Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

T hey had taken her completely unawares as she had stepped forth into Goldsmith Alley from David Kira's house. A small cloth was stuffed into her mouth before she might scream or utter any sort of protest. A narrow string was tied about her head to prevent her from spitting out the gag. They boosted her onto her mount so quickly and lashed her hands to the pommel of the saddle that there was simply no opportunity to fight them. Her shawl was drawn down over her head and she was led away.

Jasmine knew instantly who her captor was, and if it had been possible to wreak havoc upon him, she would have gladly done so. She had been very careful as they were gagging and binding her not to glance back at Master Kira's house. Maggie had been but a step behind her, but a quick surreptitious peep at the door from which she had just exited revealed that Maggie was no longer there. Clever girl, Jasmine thought, relieved. If they had both been captured, who would there be to tell Jemmie? But Maggie would have to hurry, or the trail would be lost!

They had ridden out onto the High Street. After a few moments they turned onto another road. Leith, the signpost had said, Jasmine noted. Leith? Of course! It was the port for Edinburgh, but where in the name of heaven was he taking her from Leith? Back to England? It couldn't be England. By now Piers St.Denis's deception was well-known at court, and the king would have put a stop to it. Where then? None of her questions would be answered until they stopped, and she got this damned gag out of her mouth. She pushed at it with her tongue. It wasn't lodged too tightly, but her mouth was becoming exceedingly dry. Jasmine concentrated on her breathing in an attempt to calm herself. She wasn't so much afraid as she was angry.

They had not traveled a great way down the Leith Road when they came to an inn and stopped. It was a rather disreputable-looking place. Jasmine could hear the drunken shouts from within the building. The men accompanying them dismounted, stretching and scratching. Tying their rather scruffy mounts to a hitching post, they looked to the marquis.

"We leave you here," he said. "I give you your horses. Do what you will with them."

"And our silver?" a tall ruffian demanded. "Ye promised us silver, too, for our services, m'lord. We ain't letting ye and the lady go wi'out our silver," he finished menacingly.

Piers St.Denis pulled a bag from his doublet, and tossed it scornfully to the man. "Here," he said with a sneer.

"It ain't enough!" the man complained, weighing it in his palm. "Ye've shorted us, Englishman. Why should we expect any less from one of old King Jamie's pretty boys?" He moved forward threateningly.

The marquis of Hartsfield's hand slid to his sword. Yanking it from its scabbard, he moved his horse slightly forward and ran the man through. As his victim pitched headfirst to the ground, he withdrew the sword from the surprised man's chest, wiped it on his victim's clothing, and returned it to its place. "Does anyone else wish to debate the point with me?" he demanded coldly. Then, turning his horse, he departed the inn yard, leading Jasmine's mount behind him, as the seven remaining ruffians flung themselves on the dead man, grasping for the money pouch and arguing over the disposition of his horse.

"Ummm! Mmmmm!" Jasmine noised to get his attention.

He turned back to her, smiling. "Would you like me to remove the gag from your mouth, my sweet?" he asked her solicitously.

She nodded eagerly.

"Do you promise me that you will not scream, cry out, or make any attempt to attract the attentions of anyone?"

Again she nodded. "Mmmmm! Mmmmmm!"

"No," he said coldly. "This is your first lesson in obedience, my sweet. I do not like recalcitrant women. With me as your master you will finally learn your place. You really should have chosen me, Jasmine. Now I must punish you and James Leslie for the public insult you have done me. I could have you both hanged, you know, for I possess a royal warrant, but first I shall use you to draw the earl of Glenkirk to me. Tonight you shall write a letter telling him that you have made a mistake and that you wish to be with me. How he will suffer. He will, of course, come for you to see if it is true. Then I shall kill him, and you will belong to me forever! I told you that you would be mine one day, and you will." His bright blue eyes glittered with his words.

He is totally mad, Jasmine thought. Completely and utterly insane, which made him even more dangerous, she considered. She must take the first opportunity to flee him. Certainly Jemmie knew by now what had happened to her, but how could he possibly know where to look for her? He couldn't, and therefore it was up to her to escape Piers St.Denis, the marquis of Hartsfield, before he killed them both. She could smell the sea as they approached the port, but he did not go into the town. Instead, he turned off on an almost invisible dirt path that led up a small hillock. At the top was what appeared to be a deserted cottage. It was there that he stopped, dismounting from his own horse and lifting her down off her own mount. Below them was Leith, and beyond the Firth of Forth and the sea. He pulled her by her bonds into the cottage, even as she resisted him now, digging her heels into the earth, and struggling.

To her shock he slapped her. "I will have no defiance from you, madame!" he said. "You are here to learn obedience, and you will not leave this poor place until you do." He yanked her into the small house.

Once inside, however, he undid the cord binding the gag and pulled the rag from her mouth. "Bastard!" Jasmine managed to gasp. "You have almost choked me with that thing!"

Piers St.Denis slapped her again. "Thank me for my generosity in removing it, you bitch, or I'll stuff it back in your mouth again!" he snarled at her. "Only that I long to hear the sound of your voice once more overrules my common sense, but if you continue to speak to me with such disrespect, you will be gagged until you learn to speak to me with a gentle tongue." His hand fastened itself into her dark hair, and he forced her face up to his. "Do you understand me, Jasmine?"

"You are hurting me, my lord," she replied through gritted teeth.

"Do you understand?" he repeated.

"Aye, I understand," she told him, forcing her anger back. He was, she realized, perfectly capable of killing her.

"Good," he almost purred, and then he passed his hand over her heaving bosom. "I want you naked," he told her. "I have never seen you as nature fashioned you, and I am most anxious to do so, my sweet."

She shuddered with revulsion at his words, but he mistook her gesture for fear, and was very pleased. "What do you think to gain by this, my lord?" she asked him. "You have violated the king's trust, and he will certainly see you chastened for it."

Piers St.Denis laughed. "Nay, he will forgive me. Old king fool always forgives me, for he loves me, you see. I am never chastened for my wrongs. I never have been. When we were children it was Kipp who was always beaten for my sins. Since I loved my brother, our father thought I would be better behaved if it was Kipp who was punished and not me, but I enjoyed it when Father laid the birch on Kipp's rump. Once I even beat my brother myself just to see how it felt, and it felt powerful, my sweet. I never was allowed to beat the king, of course, but he did let me scold him now and then. He would weep at my words when I would upbraid him. I believe that secretly the king longs to be mastered as I will master you, my sweet." He fondled her again, and, when she attempted to pull away from him, his hand in her hair tightened and he pinched one of her nipples hard.

She winced, crying out in pain, and to her disgust he smiled.

"Have you ever been strapped?" he asked her. "The Scots have a lovely instrument called a tawse. It is a piece of leather about six inches in width, and one end of it is divided into half-inch fingers four to six inches in length each knotted several times. Laid expertly across the bottom it brings a fine pink sheen to the buttocks and a warmth to the skin such as you have never experienced. In my tender care you will become quite familiar with the tawse. You will learn to enjoy the heat and the pain it gives you." He put his face next to hers. "Open your mouth for me, Jasmine, and receive my tongue," he commanded her.

She spat at him fiercely.

The marquis of Hartsfield's face darkened with his displeasure for a brief moment as he wiped her spittle from his cheek, then he smiled slowly. "You are going to give me much pleasure," he told her. "You will not yield to me easily, and that is to the good." He pinched her nipple again cruelly until she finally was forced to cry out in protest.

Jasmine had attempted to control her temper, but this was just too much. "You fool!" she hissed at him. "Do you really believe that you can bully me into some sort of a submission to you? And if you think the king will forgive you for what you have convinced yourself is a mere peccadillo, you are very much mistaken. My husband and my stepfather both are related to King James by blood ties. The king is a Scot for all he is now England's king, too. Blood ties, I have learned, are of paramount importance to the Scots. Release me while you have the opportunity, my lord, and then flee for your very life! If the king does not catch you, and execute you, my husband and his family will hunt you into the ground and kill you where they find you!"

His answer was to wrap his arms about her skirts, and lift her up to where a hook had been screwed into the cottage's ceiling beam. There he hung her by the ropes fastened about her wrists to the hook. Her feet were but two or three inches off the floor, but she was quite helpless. "There," he said. "Now we may begin, my sweet." Grasping at one of her feet he pulled the leather shoe from it, ducking the other foot, which kicked out at him, then grabbing it and yanking the shoe from it as well. Taking up the length of rope that had kept the gag in place, St.Denis lashed her ankles together so she could not harm him. "Why are you garbed like a peasant?" he asked her.

"I have been at the games given by Lord Bruce across the Forth," she said. "Even noblewomen dress like this at the games, you ignoramus!"

"How convenient for me," he mocked her. "Your simple clothing makes it easier for me to strip you." Reaching up, he undid the tapes holding her skirt, and then those that fastened her petticoats. Pulling them off, he tossed them onto the single chair within the cottage. Walking around her, he viewed the graceful line of her back and the round curve of her buttocks. His hand smoothed the bow of her flesh, fondling it lightly. His heart was hammering in his excitement as he feasted his eyes on the creamy expanse. He could almost hear the satisfying smack of the tawse as the thick leather met soft skin. Piers St.Denis smiled wolfishly to himself and licked his lips.

Walking back before her, he knelt and removed the garters from each of her legs. Then he slowly rolled the dark knit stocking down her right leg, slipping the wool underneath the light bonds about her ankles. He then followed suit with the stockings on her left leg. Loosening her leg bonds, he retied but one leg, fastening it to a small nail in the nearby wall, leaving a single leg free. His hands moved up that leg, squeezing lightly, feeling it. His breath was harsh.

Jasmine had the sensation that her skin was crawling as his fingers brushed the inside of her thigh. It was all she could do to keep from crying out with her revulsion and distaste. She did not, however, because she knew he would take it as a cry of fear, and he wanted her to be afraid. God! How he reminded her of her half brother, Salim, with his soft hands and his softer voice; but she was no longer a bedazzled and confused child of thirteen.

"Do you like this?" he asked her, his fingers tickling at her nether lips provocatively.

"You are disgusting," she answered him coldly.

"Your aversion but excites me further," he told her, and he loosened his clothing, for his manhood was straining against it almost painfully. Then, standing, he reached out to rip open her blouse and her chemise, baring her bosom to his hot eyes. He filled his hands with her soft flesh, almost whimpering in his excitement. "Dear God, you are so beautiful!" he groaned. "I can scarce contain myself, and that has never before happened to me, my sweet. You are indeed a rare prize, and you belong to me!"

"I belong to no one, you loathsome, pathetic creature!" she told him. "I am James Leslie's wife, but not his possession, any more than he is my possession."

"I will kill your husband," Piers St.Denis said, his hands crushing her breasts in his excitement. "How can you deny me, my sweet?" He drew a fully engorged manhood from his clothing for her to see. "But look at what the simple thought of possessing you has done to me?"

She laughed scornfully at him. "You are no better than a mere and untried boy," she told him. "You will spill your seed upon the ground before you will slop it in me, my lord." And she laughed again, despite her great discomfort as she hung just above the floor.

"Don't say that!" he almost shrieked at her. "You do not know me! I will fuck you until you are insensible before I lose my juices, you proud bitch!" Then he slapped her once again.

Jasmine laughed all the harder at him. "Look! The dew pearls upon the tip of your lance. The flood is near, pitiful weakling! You cannot hold it back for you are so unnatural a man you know not how!"

" Bitch!" he half sobbed at her, as she prophesied his defeat, and his juices spurted forth onto the barren dirt of the cottage floor.

Jasmine heaved a soft sigh of relief. She had prevented her rape for the moment. Now she had to get him to let her down from this very uncomfortable position. "My arms are going numb," she complained at him. "I am going to die! If you kill me, you will die a most painful death when the Leslies catch up with you!"

Looking down at his shriveled manhood, Piers St.Denis felt anger, not to mention a sense of great frustration. She had tricked him into an embarrassing and callow act of release of his lust. She was stronger than he had anticipated. Usually the mere sight of his manhood was enough to set his victim sobbing and begging for mercy. "You will hang there until it pleases me to release you, bitch!" he told her, and, going behind her, he bound her two ankles together again. Picking up the tawse, he said coldly, "You will be punished now, my sweet, for your nasty behavior. You will learn not to goad me in future." The leather flicked out, meeting her buttocks with a noisy smack, several of the narrow fingers separating, and inflicting their own damage. A second time. A third and fourth.

When he had uttered the word punished Jasmine had known what was to come. She had taken a deep breath and bitten down hard upon her lip to prevent any cry from escaping her. The leather strap hurt with the first blow, and with each additional blow she felt her flesh growing warm. The tiny knotted fingers of leather stung terribly, but she did not cry out. "Bitch!" she heard him mutter beneath his breath as a fifth and sixth blow followed the first four. He was quite obviously determined to make her cry out, Jasmine realized, and if she did, then perhaps he would be satisfied, and let her down from this hook from which he had her suspended like the carcass of a doe in a larder. Her arms really were growing numb, and, after all, her only interest was in surviving his bestiality. Jasmine opened her mouth and shrieked a release of the pain he was inflicting upon her.

The tawse fell on her buttocks a seventh and an eighth time, the marquis of Hartsfield grunting with his exertions. "That's it, you proud vixen, beg me for mercy!" His arm delivered a ninth and a tenth blow. Jasmine's pitiful cries began to restore his good humor, and a smile touched his lips. "Beg me to cease, you bitch!" he said.

"Stop!" she appeared to sob. "Oh, please stop! I am burning!"

The tawse fell an eleventh and twelfth time, then she heard it drop to the floor, and he was in front of her once again. Jasmine squeezed out several tears from beneath her eyelids. He loosed her ankles from the rope, and she restrained herself from kicking him wherever she could. She couldn't get down from this damned hook by herself.

"Ohhh, please let me down, my lord!" she whimpered to him.

To her shock, however, he instead knelt before her, his hands forcing her legs apart, and holding them firm as he leaned forward, he pushed past her nether lips with his tongue to find with unerring aim the sensitive jewel of her sex. His tongue began to tease it, but while he was able to arouse it so that her body gave him a libation of love dew, Jasmine herself was repulsed by his actions. Still, Jasmine knew that he would expect some show of emotion from her. "Ohhh!" she cried out at him. "Do not! Do not!"

He laughed, drawing away from her, and looking up at her with wild eyes. "That's it, bitch," he whispered. "Beg! But you do not fool me, my sweet! You are born a whore like all women. Like my mother who sold herself to the highest bidder, and like Kipp's mother, who simply sold herself to her master so she could live like a lady. At least they disliked being mounted. You, I suspect, enjoy a man between your legs." He rose and walked away from her.

"Aye," Jasmine answered him boldly, "I do."

He turned, looking at her surprised. He had never before heard a woman admit to enjoying it. All the women he had ever known whined, and complained, and made excuses. "You like being fucked?" he said, intrigued.

"Of course," Jasmine told him. "Most women do if you approach them properly. Let me down now, my lord. You may keep me bound, but I can no longer feel my arms, and I don't think that good. It really isn't necessary to abuse a woman in order to enjoy her favors, you know. Just the sight of me naked aroused you today, did it not?"

It had! For the first time in his life he had swollen with lust just looking at a woman. He hadn't had to whip her. He had done that afterward in his disappointment, and while he had enjoyed it, he realized he was not now aroused at all by his viciousness. It gave him pause.

"Let me down," Jasmine repeated once more.

Wordlessly Piers St.Denis lifted her from the hook. Leading her to a wall he reached down and, lifting up a wide leather collar, fastened it about her neck. There was a chain attached to the collar which was also fastened to the wall. Then he unbound her hands. "Sit down," he commanded her, pulling her skirt and petticoats from the table and tossing them to the dirt floor

Jasmine gingerly lowered herself to the pile of clothing. Her bottom was sore, and, touching it with tentative fingers, she could feel the weals that he had raised with his strap. She began to rub her arms in an effort to regain some sensation in them. "I am cold," she told him. "Light a fire, if you know how, or are you useless in there also?"

"No fire!" he snapped at her. "This cottage is thought to be deserted, and a fire might bring a search party to my door, seeking you, my sweet. That would be most unfortunate, would it not?"

"Then at least let me put my clothing on, or I shall die of an ague. You know how sensitive I am to the damp and cold." She sneezed as if to emphasize her point. "You will get little enjoyment out of a sick woman, my lord, will you now?"

He acquiesced, although not particularly gracefully. "Very well," he said, gathering up her stockings, and tossing them to her. "But no shoes, madame. I cannot have you running away, can I?" He smiled mockingly at her.

Jasmine quickly drew her wool stockings on, fastening them with their ribbon garters. Then she yanked her petticoats and skirt on, thankful that two of her undergarments were flannel. She attempted to draw her chemise and blouse together, but they were badly torn. "Let me have my shawl," she asked him. "If the ague attacks my chest, I shall expire, and you will suffer an even more horrible death than the Leslies have planned for you for just kidnapping me."

He flung her the shawl with an ill-concealed grace. "What makes you think your Leslies will ever find you before I have seen to James Leslie's death and returned with you to England, where the king will then be forced to give you to me to wed?"

"They will find us," Jasmine said firmly. "And how many times must I explain to you, my lord, that King James will never give me in marriage to you. My family would not allow it, and I should kill myself before I would ever allow you dominion of any kind over me!"

"I have already gained control over you, my pet," he told her. "Did your love juices not sweeten my tongue just moments ago, and did you not cry out with your pleasure?" He laughed. "You are a far grander conquest than I ever anticipated, for I have discovered that I do not need to strap you to become excited by your charms. Still, I will probably continue to do it for my mere amusement. And when we return to England my brother, Kipp, shall also be well entertained between your milky thighs while I billet my cock in one of your other two orifices. Have you ever accommodated two lusty stallions at one time, my pet? It is, I have been told, an unforgettable experience for all three people involved." He came now and sat himself beside her for a moment. "You are such a strong woman, my pet. I am strong, too, but Kipp is weak. I shall teach you how to wield the tawse and the birch on him. You will tease him with your sensuous body and mouth, and then we shall complete the torture by coupling before him until he is weeping with his own desire. If he can restrain himself from release, then perhaps I shall let him have the pleasure of your body, too. As I am your master, my pet, so shall I allow you to be mistress over Kipp. Like me, he has a fine, big cock, and shall give you much pleasure." He began to stroke her eagerly.

Jasmine looked past him to the window. It had become dark while they had been there. Glancing back at her captor, she could hardly see his handsome and dissolute face. The dark, however, did not seem to disturb him at all. "I am hungry," she said, "and thirsty."

"I am hungry, too," he murmured, pushing her back and beginning to kiss and suck upon her breasts.

Angrily she pushed him away. "Is it your intent to starve me, my lord?" she snapped at him. "Is this how you show me your affection?"

"I will have to go down into the town to get us food and drink," he said pettishly.

"Then do so!" Jasmine ordered him imperiously. "And afterward, if you have pleased me with a good dinner, who knows what will transpire between us, my lord marquis." Her tone was now a purr of suggestion.

"Bitch!" he snarled suddenly, drawing away from her and standing. "Do you think to gull me with your suggestive words? If you would have me believe you, you must give me a little pleasure now," he told her.

"What would you have me do?" she asked him, wondering what wickedness he had in mind for her. Was he going to use that damned tawse on her again? She didn't think him recovered enough yet to mount her, but she could not be certain.

"On your knees," he ordered sternly. Then he pulled his limp manhood from his clothing. "Not enough to unman me," he warned her, "but skillfully enough to give me a frisson of pleasure so that my trip into Leith will be a happy one." His hand fastened into her hair, and he forced her head forward. "Open your mouth, my pet, and show me just how truthful your words are. Or are they false, and you seek to lull me into a stupor?"

Jasmine blanked her emotions and took him into her mouth. For a moment she was unable to act, but then she began to suckle hard upon him, her tongue teasing at him, her teeth grazing him just enough to arouse him. If this was the worst, she thought, then it would be worth it. She drew fiercely upon him, and he began to moan, his fingers kneading into her scalp, pressing her nearer and nearer to his groin. Jesu, she thought! Would he never let her stop. In a moment he would surely burst in her mouth, and she didn't believe that she could bear that sort of torture.

"Enough!" he finally ground out, and allowed her to fall back upon her heels. He looked down at his organ, and was amazed. It was larger than he had ever known it to be. "You are a sorceress," he said low. "I have never known a woman who could please a man so well."

"I have kept my part of the bargain," she said. "Now go and fetch us some food and wine, my lord marquis, before I expire both of hunger and of cold."

"Very well," he said, and, bending he retied her hands. "I do not want you getting into any kind of mischief while I am gone," he told her with a chuckle.

"Go," she said stonily. "I am growing fainter by the minute."

He left her alone in the darkness, no fire, no candle for light. Her last glimpse of him was of the marquis outlined in the door as he went through it. Then he was gone, the door closing behind him. Immediately Jasmine began to work her wrists together in an effort to loosen the rope with which he had bound her. Outside she heard the muffled clop of his horse's hooves as Piers St.Denis rode off down the hill. She had no idea how long he would be gone, how much time she had to escape him. The rope began to ease its grip. Jasmine breathed deeply and slowly, calming her beating heart, clearing her mind so she might act expeditiously and not lose this chance. Finally, she was able to slip one wrist free of its bonds. Quickly she pulled the rope from her other wrist, rubbing them both to ease the chafing they had taken this afternoon between being bound to the pommel of a horse, then hung from a hook. The skin was raw with the abuse she had suffered.

With gentle fingers she felt all around the leather collar he had put about her throat. It was fastened in the back of her neck by an iron padlock that was attached to a chain which was affixed into the wall of the cottage. It would be impossible to remove it without either the key to the lock or a knife with which to cut the leather. Her only option, therefore, was to somehow get the chain out of the wall. Turning about so that she faced the wall she felt it. Stone, worse luck. Jasmine almost cried with her frustration, but then she began to run her fingers slowly over the wall, seeking the ring that held the chain. Finding it she felt around it, and a slow smile lit her features. The ring's bolt had been set into the mortar holding the stones. The mortar was dry and old, and crumbled beneath her very touch. She pulled at the ring, but while it wriggled about, it held fast.

I need something to help me loosen the mortar, she thought, and was immediately discouraged. If there was anything useful within the cottage, she couldn't see it, and besides, the chain allowed her no latitude farther than a few feet. There was nothing within her reach. She shivered, yanking her shawl about her shoulders. As she did, her hand made contact with the clan badge Jemmie had given her, which was pinned to the Leslie tartan of her shawl. She almost cried aloud with relief.

Quickly she undid the badge and, with the pin, began to chip away at the crumbling mortar. She had to force herself to work carefully, for the badge was her only weapon. The town was at least two miles away. By the time Piers St.Denis rode down into Leith, found an inn, obtained food and wine, and rode back again, it would be at least two or more hours. There was time, provided she did not panic and damage the pin. Jasmine chipped, and chipped, stopping every now and then to wriggle the ring. The sound of the pin scraping against the mortar seemed at times very loud, for there was not another sound to be heard but her anxious breathing. She had to get away from St.Denis. This was likely to be her only chance, Jasmine sensed. If he violated her further, she would never again be able to face Jemmie. And what if, by his brutality, the marquis harmed the child she was now carrying?

And then, when she thought she would never be able to free herself in time, the ring slid loose from the mortar in the wall, and the chain fell with a noisy clank onto the floor. Jasmine scrambled to her feet, legs trembling with her excitement, gathering up the links as best she could. Her shoes? Where were her shoes? She moved carefully about the small room, seeking, feeling. Then she found them, first one, then the other. She eased her way until she reached the single chair and, sitting down, pulled her footwear on quickly. Standing, she considered her next move. She must leave the cottage, of course, but where was she to go? Down to the Leith Road? And once there, what? To Leith or back to Edinburgh?

The first thing was to get out of the cottage, and so, gathering up the chain, Jasmine went to the door, opened it, and moved through. Her horse was unsaddled beneath a small shed at the rear of the cottage, but she would not take him. It would be the first thing that the marquis would notice when he returned. Jasmine hurried off down the path that led back to the road. Once there, she briefly hesitated. If she went toward the port, she was likely to run into Piers St.Denis returning from his mission, but if he returned to the cottage and found her missing, he would probably think she was on the road toward Edinburgh and go in that direction to seek her out and bring her back.

Jasmine turned toward Leith. If she heard a horseman coming, she would hide in the ditch beside the road. There was no moon, and it was a dark, misty night. It was very unlikely she would be seen. She could surely gain the town and obtain help. The first thing she wanted was to have this damned collar off her neck. It was rubbing her delicate skin most. She walked swiftly, and, as she did, she contemplated how she would kill Piers St.Denis, for she knew now for certain that she would never again be safe unless he were dead and in his grave.

What a pity this wasn't India. She would have had him thrown into a pit with a dozen cobras to be stung to death. She contemplated what terror would look like on his handsome face. But she wasn't in India. Perhaps they could return him to England and have him dragged along behind one of her grandmother's trading vessels as it made its way out to sea. It would be a most terrifying and slow death. Quite fitting, she thought, for the presumptuous creature who had brutalized the Mughal's daughter. The Leslies, however, would probably just hang the bastard as she had hanged the man who had murdered her second husband, Rowan Lindley, she finally decided.

The lights of the town were drawing nearer, and she had to consider what she was going to do next. She would make an odd sight, leather collar about her neck, chain still attached to it, as she walked about the streets. She stopped a moment and pinned her blouse together as best as she could. Then she wrapped the chain about her waist, tucking the end into her skirt, and drew her shawl up over her head to hide the leather collar about her neck. It might not have done in the daylight, but in the dim, poorly lit streets of Leith, it would do quite well. Coming into the town itself, she stopped a woman selling herbs and asked her for directions to the harbor.

"East-Street, mistress," the herb woman said, pointing.

Jasmine hurried onto the narrow street. It had suddenly occurred to her that there might be an O'Malley-Small ship in port, and if there was, she was safe. She gained the docks and, outside the harbormaster's office, was a large slate board upon which were chalked the names of the ships at dock. Jasmine stopped, and ran her finger down the board. She was almost weeping with nervousness, and disappointment until she reached the last name on the board. Lord Adam! The little coastal freighter her grandmother had named after her grandfather, for he would have no great vessel called by his name. Adam de Marisco had thought it presumption. Noting the location, Jasmine made her way down the docks to where the small boat sat bobbing at its mooring. Who was the freighter's captain? She didn't know. Jasmine picked her way up the gangplank. There was only a single lad on watch, but there was a light in the captain's cabin. Seeing her, the lad on watch came forward.

"We don't allow no women on board, mistress," he said firmly.

"I am Jasmine de Marisco Leslie, the countess of Glenkirk," Jasmine said. "Where is your captain? I must see him at once!"

The lad looked at Jasmine critically. "You don't look like no countess to me, mistress," he said boldly.

"Nevertheless I am," Jasmine replied, drawing herself up proudly. "Now take me to your captain before I box your ears, presumptuous boy! Your manners are wanting, and I shall tell him. And you will address me as my lady, not mistress. Do you understand me?"

"Aye, mis … my lady," the boy said. "If you will follow me." Well, it wouldn't be his fault if she was some town whore, he thought. The captain could deal with her, the uppity bitch.

Jasmine followed the lad across the deck. He flung open the door to the cabin house, and motioned her through. She stepped into the cabin, and relief washed over her so hard that her legs buckled, and she had to grab on to the table in the room's center. "Geoff!" she managed to say. "Thank God it's you!"

Captain Geoffrey O'Flaherty turned at the sound of her voice. His eyes widened in surprise. "Jasmine? Jesu! It is you!" Then, seeing her obvious state, he put his arms about her. "Cousin, what is it? Why are you here? What has happened? What the hell is this thing about your neck? Ewan," he called to the boy. "Fetch some wine for her ladyship." He settled her in a chair and waited while she recovered herself. "Now, tell me, cousin," he said when she had quaffed the goblet the cabin boy had given her, "but first let me cut that leather from your neck." Carefully he sliced through it with his knife, and, pulling it off flung it, chain and all onto the floor.

Jasmine took a deep breath. What on earth had happened to her? She had been so strong up until the moment she had seen her cousin. "I thought you were on the East Indies run," she began, rubbing her neck gingerly.

"I am," he replied, "but the captain of this vessel fell and broke his leg. I was in port with not another run scheduled for the Cardiff Rose for several weeks. We didn't have another captain, and mother would not let father take Lord Adam up the coast, so I did. This is my son, Ewan. It's his first voyage, and if he likes it, he'll come out the Indies with me in another year. But you did not come to visit, cousin. Tell me what has happened."

"What do you know of my return from France?" she asked him.

"Precious little," he answered her. "I returned to learn that you had come back, and you had married Lord Leslie. What else is there, cousin?"

Jasmine told him. She told him of the king's foolishness and of Piers St.Denis's refusal to accept defeat, which had led to betrayal and murder. "Jemmie and I have spent the entire summer traveling about Scotland just to avoid him until our messenger could return from England. We have spent the last few days across the Forth at Lord Bruce's games and planned to leave Edinburgh tomorrow for Glenkirk. I had to go to David Kira before we left, however, and, as I was leaving his house, I was set upon by the marquis and his cutthroats," Jasmine told him. Then she went on to tell him of her kidnapping, leaving out the more unpleasant details, for she was, she found, uncomfortable even thinking of them.

"Jemmie must be frantic," Geoffrey O'Flaherty said.

"Maggie, my maid, was with me. They didn't see her, and I know she hurried right to my husband."

"But how did St.Denis know where to find you?"

"I think simply bad luck on my part," Jasmine said. "Just mere chance that I was leaving Goldsmith Alley as St.Denis was passing by it. I don't know what I would have done, Geoff, if one of Grandmama's ships hadn't been in port. I took a chance, and this time my luck was better. Not only a ship, but a cousin who knows me."

"You will be safe here," he told her, "for I doubt that this marquis would even consider that you had found such a safe refuge. And you are right, I expect, that finding you gone, he would assume you would attempt to get back to Edinburgh. Where do you think your husband is, Jasmine?"

"Possibly in Edinburgh, Geoff. He could not know that St.Denis had brought me to Leith. The Leslies will probably think we are headed for the borders. They will have alerted their friends there."

"I want to remain here with you," Geoff O'Flaherty said, "but Ewan is an excellent horseman and can ride to Edinburgh to alert the earl as to your whereabouts and that St.Denis is still in Leith, if, indeed, he has not fled, being unable to find you."

"I am so tired," Jasmine said, and indeed her eyelids were drooping.

He settled her into his bunk, and said quietly to his son, "Go to the harbormaster and tell him that Captain O'Flaherty needs a horse. Then get directions to the Leith-Edinburgh Road. It is not a great distance to ride."

"How will I know where to find the earl when I get there?" young Ewan asked.

"Ask for Glenkirk House," Jasmine said sleepily. "It's on a side street as you go toward the Cannongate." Her dark head fell back upon the pillow once again.

Obeying his father, Ewan O'Flaherty went to the harbormaster and asked for the loan of a horse. "I must ride to Edinburgh, and fetch the earl of Glenkirk," he told the harbormaster self-importantly.

"Ye'll nae find his lordship in the town," the harbormaster said. "He is here in Leith, laddie, for he sent to me this very evening asking if any vessels were leaving tonight, or on the morrow. Then he and his men came down to these very docks and searched the two ships going out on this evening's tide just before they sailed," the older man finished.

"Oh, sir," Ewan said excitedly, "can you please tell me where the earl is now? It is very important that I find him!"

"Why, laddie, ye'll find him at the Mermaid, which sits just off the docks," the harbormaster said, pointing a gnarled finger.

"Thank you, sir!" Ewan said, and he set off at a run for the Mermaid tavern and inn. Dashing into the taproom the boy called out, "I am seeking the earl of Glenkirk. Is he here?"

James Leslie arose from the table, where he had been sitting with his father-in-law, his uncle, and several other men. "I am he, lad," he said. "What is it you want?"

Ewan O'Flaherty hurried over to the table, and bowed as his mother had taught him. "My father, Captain O'Flaherty, would speak with you, my lord, on a matter of import to your lordship."

"And who is Captain O'Flaherty that he would speak with me?" the earl asked the boy. "I do not know him."

"He is my great-grandmother's grandson," the boy replied, "and you are well acquainted with my great-grandmother."

"Who is your great-grandmother?" the earl asked, smiling slightly.

"Lady de Marisco," Ewan said, jumping back, frightened, as the earl leapt to his feet.

"Jesu, lad! Why did you nae say so in the first place?" He pushed Ewan gently. "Lead on then, laddie, and take me to your father."

"We'll go wi ye in case this is some sort of trap," Adam Leslie said, standing up and beckoning to his companions.

The men, led by the boy, trooped from the Mermaid, and onto the docks, following Ewan to where the Lord Adam was moored. As the sound of their booted feet hit the deck of the small ship, Geoffrey O'Flaherty emerged from the cabin, sword in hand.

"Nay, father," the boy cried. "This is the earl of Glenkirk. He was here, and the harbormaster told me where to look!"

Geoffrey O'Flaherty sheathed his weapon and held out his hand to James Leslie. "Jasmine is in my cabin," he said without further explanation, for he knew that was what the earl wanted to know.

The earl nodded, and, moving past the captain, entered the cabin. Jasmine lay sleeping upon the captain's bunk. He went to her and, kneeling down, kissed her cheek softly. "Darling Jasmine," he murmured low. "I have come to take you home."

The turquoise eyes opened slowly and filled with recognition. Jasmine smiled. "Jemmie! I knew that you would find me!"