Bedazzled (39 page)
“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.”
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.
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
19
D
everall 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.
everall 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.
. 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!
”
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?
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?”
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?
”
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!”
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 MariElena 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.”
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