The Scent of Jasmine (26 page)

When Adam went down on the ground on one knee, Alex wasn’t sure what was happening, but in the next second Adam opened his arms, and Cay went running. With his kneeling, she was almost the same height as he was. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. And in the next second, the air was full of the sobs of both of them.

Embarrassed at such a display of raw emotion, Alex turned to look at Nate and Tally. Their eyes were on their siblings, who were locked together, their heads bent in a position of surrender, their quiet sobs coming to them on the hot night air. There were tears running down the cheeks of both Nate and Tally, but they didn’t bother to wipe them away.

Alex stepped away from them and into the shadows. It was as though he’d already lost Cay, as though their time together had never been, and she was now going back to where she belonged. Alex had never felt more superfluous or unneeded in his life than he did at that moment. What was going on was between her and her brothers, and he had no place in it.

Quietly, he turned and started to walk away, but Nate’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Don’t leave. They’ll calm down in a moment, Adam will start telling her how she scared all of us, and how she’s never going to be allowed out of the house alone again. When it gets back to normal, you and I can go somewhere and talk. You look different than I imagined.”

Alex knew what Nate meant. Both of them had been very modest in their letters about what they looked like. Alex had said he looked like a horse, and Nate had said he was as plain faced as all scientists. But Alex had the dark good looks of a Renaissance angel, and Nate had the chiseled features of a Greek sculpture.

“I’d hoped you were better-looking,” Alex said with a straight face.

“It’s evident that you’ve spent a great deal of time in the company of my sister,” Nate said just as seriously. “There is no situation about which she doesn’t make a jest. Ah! I see that the two of them have stopped crying. Perhaps we can get some dinner out of them. I have a lot to tell you, and I’ll be able to think better if I have some sustenance inside me.”

Alex couldn’t resist a grin. Nate talked as formally as he wrote. And oh! how wonderfully familiar he sounded. After months of everyone and everything being new and different, it was very good to hear something that was known to him.

“Will you need a handkerchief?” Nate asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I leave the crying to your family,” Alex answered, and was glad to see Nate give a small smile.

“You must show me what you do with the horses.”

“And you have to solve the mystery that condemned me to be hanged,” Alex answered.

“Even Tally figured that one out.” Nate sounded as though a trained dog had done an extraordinary trick, and the two of them shared their first laugh, in person, together.

“Who is it that’s made my very serious little brother laugh?” came a deep voice that was unfamiliar to Alex.

Nate and Alex turned to see Adam, his arm around Cay in such a way that if she tried to escape, she wouldn’t be able to. Alex couldn’t keep his hands from clenching. He didn’t care if that was her brother, he didn’t want someone else touching her.

“I think we should all talk,” Adam said and Alex nodded.

Adam had arranged for a restaurant to remain open, and they had it all to themselves. Once they were seated at a round table, Tally and Adam began to speak at once, but Adam let his young brother tell what they’d been through to find Cay. “And Mac’s son,” he added as an afterthought, obviously as yet undecided as to whether Alex was friend or foe.

When the waiters started filling the table with plates of food, Alex had a momentary fear of their being heard. Maybe they’d forgotten that he was a wanted man, but Alex would never forget. It wasn’t until he saw a confused look on the face of a waiter that he realized the entire family had slipped into a Scottish accent so thick they sounded as though they’d left the Highlands just yesterday.

Tally told of going to the trading post and meeting Thankfull and her twin sisters. “I got there two days after you left.” For a moment he stared into space and shook his head. “Those girls! They followed me wherever I went. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Then not all girls are as aggressive as they are?” Cay asked. When Tally said no, she looked at Alex with an I-told-you-so expression.

“But I wish they were!” Tally said enthusiastically. “I wouldn’t have to work so hard if all girls were like them.”

Adam gave Tally a look that told him to keep his mouth shut, but Cay and Alex couldn’t suppress their laughter.

“I told you we men liked that,” Alex said.

“And I told you we women weren’t all like them,” Cay responded, laughing.

“Yet again, we’re both right.” Alex was laughing with her.

Adam looked at Tally, and the younger man shrugged. They had no idea what Cay and Alex were talking about.

“Nate stayed in Charleston, while I went to New Orleans,” Adam said over the laughter.

“But you didn’t tell Uncle T.C. where you were going.” Cay’s voice was stern with disapproval.

“At the time, I was a bit vexed with him.” Adam took a sip of his wine.

“He was ready to tear Uncle T.C.’s head off,” Tally said to Cay. “I was wishing you were there so you could draw a picture of the fight. Wouldn’t that have been something to see?”

“I hardly think such a thing would have happened,” Adam said.

Tally went on telling of all his trials and tribulations of getting down to Florida to try and reach Cay before she took off on the boat. “Uncle T.C. didn’t tell us you were with one of the Armitage boys.”

“I doubt if it was important to him,” Adam said. “Unless the man sprouts leaves and blooms on schedule, I don’t think T.C. would think he was interesting.”

“Was Grady warned about me, about us?” Alex asked.

Adam answered. “Not that I know of, but the last time I saw Jamie, he asked if my little sister had grown up yet. I don’t think it would have taken much for him to add things up.”

Throughout all the talk, Nate sat in silence and watched. He liked to observe whatever was going on around him, whether it was people, animals, or even the changes of the landscape. He had a formidable memory and remembered all that he saw and heard.

He now watched Alex and Cay with all the concentration of observing them under a magnifying glass. He saw the way his sister had changed, both physically and mentally. He knew that all her life she’d been protected. He’d even told his father that the way Cay was treated wasn’t necessarily good for her. If she married and moved to someone else’s house, she was going to have a difficult time adjusting. She was used to only the best and the finest; no bad parts of life had been allowed to touch her.

But Nate saw that now his young sister was different. The fact that she was sitting next to a man who’d been tried for murder, but of whom she didn’t seem in the least afraid, was a big change. On the walk to the restaurant, two men, obviously drunk, had nearly run into her. Adam had instantly reached out to push them away, but Cay had already sidestepped them. And she’d done it in such a deft way it was as though she’d done the same thing a hundred times. More unusual, she hadn’t seemed to notice the men. Her eyes were on Alex.
Always
on Alex.

Now, in the restaurant, Adam was seated across from Cay, Tally and Nate on either side of him, and Alex was beside Cay. Adam had been telling what they’d done to track them down, while Tally was adding as much drama as he could to the story.

“When I was at Thankfull’s I even saw an alligator,” Tally said. “Really, I did. It was no more than fifty feet from me, but I stood still and let it pass.”

“Did you?” Cay asked as she glanced at Alex, their eyes registering mutual merriment.

Tally looked from one to the other and frowned. He and Adam were too polite to comment on the fact that Cay and Alex were eating off each other’s plates. They seemed to know every food the other liked, and without so much as a look at each other, they traded vegetables. The whole family knew that Cay didn’t like green beans, so when they saw her eat them and share them with Alex, even Adam paused with the fork halfway to his mouth.

“I can’t get over how you look,” Tally said to his sister. “You’ve changed.”

“My hair will grow back,” she said. “Although maybe I don’t want it to. I can ride better without fifty pounds of hair trailing behind me.”

“Bad for your neck,” Alex said, and Cay laughed, as though it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

Tally looked at Nate, but he was staring at Cay and Alex so hard that he didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on. But Tally knew his brother was doing what they’d come to call “conjuring,” meaning that he was studying something to figure out what it meant. He knew that later, Nate would tell them in one concise sentence what had actually taken place.

“After we eat,” Adam said to his sister, “we’ll go to the hotel I’ve arranged for us, and tomorrow morning I’ll have some proper clothes brought to you. You won’t need to dress like a boy anymore. I have enough brothers, I don’t need any more.”

Alex glanced up from his food. “No. The corset hurts her. Let her have as much time of freedom as possible. When she sees her mother, that will be soon enough to strap her back into that cage.” His voice was quiet, but it held command in it, and Adam looked straight into Alex’s eyes.

Nate had seen few men stand up to his oldest brother, and he’d never seen anyone except their father win against Adam, but Alex’s unblinking stare and his immovable jaw said that he wasn’t going to back down.

“Well, then,” Adam said at last. “I guess that tomorrow we’ll be five men moving about New Orleans. But Cay, you can’t—” He broke off at a look from Alex.

“She can’t what?” Alex asked, and his voice was that of a man who was ready to fight.

All three brothers looked at their sister, but she had her nose nearly on her plate.

“What do
you
think she should do?” Nate asked Alex.

“I think she should—” He cut himself off, and the challenging look left his face. He turned to Cay. “I think she should do whatever
she
wants to do.”

The change in Alex’s tone was dramatic. He’d been ready to fight all two-hundred-plus pounds of Adam, but when it came to telling Cay what to do, he blanched. In a second, his voice went from confrontational to conceding.

The men looked at one another, all of them over six feet tall, then looked at tiny Cay, and suddenly, they all burst into laughter. Cay tried to remain aloof, as though she had no idea what they were laughing about, but then she, too, joined in the merriment. When she slipped her hand to Alex’s side and withdrew his big knife from its sheath and waved it around, the laughter grew louder.

Nate watched as Cay looked at Alex with eyes that seemed to melt. She’s in love with him, Nate thought, and he had to repress a smile. How convenient it was that his sister was in love with his best friend.

But when he remembered that Alex had a wife who was alive and well and living not two miles from where they were sitting, Nate’s smile left him. Alex was going to have to make a choice, and if he hurt Cay, Nate wondered if he’d have to choose between his sister and his best friend.

Twenty-four

Cay was in bed asleep, dreaming about being on the flatboat and floating down the calm, peaceful Florida river. Mr. Grady and Eli were there, and Alex was sitting close beside her. Tim was by the side of the boat, his hand trailing in the water, and there was a little alligator following his fingers, its mouth open. She was just about to warn him when a sound woke her.

“Hey! Sleepyhead,” Alex said softly as he slid into bed next to her.

She kept her eyes closed and snuggled against him. “You smell wonderful.”

“That’s not what I can say about you. You haven’t had a bath, and you smell like a swamp.”

“Mmmm. I thought you liked the swamps.” She put her leg over his and moved, as though to get on top of him.

Reluctantly, Alex pushed her thigh off his stomach. “Your brother is in the room next door, and with the noise you make, I don’t dare do anything with you.”

She put her leg back over him. “Since when are you afraid of Tally?”

“It’s Adam who’s next door.”

Cay removed her leg, opened her eyes, and lowered her voice. “In that case, what are you doing in here, and when did you take a bath?”

He put her head back on his shoulder. “I’ve been up all night talking to Nate.”

“Nate? My brother Nate?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“It’s just that Nate doesn’t talk to anyone. He’d rather watch and learn than give out information. So what did he tell you?”

“I wanted to know what Grady was told or figured out, but we can’t ask him until he gets back from the jungle.”

Cay knew Alex was stalling and waited for him to get to the important news. But she knew what he was going to say before he spoke because Alex’s arm tightened around her so she couldn’t move.

“Nate told me about Lilith.” When Cay started to roll away, Alex held her in place. “You’re going to have to hear this sooner or later, so you can let one of your brothers tell you, or you can hear it from me. Your choice.”

She knew that Alex would tell the story with more diplomacy than three of her brothers would. If Ethan had been there, she would have asked him to explain it all to her, but he wasn’t. Cay took a breath. “All right, tell me. But if we hear anyone at the door and we think it might be Adam, you have to go out the window.”

Alex smiled. “You do know that we’re on the fourth floor, don’t you?”

“If we were on the twelfth floor, you’d still have to go out that way. Neither your life nor mine would be worth anything if Adam were to find you in here with me.”

“Nate said almost the same thing, and that’s why he’s keeping Adam busy.”

Cay lifted her head to look at him. He was clean and had shaved, and she thought he was by far the most handsome man she’d ever seen. She’d never tell him, but she thought he was even better-looking than her brother Ethan. “You’ve certainly become friends with my brother in a short time.”

Alex put her head back down. “Do you want to hear the story or not? There’s only so long Nate can occupy Adam before your eldest brother gets suspicious.”

“Tell me,” she said and felt her body stiffen. She didn’t like to think about what she was going to hear. “Why is your . . .” She couldn’t say the word
wife.
“Why is that woman alive when so many people saw her with her throat cut?”

“That’s just it. Very few people saw her. On that night the only people who saw her were the judge, the doctor, and the two men who handcuffed me. After that, Lilith’s body was taken to the doctor’s office, where she was put in a coffin that was nailed shut, and she was buried three days later.”

“I take it she wasn’t inside the coffin,” Cay said, and wanted to add “more’s the pity.”

“No. What Nate found out was that the doctor was in on the whole scheme. He provided the drugs that were used to put me to sleep, and he wrote the note that was careful
not
to say that I had murdered my bride, but just that I could be found with her. The doctor threw the note through the judge’s window and woke him up. The doctor also got the policemen, and he led all of them to my room. But only the doctor actually looked closely at Lilith. The other three men were too busy throwing me to the floor and telling me that I was a first cousin to the devil. Even I only had a quick glimpse of Lilith. But what I saw has haunted me since that moment. That one look was enough.”

“I guess I should ask why she did such a horrible thing to you.”

“That part we don’t know and won’t know until I talk to her today.”

“Today?” There was fear in Cay’s voice.

Alex stroked her hair as he held her close. “Aye, today. Your brothers have three hired guards surrounding her now.”

“She knows you’re here?”

“No. She knows nothing. Since she’s so good at slipping away from people, your brothers thought it would be better not to warn her. They just hired men to follow her and watch everything she did, but not to let her see them. Your brothers want me to ‘surprise’ her.” Alex’s tone told what he thought of that.

Cay’s face lit up as she remembered something. “The doctor died. Didn’t you tell me that the doctor died of a heart attack?”

“Aye,” Alex said. “I like to think the man had enough of a conscience that the guilt over what he’d done to me killed him. Nate says he doesn’t think Lilith meant for me to be accused of her murder. He thinks she meant for the doctor to declare her death a suicide.”

Cay was aghast. “And that would have been better? All your life you would have been haunted by that. A woman killed herself rather than spend the night with you.”

Alex put his hand under her chin and lifted her face. The kiss he gave her told how grateful he was for her understanding.

She put her leg back over him—and he pushed it off. She sighed. “So you’re going to go see her today and ask her why she did such a rotten, horrible, devious thing to you and almost got you hanged?”

Alex chuckled. “I’m glad you’re on my side. But, aye, that’s just what I’m going to do.”

“If her plan was to fake her suicide, please be sure to ask her why she didn’t come to your rescue when she heard or read that you were about to be hanged for murdering her.”

“That question is at the top of my list.”

“Then what? You’ll . . .” She hesitated. “After you settle this, you can go back to Virginia with us.”

“No,” he said softly, “I can’t. I have to clear my name.”

“That’s easy. Just get someone to verify that she’s alive, have a lawyer present the paper to a judge in Charleston, and you’re free. My family will help you. My father knows lots of people, so you should have your sentence removed in no time at all. You . . .” She could tell by the way Alex was saying nothing that there was more. “All right, tell me all of it, even the part you’re hiding.” Her voice was heavy, dreading what she was going to hear.

“I can get the charges dropped, true, but I need for my name to be
cleared.
”

“You keep saying that, but exactly what do you mean?”

“I hope you never know what it’s like to go from thinking that you have many friends to finding out you have none. Before the day of my wedding, I would have sworn that I had some truly good friends. George told you how he and I used to go out drinking. I . . .” He paused for a moment. “The truth is, I thought I’d done some good things. I can’t tell you the number of betting debts that I forgave. If a man couldn’t afford what he’d lost, if he had a wife and children to support, I often said that I didn’t get his bet in time to post it and gave him his money back. There were many times when men slapped me on the back and told me I was a truly
good
person. It’s the way I conducted my life. And as for the women, I received many offers, but I never took up
any
of them. I didn’t want a husband chasing me with a gun, or have a father or brother angry at me for what I’d done to an innocent girl.”

Cay kissed his chest through his clean white shirt.

“I did what I could to earn friendship and respect,” Alex said. “But after Lilith was found dead in my bed, not one person, not
one
! stood up for me.”

“Except Uncle T.C.”

“Aye, except for him.”

Cay was trying to put together what he’d told her, and when she understood, she wanted to cry. “You want to go back to Charleston with . . . with
her
and show all those people that she’s still alive. A piece of paper and a quiet settlement aren’t enough for you.”

He gave her shoulder a hug. “You understand.”

“No. I just know you well enough to know that’s what you want to do.” She lifted up to put her head on her hand and looked at him. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t, and I’m asking you not to. At least don’t go alone. Adam will go with you.”

“Nate is going with me.”

“Nate?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why is he talking to you so much? Nate doesn’t make friends easily.”

“There’s more to this than just the murder. Did you forget that?”

Cay was well aware that Alex hadn’t answered her question about Nate and had changed the subject. She knew what Alex meant. She fell back onto the pillow. “Marriage. If she’s alive, then you’re still married.”

“Exactly. Nate and I think that if a judge is told what Lilith did to me, he’ll declare the marriage invalid right there.”

“An annulment.”

“Aye, a legal decree that says the marriage never existed. The whole country knows it wasn’t consummated.”

She turned to look at him. “I
am
going with you.”

“No, you’re
not
! You’re going back to Edilean with Adam and Tally. It’s already been settled.”

“And who did the ‘settling’?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Nate and I talked about everything all night long, and we decided that this is the best way. You’re to go to Virginia and wait for me there.”

“Wait, am I?” Her voice was rising. “I guess I’m supposed to strap on a corset, put on a pretty dress, get into a carriage, and go back to my mother in Virginia.”

“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Alex said firmly. “And I’m not going to argue with you about this. You can
not
go with me to Charleston.”

“‘Her eyes met mine, and I was hers,’” she quoted.

“What?”

“That’s what you said. I asked you if you loved her and you said, ‘With all my heart and soul.’ Then you said that you loved her in the first moment you saw her, and that when your eyes met, you were hers.”

Alex snorted. “I’m sure I never said such a ridiculous thing in my life. A man doesn’t talk that way. It’s too . . . too flowery. Now, if I had jasmine in my hair . . .” His eyes darkened and he rolled toward her, obviously meaning to kiss her.

She put her hands on his chest and pushed. “If you think you’re going to distract me, Alexander McDowell, you have another think coming. So help me, if you don’t answer my questions, I’ll scream, and you can bet my brother will come through that door—or through the wall if he has to.”

With a sigh, Alex lay back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. “I’m not going to fall back in love with her, if that’s what you’re worried about. This is about justice and trying to make myself whole again. I’ll never get rid of the stench of that prison from my mind, but I’m going to do the best I can. Did I tell you that they threw rocks at me on the way to the courtroom?”

“At least fifty times. What I want to know about is your stupid plan of going back to Charleston and
living
with a woman you are madly in love with.”

“I’m not going to live with her, and I’m no longer in love with her.” Turning, he looked at Cay. “I’m in love with someone else.”

She glared at him. “Don’t even consider saying what I think you’re about to. You’re a married man.”

Alex sat up in bed and glared down at her. “That’s what I’ve been saying! It’s what I’m trying to explain to you! I have to get myself cleared of murder charges, and I have to get out of being married to her. Are you daft, girl, that you can’t hear the simplest thing?”

“I can hear you and so can half the people in this hotel.”

Alex fell back onto the pillow, shaking his head in frustration. “If any man in the world actually knew what it was like to be married, he’d never do it.” Turning, he looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “You can’t go with me because I don’t want your name tainted. If I show up in Charleston with you on one arm and Lilith on the other, no matter what the truth is, people will say that
you
are the reason she had to fake her own death. People will look for something to prove that they weren’t the fools and morons that they were. When they find out that they condemned an innocent man to death, they’re going to search for a reason to forgive themselves. If they see another woman with me they’ll blame her—you.”

“But I didn’t meet you until after the verdict came in.”

“Do you think they’re going to believe that? You were in Charleston and your godfather was my only visitor. And are you forgetting that you were seen helping me escape? I know your family cleared your name legally, but no one will believe that anyone was innocently gullible enough to agree to help an escaped convict who she’d never even met. That’s more than enough ammunition for them to make up stories about my having another woman. They said that the only reason I married Lilith was for the money she was supposed to inherit. They even wrote that in the newspapers. Nate has proof that Lilith isn’t old lady Underwood’s niece, but do you think people will
believe
that?”