Wild Jasmine (61 page)

“There’s no inn such as you are used to,” the Irishman told them. “I arranged with this farmer’s family to feed you at midday.”

“I must get off my horse,” Jasmine said, and Rowan quickly dismounted to help his wife. “Is there no place we may sit ourselves, Master Maguire, while we eat? It is beginning to rain again, and while I do not mind riding in the rain, I do object to picnicking in it.” Jasmine shook her damp green velvet riding skirts irritably. She hated riding sidesaddle, and wet skirts were the most damnable inconvenience.

“We can eat inside,” Rory Maguire said, “but ’tis a poor place, like many in Ireland. It may shock yer ladyship.”

“Your solicitude is commendable, Master Maguire,” she told him, annoyed. This coachman was behaving in a manner far above his station, but then she had been warned that the Irish were an overproud race.

The farmer’s house was stone with a thatched roof. Inside they found a dirt floor and a single fireplace around which were gathered a very pregnant woman and several children. The inhabitants looked wide-eyed at the visitors, and the woman drew her children closer as if afraid. There was but a single table in the room and several benches.

“I should like to sit by the fire and warm myself, please,” Jasmine said to the woman, who looked at her terrified when she spoke.

“She does not understand you,” Rory Maguire said. “She speaks only the Irish tongue.” He then turned to the woman
and from his mouth came what sounded like a stream of gibberish to the English lord and his wife. The woman answered back, and then the Irishman said to them, “Mistress Tully bids you welcome to her home and asks that you sit by her fire. She apologizes for the meal, but ’tis all she has.”

Jasmine smiled at the woman and her children and, settling herself on a bench by the fire, replied, “Tell her, Master Maguire, that I appreciate her hospitality. Her bread is the best I have ever tasted.”

He repeated her words to their hostess in the Irish tongue, and the woman asked him, “What manner of Englishwoman is this, Rory Maguire, who
asks
to come into my house instead of just barging in and then thanks me?”

“Her ladyship is the new
owner
of Maguire’s Ford, Sosanna Tully,” he told her. “I’ve just met her myself, but I’d say she’s not quite what we expected to have at Maguire’s Ford.” Then he grinned at Mistress Tully and set about demolishing the food.

When they had finished and were ready to leave, Rowan Lindley asked, “Has the woman been paid for her kindness, Master Maguire?”

“Usually English travelers just take, m’lord, no offense, but ’tis truth,” Rory Maguire responded. “If, however, you were of a mind to give her a little something, ’twould help. Her husband is no longer with her, and she’s been struggling along alone. Her bairn is due any minute now, as you can surely see.”

“Where is her husband?” Jasmine asked.

“Sean left Ireland with his chieftain last autumn, m’lady.”

“Leaving his wife and children behind?” Jasmine was outraged.

“She would not leave the land,” was the answer. “There are many like her now. Women alone with their children, tending their farms as best as they can. As long as their men are alive, they cannot take new husbands, and so they struggle on alone. As long as she can pay her rent to her English landlord, m’lady, she’ll survive. Mistress Tully is luckier than most. Her farm is on the road to Erne, and she feeds the travelers passing by. Sometimes she takes them in overnight. It helps her to manage while her children work the land.”

Rowan Lindley pressed a coin into Mistress Tully’s hand. Jasmine saw the glitter of gold and smiled, remembering Mistress Greene at the Rose and Crown.

But Rory Maguire spoke up. “Do not give her gold, m’lord. She will not be able to pass the coin for fear of being called a thief. If you would be generous, let her have whatever coins of silver or copper you have in your pockets. Those she can exchange with ease.”

“Tell her to keep the gold for an emergency,” Rowan Lindley told the Irishman, and then he gave the woman several additional coins, those of copper and silver as Rory Maguire had suggested.

The Irishman explained to their hostess, adding, “The man’s a damned fool, I’m thinking, Sosanna Tully.”

“Nay, he’s a real gentleman, Rory Maguire, and his wife a woman with a heart. Thank them for me.” Then she bobbed a curtsey at the Marquess and Marchioness of Westleigh, favoring them with a slight smile as well. “If more English were like them, life might not be so hard.”

“And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride in grand style, Sosanna Tully,” he answered her with a grin. “ ’Tis not likely to happen.”

They spent several more long hours upon the road, until Jasmine was frankly quite tired. “Does it never get dark in Ireland?” she demanded irritably of their guide. As much as she disliked riding inside the coach, she would have welcomed it right now, but to her great annoyance, it was nowhere in sight.

“ ’Tis summer, m’lady, and we have long days, marvelous twilights, but very short nights,” he told her with a small smile. She had a temper, did she? The woman had to have Irish blood in her.

“Where are we to stop the night, Maguire?” Rowan Lindley asked.

“I’ve arranged for you to stay with Sir John Appleton and his wife, m’lord. ’Tis just over the next hill,” was the reply.

Jasmine felt slightly more cheered by that revelation and looked about her with more interest. The on again, off again rain had disappeared, and the day was really quite beautiful now. About them the green hills rolled gently away toward the horizon. There were vast meadows of grass that boded well, she thought, for their enterprise. Here and there a single gray stone tower rose up, but none seemed inhabited. Occasionally they rode through a cluster of cottages, and wherever those cottages appeared there was always a small square with a cross in its center and a church. The land, however, seemed sparsely populated.

Sir John Appleton was a portly gentleman with a fat red face. His wife was equally plump but pasty-faced. They welcomed their guests effusively, ordering their servants about harshly, fretting over the fact that the coach had not arrived as of yet.

“They’ll be here in good time,” Rory Maguire assured them.

“Who is this person?” Sir John demanded.

“Our guide,” Rowan Lindley replied.

“He is Irish,” Sir John said suspiciously.

“This is Ireland,” the Marquess of Westleigh answered, amused.

“Young, able-bodied Irishmen in Ulster who did not flee with their traitorous masters are usually troublemakers,” Sir John said ominously. “What is your name, fellow?”

“Rory Maguire, if it please yer lordship,” and the younger man bowed in a servile manner, bobbing up and down several times.

“
Maguire?
’Tis a common enough name in this country,” Sir John said, mollified somewhat by the seemingly humble manner of the man before him. “Well, Maguire, you may sleep in the stables and cook will give you your supper in the kitchens.”

“Aye, m’lord, thank ye, m’lord, very good, m’lord,” Rory Maguire responded and backed himself out of Sir John’s presence.

“A sly fellow, I can see, and not to be trusted, but then none of these Irish are,” Sir John told his guests. “Won’t have ’em in the house, even as servants. No! No! Not even as servants!”

“They make terrible servants,” Lady Appleton confided to Jasmine. “Lazy, dirty people, and they’ll steal anything that isn’t nailed down, they will. Are you bringing your servants from England, Lady Lindley?”

“Only a few,” Jasmine said. “I had intended employing local people for the most part. I felt that it would be best.”

“Oh no, my dear!” Lady Appleton said in a concerned and motherly tone. “If you do not bring your own people, then you must hire only English, or Scots at the worst, but frankly I think them not much better than the Irish, for all our dear King James is a Scot.”

They sat down to supper and, as the meal was served, Rowan Lindley asked his host, “Where is your home in England, sir?”

“Oh,” Sir John replied, “I had only a little house in London.
I was recently knighted by the king himself for my services to the crown.”

“And what were those services?” the marquess asked.

“I was secretary first to the old Lord Burghley himself and then to his son, Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury. When I was knighted, I was given this plantation of five hundred acres here in Ireland,” Sir John explained. “Our daughter and her husband will be joining us next year, as will our son, who is a merchant in London.”

He made himself sound quite important, the marquess thought, and the less knowledgeable might have been impressed. Rowan Lindley was not, for he knew that old Lord Burghley and his son had at least half a dozen secretaries to serve them.

“I shall be so glad to see our children,” Lady Appleton twittered. “There is no social life here at all, and we have been so lonely since we arrived. One can hardly be friends with the Irish. Why, most of them don’t even speak English, and when they do, one can barely understand what they are saying. A most ignorant people, but what can one do? We have served England our whole lives and now we have come to Ireland to help civilize it for the king.”

Jasmine choked on a mouthful of soup and cast her husband a despairing glance. Later, when they had finally escaped their host and hostess and lay abed, she said, “I have never heard such arrogance! If all the English coming to Ireland are like them, no wonder the Irish don’t like us. It is not easy to be a conquered people, but to have to take such abuse from one’s conquerors in addition is untenable, Rowan. I do not want to treat the people on our land like that.”

“You will not, Jasmine. I know you well and your heart is kind. You will try your best, but be warned, my lady, that there are those who will not respond even to your kindness and will be your enemies. Do not be surprised by them. Be hard. For those people will only understand you if you are. ’Twill not be easy, and most like Feeny do not think a woman capable of managing a large estate. I, however, know you can.”

The coach arrived shortly after they had gone to bed, and they heard Toramalli creep into the dressing room off their bedchamber where she was to sleep.

“Toramalli.” Jasmine called her in. “Have you eaten?”

“Aye, though that dough-faced creature who is the lady of
the house was not of a mind to feed us so late, until I told her my mistress would be very angry to learn we were mistreated.”

“I had begun to fear for you,” Jasmine said.

“We are lucky to be here and alive,” Toramalli answered, her dark eyes showing her annoyance. “That Feeny fellow is the most incompetent man who ever lived, m’lady. The grooms finally had to take the reins, and I, God help me, was forced to ride with the fool while he puffed himself up like a frog and croaked of his importance in the scheme of the world. Please, m’lady, let the coachman sit upon the box tomorrow even if you ride, else I kill that Feeny fellow!”

Rowan chuckled from beneath his coverlet. He had rarely heard Toramalli discourse so passionately about anyone other than her mistress. Rolling over, he grinned at the servant. “We’ll make him run behind the coach with the mares tomorrow, Toramalli, I promise you,” he said.

Toramalli giggled and, curtseying to her master, went to her bed. “ ’Twould be a good thing if he did,” she was heard to say as she closed the door behind her.

“She adores you,” Jasmine said with a smile.

“As much as her mistress?” he teased her.

“No one,” Jasmine said firmly, “could love you as much as I love you, James Rowan Lindley, my dearest, darling lord and husband.”

“Then show me,” he replied wickedly. “I will wager these bedsprings have not been well sprung in ten years or more, madame, if ever.”

“Have you not had enough of riding for today, my lord?” she said mischievously, already purring beneath his caressing hands.

“With you for a mount, I could ride forever,” he declared.

“Well, perhaps a short trot about the park,” she considered, “but remember, my lord, that the dawn comes very early in Ireland, or so Master Maguire would have us believe. Ummmmm, Rowan! Ahh, yes!”

He had unlaced her chemise and fastened his mouth about a nipple. Slowly his tongue encircled the nub, flicking at it teasingly. She murmured softly beneath his delicious ministrations, her fingers kneading at his tawny head, feeling the prickle of the hair upon his neck rising with his arousal. She arched against him, murmuring with pleasure as his hands began to caress her body.

“Flawless,” he groaned, lifting his head and meeting her
gaze. “You are absolutely flawless, my love.” He nuzzled against her slightly rounded belly, alternately kissing and tasting the flesh while his hand fondled a plump breast.

“Did you not have enough supper, my lord?” she teased him.

“There was no sweet,” he replied mischievously, “and I cannot sleep without a sweet. Any sweet will do, of course!”

“Oh, villain!” She smacked at him playfully. “Ohhh, Rowan!” she then cried as he entered her in a single stroke. She was surprised by the suddenness of his action. “Ohhh, my love!”

He moved smoothly upon her, his mouth finding hers and kissing her passionately. Jasmine sighed happily, letting herself relax, drifting with the delightful sensations that each stroke of his mighty manhood evoked within her. Mindful of her admonition that the dawn came early, he brought her to complete fulfillment, taking his own pleasure at the same time; and then together they fell asleep, limbs entwined.

They departed Lord Appleton’s house shortly after first light. Rory Maguire sat upon the coachman’s box, to Toramalli’s great satisfaction. Master Feeny had his own mount, for which Jasmine thanked providence.

“Look at the way he saws at that poor beast’s mouth with his reins,” she said to her husband. “He is surely no horseman.”

Hearing her, Rory Maguire grinned to himself. Feeny was a pitiful specimen to begin with, but seeing him upon a horse was a comical sight at the least. Rory whipped up the carriage horses, knowing that the English milord and his beautiful wife would have no trouble following.