The Scent of Jasmine

  He glanced down at her stomach. “Is it possible that you’re . . . ?”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, and there were tears in her voice. She’d started her monthly flow yesterday. She would like nothing more than to tell him she was carrying his child, so he had to return to her.

  Alex’s face showed as much disappointment as hers did. Bending, he looked into her eyes. “What is it that you’re really afraid of?”

  “That you’ll see her great beauty and realize that you’ve loved her forever.”

  He smiled. “I find that highly unlikely. What if an alligator runs through the dining room? Who’s going to help me get rid of it? And what about large, poisonous vipers? You’re the snake charmer.”

  Cay didn’t smile. “You married the most poisonous serpent of all, and I’m better at jokes than you are.”

  “Aye, lass, I did and you are. You’re better at a lot of things than I am. When I think back on it, I marvel at my arrogance when I thought I could best you at drawing. Beat you at anything, for that matter.”

  “You can ride better than I can,” she said. Her lower lip was quivering. She was so very afraid that when Alex saw his wife that he’d fall in love with her all over again, and Cay would never again see him.

  “I can what?”

  Cay didn’t answer him.

  “Please repeat it, lass. I want to hear you say that you know there’s anything in the entire world that I can do better than you can.”

  She put her arms back around his neck. “I hate you and you can’t go without me. I’ll stay in a hotel all day long. I won’t leave our room.”

  He kissed her earlobe, but when she turned her lips to his, he pulled her arms from around his neck. “I have to go. Nate is waiting for me.”

  Cay sat back on her heels on the bed. “You’re going to see her now, aren’t you?”

  “Aye, I am. But not because I want to. If it were up to me, I’d never see her again, but I must.”

  “After you see her, you’ll go back with her to Charleston. And you two will be alone.”

  “No, I told you that Nate will be with us.”

  “I don’t understand why Nate is going with you. He doesn’t do things with other people. Certainly not strangers. He—”

  “I’m Merlin.”

  Cay sat there blinking at Alex in disbelief. “You’re Nate’s Merlin?”

  “Aye, I am. Until you told me so, I didn’t know that your family knew anything about me, except your mother, of course. She’s the one who got the correspondence between Nate and me started back when we were children, just after my mother died. My father’s grief was bad, and he dealt with it in silence. I needed someone to talk to. During that first year, I wrote to Nate every day, and he wrote back every day. I used to get his letters in big packets. They saved me. I owe him and your mother a great deal.”

  “Merlin.” Cay wasn’t sure whether she felt betrayed or happy that Alex had such a firm connection to her family.

  “That’s what Nate called me after your cousin said I was a ‘magician’ with animals.”

  “Why didn’t you come to visit us when we were in Scotland?”

  “I wanted to, but my dad said that all the riches of your family made him nervous. Lairds and former lairds living in a castle wasn’t what we were used to.”

  “Nate never told us anything about you,” Cay said, still looking at him in wonder.

  “It seems he told me even less about you. My first question was why he didn’t tell me you were an artist.”

  “He didn’t think it was important,” Cay said.

  “That’s exactly what he said. Years ago, he told me he wanted something private that he didn’t have to share with his family and I was it. Was it Tally who found out about us?”

  “Of course. You can’t keep a secret from Tally. He probably snooped through Nate’s things. They share a bedroom.” She took Alex’s hand and looked up into his eyes, pleading. “Please let me go with you. I’m Nate’s sister, so I have a reason for being there.”

  Alex smiled at her, but she could see that he wasn’t going to relent. “I have to go now, lass. Nate is waiting and we’re going to go see Lilith. I’ll come back tonight and tell you what happened.”

  “What kind of perfume does she wear?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “If you come back smelling like a woman’s perfume, I’ll—”

  “I know. Make me sorry. But, lass, don’t you see that right now I already am sorry? Now, come and give me a kiss, then I have to leave. Nate is—”

  “Waiting. Yes, I know. You don’t have to worry about him. He takes care of himself. By now he’s probably read three books about some obscure subject no one can pronounce, much less understand. If you want to help Nate, introduce him to a woman he can love.”

  “A lady scientist?” Alex asked, smiling.

  “No, a lady alligator wrestler. If anyone needs to be taught what passion is, it’s my brother.”

  “Like I taught you about it?” Alex’s eyes turned warm.

  “Ha! I’m the creative one. I taught you most of what you know about everything.”

  “Aye, that you did, my love,” Alex said softly as his arms tightened around her. “I’m going to miss you. No matter how long I’m gone, even if it’s just ten minutes, I’m going to miss you every second of that time.” Gently, he kissed her, and when she tried to turn it into more, he drew back and took her arms from around his neck. “I must go.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her nose. “Tonight I’ll have a story to tell you about why a woman faked her own death.” He kissed her chin. “And I’ll hold you in my arms and tell you all of it.”

  “You promise?”

  “On my honor.” He went to the door. “And when this is all over, I’ll tell you in detail what I feel about you.”

  “Swear it?”

  “I swear it.” Smiling, he opened the door and looked out into the hall. “I’m surprised that one of your brothers isn’t here watching your door.” When he looked back at her, there was such longing in his eyes that for a moment she thought he was going to change his mind. But in the next second he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

  Cay collapsed on the pillow and began to cry. But five minutes later, she sat up. She was going to follow him. She was going to see for herself that Alex was no longer in love with the woman he’d married. If she saw that that was true, then she knew she could return to Virginia and wait forever for him. She thought about calling for a bath to be brought to her, but there wasn’t time. She was going as the dirty boy people thought she was.

  Silently, she slipped out of the room and went down the hall.

  Twenty-five

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Tally asked as he pulled Cay in through the hotel window. “And how the hell did you get up here to the third floor?”

  “If you don’t stop cursing I’m going to tell Father about that fat woman you had on your lap. Did you know that the whole family thinks you’re a virgin?” She stood up in the room, noting its elegant furnishings. “This place costs a lot. Who’s paying for it?”

  “What do you know about virginity?” Tally asked. “And since when have you cared anything about money except how much of it you could spend?”

  “As we go through life, we learn things.” She dusted off the seat of her pants. To get into the room, she’d had to scoot along an iron balcony so the people in the room next door wouldn’t see her.

  “You sound like you’re on a pulpit. And when are you going to put on some clean clothes?”

  “When I feel like it, Mr. Priss.” She gave Tally a look up and down and saw that he was dressed in his finest. She was glad to see that he was wearing the jacket she’d embroidered. “The twins liked your coat.”

  “They kept putting their hands in my pockets. Why can’t other girls be like them?”

  “The rest of us have brains. So where are they now?”
On a marble-topped table was a bowl of fruit and a basket of bread. There was also a pot of lukewarm tea. “I’m starving.”

  “After what you ate last night, I’d think you wouldn’t want to eat for the rest of the week.” Sitting down across from her, Tally stretched his long legs out. “How did you find us?”

  Cay gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It wasn’t difficult. I want to go to Charleston with Alex.”

  “It seems to me that you want to be with that man every minute of every day.”

  Cay motioned that her mouth was full so she couldn’t answer him.

  “They won’t let you stay here in this room, you know. Adam will send you away.”

  “Not if he doesn’t know I’m here.” She gave a look around the pretty sitting room. On the far side was a tall cabinet set about a foot from the corner wall. There was just enough space beside it for her to hide. She looked at Tally.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. If you hide and you’re found out, Adam will blame me.”

  Cay broke a piece of bread in half and buttered it. “Might I remind you of all the things I know about you that I could use for blackmail?”

  “I think I know some things about you, too,” he said slyly.

  “I’m so glad. I do hope you tell Father that I’ve been sleeping with Alex McDowell for weeks now so he’ll make us get married.”

  Tally’s eyes widened. “When did you get so coarse?”

  “When I found out what real life is like. Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Of course I am. I always do, don’t I? But just remember that if you see something you don’t like, you’ll get hurt.”

  Cay finished the last of the bread. “So what’s she like?”

  “Who?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Pretty, but not the great beauty that I’d heard she was.”

  “Are you just saying that?”

  “Yeah,” Tally said. His little sister always knew when he was lying. “She isn’t dressing like we’d heard she did in Charleston, but even in her drab clothes, she’s a beauty. Eyes like a cat’s, lips like ripe cherries, and her body is—”

  “I get the idea. You do know what she did to Alex, don’t you?”

  “Sure. But couldn’t he have done something to stop her?”

  Cay felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “What do you mean by that? That he should have figured out that the woman he loved was a low-down, lying skunk? Should he have seen that she was using him in some devious plot she’d come up with? That she couldn’t have cared less that Alex was hanged, as long as she got what she wanted?” By the time Cay finished, she was standing up and glaring down at Tally.

  He was looking at her with interest. “If this is what love does to a person, I hope it never happens to me.”

  Cay sat back down. “No woman would be insane enough to fall in love with you.”

  “There, my dear little sister, you’re wrong. Half of the women in New Orleans have fallen for me. The other half want Adam.”

  “That’s because Ethan isn’t here.” She heard noises outside the door. “They’re here.”

  Tally grabbed her arm and pulled her upright. “If I had any sense, I’d push you back out the window.” He half dragged her across the room to the cabinet, and when she tried to trip him, he sidestepped her.

  “Let me go! I can walk.”

  “Walking isn’t the problem,” he said as he pushed her into the little space beside the cabinet. “If you’d never been taught to ride, you wouldn’t be in the mess you’re in now. Stay there and don’t make a sound.”

  Cay started to make a retort to that, but she thought better of it. Tally might tell her brothers and Alex she was there, and they’d send her away. To find out where Alex was going, she’d had to follow him through the streets of New Orleans. She’d hidden behind a big palm tree in the lobby of a hotel, and when Alex went up the stairs, she’d told the clerk she had a package to deliver to the man’s fiancée. She hinted that it was a ring.

  The man had been repulsed by Cay’s dirty clothes, but that kept him from looking at her too hard. She was told that Nathaniel Harcourt had taken two rooms in their hotel, one of them the bridal suite on the top floor. Cay asked the man for the key to the room so she could surprise him, but he’d given her a look to let her know she wasn’t going to get it. She knew that if she were a pretty, well-dressed young lady, he would have given her anything she asked for. It looked like there were advantages and disadvantages to being of either sex.

  In the end, Cay’d had to climb the balconies at the back of the hotel, overlooking the garden, to get into the room. Twice she’d nearly fallen, and it had taken sheer muscle power to haul herself up to safety. “Thank you, Florida,” she’d whispered when she reached the top balcony. All those boxes she’d had to carry, the pole she’d had to use to help get the boat unstuck, not to mention energetic evenings spent with Alex, had made her much stronger.

  To hide her, Tally opened all four doors on the cabinet and set a decorative wooden box at the bottom to cover her feet. You’d have to look hard to see her behind the open doors, but Cay was just the right height to look out through the gap between the doors.

  Once she was hidden, she thought about what she was doing. She was waiting to see this woman she’d heard so much about. The great love of Alex’s life. The woman he’d merely looked at and known he loved.

  Tally was barely two feet away when the door opened. It was Nate.

  “If you’ll step into here,” Nate said in his cool voice, as though he felt nothing about what was going on. But Cay knew him, and she heard the underlying distaste. Nate didn’t like injustice. In college, he’d written several papers against slavery, and he’d petitioned President Adams, asking if he, Nathaniel Harcourt, could help reform the entire judicial system of the United States.

  Cay could now tell that her brother thoroughly disliked the woman whom Alex had married in passion.

  Cay held her breath as she heard the light footsteps of a woman, then saw the back of her. She was tall, and her thick, black hair was dressed high on her head. From the back, Cay could see that she was firmly corseted inside a blue silk dress that had obviously been made for her. She wore a tiny jacket that Cay knew was the height of fashion. When the woman started to turn around, Cay’s heart almost stopped beating.

  Lilith Grey was indeed beautiful. She had chiseled cheekbones, eyes shaped like almonds, and perfect red lips—which Cay thought had to have some artificial color on them.

  Cay tried to be sensible and think of her from a man’s standpoint. Tally was staring at her with a stupid expression on his face, as though he was seeing a star that had landed on this planet. At least Nate wasn’t enamored of her, Cay thought. He was looking toward the open door as though he saw something a great deal more interesting than the woman.

  In the next moment, Nate looked about the room, and when he saw the table with its empty bowl, which had contained fruit, and the empty bread basket, his eyes opened wider. Cay wanted to kick herself for not remembering that Nate would be there. He saw everything.

  Nate instantly looked from the table to the rest of the room and within a second he saw Cay’s eyes peeping through the gap between the open cabinet doors. He even took a step toward her, but then Alex entered and Nate looked back at his friend.

  Cay hadn’t thought about what she’d expected from the woman Alex had almost been hanged for, but she would have imagined that contrition would be her main emotion. She would apologize and beg his forgiveness, wouldn’t she?

  But Lilith just stood there, looking at what Cay assumed was Alex approaching her, and her beautiful face went into a smile—and she became even more lovely. To Cay’s disbelief, the woman seemed to be looking at someone she loved very much.

  When Alex got within a few feet of her, his back to Cay so she couldn’t see his face, the woman took two steps forward, and she slipped her arms around Alex.

  “How very, very much I
’ve missed you, my darling,” Lilith said in a low, throaty voice. “And how glad I am that you’re going to remain my husband.”

  Cay saw Alex put his arms around her waist, and when Lilith kissed him, he kissed her back.

  Cay fainted. The blood left her head, her body became light, and she lost consciousness. Both Tally and Nate had surreptitiously been watching her, and they were able to catch her before she hit the floor.

  When Alex ran to her, Tally put up his arms and blocked him. “Go to your wife, and if you get near my sister again, I’ll kill you.”

  Twenty-six

  Before Adam answered the knock on his hotel door, he felt sure he knew who it was. This morning Tally had told him about Cay fainting and nearly hitting her head on the hard floor. Tally had been so angry that he’d wanted to challenge Alex to a duel. At the very least, he wanted to press charges against him.

  “Don’t you think he’s had enough trouble from the law?” Nate asked, calm as always.

  Adam turned to Nate and asked what had happened.

  “Our sister wanted to see Alex with his wife. She did, and it was too much for her.”

  Tally glared at Nate. “Tell him why you aren’t concerned about this. Tell Adam why you couldn’t care less about what’s been done to our little sister, including dragging her into uncharted territory where even the plants have teeth.”

  “I have yet to see proof of plants that devour human flesh, no matter that Mr. Connor loves to tell stories of them.”

  “Proof? You don’t need proof for what happened this morning. Just because you think McDowell can do no wrong doesn’t mean—”

  “Tally!” Adam said. “Am I right that our sister is unhurt?”

  “If you call crying hard enough to break a man’s heart to hear her, and refusing to eat or speak to anyone ‘unhurt,’ then yes she is.”

  “Interesting observation,” Nate said calmly, “since it’s usually you who makes her cry.”