She was a gentle and excitable creature.
The fineness of her nervous temperament, might have been read in the thinness and exquisite fairness of her skin, in the slender blue veins of her snowy temples, and the lustre of her large dark orbs, which, with every emotion of joy, tenderness, or grief, seemed to swim in tears. Her very laughter had something strangely clear, ringing, and hysterical in it. Her small white hand, at which the Earl almost unconsciously gazed more than at the diagram of the game, from its thinness and delicacy, was alike indicative of her nature and disposition.
Jane of Huntly was every way the belle-ideal of that description of high-born beauty, upon whose soft cheek not even the wind of heaven had been permitted to blow "too roughly."
She was richly attired in black velvet, flowered with silver thread; her raven hair was braided with a string of pearls, and wreathed in a coronal round her head; while a necklace of Scottish topazes and Arran stones, set in gold, sparkled on her bosom and sustained a silver crucifix, the dying gift of the stout Earl her father, who, four years before, had fallen in his armour on the battle-field of Corrichie.
When Bothwell gazed upon his countess, there was more of admiration, perhaps, than love in his expression. He loved her well enough after the fashion of the world, but not so devotedly and well as that gentle being deserved. Anna had almost been forgotten; his flexible heart had been so frittered away among his innumerable loves, that he seemed to have become incapable of any lasting impression. However, he loved his bride better than he expected; for, as we have before stated, this marriage had, on his part, been strictly one of policy.
At times when Jane's dark eyes met his with their clear full gaze, there was a keen and searching expression in their starlike depth, that made the reckless noble quail, he knew not why; but her whole soul seemed to light them up with a vivid expression that troubled him.
"Another flash—and another!" she exclaimed, watching the lightning and clasping her hands, while her swimming eyes glittered with childlike joy. "Oh, mother of God!—how beautiful—how brilliant! Ah, that I were among the woods where the lightning is flashing, or at the linn where the Clyde is pouring in foam from the rocks!"
"By the Holy Rood!" replied the Earl, with surprise, "I think thou art better here, my bonnibel. None but a water-kelpie could live abroad to-night, and one half hour of such a storm would send thee to the company of the saints."
"And again thou wouldst be free to woo and win another," rejoined the Countess, laughing.
"I never wooed, and shall not win another, my bonny Jane!" said the lying Earl; while lounging on the velvet cushions he caressed his little countess, and played with her dark glossy hair, thinking as he did so, "Ah, how could I ever love any woman but a dark one!"