailed discovered the ruse they had used to travel safely, and separated them. Then they had been captured. "My arrogance is responsible for my plight," Adrian Leigh finished, "but I cannot go to my grave without clearing the name of my elder brother, Deverall Leigh, Viscount Twyford. He is innocent of the murder of Lord Charles Jeffers; and my mother, the countess of Oxton, and I, are the guilty parties. May God have mercy on us."

"You are finished, sir?" the dey's secretary politely inquired.

"I am," came the now very weak reply. "Let me put my signature to this document before I will not be able to do it."

They held him up, placing a quill in his hand, and Adrian Leigh grasped it with his last bit of strength, and signed his name in a legible hand. Finished, he dropped the pen, and slumped back into his brother's arms. There he lay, until several hours later he finally breathed his last. His body was wrapped in a white shroud, and quickly buried lest the heat decay it. It was placed in the small Christian cemetery outside the walls of the city. The kindly old Protestant minister who was to have married the dey and India came to pray over Adrian Leigh's body. Seeing the dey's open grief, he asked no questions.

The dey of El Sinut now shut himself off from his household, mourning his loss alone. In his hands he held the parchment that would clear him of the charges of murder in England, yet he didn't care. He fell into a deep depression from which he could not seem to rouse himself. He had lost the woman he loved, and the brother he had loved, too. Nothing mattered any longer. Then fate stepped in, forcing his hand, compelling him to make a decision.

Two troupes of janissaries crossed his borders. One from Algiers, and the other from Tunis. They marched toward the city, and their intent was plainly hostile. Baba Hassan's spies brought him the information he needed to save Caynan Reis, but only with scant time to spare. The chief eunuch hurried to inform his master.

"It is you they seek, my lord. The order has been given to assassinate you because you have betrayed them to the sultan. In Istanbul the rebellion has been squelched, although there has been fighting in both Algiers and Tunis, for they have not yet received the word that the rebellion is over. So, my lord, you have been targeted for death."

"Who gave the order?" the dey asked.

"The chief of the janissaries, my lord. The sultan will look the other way. Your death is a small price to pay. He has managed to keep his throne. If the janissaries want revenge on the man who saved that throne, he cares not, nor does his mother," Baba Hassan said. "You must leave El Sinut, my lord, before they may kill you."

"No. I will fight them," Caynan Reis said.

"With what?" Baba Hassan demanded. "You have no army. You have a troupe of janissaries to protect El Sinut. They will not go against their brothers. They will turn their backs on you, my lord, while the others slaughter you. You have the means to return to your own land. Allah has given you this good fortune just when you needed it. Go back to England, my lord. Find India and your child, and live! If you will not do it for yourself, then do it for Azura and me. We have loved you as if you were our own son. And what of your blood kin? If you do not return to England, he has no heir to his family name and lands, my lord. Will you throw your life away when you have been given the chance to regain what you once believed lost?"

"What of you and Azura? What of the ladies of the harem?" the dey asked him. "I cannot leave you to suffer for me."

"I have managed this palace for more years than I care to admit," said the eunuch. "And the lady Azura, too. We will be safe, as will the ladies of the harem. I suspect that Aruj Agha will hold sway here in El Sinut in your place, my lord Caynan Reis, for many years to come."

He had made up his mind in an instant. "I will go," he said. Why shouldn't he? Baba Hassan was right. His father needed him, and he had several scores to settle in England. The first with his deceitful stepmother, and the second with Lady India Anne Lindley. He followed the chief eunuch to the lady Azura's apartment.

She knew the moment they entered that the decision had been made. Going to a cabinet, Azura drew out a beautiful white wool cloak lined in green silk. "This is for you, my lord dey. The green lining is a false one. Behind the silk, and between another layer of silk, is a small fortune in gold coins, each sewn into a separate pocket. The hems of your cloak are filled with precious stones. Not just the bottom hem, but beneath the gold braid edging as well. It is little enough for your service to El Sinut, my lord. We wish it might be more." She set the floor-length cape about his broad shoulders, coming around to fasten the gold frog closures that he saw were diamond studded.

The dey took her into his arms, and kissed her forehead. "I will never forget you, my lady Azura," he said. "If I sent for you one day, would you not come, and run my home as you have done this palace? You, and Baba Hassan together?"

She smiled up at him. "My lord, I have lived too long in Barbary to ever be content anywhere else, but I thank you for the offer."

"I, also," Baba Hassan replied. There was a small awkward silence, and then the eunuch said, "Come, my lord. I must get you out of the palace before it is too late. You can already hear the fighting in the streets, for the janissaries have been looting, and causing general havoc along their way. We have a small felluca for you in the harbor. I have chosen several young European captives to escape with you. Naples is your best bet, and the easiest port to make from here."

The dey kissed Azura's hands, and then, turning, he followed Baba Hassan from her apartment. The eunuch led him through the small dark corridors he had never known existed. They saw no one as they passed. Finally they exited the palace, crossing a small courtyard, and going out through a little door in the walls. They hurried down several narrow, twisting streets until finally the dey could see the waters of the harbor sparkling in the late-afternoon sunlight and smell the salty tang of the sea. He quickened his step.

As they moved onto a slightly larger thoroughfare, they were startled by a young janissary who stepped into their path. Before Caynan Reis might draw his sword, the janissary slashed at him, his blade slicing down the dey's handsome face from the corner of his left eye to the left corner of his mouth. The injured man's hand went automatically to his face even as Aruj Agha came behind the younger janissary and ran him through. The assassin crumpled heavily to the ground, quite dead.

"A young Turk who would make a name for himself, but one cannot gain honor in the corps through a dishonorable act, my lord dey." He handed his friend a handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood.

"Take care of Baba Hassan, Azura and the harem ladies," Caynan Reis said to his friend.

"I will," came the reply, and then Aruj Agha turned away, disappearing into an alley. "Allah go with you," he said as he went.

"Let me see," Baba Hassan said worriedly, and examined the wound. "You will have a scar, my lord, but it is not life threatening," he pronounced. "Come. There is the felluca. You must clear the harbor before sunset else the chain be raised against you."

Three young men were waiting for them. They were Italian, and Baba Hassan gave each of them a small bag containing a gold coin and five silver coins. "Get this man safely to Naples, and each of you will be given another gold coin by my agent, who will meet your vessel to make certain your passenger is safe. You have been given your freedom for this purpose. Fail me, and I will know. You shall be punished wherever you attempt to hide."

The three men nodded.

"Thank you, Baba Hassan," the dey said quietly and with deeper meaning. He stepped down into the felluca.

The chief eunuch nodded. "Allah go with you, my lord Leigh," he said quietly, and, turning away, disappeared into the maze of streets.

They had departed immediately, clearing the harbor. He had had no difficulty from his companions, and three days later they had reached Naples. At the docks a well-dressed man had been waiting their arrival, and paid off the three sailors.

"The felluca is yours," he told them, and then turned to Deverall Leigh. "My lord Leigh, I am Cesare Kira. You are to come with me, please. We will go to my father's banking house in the ghetto where you will want to make your deposit, and then we will arrange for your transportation back to England."

Deverall Leigh had followed the young man, and been taken to Benjamino Kira. The elder Kira had taken the cloak from his guest and handed it to his daughter, who had removed the false lining with its gold-filled pockets, handing the coins to her father who piled them up upon his counting table. When she had finished, Benjamino Kira counted the coins, and weighed the gold. Then he nodded to his daughter, who slit the hems of the long garment individually and spilled out its jeweled contents onto her father's table. When she had finally finished, she sat down and began to repair the cloak so he might wear it again.

"I do not need a double lining in the cape, mistress," he said to the girl. "If it would please you, please keep the silk."

Her face lit in a sweet smile. "Thank you, my lord, I will." She then bent her head to sew the hem.

"You are generous," Benjamino Kira said. "It is a fine piece of Bursa silk you have given my daughter. It will make her a wedding gown, eh, Soshanna?" He smiled at the girl's blush, and turned back to Lord Leigh. "Baba Hassan has sent you with quite a fortune, my lord," he noted. "What do you intend to do with it, and how may we help you?"

"I am the heir to the earl of Oxton," he had explained. "How much of my story do you know, Signore Kira?"

"I know you have been the dey of El Sinut for nine years, my lord, and left because of the rebellion by the janissaries that caused your life to be in danger."

"It was my warning of that rebellion that saved the young sultan. In thanks, he threw me to his enemies. I had no choice but to leave. Now I will go home to England to clear my name of a crime I did not commit. I carry the proof of my innocence with me." He withdrew the rolled parchment from his shirt. "I hope to gain a royal pardon with this. Then I will marry, and lead the life I was meant to lead."

The banker nodded. "Fate has an odd way of manipulating us about," he said dryly. "Now, however, we must plan for your trip. With your permission, my lord, I shall make the arrangements, and see that your gold and jewels are transported safely to London."

Deverall Leigh had traveled to Paris in the company of a train of merchants. There he had been taken in hand by the banker, Henri Kira, and sent on to Calais. He crossed to Dover, and was met by Master Jonathan Kira, who escorted him up to London to his father, James Kira.

"Your trip was a pleasant one, I hope, my lord," the English banker said. "I have taken the liberty of inquiring as to your father's health. The earl is frail, but in no immediate danger. I have also taken the liberty of putting a watch upon the countess so that we can be certain she remains in Glocestershire while you complete your business here." He indicated a small chest upon the table, and, opening it, said, "Your gemstones, my lord. Will you ascertain that they are all here?"

Deverall Leigh, somewhat amazed by the efficiency of the Kiras, took out the inventory slip that he had prepared in Naples and checked it over. "Everything is here," he said finally. "The gold is on deposit, I take it, Master Kira."

"It is, my lord," said the banker with a smile. "Now, then, you will need a private audience with King Charles, will you not?"

"I will," he had replied.

"It will be arranged. The duke of Buckingham's family does business with this house." He looked into the still-opened jewel chest and plucked a large, round diamond forth. "Set in gold, a nice gift for the king, don't you think?" he said. "And a crucifix of gold, rubies, and pearls for the queen, I believe will be quite suitable."

"I shall leave it all in your obviously capable hands," Deverall Leigh replied. "Where am I to stay, Master Kira, and how long must I remain in London? As you can imagine, I am anxious to see my father."

"It will take a few days, my lord, to arrange an audience with the king for you. It would be better if you remained here as my guest. I do not want you out wandering the streets where you might be seen until you have been pardoned by the king and are free to do so without danger of arrest."

He had been grateful to the Kiras, and gladly accepted their hospitality. He was well treated. Several days later, he was presented with a new suit of black velvet, the doublet of which had an exquisite fallen lace collar. Each leg of his knee breeches had a wide silver ribbon garter with a black-and-silver bow. His doublet was trimmed with silver buttons, and the fine cambric of his shirt shone through the slashes on the puffed sleeves. White silk stockings were worn below where his breeches ended, and his black leather shoes sported silver rosettes. He had silver lace trimming his white leather gloves. His hair was short, and contrary to the fashion, he wore no beard or mustache. One side of his face was perfect in profile, but the scar running from his eye to his mouth on the left side of his visage gave him a menacing yet tragic appearance.

He rode to Whitehall Palace in a coach provided him by his hosts. He was met by a gentleman of the court in debt to the Kiras, a member of the duke of Buckingham's family, who took him to a private apartment. He was told to wait. Shortly afterward the king arrived. He listened to Deverall Leigh's tale, and accepted the confession that Adrian Leigh had dictated before his death. Charles Stuart read the parchment, and then he arose, requesting that his guest remain until he returned. There was wine, and there were biscuits to be had.

Deverall Leigh waited. He poured himself a half a goblet of wine, but ignored the biscuits. He paced back and forth for a time, and finally sat by the fire wondering what the king's decision would be. Would he accept Adrian's confession, or would he hang Deverall Leigh? It had begun to rain outside. He watched the droplets running down the leaded pane windows as the fire crackled noisily. Finally the door to the privy chamber opened, and the king reappeared. Deverall Leigh jumped to his feet, bowing low.

Charles Stuart's mouth twitched, but his mouth was serious when he spoke. "I have spoken with my counselors, Viscount," he began. "We are agreed that the confession you have brought us is genuine. Given your stepmother's reputation, it is entirely possible that it happened just as your unfortunate younger brother has dictated. We regret his death, of course. It has also been noted that while you might have been considered an impetuous youth, you were never known to be violent. Nor were you considered dull-witted, and given Lady Clinton's notoriety, it is considered unthinkable that you would have killed another man for her favors, which were so readily available to all. We understand your fright at the incident, and your belief that it was necessary to flee England given the fact that the alleged murder weapon belonged to you. Ground glass and hair. It is an interesting choice."

"It is a method that was developed in Naples," Deverall Leigh said.

"Ahhh, yes," the king replied. "And, of course, your stepmother comes from Naples. It would have never been considered, my lord. Perhaps you were wise, indeed, to flee England; and you have certainly had your share of adventures. I imagine you will find life in Glocestershire quite dull after all you have been through. You will want to marry, of course."

"Yes, Your Majesty, if I am pardoned," Deverall Leigh responded.

"If you are pardoned? God's blood! Did I not say it? No! I did not say it, or you would not have asked. Aye! You are fully pardoned, Viscount Twyford. My secretary is even now drawing up the papers for you so you will have no difficulty with the local sheriff. Now, is there some pretty lady who has been awaiting you all these years?"

"No, my lord. In my youth, I fear, I was far too interested in sowing wild oats than seeking out a respectable woman to wed. Now, however, I must begin my search. When I was at court years ago, I saw a pretty little maid who would, of course, be grown and of an age to wed, if she has not already wed. Her name is Lady India Anne Lindley."

"You aim high, my lord," the king said. "Lady Lindley is my nephew's half-sister, and a considerable heiress. Still, it is my recollection that she was quite flighty, and could not decide upon a husband. I believe her family took her back to Scotland. I have not heard, however, that she is married. My nephew would have said so if she were. He lives here at court with us now. She must be at least twenty. I would seek a younger wife if I were you."

"I will take Your Majesty's advice under consideration," Deverall said in a noncommittal tone. Then he reached into his doublet, and drew forth two velvet bags. "I have brought this for Your Majesty," he said, proffering the royal purple velvet bag, "and this for Her Majesty." He handed the second bag, this one of white velvet, to the king.

Charles Stuart plucked the round diamond which had been set in gold with three carved gold plumes behind it, and designed as a pin, from its bag. He held it up, admiring it, and then pinned it to his doublet. "A fine piece, my lord," he approved. Then he drew forth the queen's gift, and a small chuckle escaped him. "For a man who has been away from England for a time, you understand my wife better than I do, sir. She will indeed esteem your gift." He slid the pearl-and-ruby crucifix on its gold chain back into the white velvet bag.

The king's secretary had come in then with his pardon. He was given the rolled parchment with its royal seals and dismissed.

"You are free to go home now, my lord. Godspeed," were the king's last words to him.

He left London that day, and a week later, beheld Oxton Court for the first time in eleven years. His father wept upon seeing him and learning of his pardon for the crime he had not committed. His stepmother wept upon learning of Adrian's death, but afterward she came to his room and attempted to seduce him as she had of old. He spurned her, telling her what he had not told his father. That the king knew the truth of Lord Jeffers's murder, and if anything happened to him, she would be hung. MariElena Leigh was not a particularly intelligent woman. This man was not the easily gulled boy she remembered. This man was a dangerous creature, and she was afraid for the first time in her life. From that moment on, she went out of her way to avoid him, and when their paths did cross, she was deferential toward him.

His father died a month later, worn out but content that his favorite son was free to assume the duties of the next earl of Oxton. His stepmother was now terrified as to what would happen to her. She learned her fate in short order. A royal messenger arrived with an edict of banishment. MariElena di Carlo Leigh would be sent back to her family in Naples, and never allowed to set foot in England again.

"You will have a yearly allowance, madame, paid to the banking house of Benjamino Kira, upon which you may draw. The deposits will be made quarterly," Deverall Leigh told his stepmother coldly. "Be glad I have not killed you for what you have done to my family. My father might have lived many more years, and my unfortunate brother, too, had it not been for your behavior. You may take your clothing, and any jewelry that my father gave you, but not family pieces." And he had searched her luggage prior to her departure with her wizened one-eyed servant woman who had originally come with her from Naples. Because she was dishonest by nature, he had removed not only several valuable family pieces from amid her possessions but also a pair of silver-and-gold candlesticks given his family by King Henry VIII. Sophia, the serving woman, had muttered curses at him under her breath. He then sent the two on their way to London, where they were put on a vessel bound for Naples by an escort from the Kira bank, who personally watched as the ship sailed down the Thames with the dowager countess of Oxton aboard.

Now it was Deverall Leigh turned his attention to the matter of that faithless bitch, India Lindley. He approached her father by his intermediaries, and was quite surprised to have his offer of marriage quickly accepted. In turn, he easily agreed to their conditions that India's wealth remain in India's hands, and she continue to manage it as she saw fit. The dowry was twice what he expected, and just to see how far he might push his future in-laws, he had requested a breeding stallion and eleven mares from their horse farms in either Ireland or Queen's Malvern. His request was accepted, the contracts signed, the dowry delivered, and the proxy marriage celebrated. His bride had left her home in Scotland several weeks ago, and was expected any time at Oxton Court.

Deverall Leigh rode into his stableyard, and dismounted his horse. Soon he would have her in his power again, and she would regret that she ever played him false. Of course she would not recognize him, for Deverall Leigh, smooth-shaven and scarred, with his clipped English accent, was not Caynan Reis, with his elegant beard and soft French accent. No. She would not know him, for he was an entirely different man now. A man who knew better than to trust, or love any woman. He would not be patient this time. He would bring Lady India Anne Lindley to heel like any bitch in his kennels. And he would never again give her the opportunity to betray him. He would kill her first. After he learned what she had done with their child.

^{Chapter 20}

When India's train reached the designated spot on the Scots and English border where they were to meet the earl of Oxton's men, they found twenty men-at-arms. The earl's captain took one look at the bride's party, and shook his head.

"I can't be responsible for such a great muck," he said frankly. His eye scanned the baggage carts. "Fifteen! What the hell is the lass bringing to Oxton Court?"

"Watch yer mouth," Red Hugh, the duke's captain, warned the Englishman. "Her ladyship is a great heiress, and nae some wee creature of little worth. Yer master's a lucky man to hae our mistress as his countess. I expect like most men he dinna realize a bride coming to her husband packs everything she owns, and my mistress owns a great deal, as ye can see," he finished with a small chuckle.

"And horses, too!" the earl's man said.

"How safe is the road to Oxton?" Red Hugh demanded.

"Safe as any nowadays," the Englishman replied.

Red Hugh grunted thoughtfully. Finally he said, "We canna allow ye to attempt to take her ladyship to Oxton wi so small a force. I'll send some of my men home, and the rest of us will go wi ye as far as Queen's Malvern in Worcester, where her ladyship means to rest a few days before greeting her new husband."

"I'd be damned grateful for your company," the earl's man said, relieved. "Fifteen baggage carts, and all those horses is far more than I was expecting. I thought a coach, and perhaps one cart."

Red Hugh, Diarmid's uncle, sent twenty of the Glenkirk men back home to the duke, explaining the dilemma faced by the English escort. He knew that James Leslie would have expected him to do just what he did. The bridal party moved down into England, traveling at a good pace, but not so quickly that the carts could not keep up with the riders.

When they had at last reached Queen's Malvern, India sent the baggage carts and horses on to Oxton, but stopped in her brother's house to rest from her journey. She was delighted to find her sixteen-year-old sibling, the duke of Lundy, in residence. Brother and sister greeted each other warmly, hugging.

"Why aren't you at court?" India asked.

Charles Frederick Stuart rolled his eyes dramatically. "I couldn't take a moment more of it, India. The queen and Buckingham squabble over the king's attention and favor like two children. I don't know which of them is worse. I asked my uncle's permission to come home to Queen's Malvern to see my estates, although there is really nothing to see. They are all well taken care of, and I have nothing to do but hunt with Henry, and visit with him over at Cadby. Still, it is a pleasant change from court, where I am stalked constantly by ambitious mamas, forever thrusting their nubile daughters at me. I am too young to marry, as I keep telling them, but all those damned women see is my royal connections, my dukedom, and my fortune. It is really quite annoying, sister. When the right time comes, I shall pick my own bride."

India laughed, and, seating herself in a chair next to the fire, stretched her legs out. "How tragic for you to be so handsome, rich, and sought after, Charlie."

"Am I handsome, do y'think?" he asked her ingenuously.

"Very handsome," she replied.

"They say I look like my sire," he told her proudly.

India looked closely at her younger brother. "Aye, you do," she agreed. "I remember Prince Henry well. He was always so kind to us. It was sad when he died shortly after you were born."

"I would have liked to know him, but of course if he had lived, he couldn't have married Mama anyway, being old King James's heir, and Mama's bloodline not quite up to royal snuff."

"Mama was a royal Mughal princess," India said defensively. "Her father's family is just as old, and their blood as blue as that of the Royal Stuarts."

"Aye," Charlie responded affably, "but the Mughal Empire ain't England."

His sister laughed. "Aye, you're right," she told him.

He poured them goblets of wine, and they sat together for a time. "Tell me about this earl you've married?" he said.

"I know nothing about him really," India said. "He made an offer, and the duke of Glenkirk snapped at it like a hungry trout to a fly. He was quite eager to rid himself of me, Charlie."

"Tell me what happened?" the duke of Lundy asked his sister. "You disappeared for a time, and while Mama said you were first here and then there, I think it not the truth. And you are angry at Papa. Why, India? You were always his especial pet. What has happened to change all that? Tell me. I will keep your secrets, sister."

She told him everything in detail. Her attempted elopement. Her capture. Her resistance to Caynan Reis that grew slowly into a deep love for the dey of El Sinut. How their cousin had kidnapped her, and how she had learned of her husband's untimely death. She told of her return home, and the duke's decision to hide her away at A-Cuil, and his taking her son from her after Rowan was born. "I will never forgive him, Charlie. Considering the history of this family, how could he have done such a thing?"

"And then he jumped at the earl of Oxton's marriage offer," the young duke said. He shook his head. "I wish I could tell you something of the man, India, but other than the gossip surrounding Deverall Leigh's flight from England, and sudden return last year, I know nothing. He keeps to himself."

"It doesn't really matter," India said. "He is now my husband. The only way I could escape Glenkirk was to marry, and this man seemed as good a choice as any. His reputation is lightly tarnished, and so certainly he cannot mind if mine is, too."

"You may remain at Queen's Malvern as long as you like," her brother said to her. "I am happy for your company."

"Just a few days so I am well rested and able to cope with whatever I must face at Oxton," India told him.

Henry Lindley, the nineteen-year-old marquis of Westleigh, arrived the following morning. "I've come to stay until we escort India to her new husband at Oxton," he announced, kissing his sister soundly on both cheeks. "You've grown thin, lovey. Tell me what has happened."

They sat together in the family hall at Queen's Malvern eating baked apples and clotted cream while India told Henry what she had told Charlie the evening before. Her brother listened, his handsome face impassive but for his eyes, which mirrored his emotions.

"You've had a hard time of it," he said when she had finally concluded her tale. "I agree that our stepfather was harsh, but I can also understand his fear that you not be considered marriageable after such an adventure. Times have changed since our great-grandmother and her contemporaries' day. The Puritans are gaining power. They would call you a fallen woman, and make your life and your son's a misery, India," he concluded with a small smile. He was a very handsome young man with his father's tawny hair matching his Van Dyke mustache, and their mother's turquoise blue eyes.

"I might have known you would take his side," India said, half angry.

Henry Lindley shook his head. "I take no one's side, sister. As a man, however, I understand the duke's difficulty. If the truth had been known, both you and the child would have been ostracized. Your son ain't no royal Stuart, after all, and Mama barely got away with it herself, but that Prince Henry's parents were soft-hearted." Reaching out, he patted her hand. "Set your mind to making a new start, lovey, and mayhap you will get your child back if this husband you've taken falls in love with you, which he is bound to do if you will but smile and half try."

"And just when do you plan to take a wife, brother dear?" India cooed at him.

The marquis of Westleigh rolled his eyes. "God's blood, lovey. I ain't ready to settle down yet. Charlie and I have a few more oats to sow," he chuckled.

"You've been to court?" India was surprised.

"The winters are dull at Cadby," the marquis pronounced. "Aye, I spent the winter at court, and what a time of it it was. The parliament and the king constantly fighting over the muck-up that's been made in the war with Spain, and the fact that parliament don't think enough has been done to help the French Protestants. I sat in Lords a few times, and what I've heard was enough to keep me down here in the country in the future. Charles Stuart is a good man, but a terrible king, I regret to say."

The duke of Lundy nodded. "I fear for my uncle," he said. "It isn't just those who hate Buckingham, India, it's the fanatics as well. The king likes the Anglican service in church. He is accused of advancing and elevating the high churchmen, whom the Puritans call Arminians, over those churchmen who they prefer."

"What's the difference?" India asked him. "Church is church."

"Nay, Sister, not in the minds of those men. The high churchmen believe in free will rather than predestination to achieve salvation. They hold to a more Catholic ritual and rites in the church service. Their sermons are mightily long, and they are given to impromptu prayers. For the Puritans everything must be plain and hard, and just so. God's mercy extends only to those who do exactly what they say must be done. Ritual and rite are forbidden. It's all quite ridiculous on both sides."

"And then there was the Petition of Rights that was drawn up," the duke of Lundy said. "Lords concurred. We disapprove of forced loans to the royal treasury, which are never repaid. We dislike having the king's soldiers billeted in our homes without reimbursement, and we are against arrest and imprisonment without just cause. The king accepted the petition, but it is unlikely he'll abide by it. He dissolved the parliament when it threatened to impeach Buckingham for the mess in Spain. That's when Henry and me excused ourselves, and came home."

"There's going to be trouble sooner or later," Henry Lindley said darkly, "and I'd just as soon be safe at home when it comes."

For the next few days, India and her brothers forgot that they were grown now, and romped happily together. They hunted and fished. They rowed on the lake. They sat in the gardens of Queen's Malvern talking. They knew it would never be this way again for them. They voiced their sadness over the fact Fortune was not with them, and wondered what would happen to her in the next few months.

"She'll not accept any man she doesn't want," Henry said wisely, and his siblings agreed.

Finally they could delay no longer. It was less than a day's ride over to Oxton Court, and India knew she had to go. A dozen Glenkirk men would escort her before Red Hugh took his troupe north again into Scotland. Charlie Stuart and Henry Lindley rode with their sister. Diarmid and Meggie had gone on ahead the day before to tell the earl of Oxton that his bride would be arriving.

The respite from her travels had done India good. Her brother's servants had fed her and cosseted her for almost a week. Her eyes had lost their lackluster look, and sparkled golden again. She wore a rich blue silk riding outfit, trimmed lavishly in lace, and in cream-and-gold braid. Topping her dark curls was a blue velvet cap with two soft white plumes. She rode astride as she was accustomed to doing, but her full, long skirts were draped modestly to prevent any show of leg above her leather boots.

They left the hour after sunrise, stopping at a small inn to rest themselves and their horses at the midday hour. They reached Oxton Court in early afternoon. Red Hugh had sent a rider on ahead to warn the earl of their impending arrival. On the hill above Oxton, India looked down into the valley where the house was set. It was very beautiful. Her new home was of weathered old brick, the four wings built about a quadrangle. Sheep grazed placidly in the green meadows. She could see her horses browsing contentedly in the verdant pastures. A splash of color on one side of the house indicated gardens. It was a large and lovely old house with a slate roof that obviously had been built around the same time as Queen's Malvern. A small village with a church was clustered at the far end of the valley. India and her party began their descent.

The road wound through lush orchards, whose trees were already heavy with half-grown apples and pears. It was all very peaceful, and a wonderful place to raise children, India thought. Please God, she prayed. Let the earl be a kind man who will allow me to bring my son to live here. I will be a good wife to him, I promise. Just let me regain my wee Rowan again. He is all I have left of Caynan Reis.

They drew nearer to the house, and suddenly, from the courtyard, a man came walking, stopping just past the archway into the quadrangle. She strained to see his face, but the sun was in her eyes. All she could tell was that he was formally dressed in black to greet her. India shivered. What if they did not like each other? What if they could not come to some sort of arrangement? The horses stopped before the man, and, reaching up, he lifted India from her mount. She gazed shyly up at him, and was terrified by what she saw. A long scar ran from his left eye to the left corner of his mouth, and his blue eyes were icy. Unable to help herself, she shivered.

Her brothers had quickly dismounted, and Henry, stepping forward, held out his hand to the earl of Oxton. "I am Henry Lindley, sir, the marquis of Westleigh," he said. Then he drew his younger sibling forward. "And this is my brother, Charles Frederick Stuart, the duke of Lundy. We have brought our sister, Lady India, your bride, home to you, my lord."

Deverall Leigh shook hands with both young men. "I thank you, my lords," he said. "Will you stay the night with us?" He offered India his arm, and began to escort her through the archway into the courtyard.

"Thank you, my lord," Henry spoke for them both, "but we must return to Queen's Malvern so I may go home to Cadby tomorrow."

"You will take a cup of wine with us, though, gentlemen," the earl said. "Oxton Court is known for its hospitality, and I would not want it said I sent my bride's brothers on their way without refreshment."

"Thank you, my lord, we will," Henry replied.

"Ohhh, how lovely!" India exclaimed, her eyes sweeping about the quadrangle, which was lavishly planted with roses, and other flowers of all kinds. There was also a large fountain with a spray of water cooling the courtyard.

"You enjoy gardens, madame?" the earl asked her.

"Oh, yes!" India said, and she forced herself to smile up into that harsh face.

"I am glad then, for the house, and its gardens are yours to do with as you will," the earl responded politely.

They entered the house, and he brought them into the Great Hall, a room of soaring arches from which hung multicolored silk banners that had obviously once been carried into battle. The tall curvilinear windows that lined the hall allowed the golden afternoon light to pour into the room. At one end was a great stone fireplace flanked by lions. The highboard was set to one side of the fireplace, and at the other end of the room was a minstrel's gallery. Servants hurried forth with goblets of wine for all. They smiled shyly at India, who smiled back. The talk revolved about the earl's fine orchards, and he promised to send his two brothers-in-law baskets of both apples and pears after the harvest. India remained silent until the time came for her two brothers to depart.

"I wish you didn't have to go," she murmured softly, her eyes filling with tears.

"Make your peace quickly with the man," Henry said softly as he hugged her. "The scar is a bit frightening, but he doesn't seem a bad fellow." He kissed her on both cheeks. "I'm at Cadby if you need me," he concluded.

Charlie hugged her, too. "Behave yourself, my lady," he teased her with a grin, brushing a tear from her cheek that had, despite her best efforts, slipped from her eye.

"The pot calling the kettle black," she half laughed, kissing him and then swatting at him fondly.

"We're both near," Charlie responded softly, "if you need us, big sister."

And they were gone with her husband, who escorted her brothers from the hall and the house. India stood alone, not knowing what to do, or where to go. The earl had virtually ignored her since her arrival, and she could feel her temper rising. His greeting was hardly a warm one, and he had not spoken more than a dozen words to her. Then she caught herself. Perhaps he, too, was feeling the strain of this situation; meeting his wife for the very first time, wondering if they would like each other. Women were the softer sex, and it was up to her to put him at ease with her so she might be at ease with him.

When Deverall Leigh entered the hall again, India smiled at him. "I am happy to be here at last, my lord," she said pleasantly.

"You are very beautiful," he responded, "but I suppose you have been told that by many men."

"Not really so many if you count my brothers, my uncles, and all the rest of my male kin," India replied with another smile.

"When the king pardoned me, he advised me to seek a younger wife. How old are you, madame?" the earl said.

"I was twenty on the twenty-third of June," India told him. "Why did you not follow the king's advice?"

"Because I wanted you," he told her. "Why is it you were not wed before this, madame? It is said that you are flighty, and yet you chose a man you have never seen to marry. Why is that?"

India felt her temper rising again, but she swallowed it back. He was certainly being candid with her, and so she would be as honest with him. At least to a point. "I did not choose you, my lord. My stepfather, the duke of Glenkirk, chose you. I had refused all other offers that had come to me because they did not suit me. And for your information, I have been married before. A liaison I contracted in Europe when I was with my grandmother. He died, and I will not discuss it further. My stepfather chose you because it was the only offer he had received since my return. He was quite insistent that I be married again before there were no offers at all. Your family is suitable, and since your reputation is somewhat tarnished, the duke thought us an ideal match."

"Indeed," he said softly. God's blood, she was forthright with him, the little bitch; but then, she had always been. His eyes could not get enough of her, for he had always thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "Frankly, I am relieved you are not a virgin, madame," he told her. "Virgins are always most difficult to deal with, and I have not the patience. Would you like to see your apartments now? Your servants are awaiting you. We shall have to find something to do for Diarmid, however. What is his position?"

"He is my bodyguard," India replied sweetly.

He almost laughed, but refrained from his open amusement. "You will have no need for a bodyguard at Oxton Court, madame," the earl told her, "but as he is your maidservant's husband, you will find him a suitable place in the household. Come!" And, taking her gloved hand in his, he led her from the Great Hall, up the wide staircase, to her new apartments in the south wing of the house.

Meggie curtsied as they entered the room, and then ran forward to take her mistress's gloves, and cap. "Welcome home, my lady!" she said with a smile. " 'Tis so very lovely here, and his lordship has given us our own room for me and Diarmid!"

"I am glad you are content with the arrangement, Meggie," India said to her beaming servant. "Diarmid," she said to Meggie's husband, who was standing respectfully waiting to greet her, "can you write and do your numbers?"

"Aye, my lady, I can," he responded.

"Then you shall be steward of my personal household as the earl assures me I do not need a bodyguard at Oxton," India replied. She turned to her husband. "Does that not solve the problem, my lord?"

"Indeed, madame, quite neatly. You are quick-witted, I am pleased to note. I hope you will pass the trait on to our children." He saw the shadow pass quickly over her face. So quickly that had he not been looking directly at her he would have missed it. "Is everything all right, madame?" he queried her.

"Of course, my lord," she said swiftly.

So the mention of children disturbed her. False bitch! What had she done with their child? And that quick admission of a marriage to a husband dead that she would not discuss. Was he supposed to believe her so distraught with grief that she could not speak of it? Oh, she would pay for her perfidy, he promised himself silently. Then he said to her, "Will you dine with me tonight, madame? A wedding supper of sorts, one might say, after the minister blesses our union."

"Of course," she answered him, but she had longed to refuse. When he had spoken of children, she had wanted to weep with her pain over her son, but how could she have explained such behavior.

"1 will leave you then to rest from your ride," he said, bowing politely and withdrawing from her apartments.

She noted that he went through a small door in the wall, and not out into the hallway. She looked about the salon in which they were standing. It was a lovely room with light wood paneling decorated with gold trim. The large fireplace was flanked with standing angels. The draperies on the window were of a light-blue velvet trimmed with gold braid. The furniture was well polished, the upholstery and floral tapestry fresh, and bright. The floors were covered with Turkey carpets. There were silver candlesticks, and bowls of rose potpourri.

"Ain't it grand?" Meggie declared.

"It is as nice as my own family's houses," India agreed.

"Come see the bedchamber!" Meggie enthused, hurrying to open the door. Diarmid remained discreetly in the salon.

India had to admit she liked her new bedchamber very much. The draperies were her favorite shade of rose velvet, as were the matching bed hangings. The bed itself had an eight-foot headboard of linenfold paneling, and the carved canopy extended on all four sides of the bed. The pillars holding up the canopy were carved with leaves and vines. The bed was made with her own scented linens, featherbed, and pillows. On each side of the bed was a table, and upon each table a silver nightstick and tiny snuffer. The fireplace opposite the bed was flanked on either side with delicate stone deer, a doe and a buck. The andirons were well-polished brass. By the fireplace a comfortable chair had been set, and next to it, a candlestand. A cushioned window seat was built into the large box window to the right of the bed. On the opposite wall was a small refectory table and two straight chairs. The rest of the furniture was the usual carved chests. On the table was a bowl of roses.

"It's lovely," India finally spoke, "and you have put everything away, bless you, Meggie."

"Everything? Nay, not by any means, my lady. Diarmid and me will be busy unpacking those baggage carts for days," the maidservant said. "Let me take your gown now. You'll want a bit of a liedown before supper, I'm thinking."

"I want a bath," India asked. "I cannot change from my riding clothes into another dress smelling of horses."

"There's many that does," Meggie observed. "I've never known such a one for washing as yerself, my lady."

"I'd rather smell of flowers than stink of my own sweat," India replied. "Water is good for the skin. It keeps it soft, and you want to keep that wild highlander of yours by your side, don't you, Meggie. I saw some pretty little faces in the hall below."

"And let one of them try to make free with my husband," Meggie said, glowering, "and I'll snatch the trollop bald!"

India laughed, and then she sobered, realizing that she had felt the very same way about Caynan Reis. She very much doubted if she would feel that strongly about Deverall Leigh. Still, she was married to him, and would have to make the best of it, especially if she was to regain her son, Rowan. She had already begun by telling him she had been previously married. He had not, thank God, asked if she had had any children. She was not ready to share that with him. He might very well be glad she had not brought her child, not wanting another man's son in his house to raise. No. I must gain his favor and trust before I mention my child to this man, she thought with surety. He does not look sympathetic, or easily led.

She had a leisurely bath, and then napped for a short time. Awakening, she allowed Meggie to dress her in cream-colored silk brocade trimmed in lace, the gown prepared for the church ceremony here at Oxton. It was to take place this evening in the estate church. The earl had said that he wanted the official formalities celebrated immediately. Meggie affixed the Stars of Kashmir about her neck, and slipped the ear bobs into her ears. India touched them wonderingly. What history they held!

She descended the staircase to find him awaiting her. "The church is but a short walk," he said, handing her a nosegay of sweet white flowers and offering her his arm.

Outside, the sun was setting to the west over the Malvern Hills. To the east, the moon was rising. It was very still, and only the faintest breeze ruffled her curls.

The little stone church was filled with the servants, including Meggie and Diarmid. It was softly lit with beeswax candles. The minister greeted them, and announced to the assembled that, as the earl of Oxton and his bride had accepted the proxy marriage celebrated at Glenkirk on the thirtieth day of May, in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and twenty-eight, they were legally and lawfully wed. Now, tonight, on this eighteenth day of July, he would give the blessing in God's name, on behalf of His Majesty, the king. The couple knelt, and the minister intoned, " 'Those whom God hath joined together, let no man rent asunder. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' "

"Amen!" the congregation replied.

"Now, my lord," the minister said, his eyes twinkling, "you are quite free to kiss your bride."

India's eyes widened as his lips brushed her coolly. Kiss? She hadn't thought of kissing. And lovemaking! Oh, my God! In her anger and her eagerness to escape Glenkirk, she had put from her head these more intimate matters. About her, the assembled cheered, and the earl led her from the church.

"You are surprised I kissed you," he said as they walked back to the house.

"It was hardly a kiss, my lord," she replied. "More like a butterfly brushing my lips."

"Passion should be a private matter between a man and his wife, madame," he said reprovingly. "I could hardly avoid the formality when the Reverend Master Barton was encouraging me to it so publicly, and in such a loud voice. We would have disappointed the servants."

"If I asked for a respite from your company tonight so I might recover from my journey, would we disappoint the servants?" she asked him boldly.

"You would disappoint me," he told her. "Besides, you had several days in your brothers' company at Queen's Malvern to regain your strength, madame."

"I am not ready yet for a man in my bed," India said frankly.

"Why?"

She stumbled, but he caught her up before she might fall. "I don't know really. I just know I am not."

"Obviously, your experience with men is slight," he said quietly, "but I am ready to have a wife in my bed, madame, and you are that wife. You are merely shy, which speaks well of your character. I am no monster." And I cannot wait to have you in my arms again, you false bitch, he thought to himself. You will yield yourself to me whether you will or no. I have spent months dreaming of this night, and you will not deny me, India. You will never deny me again!

It had all gone as he had expected so far. She had not recognized the earl of Oxton as the dey of El Sinut. Why should she? The earl of Oxton had short, dark hair, a rather sinister scar marking his face, and was clean-shaven, which gave his high cheekbones and jaw a totally different look. He spoke English. The dey of El Sinut had had a close-cropped dark black beard that fringed his jaw and encircled itself sensuously about his mouth and chin. His skin was bronzed from the hot sun. He spoke French to her in a soft voice, the voice of a lover in the language of love. But when he made love to her tonight, it would not be as the dey of El Sinut had made love to her, all sweetness and passion. It would be as the earl of Oxton would make love to his wife.

He was yet angry with her. How could she have left him after declaring her love for him? When she was ripening with their child? Adrian had given him the answer when he had said India's loyalty to her family was greater than any other loyalty. If he had not been forced to flee El Sinut himself, he might have never found her again. And where was their child? He would, of course, have to reveal himself to her eventually if he was to regain custody of his child, but for the moment, he intended taking his revenge upon her. He could not believe her so insensitive that she would have left the child in danger of any kind. There was time. And did he have a son or a daughter?

They ate dinner in the little family hall. There were but the two of them. There were raw oysters brought to the earl which he swallowed with relish, his eyes making deliberate contact with hers at one point, and she blushed to her dismay. There was a small roast of beef; a duck stuffed with fruit and rice in a sauce of wine and plums; a lovely broiled trout set upon a bed of braised lettuce, surrounded by carved lemons, an extravagance; a bowl of tiny new peas, and another of little carrots; fresh bread, sweet butter, and half a wheel of hard, sharp cheese.

He watched her nibbling unenthusiastically at a slice of beef, a spoonful of carrots, some bread. "You are not hungry?" he asked.

"It is all very good, and well prepared," India quickly said, sipping upon her second goblet of rich red wine. "My appetite has been poor of late, I fear, my lord. Food upon the road is often not of the best quality, even at the finest inns."

"When you have finished, then," he told her, "you may go to your chamber and prepare yourself for me, madame."

She practically leapt from her place, and, curtseying to him, fled the hall.

He smiled wolfishly watching her go. India was not a woman to admit to fear, but she was afraid, and he knew it.

She could feel his eyes, those cold blue eyes, boring into her back as she went. God's blood! What kind of a man was he to insist on bedding her immediately? True, they were man and wife, but they had met but a few hours ago. They knew virtually nothing about each other. Then, in a flash, she understood. If the marriage were consummated, she could not demand an annulment. After all, had she not told him quite bluntly that marriage to him had not been her choice? He, of course, would want to take no chances with losing her dowry, or a rich wife who controlled her own wealth but could undoubtedly be cozened into parting with some, or all of it. Men! They were so obvious. He was no different from the rest, but then, she had not expected that he would be.

She was no virgin to be terrified of a man's love lance. As for her husband, he would probably assert his rights in a brusque and perfunctory manner, then return to his own bedchamber. She wasn't the first woman to be in such a position, nor would she be the last. It would have been nice if they might have gotten to know each other a bit before coupling, but so be it.

"You looked so lovely in that candlelit church, m'lady," Meggie said, taking the Stars of Kashmir from her mistress and replacing them in their case. "I've laid out a lovely nightdress for you." She bustled about, taking India's garments, shaking and brushing them, and putting them neatly away. "The earl seems a pleasant gentleman."

"Aye," she said.

" 'Tis a terrible scar he wears on his face, poor man," Meggie noted. "I wonder how he got it. He don't seem the type of gentleman to get into a brawl. Mayhap it were an accident."

India took the soft flannel cloth that had been laid out, and sponged herself off with the warm, scented water Meggie had put in a silver ewer. Then she scrubbed her teeth with the cloth, rinsing her mouth with minted water. She slipped behind the painted screen in the corner of her dressing room, and, sitting on her commode, relieved herself, washing herself afterwards. Finally she pulled off her chemise, and Meggie slipped the rose-colored nightdress lavishly edged in lace over her head.

"Find your own bed now, Meggie," India said quietly, and, taking up her silver hairbrush, she sat on the edge of her bed, brushing her long, dark curls, as, with a curtsey, Meggie hurried out the bedchamber door. India smiled after her. Meggie was obviously finding married life with Diarmid a pleasant thing. She looked about the room again, admiring the serenity and order of it. The fireplace burned brightly, and but for the two candles on the nightstand there was no other light. Meggie had drawn the draperies closed. The room was comfortably warm, and she could smell the heady scent of the roses from the bowl on the table.

A small door in the paneled wall opened, and the earl stepped through into the room. To her complete surprise, he was naked. "Remove your nightdress," he said quietly as the door behind him closed. "Unless you are suffering your woman's cycle, are greatly advanced with child, or I tell you I will not be visiting your bed, you will always sleep naked, India, as do I. Do you understand me?" Then he stood watching as she removed her garment, nodding in answer to his question. "Good," he said. His eyes swept over her. "You have a beautiful body, madame."

She was nonplussed. She certainly hadn't expected him to behave in such a manner. It was very disconcerting.

Reaching out, he put his hands about her waist and turned her, drawing her back against his hard body. A single hand clamped over her right breast. His lips touched her shoulder, scattering a row of kisses across the warm flesh, even as his fingers crushed and marked the skin of her full breast.

She couldn't breathe. Her chest felt tight. His actions were not what she had anticipated at all. She could sense the lust beneath his careful deeds. He frankly frightened her. He was obviously dangerous. He was her husband, and she was at his mercy. India struggled against her own fright. She knew she must not show any fear with this man, but when he pushed a finger between her lips and into her mouth, she could not prevent a gasp of surprise.

"Lick it!" The two words were snapped into her ear sharply.

After a moment's hesitation, her tongue reached out and touched the finger. Slowly she encircled the digit several times. It was long and thick, and very suggestive of another member of his body.

"Suck it!" His hand opened, then slipped beneath her breast, cupping it. His thumb began to rub against her nipple.

India could feel her heart hammering in her ears. She drew on the finger within her mouth over and over again while his hand fondled her breast hungrily, and her nipples puckered like frosted flower buds.

The hand moved from her breast finally, sliding down her torso, caressing her Venus mound. Pushing through the folds of her nether lips, he found her pleasure place and began to stroke it with his fingertip. "What a sweet wanton you are," he whispered in her ear. "You are already wet with your desire. You want to be fucked, don't you, madame?" He pulled his finger from her mouth so she might speak.

"You are my husband," India replied in a shaking voice.

He laughed, and it was a dark sound. "Little whore," he murmured. "You would want to be fucked even if I weren't your husband, wouldn't you?" The finger playing with her pleasure place was obtaining the proper results, and she squirmed her bottom against his groin, desperate to reach that honied place where the tensions in her loins would dissolve in a burst of hot sweetness.

In that moment she hated him, for she was fully aware that he knew what he was withholding from her. The knowledge gave her a moment of strength, and she pulled away from him, whirling about to face those cold eyes. "How dare you speak to me in such a manner, my lord? I am your wife, and not some servant girl to be insulted!"

He moved quickly, one arm wrapping itself about her, the other hand tangling into her dark hair. His mouth found hers in a long, hard, deep kiss that left her once again breathless. Shoving her down onto the bed, he flung himself atop her, his hands spreading her open. Without a word, he entered her body with strong thrusts of his hips, pushing deeply even as she attempted to unhorse him, spitting her rage and swearing fiercely at him.

But it was too late. He had prepared her well, and while India wanted desperately to deny him, her body welcomed him eagerly. She was hot and wet. Her tight sheath encased him. They groaned in unison as their linked bodies pleasured each other. She clawed at his broad back. He caught her hands and pinioned them over her head, struggling to propel himself deeper.

"Put your legs about me, you eager little bitch," he growled into her ear, and without hesitation, she did, using her wrapped limbs to lever herself forward and sink her teeth into his shoulder. He yelped, but continued pistoning her.

She couldn't… she couldn't fight him any longer. She fell back gasping like a fish out of water, drawing great gulps of air into her lungs even as she felt herself shoved up to the heights of a frenzy of heated passion that burst over her and then receded, leaving her weakened, and helpless. "Ohh, God!" she sobbed as release flooded her very being. "Ohh, I hate you for this!" And she shuddered with the final spasms of her defeat.

He lay atop her for some minutes, his heart hammering, his breathing rough. It had been so long. So long since he had known the pleasure of her body, and the sweet fulfillment that only she could give him. He wanted to wrap his arms about her. Tell her the truth. But he couldn't because he couldn't trust her. She was a hot-blooded and deceitful little bitch. No better than his stepmother had been. She would yield her body to gain her own way. He rolled off India, and arose from the bed. "Good night, madame," he said, and returned through the door in the wall from which he had come.

India lay astounded. She was battered, and probably bruised. Every bit of her ached, and yet she felt quite relaxed and shamefully satisfied. He had called her a wanton, a little whore. He had almost made her feel like one. The single kiss he had given her had been a fiercely passionate one. Her fingers touched her mouth. His lips had triggered a reminiscence that she could not quite pull up from her memories. She began to cry softly, not even understanding why she was weeping.

He had behaved like a complete bastard, and she had not expected it at all. A quick assertion of his marital rights and nothing more was what she had assumed. That this cold, stern man was capable of such heated passion astonished her. India crawled beneath the down coverlet, curling herself into a tight knot. She realized that she was trembling, and the tears were hot on her face. What had she done in agreeing to this marriage, and what other surprises had her husband in store for her? She wanted to be loved. Loved by a man who no longer existed, and not by Deverall Leigh, the earl of Oxton. Were it not for my baby, she thought, Ishould just as soon be dead.

He heard her weeping, and every instinct made him want to go to her, but he would not. She wept, the deceitful bitch, only because he had been rough with her, but God help him, she had inflamed his senses. The touch of her skin, the familiar scent of her. They had all conspired to drive him to madness. She would probably hate him in the morning, but he didn't care. Why should he care about how she felt? She had deceived him and then deserted him. He didn't know if he could ever forgive her, but he didn't care. He was going to fill her belly again with his seed, and this time he would not let her steal this child away.

^{Chapter 21}

India awoke the following morning still feeling as if she had been in a battle. She could see a thin ribbon of light through the crack between the two draperies. She listened carefully but heard nothing, and so she quickly arose and slipped her nightdress back on before Meggie could find her without it. It had been the oddest wedding night that anyone could imagine, she decided, climbing back into her warm bed. He had, she concluded, been neither cruel or brutal, just simply very determined in his approach to her. Still, she could see she was going to have to teach him better bedchamber manners. While he had been careful to see she obtained her share of passion, she realized upon reflection, he had forced it from her, rather than coaxing it. He obviously knew little about making love to a woman, and that was going to have to change, India concluded.

She did not see her husband until evening when they met at the highboard for their meal. She had spent her day helping Meggie and Diarmid to unpack her belongings. She told him so, and then inquired about his day and activities.

"I oversee my estates," he told her. "I am not a man for court now that I have the responsibilities of Oxton. We support ourselves here through our flocks and our orchards. Perhaps you noticed the fruit ripening as you arrived yesterday. With your dower horses, I hope to breed racing animals, madame. Are the horses Irish stock?"

"Yes," she answered, "they are. The Irish lands were given to my mother on her eighteenth birthday by my father, the marquis of Westleigh. Her estate manager is the former owner of the land. He chose a fine stallion, Nightsong, and the mares personally. Now the estate will be turned over to my younger sister, Fortune, for her dowry."

"I am grateful to you for the stallion and the breeding stock," the earl said to his wife. "Now, madame, I have something to discuss with you. The servants in this house are all old, and have been in service here since my late father's youth. It is past time that they were retired to their cottages on the estate, and most wish to go. It will be your responsibility to staff the household. Can you do it?"

"With the help of the present staff, yes, I can," India said, flattered that he was vesting this decision in her. "Diarmid More-Leslie will become the majordomo of the household. I will ask Dover to teach him his duties before he retires. Will that meet with your approval, my lord? It is your home first, and I would not offend you in any manner."

The barest ghost of a smile touched his mouth for just a brief moment. "If you will but consult me before any final decisions are made, madame, that will suit me well," he said.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence. Then India arose to excuse herself. "It is my custom to take a bath before I retire each night," she said softly. "Will you be joining me later, my lord?"

"Aye," he said, and nothing more.

She curtsied, and went to her apartments. He was such an odd man, she thought. Meggie had her bath ready. Undressed, she climbed into the warm, scented tub and washed herself, being careful to pin her curls atop her head. When she was dry, and in her nightdress, Meggie and Diarmid together emptied the tub and stored it away before bidding her a pleasant night. When they had gone, India arose, removed her gown, and laid it carefully upon a chair before climbing back into her bed and snuggling beneath the down coverlet.

The curtains were drawn once again. The firelight lit the room. Meggie had forgotten to light the tapers on either side of the bed, but India didn't mind. She dozed half seated against her pillow, awakening when she heard the sharp click of the door in the paneling. As the previous night, the earl entered her bedchamber naked, but this time she had a small opportunity to observe him. He was well made, she could see, with no deformities. There was a dark mat of hair upon his broad chest that extended into a narrow treasure trail leading to his groin. His masculine parts were also extremely well made, she noted, large and healthy.

Lifting the coverlet, he climbed into bed beside her. "I am pleased to see that you followed my instructions," he told her.

"Asking me to be naked in my bed for your attentions is hardly an onerous order, my lord husband," India answered him.

"Lay back," he said, throwing the bedcoverings aside. "I wish to examine you in more detail, madame. I did not have the opportunity last night to do so. I would see what Glenkirk has sent me."

"Like one of my mares," she mocked him sharply.

"Precisely, madame," he told her, and took up her hand.

"Our situation is intimate, sir," she replied. "Will you not call me by my given name, and permit me to call you by your name? In public, formality is required, I understand, but surely not here in my bed." He was kissing each of her fingertips, having examined her hand in great detail.

He put one of her fingers in his mouth, and began to suck on it slowly, drawing on the finger deeply, his tongue working its way about the slim digit. His other hand slid between her thighs, and began to play with her sex. When she was wet with her arousal, he took his finger and pushed it into her mouth, and, without being asked, she began to suck upon it. "That is how you taste," he said softly. He sucked harder on her finger.

Her eyes were wide with shock, but her blood was pulsing with excitement. This cold and correct husband of hers was the most sensual man she had ever encountered. Even her beloved Caynan Reis had not been so strongly animalistic. India shivered, and pulled the finger from her mouth.

"Are you cold, India?" he asked her solicitously, drawing her finger from his mouth and kissing the palm of her hand ardently.

"Why do you taunt me, Deverall?" she whispered.

"I am attempting to make up for my crude behavior of last night," he said innocently. "I am trying to make love to you, India, but perhaps you preferred being thrown on your back and roughly fucked." Leaning over, he nuzzled her ear. "Do you like being taken that way?"

"No!" she managed to husk out as his tongue made circles in the shell of her ear.

"I imagine you thought I had no manners suitable for a lady's chamber," he almost purred at her.

"Aye," she quickly answered, "I did!"

"Then let me prove otherwise to you, India," he said, pressing her back into her pillows and kissing her, his lips warm and firm against her own.

To her surprise, the kiss was a tender one, but then it began to deepen, and his tongue was pushing into her mouth to meet with hers. She trembled. His mouth. The kisses he kissed her. Why did they touch a chord somewhere within her? She wanted to weep again.

He was startled to feel the wetness on her cheeks, the salty tears against his mouth. Why was she crying? He knew instinctively not to question her. Instead, he took her face between his two hands and kissed the tears from it, pretending he believed her emotions stemmed from his passion toward her. "Do not weep, India," he said. "I will never be rough with you again," he said. "Would you prefer if I left you now?"

"I want to be a good wife to you," she half sobbed. Ohh, God's blood, she was behaving like a perfect ninny!

He took her declaration to mean that he was to stay. He let his kisses move down her throat and across her chest. She murmured, and calmed. He kissed her breasts gently, and then he took a nipple into his mouth, suckling upon it, gently at first, and then harder.

Her fingers dug into his shoulder as his mouth worked her. She remembered once telling Caynan Reis that she wondered what manner of woman she was to enjoy his attentions so avidly when such pleasure should be reserved for a husband and wife. This man, his dark head lowered to her bosom, was her husband, yet he was making her feel like a perfect wanton. She did not truly know him, and yet his attentions were arousing her to a frenzy. She murmured, and caressed his hair.

Bitch, he thought. Wanton bitch! She responded to his attentions eagerly, although she struggled to hide her feelings. How quickly she had forgotten Caynan Reis. Now she murmured, and moaned with her rising arousal as he stroked and petted her. He could have killed her did he not love her so damned much. He began to kiss her again, his lips wandering across her torso. Her belly was sweetly rounded, and he licked the quivering flesh, causing her to cry out softly with her pleasure. She needed to be punished, he thought irrationally. Spreading her, he drew her slender legs with their silken thighs over his shoulders, and, sitting back upon his haunches, he drew her to him.

India shrieked her surprise as his mouth made contact with the most intimate part of her. He gripped her buttocks firmly in his two big hands, and his head buried itself in her sweetness, his lips mashing themselves against her nether lips, his tongue running up and down her slit before pushing through to find her pleasure place. Her head spun with her rising passion, and she panted like an animal. "Deverall! Dev! Oh,God, my lord, you are killing me!" The first wave crashed into her. She could feel his teeth, gently, oh so very gently, nibbling on her flesh. She cried out, shuddering violently. The second wave raised her up. His flickering tongue teased, and teased, and teased at her sensitivity, and then plunged as deeply as it could into her sheath. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried. Then he released her but a moment before pressing his body against hers and plunging into her. She screamed her pleasure as the third wave flung her down, and down, and down.

He thrust again and again into the hot, honied sheath welcoming him. There had never been a woman like India, and there would never be one like her no matter she was a lying and deceitful little bitch. He could feel himself swelling, then breaking, his love juices flooding her womb. He lifted his dark head a moment to kiss her lips, and saw that she was practically insensible with his passion. He brushed his mouth across hers, whispering softly, "Je t'aime settlement, ma bijou! Settlement toi, India. Ma femme precieuse. Seulement toi!"

In her half-conscious state she heard his voice. "Mon seigneur Caynan, she whispered, "Je t'aime aussi. Ahh, retournez-moi! C'est un rêve." Then she fell into an exhausted sleep.

I love you also. Return to me. This is a dream. Her soft words slammed into him with violent force. What did she mean by such words? She had deserted him. Or had she? Both Baba Hassan and Azura had insisted India would not leave him willingly, yet he had thought otherwise. During most of her time with him she had been defiant, and eager to be free. When she had disappeared, he had assumed that she had been but feigning her love for him and run off with her cousin.

Why had he even thought such a thing? Because in his heart he had not trusted her. He had never trusted women since the time his stepmother had seduced him, and then laughingly rejected him when another lover took her fancy. She had made a man of him, MariElena told him, but he quickly realized she had done it in order to have a wedge to drive between him and his father. Worse, he was bitterly ashamed of having betrayed his sire. Then she had warned him mockingly that he must never trust a woman again. He had taken her advice to heart.

But suddenly he was beset by his own doubts that he might have been wrong about India. What if she had indeed been kidnapped by her cousin, the sea captain? What if she had not gone willingly, and been forced to return to her family in Scotland? He had renounced her as dey of El Sinut. If his rule had not been overthrown, and he returned to England, what would have become of her? The duke of Glenkirk would obviously have accepted any decent offer for her, believing he was doing the right thing by his stepdaughter. But what of their child? Had she had the baby, and what had become of it?

Deverall Leigh arose from the bed, and returned to his own bedchamber. He slipped his nightshirt over his long, lean body, and began pacing the room. How was he to reveal himself to India? How could he face her having believed her so unworthy of his trust? He knew India. She was going to be furious. Had she not once taken his own dagger to him in a rage? And this situation was much, much worse. He needed time to think. He would shut himself off from her for a few days and try to decide how to get himself out of this disastrous mess he had so easily gotten himself into thanks to his overweening pride.

India did not see her husband for several days. He sent word the following morning that he must ride out across his estates for the next few days. She was free to pursue her own interests. After the furious passion of the previous evening, India was relieved. This strange, intense man was a puzzle she needed time to solve. She began the task of replacing the servants, and having them trained by their predecessors, who were eager to now retire. Dover, who had been the majordomo, was full of advice and local information. He liked Diarmid, telling him he had worried about who would replace him.

"Ain't none here with the polish and snap as is needed in such a position," he said. "I followed poor old Rogers because I had been his assistant in London. After the earl was accused of murder, we never went back to London. Oh, young Master Adrian did, but the family never did. The folk hereabouts likes you. You'll do fine."

Diarmid laughed. "I'm flattered that you think so," he said to the old man, "but I'm naught but a highland lad. I'll need all the help ye can give me, Dover."

" 'Taint the experience, laddie," Dover told the Scotsman. " 'Tis the bearing and the attitude, and you have both," he said wisely.

The only one of the servants refusing to retire was Mrs. Cranston, the cook. "I only replaced Mrs. Dover when she died some eight years ago," she told India. "I'm years younger than the rest of them as you can plainly see, m'lady, and I'm not ready to be put out to pasture yet!" She stood before her young mistress, hands upon her ample hips, her white cap bobbing vigorously, her plump cheeks red with the constant heat of her kitchens.

"Do you need any more help?" India asked her.

"Well," Mrs. Cranston allowed, "most of them is young, and suits me fine, but if I might have a pot boy, and one more lass to scrub, I'd be most grateful, yer ladyship."

"Have you anyone in mind?" India asked cleverly.

"Well, yer ladyship, I do. 'Tis a young niece and nephew of mine that I would place in your service. They're honest children, and will do their work well, for they've had obedience beaten into them by my sister, their mother."

"His lordship must make the final decision, Mrs. Cranston, but I believe he will concur that your niece and nephew are suitable. Bring them into the house. They will have their wages at Michaelmas, and be given room and board. What are their ages?"

"The lad is nine, and the lass eleven, your ladyship," Mrs. Cranston replied, smiling broadly, "and I thank you kindly."

To India's surprise, her husband did not arrive back home for some five days. Entering the house, he noted many new faces smiling at him. At the evening meal India told him of all the changes she had made, with his permission, of course. He approved it all, and India sent immediate word to the staff as she retired to her apartments to await her husband's coming. She bathed, and, dismissing Meggie, climbed into her bed.

When he entered her chamber, she was surprised to find he was wearing a white silk nightshirt. "We must talk," he said quietly, and began to pace back and forth about the room.

"About what?" she asked him, wondering what it was she might have done to displease this strange man.

"Tell me about your first husband," he said bluntly.

Her heart leapt in her chest. What could he possibly have heard? Had Adrian somehow returned, and exposed her adventures to his elder brother? "What do you wish to know?" she ventured nervously.

"You said he died." Deverall Leigh was looking directly at her.

"Yes," India answered. Her fingers clutched at the coverlet.

"How?"

"There was a rebellion in his country," she answered him. "He was killed." Her chest felt tight, and she could feel tears coming.

"How do you know he was killed?" the earl persisted.

"How?" What did this man want from her? She swallowed back her tears.

"Yes. How?"

"I was with my grandmother, Lady Stewart-Hepburn, in Naples. She was arranging for my return to my husband when word came of the rebellion, and that my husband had been killed in it. I never returned back to my husband's lands again. Lady Stewart-Hepburn returned with me to Glenkirk. I was content to buy myself a house here in England, and live quietly the rest of my days, but my stepfather would not have it. I told you it was he who insisted that I remarry. I did so to escape him, and to regain control of my own wealth. Nevertheless, my lord, I shall endeavor to be a good wife to you in all ways. We need not be enemies."

She had thought him dead. But that did not solve the problem of how she got to Naples, although he was certain it was in the ship stolen by Thomas Southwood. He pressed her further. "Just who was this man to whom you were wed, India? What was his name?"

India closed her eyes a moment to regain her composure. Then, looking directly at him, she said, "My husband's name was Caynan Reis, and he was the dey of the Barbary State of El Sinut. Are you content now, my lord? I was a captive, and I was made the dey's wife because we fell in love with each other! Are you horrified? Will you divorce me now that you have discovered that I was the beloved of an infidel?"

"How did a dey's wife get to Naples?" he demanded. "Is it not unusual for a woman of the harem to be allowed to travel so far?"

"What does it matter how I got to Naples?" India cried. "Why do you pursue this matter, my lord? Why should you care?"

He ceased his pacing, and sat down upon the bed next to her. Taking her face between his two hands, he said to her, "Regardez-moi, India. Look at me!" The blue eyes softened. "Do you not recognize Caynan Reis in Deverall Leigh? The beard is gone, and I have a scar, but can you not see me, my love?"

Her eyes widened in shock. His mouth! His kisses! That was what had been niggling at her all this time. "You bastard!" she hissed venomously at him, pulling away from his hands, leaping naked from the other side of the bed. "You bloody bastard! How could you have done this to me? And you say you love me? I will kill you!" Reaching for the nearest object at hand, she flung the bowl of roses at him.

" 'Tis I who should kill you," he shouted back at her, ducking, "but not before I find out what you did with my child!"

"Your child? Your child!" she shrieked. "Is that what this has been all about? Your child?" Grabbing up her silver hairbrush, she hurled it at him. "Why could you not have come to Glenkirk to reclaim me? Do you know what I have suffered over you, my lord?" Her eyes cast about for another object to throw at him, but the room was virtually empty of such trinkets. She bared her teeth at him, moving about the bed toward him. Then she launched herself at him, fists pummeling him, nails seeking out his eyes.

He would have laughed at this naked fury if the situation had not been so serious, but now he realized if he did not calm her anger, and indeed his, nothing would be resolved between them. He caught her hands in his, and, forcing them to her sides, wrapped her in his embrace. "India, India," he pleaded. "There is some terrible misunderstanding between us, and we must rectify it. Stop struggling, you little wildcat, and tell me how you got to Naples? It was with Tom Southwood, wasn't it?"

She squirmed against him, pulling half free of his grasp. "I can say nothing if you persist in smothering me," she snarled at him.

He loosened his grip slightly, but not enough so she might do him a mischief. "How did you get to Naples?" he repeated.

"That fool of a cousin of mine learned of a small section of wall that surrounded your garden that opened onto a narrow public street. He had wheedled the information out of Aruj Agha by means of flattery. He came with one of his men the night of the terrible storm. I told him I loved you. That I was content to remain in El Sinut. I tried to reason with him. I might have cried out, if indeed the guards could have even heard me over all the thunder that night, but he was my cousin. I did not want to be responsible for his death. It meant nothing to me that he chose to escape El Sinut just as long as he left me in peace, but no, Tom would not listen. He assaulted me, knocking me unconscious, hauled me over that damned wall, and dumped me in Naples. Meggie came, too, rather than be left behind.

"Once we were in Naples I told Lady Stewart-Hepburn the truth, that I loved you, and was with child. I had never had a chance to tell my cousin that I was enceinte. Cat, that is what I call my stepgrandmother, agreed that I should go back, but then we heard about the rebellion, and were told that the dey had been killed. When I learned that, I nearly died myself. Cat brought me back to Scotland, but when Glenkirk learned of my condition, he banished me to the family's hunting lodge in the mountains with Meggie and Diarmid. My sister, Fortune, insisted on coming with me, and there we remained until Rowan was born."

"Rowan?" He stared down into her face.

"Our son. I named him after my father," she said softly.

"Where is he?" Deverall Leigh demanded.

"I do not know," India replied, her eyes filling with tears.

"You do not know? Madame, what have you done with my son?" he shouted at her angrily.

"I have done nothing. Glenkirk took the lad from me shortly after his birth, and hid him away. He would never say where," India told him, her chin quivering with her emotions. "But none of this would have happened if you had come to Glenkirk to reclaim me instead of playing this perverted game with me! Why, my lord? Why have you done this to me? Why?" she sobbed.

"Because I am a fool," he said sadly. "I thought you had deserted me, India, had willingly gone off with Captain Southwood. Baba Hassan, and Azura defended you, but I would not listen." He told her of his stepmother, and why he had been unable to trust women.

India sighed sadly. Then she asked him, "But how is it you were able to return to England, and how on earth did you get that scar on your face, Deverall?"

"Adrian is responsible for my return. He caught a fever, and I revealed myself to him. When I did, he told me that it had been a plot of my stepmother's to kill Lord Jeffers, and blame me so he might inherit. MariElena did the deed herself with poison. Then she implicated my brother, who was still a child, by having him place the knife in a dead man's chest. Adrian dictated a confession, and signed it. I kept it for myself, and had no intention of returning to England; but the janissaries had learned of my warning to the sultan, which had put an end to their plans to overthrow him and his mother. They sent troops from Algiers and Tunis to invade El Sinut, and the sultan looked the other way. I was to be sacrificed to their revenge. Fortunately, Baba Hassan learned of it just in time, and arranged for my flight. On our way to the harbor I was surprised by a young janissary eager to make a reputation. The scar is from his cowardly blow. Fortunately for me Aruj Agha was nearby. He killed the assailant, and I was able to make good my escape."

"But what of the others in the palace?" India asked.

"Aruj Agha promised to see they were taken care of, and as he has been appointed the new dey, according to my sources, I think we can both rest assured that they are safe," the earl told his wife. Then his arms tightened about her again. "Do you know how much I love you, India?"

"But you do not trust me, my lord, and I do not know if I can forgive you that," she said quietly.

"I will never mistrust you again," he vowed, and, tipping her face up to his, he sealed his words with a kiss.

"Diarmid!" India suddenly cried, breaking away from her husband. "Diarmid will know where Rowan is, for it was he who took the baby away at my stepfather's request."

"Glenkirk would not harm the lad?"

"No," India said firmly. "His only purpose in taking him was to make certain I appeared respectable to you. One reason I mentioned my first husband was that I hoped to gain your respect, and perhaps even your love eventually. Then I would have told you of the child, and asked to bring him here to raise with our other children. My mother swore she would learn where the child was hidden, and make certain Rowan was all right. I did not desert our son willingly, Deverall, and I did what I could to find him. At Glenkirk, however, it is very different from here in England. No one will oppose the duke. Their loyalty is strong. Many are bound by family ties of one sort or another. I did my best for Rowan, and now I long to hold him in my arms!"

"In the morning we will question Diarmid, madame," he said. "Then we shall go north together to regain custody of our child," he promised her, smiling for the first time.

"Send Diarmid ahead," she told him. "They plan to go to Ireland this summer to seek a husband for Fortune. If we do not get word to them before they have gone, no one will help us. It is probably already too late, I fear." And her eyes filled with tears again.

"Diarmid's loyalty must be to Oxton now," the earl said quietly. "He will tell us, and then we shall fetch our son ourselves, India. This I promise you, my beloved. We do not need Glenkirk's permission. And I will always trust you from now on, my darling. Look what my foolishness has almost cost us both."

"And my foolishness, too," she admitted graciously. "We must make a memorial for Adrian. Poor boy. Had he not eloped with me he would still be alive today."

"Had he not attempted to elope with you," he corrected her, "we should have never found each other, and I should not have been so bedazzled by my love for you that I came across two seas to be reunited with you, my beautiful first wife."

"Your beautiful only wife," she said, laughing up at him. "You had best get used to me, Deverall Leigh, for you shall never have another wife!" Then Lady India Anne Lindley-Leigh kissed her husband passionately, and Deverall Leigh, earl of Oxton, knew that she spoke the absolute truth.