His grandfather, the first Red Hugh, had survived to help bring the others home. Now history repeated itself in a particularly ugly way.
His mistress, the duchess, had known before they had left Glenkirk last month that she would not see her beloved Jemmie alive again. Red Hugh More-Leslie had seen the resignation and sorrow in her eyes as she bid them all farewell. But the duke had lived a good life. He had been an honorable man. And seventy-two years was a goodly span, Red Hugh reasoned, as they rode toward home.
Messengers would have to be dispatched to his two youngest sons in Ulster, to his daughters and sons in England, and to the daughter in the New World. They would be saddened, he knew, but the youngest of them, Mistress Autumn, would be absolutely heartbroken. She had been visiting in England this summer but been unable to return to Scotland because of the warring factions. What would happen to her now? he wondered to himself. Her father’s pet, the lass had been, and spoiled more than any of them, being the last. Well, ’twas not his business. Lady Autumn Rose Leslie was now responsibility of her brother, now the second duke, and her mother, now the dowager duchess. Certainly they would know what to do with her.
After several long, hard days of travel, the towers of Glenkirk Castle came into view. For a moment Red Hugh stopped and stared, one thought, and one alone, clear in his head. James Leslie was dead, and life as they had all known it would never be the same again. Raising his big, gloved hand, Red Hugh signaled his men to move onward. The duke’s personal piper walked slowly before them playing the rich and reedy tones of Lament for Glenkirk, which rose up, alerting the castle that James Leslie was coming home for the very last time. And after a few moments he could see the widowed duchess standing on the drawbridge, stoically awaiting them. Nay, naught would ever be the same again, Red Hugh thought sadly.
Part I
ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 1650–51
Chapter 1
“I hate Master Cromwell, and his pocky Roundheads!” Lady Autumn Leslie declared vehemently. “There is no fun in England or Scotland anymore, thanks to him.”
“Autumn! Dammit! How many times have I warned you to mind your chattering tongue?” her brother, Charles Stuart, Duke of Lundy, said irritably.
“Oh, Charlie, who is to hear me but the servants?” Autumn answered her elder brother pertly.
“Not all the servants can be trusted these days,” the duke replied in soft tones. “Nothing is now as it was. This is not Glenkirk, where the loyalty is first to your father and only secondly to the state. The king will one day be back on his throne, but until then we must be discreet. Remember, sister, who my father was, and my uncle, King Charles, God assoil his soul. Remember that while I am the not-so-royal Stuart, I am a Stuart nonetheless. Cromwell and his ilk will never trust me, nor should they, but I must protect my family until this madness is lifted from the land, and my cousin, Charles II, returns to England to govern us in peace.”
“But what are we to do until then?” Autumn demanded. “These Puritans are dreadful people, Charlie. They are joyless with their edicts. No dancing! No bowls upon the green! No Maying on May Day! No Christmas! Nothing that would bring a person pleasure, or happiness. And Scotland is, I fear, just as bad. Still, once I am back at Glenkirk it will be a little better, especially when the winter sets in, and no one can know what we do. Papa pays little heed to the Covenanters and their dolorous ways. When do you think I can go home?”
The duke shook his head. “I do not know, Autumn. With Cousin Charles on Scotland’s throne now, and a battle brewing between him and Cromwell, I cannot honestly say when it will be safe for you to travel north. Are you not happy here at Queen’s Malvern with us?”
“I love it here!” Autumn replied. “I always have, Charlie.”
“Then what is it that makes you so restless?” he asked.
“Charlie! I am going to be nineteen at the end of next month,” Autumn wailed. “And I have no betrothed, no husband, no man at all who takes my fancy. I am quite as bad if not worse than our sister Fortune. At least she had the opportunity to find a husband, but what chance have I amid all this civil strife? There is no court, and even family gatherings are mandated as to size now by the Parliament. How am I to find a husband before I am too old?”
“Nineteen is hardly old,” he chuckled, reaching out to take her hand up to kiss it. “You are a beautiful girl, little sister, and one day the right man will come along to sweep you off your feet, steal your heart, and make Papa and all your brothers jealous.”
“I wish I could be as certain of that as you, Charlie,” Autumn said. She sighed deeply. “Bess was still sixteen when you married her, and Rosamund was seventeen when she wed our brother Henry. I am old, Charlie! Eighteen going on nineteen, and not a suitor in sight, nor is there likely to be one. I hate Master Cromwell!”
Charles Frederick Stuart laughed, unable to help himself. His baby sister was deliciously dramatic, and yet she did have a point. Theirs was hardly a fit society nowadays for a duke’s daughter to find a husband. There were men a-plenty who would have Autumn for her wealth and beauty, no matter her age; but it had always been his family’s policy to allow its daughters to wed for love. Certainly Autumn should have the same chance as their two elder sisters had had.
“Mother will know what to do,” he told Autumn in an attempt to reassure her.
“If I can ever get back to Glenkirk,” she replied gloomily.
“The gossip is that there has been a battle in Scotland, and Parliament’s forces have won out over King Charles II’s army. Rumors, however, aren’t fact. Perhaps I shall go into Worcester later this week and see what I can learn,” the duke said.
“Worcester? You are going into Worcester? When?” The young Duchess of Lundy came into the room with two of her children. “You must see if you can find us some thread, Charlie. We have not a bit and are at a loss to mend, or hem, or make Sabrina and her brothers new clothing. They are outgrowing everything. At least we have cloth, thanks to your frugal family, but without thread we are helpless.”
Bess Stuart was a lovely woman with light brown hair filled with golden highlights and warm gray-blue eyes. The youngest daughter of the Earl of Welk, she and Charlie Stuart had fallen in love at first sight. She had just turned sixteen, and he at twenty-six was considered a rake and a rogue by those at the court who knew him. Still, his amber eyes had met Bess Lightbody’s sweet gaze, and his heart was immediately engaged. He began to play her most assiduous court.
The Earl of Welk and his wife had been horrified that Charles Frederick Stuart, the late Prince Henry’s bastard offspring with the beautiful but notorious Jasmine Leslie—herself the dubious member of an infamous family—a young man openly accepted and beloved by the king and all his kin, despite his shameful birth, should seek to pay his addresses to their youngest daughter. They sent Bess home to Dorset, certain that would end the matter. They had underestimated their opponent.
Bess had not been gone from court a week when she was recalled by royal command to be one of the queen’s maids-of-honor. The Earl of Welk sought to protect his daughter from the young Duke of Lundy’s insistent advances by seeking a suitable marital alliance with a thoroughly respectable family, preferably one with similar religious and political leanings. Upright, modest, prudent people by whom his daughter could be guided in order to become a dutiful and obedient wife. Again he did not take his adversary seriously enough.
Learning from Bess of her father’s plans, Charlie had sought aid
