Just Beyond Tomorrow Read Free

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.”
    â€œYet 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.”
    â€œHer 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.
    â€œYet when the king saw St. Denis’s treachery, he rewarded me with a dukedom,” James Leslie countered.
    â€œAs 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.
    â€œI 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?”
    â€œAye, 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.