LITMIR.BIZ

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Leslie is but two years my junior. Besides, he willnae lead the armies of the Covenant. It will be his brother, the lieutenant general, and David Leslie isnae much younger.”

      “You are mad!” she accused him. “Do you think I have not heard the rumors that the fanatics who hold sway in this land, who call themselves the Kirk Party, are purging the army of those they deem ungodly? They interfere with military affairs and weaken our defenses, all the while claiming it is in the name of God. Had they any sense they would put the ungodly in the front lines and rid themselves of them for all time, but no! They will have a godly army go to war. What nonsense! You cannot, must not, be a part of this, Jemmie Leslie. You are a white-haired old man, and I do not want to lose you, damnit!”

      “Do ye think my years hae rendered me incapable, madame?” he demanded, suddenly angry. “Ye didna think so last night in our bed!”

      The duchess flushed then, but she pressed onward with her case. “We have had no dealings with the royal Stuarts in years. We owe them nothing. This foolishness over religion is ridiculous. Bigotry only breeds more intolerance, my lord, and well you know it.”

      “The king is the king, and he hae asked for our help,” James Leslie answered his wife. “Yer own father would hae nae put up with such disrespect, and disloyalty, from his subjects.”

      “My father,” she replied evenly, “knew enough not to endanger himself or his family. May I remind you, my lord, that your first wife, her two sons, and her unborn child died at the hands of the Covenanters when they raided the convent she was visiting? They raped, tortured, murdered, and finally fired the buildings, killing all those innocent women and your children. And now, all these years later, you would pick up the Glenkirk banner and march out to war for them?”

      “It is nae for them. It is for Charles Stuart. The king is my kinsman,” the duke answered his wife implacably. “What of yer own Stuart son? Will he desert his cousin’s cause? I dinna think so, madame. We must all rally about the king so those men who are attempting to institute this so-called Commonwealth will see that we dinna want it. These rude republicans must be taught to gie way to their betters, darling Jasmine. Besides, here at Glenkirk we hae accepted the Covenant for expediency’s sake. Let me show the government that the Leslies of Glenkirk are loyal. Then they will continue to leave us in peace. They will probably decide I am ungodly and send me home anyways,” he finished with a chuckle.

      “Don’t you darling Jasmine me, Jemmie Leslie,” she told him. “The king is a royal Stuart, not a Leslie of Glenkirk. You owe him naught! If you go, however, you go alone. I will not let you take Patrick to a certain death! Thank God Adam and Duncan are in Ireland, safe from this madness!”

      “Ireland is scarcely a place of great safety right now,” the duke remarked dryly. “Besides, both Adam and Duncan sincerely accepted the Covenant, although I will wager they are yet loyal to the king.”

      Jasmine shook her head wearily. There would be no dissuading her husband from his foolish course, she suspected. “Do you not remember,” she began in a final attempt to turn her husband’s heart, “that every time the Leslies of Glenkirk have become involved with the royal Stuarts disaster ensues?” Her eyes went to the portrait above the fireplace. It was a very beautiful young girl with red-gold hair. “Janet Leslie was lost to her family when her father was in the service of a Stuart king. Her father returned home to mourn her his whole life.”

      “Yet that Patrick Leslie gained us the earldom in service to King James IV,” the duke replied. “And when Janet Leslie returned home many years later, she obtained the Earldom of Sithean for her son.”

      “Her brother, his heir, and that same son along with many other members of the family, and the clan, died at Solway Moss in service of James V,” Jasmine answered him promptly. “The family would have been lost had not that same Janet lived into old age to protect them all. And what of your own mother? Driven from Scotland by a Stuart king’s lust! Never able to return, dying in Italy with little family about her. And have you forgotten the debacle the king made in our lives when, having betrothed me to you, he then promised me to his current favorite, Piers St. Denis? I did not enjoy having to hide my children from that madman and to keep on the run for months after Patrick was born. None of it would have happened but for a Stuart king’s meddling!” she concluded heatedly.

      “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

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