Just Beyond Tomorrow Read online

  “Yet when the king saw St. Denis’s treachery, he rewarded me with a dukedom,” James Leslie countered.

  “As I remember,” Jasmine retorted, “he said at the time it cost him naught as you already had wealth and lands. It was an empty title and nothing more. Do not make generosity out of nothing, my lord.”

  They had argued into the night, but Jasmine could make no headway with her stubborn husband. In the end she had reluctantly accepted his decision, but she could not reconcile herself to it. She knew he was going headlong into disaster. She was angry that she could not stop him short of killing him herself. The duke raised fifty horsemen and a hundred foot soldiers. His wife kissed him lovingly, knowing with a sure instinct that it was the last time she would ever see him alive again. Remembering it now on this chill October night, Jasmine wept.

  What had happened next had been related to her by her own personal captain, Red Hugh, who had gone with the duke. James Leslie, first Duke and fifth Earl of Glenkirk, had marched south in the service of his God, his country, and his king. He was not, however, sent away as one of the ungodly, for little was known of him by the men who now controlled Scotland. They knew what they needed to know. He had accepted the Covenant when it had been first offered him. He was faithful to his wife, there was no evil gossip about him, and he had raised a family of God-fearing sons and daughters.

  He then presented himself to his distant cousin, the lieutenant general of Scotland, Sir David Leslie.

  “I dinna know if ye would come,” David Leslie said. “Yer the oldest Leslie of us all now, and ye hae nae come out of yer hills for many years, my lord. Yer older than my brother, are ye nae?”

  “Aye, I am. I will be seventy-three my next natal day,” the duke answered him. “I didna bring my heir. He is nae wed yet, and my wife would nae hae it.”

  David Leslie nodded. “ ’Twas wise, and ’tis nae shame, my lord. Come, and meet the king. The parliament dinna want him here; but he came anyway, and the commons love him for it.”

  The Duke of Glenkirk bowed low to his king, but looking at him he did not see a Stuart. Charles’s great height was his only Scots feature. His eyes were black as currants as his mother’s were. His hair was black. His face was very saturnine and French. He looked like his grandfather, King Henry IV, not at all like a Stuart. There was nothing at all familiar about him, Red Hugh told his mistress. Visibly troubled, James Leslie had a second qualm of conscience. Why had he come? he now wondered. Was it out of sentiment? Duty? He had ignored the cardinal tenet in his family, not to become associated with the royal Stuarts. Jasmine had been right, he told Red Hugh, that every time the Leslies of Glenkirk became involved with the royal Stuarts, difficulties abounded. When the king spoke, however, even Red Hugh’s fears vanished. He was mesmerizing.

  “My lord duke,” Charles II said in a deep, rich, and smooth voice, “your loyalty does not go unnoticed, though we have not met before today. You have not come to court in many years, but my cousin, the Duke of Lundy, speaks of you and his mother often and lovingly. Please convey my felicitations to your duchess.”

  “I am grieved for your father, Your Majesty,” James Leslie answered. “I knew him from his birth and pray for his good soul.”

  “In the manner prescribed by the kirk, I hope,” the king said, but there was just the faintest twitch of a smile on his lips.

  “Indeed, Your Majesty,” the Duke of Glenkirk replied, bowing, his green eyes twinkling with their shared conspiracy.

  During the month of August the English sought in vain to breach the Scottish defenses. David Leslie made certain that his troops held the stronger defensive position, and the English were finally forced to retire to the coast to restock their dwindling provisions. Hunger and illness plagued them. Their numbers fell to eleven thousand while the Scots had grown in strength to twenty-three thousand fighting men. Cromwell retreated to Dunbar to find more supplies. The Scots followed, trapping them.

  On the second of September the Scots departed their position of strength on the hills surrounding Dunbar, camping boldly before the English that same night on Dunbar Plain. Their plan was to attack their enemy on the morrow, but instead the English attacked earlier, and first. The Scots Covenanter army of Charles II was ensnared on impossible terrain and badly defeated. Fourteen thousand men were killed that day, among them James Leslie, the first Duke and fifth Earl of Glenkirk.

  Jasmine Leslie was stony-faced on their return. She buried her beloved husband dry-eyed, though she personally saw his body was lovingly washed and dressed in his finest clothing. It was placed in its coffin, candles burning about it. The Reverend Mr. Edie came from the village kirk to preach the long and extemporaneous service. When he had gone away, Jasmine brought forth the Anglican priest who had once had a comfortable living at Glenkirk. Upon imposition of the National Covenant, he had been forcibly retired for his own safety and theirs. Father Kenneth now interred James Leslie in the family tomb with the beautiful words from the King James prayer book and the elegance of the Anglican sacrament.

  Jasmine closed herself off from her family for the next few days. “I wish to mourn in private,” she told her son, but she went one day to BrocCairn to see her seventy-seven-year-old mother.

  “Now we are both widowed,” said Velvet Gordon.

  “I came to say farewell,” Jasmine told her quietly. “I can no longer bear to remain at Glenkirk. Perhaps I will return one day, but I do not want to be there now.”

  “Will you desert your son?” her mother demanded. “Patrick needs you now. He must find a wife, marry her, and settle down. The line must be secured, Jasmine. It is your duty to remain by his side.”

  “Patrick is thirty-four, Mama, and quite capable of finding his own wife. He does not need me, or heed me, but I must escape Glenkirk lest I die of sorrow. In every room, and every corner, there are memories of my Jemmie, and I cannot bear it! I have to go! You have had your five sons and your many grandchildren about you. They helped you to overcome your sorrow when Alex died five years ago. I have only Patrick here. My other children are scattered to the four winds. Patrick does not need me. He needs a wife and heir, but he will not find them if I remain to keep him in comfort. I intend to take Adali, Rohana, and Toramalli with me.”

  “Patrick should have been married long since,” the Dowager Countess of BrocCairn said irritably. “You and Jemmie spoilt him and allowed him to run wild. What will happen when you are gone, I do not know, but I do not think you should run off, Jasmine.”

  Jasmine bid her mother, her half-brothers, and their families farewell. Then she returned to Glenkirk, having firmly made her decision. She called the servants who had been with her her entire life and told them of her resolve to depart Glenkirk. “I want you with me.”

  “Where else would we go if not with you, my princess,” her steward, Adali, said. He was very old now, but still very active and in complete charge of the household as he had been since coming to Glenkirk. “We have been yours since your birth. We will remain with you until the great God separates us from one another.”

  Jasmine blinked back the mist she felt rising in her eyes. It was the first true emotion she had shown since her husband had died. “Thank you, Adali,” she said softly. Then she turned to her two maidservants, who were equally ancient. “What of you, my dearest Rohana and Toramalli?”

  The twin sisters chorused as one, “We will go with you, lady. Like Adali, we are yours till death.”

  Rohana had remained a maiden all her long life, but her twin had married a Leslie man-at-arms. They had no children, but had raised a niece.

  “Toramalli,” her mistress asked, “are you certain? Fergus may not want to come with me. He has scarcely left Glenkirk lands all of his life. You must consult with him before you give me your answer.”

  “Fergus will come,” Toramalli said firmly. “We have no bairns or grandchildren to leave behind, and Lily is already in England with Lady Autumn. We have just our little family made up of my sister a
nd our good Adali. We have been together too long to be separated now.”

  “I am grateful to you all,” the Dowager Duchess of Glenkirk said to her faithful retainers. “Tomorrow we will begin to pack.”

  She ascended to the top of the castle that afternoon, clambering up a ladder that led to the parapets of the west tower. Breathless, she reached the roof and climbed out onto it. Behind her the skies were darkening. In the east was the evening star, large, and bright, and cold. Before her the sun was setting in a glorious spectacle of blazing colors. Fiery red-orange was streaked with deep slashes of purple. Above it the sky was still a rich cerulean blue and filled with gold-edged pink clouds that floated all the way to the horizon.

  Jasmine sighed as she looked out over the forested hills that surrounded Glenkirk. She had been truly happy these many, many years at Glenkirk. She had lived here longer than anyplace else in her whole life, but she had lived here with Jemmie. Suddenly, with his death, Glenkirk seemed foreign to her. She knew she had to get away. She didn’t know if she would ever come back, whatever she might say to others. Glenkirk would never be the same for her without James Leslie. She sighed deeply again and turned back to the trapdoor leading into the castle. If she stayed here too long, poor Adali would attempt to climb up to find her. With a final glance at the majestic scene surrounding her, Jasmine began her descent. She wanted to talk to Patrick now.

  She found her son in the Great Hall, seated by one of the two fireplaces. “I have come to a decision,” she told him. “I am leaving Glenkirk as soon as my belongings can be packed.” She sat herself in the high-backed chair opposite him.

  Patrick Leslie looked up at his mother. He was a handsome man with his father’s dark hair and green eyes. “Where will ye go?” he asked her. “I dinna want ye to go, Mother. I know I am a man long grown, but we hae just lost Father. I dinna want to lose ye, too.” Reaching out, he took her hand in his and kissed it tenderly.

  The Duchess of Glenkirk swallowed back the tears that threatened to break forth. She had to be strong now for her son, as well as herself. “The dower house at Cadby is mine,” she said. “I intend making it my home. You must remember I am the Dowager Marchioness of Westleigh as well as the Dowager Duchess of Glenkirk. I like England, and God only knows the climate at Cadby is far more suitable for my old bones than here at Glenkirk.”

  “What of the civil war, Mother? I dinna want ye rushing headlong into danger just because of yer grief,” he said.

  “Your brother, the Marquis of Westleigh, has been wise enough to avoid all factions in this dispute. He is loyal to the government in power. Besides, like the rest of us, he has kept from court for many years now. As Glenkirk and Queen’s Malvern are isolated to a degree, so is Cadby. Besides, who would disturb a widowed and grieving old woman?”

  “Ye are nae old!” he exclaimed. Then he smiled. “Ye begin to sound like my great-grandmother, the formidable Madame Skye, Mother.”

  She laughed and gave his hand a little squeeze. “I am sixty,” she said, “and certainly past my first bloom. Patrick, you are the only one of my children left in Scotland. Two of your brothers are Englishmen. The other two are lost to me in Ireland. India and Autumn are in England, but Fortune is in the Colonies. It is past time that you were settled. The responsibilities of Glenkirk have fallen, suddenly, but hardly unexpectedly, upon your broad shoulders. You should have married long ago. You need a wife, and you need an heir.”

  “I need my mother,” he told her.

  Frowning, she withdrew her hand from his. “No, you do not, Patrick. You are Glenkirk and must take your responsibilities seriously. Try to understand. I have to go to England for several reasons. Firstly, Scotland is too sad a place for me now. Secondly, I must be absolutely certain that Henry, and India’s Deverall, and my grandsons do not become involved in this religious and political folly. Charlie, my not-so-royal Stuart, I know, debates the wisdom of taking up the banner for his kingly cousin. I must dissuade him if I can, which brings me to something I must say to you.

  “You must never, ever, become involved with the royal Stuarts, Patrick. Even without meaning to be, they are dangerous to know. You do not need to hear the history of the Leslies and the royal Stuarts repeated, for you know it well. Your father did not heed my warning, or his family’s own chronicle, and disaster has once again been the result of this association. We deliberately kept you from the court to protect you, and Glenkirk.

  “You do not know the royal Stuarts. They are charming, but treacherous. Please God you shall never know them! Your first loyalty is to God. Your second is to this clan, to Glenkirk. Do only what is best for them and for your family. The Stuarts have great charisma, but they are heedless of everything and everyone but their own desires. Remain at Glenkirk where you will be safe.”

  “What will I do wi’out ye, Mother?” he asked forlornly. He was going to be alone. He had never been alone.

  “You must find a wife, Patrick. Glenkirk needs a new, young duchess, not a grieving old dowager,” Jasmine sighed. “Find a bride, making certain that you love her. Perhaps one day I shall return home to you.”

  “I am nae happy wi’ yer decision, Mother,” he attempted to argue with her.

  “That is unfortunate,” Jasmine said softly, “because, dear Patrick, my decision is not yours to make. I have always run my own life to suit me, as your father well knew. You cannot stop me, nor, I know, would you even attempt to do so. It is time, my son, that you accepted the less joyous responsibilities of your manhood. Why is it you have never found a woman you wanted enough to wed? God only knows there have been enough women in your life. Although I will not ask it, I suspect that more than one Leslie bastard of your loins resides hereabouts.” She gave him a faint smile.

  “It was nae important that I wed and hae a legitimate heir until now,” he said frankly. “Women can be troublesome, Mother.”

  “Indeed, we can. Especially when our men are being such stubborn fools,” she told him seriously. “The world would be a far safer and better place if men would listen more often to their women, than to the sound of their own loud, braying voices. If your father had listened to me instead of being so stubborn . . . but ’tis water beneath the bridge now, Patrick. I am leaving Glenkirk. Find a wife. Get on with your life, remembering to avoid the royal Stuarts and their ilk.

  “Unless I am very mistaken, this son of the first Charles will not be able to stomach those narrow-minded and falsely pious fools who currently attempt to control him. I know the Stuart mind well. This laddie has come to Scotland to regain a foothold and obtain an army so he may go down into England to avenge his father, to take back what is now his very tottery throne. He will not succeed. At least not now. These fanatical bigots will hold tighter to what they have stolen, destroying, or attempting to destroy, all who stand in their path. Beware of them, too. Be wise and take no side in this. Support the legitimate government by not rebelling against it, but neither publicly cry for it. It is the best advice I can give you. You would be wise to heed me.”

  A week later the dowager duchess departed Glenkirk, accompanied by her faithful servants, including Fergus More-Leslie, who was a good man and went for not just her sake, but his wife’s, too.

  So it was that Patrick Leslie found himself alone and bereft of a family for the first time in his life. The parents he had loved were dead or gone; siblings all scattered to the four winds. There had never before been a time like this for him. He quickly learned that he didn’t like it. Sprawled in a high-backed, tapestried chair before one of the two fireplaces in the Great Hall of Glenkirk, he contemplated what lay ahead.

  The hall was silent but for the sharp crackle of the dancing flames, the occasional scratching of sleet on the windows. The candles flickered spookily as tendrils of the late autumn wind managed to slip through the thick stone walls. At his feet, two dogs, a rough-coated, dark blue-gray deerhound and a silky-coated, black-and-tan setter, lay comfortably sprawled, snoring. In Patrick Leslie’s lap, how
ever, there was ensconced a large, long-haired orange cat, a descendant of his mother’s beloved Fou-Fou and some wandering orange tom. The cat, its eyes no more than golden slits, purred softly as the duke thoughtfully scratched it between its shoulder blades with the fingers of one hand. In his other hand was an ornate silver goblet which he now raised to his lips. The smoky whiskey slid down his throat like an unrolled length of burning silk, hitting the hollow pit of his belly like a hot stone, spreading its heat throughout his long, lean body.

  His mother was right. He should take a wife and raise a family. It was what was expected of him. Glenkirk had always, in his memory, rung with the shouts of children and the laughter of family, not just Leslies, but Gordons of BrocCairn, too, his maternal grandmother’s family. Since the wars had begun, however, most people kept to their homes, not just simply to protect themselves, but to protect their property as well from marauders. It was not as it had been in his grandparents’ day when families and friends knew each other all their lives, visiting back and forth regularly. They had arranged betrothals for their children when they were barely out of the cradle, thereby allowing those children to grow up experiencing each other’s company, so that by the time the marriages were celebrated, they were comfortable with each other. No, it was different now.

  For one thing, many of Scotland’s noble families had gone south into England when King James had succeeded the great Elizabeth. Many had remained, thereby gaining or increasing their fortunes. Others had returned to Scotland disappointed. It was true that after the death of his first wife and their sons, James Leslie had served King James down in England in matters relating to England’s burgeoning trade. He hadn’t wanted to be a Glenkirk with its unhappy memories.