"I have some of her features, but I am mostly a mixture of my maternal grandmother and my father," Jasmine answered.

That would indeed account for the slightly Oriental tilt of Jasmine's unusual turquoise eyes and the faint golden tint of her skin, Lady Stewart-Hepburn thought. She let her gaze wander to the pert India. The girl had skin like milky porcelain and a faint blue sheen to her midnight-colored hair, but where had she gotten those eyes? They were like a cat's. Gold, not amber, and with tiny flecks of black in them. The older woman settled herself into a chair by the fire. France in April was a chilly place. The fuss of her arrival had died about her. Her children and their mates had ensconced themselves about her on a settee, a chair, and a stool. Her grandchildren were amusing themselves.

"How old is India?" she asked.

"She will be seventeen at the end of June," Jasmine said, suspecting what her mother-in-law would next ask. She was not disappointed.

"And she is not married?"

Jasmine shook her head.

"Betrothed?"

"Nay, madame."

"You had best see to it soon then," came the pithy observation. "The wench is ripe for bedding. Close to overripe, and susceptible to trouble, I would wager."

James Leslie laughed at his mother's words. "India has nae yet met a man to attract her attention, Mother. I want my girls to wed for love. I did, and I hae never been happier."

"Mam had me betrothed to your father at four, and we married but moments before your birth when I was barely sixteen," Lady Stewart-Hepburn noted. "Love was not a consideration in making the match, although I came to care for your father."

“But you loved Lord Bothwell unconditionally,'' the duke of Glenkirk reminded his parent. "Besides, yer first marriage took place forty-seven years ago. Times have changed since then, Mother."