Intrigued. Bertrice Small
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ma cousine. Gaby’s late husband was related to one: Pierre Etienne St. Mihiel, the Duc de Belfort. And then there is Jean Sebastian d’Oleron, the Marquis de Auriville; and Guy Claude d’Auray, the Comte de Montroi. These three are the creme de la creme in our area. All have their own estates and are very well endowed financially, so you need not fear they are fortune hunters. Even at court you could not find better matches.”
“Are they handsome?” Autumn wanted to know.
“Oui,” her aunt said. “I suppose they are, but ma petite, it is not a pretty face you must consider first, but a man’s character and his purse. Jasmine, ma cherie, have you a priest in residence?”
“No, ’Toinette, we do not,” came the reply. They were in France now, and she would revert to the faith of her childhood, although such a thing had never made a great difference to her. Still, she had been baptized a Roman Catholic and taught by her cousin, the Jesuit Father Cullen Butler. He had died the year before on her former estates in Ulster, a man in his mid-eighties.
“Your Guillaume has a son who has just been ordained,” Madame St. Omer told her. “This would make an excellent living for him. You must see to it, Jasmine. Your daughter, I suspect, has been raised a Protestant, n’est-ce pas?”
“Aye, but she was baptized in Ulster shortly after she was born by both a priest and then a minister,” Jasmine said.
“But she does not know her catechism, I am certain. If she is to wed a respectable Frenchman, she must be taught these things.”
Jasmine nodded. “You are right,” she said slowly. “I shall speak to Guillaume immediately. There is a small chapel here in the house somewhere. We will reopen it, and the priest can hold mass each day.” She laughed softly. “How pleased Father Cullen would be.”
“We will bring our own tailor tomorrow,” Madame de Belfort said. “Autumn must have several pretty new gowns for her visit to Archambault. As I recall there is a storeroom beneath the hall, Jasmine. I will wager you will find the materials your grandmother bought stored away there. If not, we shall send to Nantes for some, but la petite must be shown to her best advantage. There are, after all, other young, unmarried girls in the region who are fishing for husbands. She will have serious competition.
“Nonsense!” Madame St. Omer contradicted her sister. “There isn’t a girl in the region as beautiful, and certainly not as wealthy. We shall have all we can do, keeping the fortune hunters away and seeing that only the right gentlemen are permitted to court Autumn. I am so glad, cher Jasmine, that you have put this matter into our hands.” She smiled at her cousin, displaying her large, almost rabbbity teeth.
After the two sisters had taken their leave, with promises to return early the following day, Autumn said to her mother, “The tantes are so . . .” She struggled to find the right word but could not.
“Overwhelming?” Jasmine supplied with a smile. “Aye, both Gaby and ’Toinette are all-engulfing in their desire to see that everything is done properly. I remember my grandmother saying that they were very much like their mother, but Autumn, we are fortunate to have their good advice. I want you happy, my child, and your father would too.”
Suddenly Autumn’s eyes filled with tears. “I miss him, Mama,” she said brokenly. “Why did he insist on going to war for the Stuarts?”
Jasmine closed her eyes for a long moment so she might manage her own grief. Then, opening them, she said, “You know why, Autumn. James Leslie was the most honorable man I have ever known. He knew it was a fatal mistake for the Leslies of Glenkirk to defend and follow after the Stuarts, but they were his overlords, and related to him by blood. In his mind, even realizing it was likely to be a disaster, he felt compelled to obey their call, particularly as his own distant Leslie kin were involved up to their hips in the muddle. Your father might have pleaded his age, but he would not, and it was there he and I disagreed. I do not believe his honor would have been compromised by refusing to go. He did. It was easier for him to live with my disapproval than his own self-scorn. So he is dead and in his tomb at Glenkirk, and you and I are here in France, attempting to make a new life for ourselves.”
“But what of Patrick?” Autumn fretted.
Her mother laughed now. “Poor Patrick. He always knew that one day he should be the Duke of Glenkirk, but I know he never expected to find himself with all that responsibility so soon. He will survive. Both your father and I were good teachers. Patrick will reach down into himself to find he has both the wisdom and the strength to do what he must. Before I left him I advised him to find a wife to stand by his side. He should have by now had his fill of enjoying the ladies while avoiding his obligations. Now he has no choice in the matter.” She laughed again. “When I left Glenkirk I thought never to return, but now I know that I will one day go back. After all, I do want to be buried next to your father when my time comes.”
“Oh, do not talk of your death, Mama!” Autumn cried, genuinely distressed, throwing her arms about her surviving parent.
“I intend to live to be an old lady, even as my mother is and my grandmother was,” Jasmine soothed her daughter. “I must if I am to see your children and spoil them as Madame Skye spoiled me.”
“Grandmama Velvet never spoiled me,” Autumn said.
“It is not my mother’s way,” Jasmine said.
“And I never knew Papa’s mother, even though I get my green eye from her,” Autumn said. “I remember when I was almost thirteen, her coffin was brought home from Italy. I never knew where she was buried. Papa said it was a secret. Why was that?”
“I suppose it is all right for me to tell you now,” Jasmine said. “Your grandmother’s great love was her second husband, Francis Stewart-Hepburn, the last Earl of Bothwell. He was King James’s first cousin, and poor Jamie was terrified of him, for Francis was everything the king wasn’t. He was highly intelligent, handsome, passionate, and clever. He was called the uncrowned King of Scotland, which of course didn’t please the king or his adherents. His weakness, however, was that when his royal cousin pushed, Francis, I am told, pushed back twice as hard. The king’s counselors had him accused of witchcraft, claiming he was a warlock.”
“Was he?” Autumn was fascinated by this bit of history, which she had never before heard.
“No, of course not,” Jasmine laughed, “and despite the fact that the courts dragged forth several hysterical women—of low birth, I might add—claiming to be witches who identified him as a member of their coven, nothing could really be proved. What no one knew was that the king had a passion for your grandmother. He raped her one night, and she fled to Bothwell, who had been her friend. They fell in love, and eventually, after Lord Bothwell had been exiled and driven from Scotland, your grandmother, who was a widow, joined him, and they were married. It was actually your father who engineered his mother’s escape, and then pretended to know nothing when the king grew angry. Jamie never knew the part your father played.
“When we came to France some years back for the wedding of Princess Henrietta Maria to our king, Charles I, I met your grandmother for the very first and only time. She asked your father when she died to bring her body and Lord Bothwell’s home to Scotland to be buried on the grounds of the old Glenkirk Abbey. He had already predeceased her. Bothwell’s body was removed secretly from its grave in the garden of their villa in Naples. His bones were placed in your grandmother’s coffin with her, and they were, as she had requested, interred together. Your father did not tell me until the coffin was returned to Scotland. Patrick knows now, for I told him before I left Glenkirk, so he would be certain to see the grave was always tended properly. Now you know, Autumn.”
“I think that is the most romantic story I have ever heard!” Autumn said with a gusty sigh.
“And that is not even the entire story,” Jasmine said with a smile, “but it is much too long a tale for today. Now we must consider preparing you for society, and the possibility of your finding a husband. I shall give you one word of advice, ma bébé. Do not marry just to marry. Do not choose a man because everyone else says he is the right