LITMIR.BIZ

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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, however, 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.

      To his family’s distress, he had remained unmarried for a number of years until King James I had personally chosen Patrick’s mother to be James Leslie’s second wife. His wealthy widowed mother had resisted being told whom to wed. It had been several more years before James Leslie had been able to convince her that they had to obey their king. It had been a love match, however, and his parents had sired three sons and two daughters, of whom four had survived into adulthood. And they had done it at Glenkirk, rarely leaving Scotland once they had returned home all those years ago, but for summers in England at his great-grandmother’s estate of Queen’s Malvern, and once to France for the late king’s wedding, and one year to Ireland.

      It was his duty, Patrick Leslie realized, to take a wife. Duty was something that the Leslies of Glenkirk understood very well. But duty to whom? His mother believed that a man’s duty lay first after God with his family, and she had been absolutely right, the second Duke of Glenkirk decided as his gaze swept his empty hall. I will owe my loyalty only to this family, Patrick vowed silently to himself. I hae never met this king. I dinna care what happens to him. The duke looked up at the portrait over the fireplace. It was of the first Earl of Glenkirk, his namesake. Turning, he looked across to the other fireplace and the portrait hanging above it of the first Earl of Glenkirk’s daughter, Lady Janet Leslie. He knew their history well. It was Janet who had gained the Earldom of Sithean for her descendants. It was Janet with her strong sense of duty who had saved both the Leslies of Glenkirk and the Leslies of Sithean after the Scots’ terrible defeat at Solway Moss in 1542 against the English. All the adult men in the family had died in that battle, but Janet Leslie in her old age had gathered their sons and daughters about her, raising them until they were old enough to take their rightful places, teaching them how to rule their small domains, making the most advantageous marriages for them all.

      Unfortunately, too many of the Leslie descendants had become careless with wealth and success. They had forgotten the cardinal tenet of the family and suffered by it. But I will nae forget, the second Duke and sixth Earl of Glenkirk promised himself. I will nae forget. To hell wi’ the royal Stuarts and all their ilk!

      Outside the hall, the wind rose, rattling the windowpanes noisily. The duke drained his goblet, his other hand stroking the great orange cat whose rumbling purrs were now quite audible. Suddenly the beastie opened its eyes and looked up at the duke. Patrick smiled down at the creature who now kneaded the duke’s thighs so contentedly.

      “Ye’ll hae to stay wi’in the castle tonight, Sultan,” he said, “but I’m certain ye’ll find a nice mouse or rat to amuse ye, eh? As for me”—he arose from his chair, gently setting the

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