The Scent of Jasmine (9 page)

“Twelve?” Alex said. “You’ve been tied into that thing since you were little more than a babe?”

“Of course. How else does a grown woman get a small waist? You don’t think a mother would wait until her daughter was an adult, then try to pull her waist in, do you?”

“I can honestly say that I never wondered how a woman got a small waist. I guess I thought they were born with them.”

Cay shook her head at him. “Next you’ll be telling me that you think women naturally have a shine to their hair and roses in their cheeks.”

Since that was true, Alex could only stare at her in silence.

“I think you missed out on a lot in life by having no mother or sisters.”

“I think I was a babe in the woods until I met you,” Alex said under his breath, then louder, “Are you ready to go, lass?”

“You’ll have to stop calling me that, now that I’m supposed to be a boy.”

“When we do something with your hair so you don’t look like one, I will.”

All humor left Cay’s face. “I think that if I wash it and comb it back when it’s wet, it might be manageable just as it is.”

He didn’t like the sadness in her eyes. “Might as well say that about a lion’s mane,” he said and was glad when she smiled.

“Truly?”

“Completely. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever before seen so much hair on one person. And the color is truly magnificent.” As he talked he was walking toward the door and Cay was following him.

“You don’t think it’s too red?” she asked, her eyes wide in innocence. She wanted to distract him enough so that he didn’t see the things she was putting into the bag.

With his eyes on her, he picked up the big bag of goods and held the door open for her. “I wouldn’t change a strand of it.” He glanced back into the store, saw the money he’d left on the counter, and closed the door behind her. “I once had a pony with a mane the color of your hair and it was my favorite of all of them.”

Cay looked at the closed door behind her. “Are you just saying these things to get me to do what you want?”

“Aye, I am, but I’m also telling you the truth, lass,” he said softly. “You have beautiful hair.”

Smiling, she went down the stairs.

In the store, she’d felt the looseness of the boy’s clothing, but it wasn’t until she mounted her mare that she really saw how different they were. Instead of having to rely on people or things to help her mount, without a skirt holding her legs together, she put her foot high up into the stirrup and hoisted herself up. She looked down at her legs in the dark breeches and knew that if her elegant mother saw her now she’d faint. Edilean Harcourt would
never
wear boy’s clothing, no matter what the circumstances. But Cay couldn’t help feeling just a bit more free. She saw that the Scotsman was watching her in curiosity. “I want to see the map to where we’re going,” she said in the firmest voice she could manage.

She had no idea what she’d said that made him laugh so loud, but she reminded him that they had to be quiet or someone would hear them.

“I think I’ve made my lot worse,” he said as he reined his horse away and started going south, Cay right behind him.

Eight

Cay had been careful not to say another word about the Scotsman’s hair or the state of his body until they stopped to camp that night. When she’d lowered her lashes and asked sweetly that they camp by a stream or a river, he’d squinted his eyes, as though to ask what she was up to, but he said nothing, and that’s where they’d stopped. All through their dinner of dried fruit, crackers, and pickles, she’d said nothing.

It was only after they’d finished eating that she stood up and stared down at him. “It’s time for you to take a bath.”

“Too cold,” he said without looking up.

“It must be eighty degrees and you’re a Scot, so how can anything be too cold?”

“The river current is too strong.”

She didn’t have to look at the stream to see how gently it was flowing. “I have soft soap for your hair.”

“I don’t need it.” He still hadn’t looked up at her. “As for you, lass, I’m afraid it’s time to trim your hair. I brought scissors so I won’t need to use my knife, but I think we should get started on it.”

She knew he was trying to distract her, but it wasn’t working. “You smell so bad that I have to hold my hand over my nose and breathe through my mouth. Your hair is so dirty that I’ve seen cow tails that are cleaner. You stink, and I can’t stand it any longer.”

Alex kept his eyes straight ahead, looking at the water and the sun low in the sky, and not looking at her. The truth was that he didn’t want to remove the stench of the prison from his body. He knew he was being foolish, but he hadn’t been allowed to bathe since the day he’d married Lilith, and if he washed, he knew it would remove his last connection to her.

And then there was the fact that he was alone with a young woman whom he was beginning to see as being quite desirable. All in all, he thought it would be better to make her stay away from him. “I like the smell of me.”

“Well, I don’t. If we’re going to make it to Florida together, then there are going to be times when you need my help, and if you want me to give it to you, then you are going to be
clean.
”

When he just sat there, she turned away from him, went to her horse, and began to saddle it. He took longer than she’d thought he would before he stopped her, but he did.

“Why didn’t your father turn you over his knee and teach you to obey your elders?”

“My father would never strike a child, but my mother . . .” She glared at him. “Don’t get me started on my family! There’s the water and the soap is in the bag. And when you get through, I’m going to coat your hair in jasmine oil.”

Alex took a step back from her, his face filled with horror. “Nay, you will not.”

“The oil will kill whatever is living in there. Smother it.”

“But the smell, lass . . . I couldn’t bear the stench.” When he saw that she wasn’t going to give in, he looked back at the water. “No, I won’t do it.”

“Fine,” Cay said as nicely as she could manage. “But
I
am going to take a bath.” Turning, she slipped into the surrounding forest and removed her shoes, cursing him with every breath. “I guess he wants turpentine,” she muttered. “Make him smell more like a
man.
Good. Then he can stay as filthy as he wants to and I won’t care. But he’s not going to share
my
cloak again, and he’s not going to sleep beside me ever again. He’s not going to—”

She stopped her tirade when she heard a big splash. It was either a huge fish, a bear coming to eat them, or . . . She stepped closer to the stream and looked to see the Scotsman’s head just above the water.

“It may be warm on land but this water is cold,” he said, and even in the fading light she could see that his face was already red.

“The water in Scotland is colder,” she said, laughing.

“Aye, but I don’t get into it naked. I have my plaid.”

Cay kept the smile on her face and stepped back into the trees. She was alone in the forest with a naked man who might be a murderer, but she was smiling. Even to her, that seemed odd.

“Will you no come in, lass?” He sounded like a old man calling to a young girl—which was what was happening, but she knew he was doing it as a joke.

His jest removed the awkwardness of the moment. “Use the soap. I just hope it’s strong enough to remove some of the dirt.”

“Could you not come in and show me how?” he called in a teasing way.

Cay stayed out of sight, but she was laughing. When he said nothing more and she heard a lot of splashing, she cautiously peeped around a tree and looked out at the water. He was standing chest deep, lather on his head, and he was shivering. As she watched, he dove into the water and she saw his naked behind above the surface. Turning back, she giggled and began removing the rest of her own clothing.

What would he do if she did get into the water with him? she wondered. In her group of female friends, it was Jessica Welsch who was the flirt. One time Cay’s mother said that it was a wonder Jess hadn’t run off with a man when she was thirteen, considering what her mother Tabitha’s past was like. Cay had wanted to know all the story behind that remark, but her mother wouldn’t elaborate on it.

“What would I do if I were Jessica?” she wondered aloud. It came to her that she’d remove all her clothing and walk naked into the river. The pale evening light, the warm air, being alone with a man . . . It all seemed to be right.

But Cay leaned against a tree and sighed. What was wrong was that this wasn’t the right man. This was a man she hardly knew, he was much too old for her, and he wasn’t the sort of man her family would be proud that she’d chosen. Even if he were proven innocent of murder, there would always be the stigma of the accusation and the trial attached to him.

No, she thought, and gave another sigh. Maybe the circumstances were right, but the man wasn’t.

She waited until she heard him leave the water, then she went in. She stayed a good distance from where he had been, and even though she wanted to swim and play in the water—which was colder than it looked—she didn’t. She soaped and washed her hair, rinsed, then used one of the two towels that had been in Uncle T.C.’s supplies to dry off.

When she went back to their camp, he had built a fire and was sitting there in his clean clothes, and he looked and smelled much better. In fact, maybe it was the light, but he looked younger and maybe even a little bit handsome.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much. Except that now I’ll not be able to find you by smell alone.”

He was leaning over the fire and seemed taller than he had when she first met him, and now his hair was wet and clean and no longer standing out from his head.

Cay held up the brown bottle of jasmine oil. She’d seen the bottle of oil, probably made by the storekeeper’s wife, and known that it would work on nits and lice and all manner of vermin. But then, so would several other oils. The object was to smother the creatures so they couldn’t breathe. She’d chosen jasmine over the other oils that the storekeeper had because she liked its smell so much. She’d had to retrieve it after Alex had tried to hide it. He’d been so involved in his flattery of her that he’d not seen her slip the bottle into the bag.

Alex didn’t say anything, just nodded that she could pour the oil on him. When she sat down behind him, a comb in her hand, his eyes widened.

“What do you mean to do to me, lass?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Not what you’re hoping. Bend down so I can see your hair.”

Smiling, he sat in front of her, but when she did nothing, he looked back at her.

“You’re too tall for me to reach.” She spread her damp towel across her lap. “Stretch out and put your head on my lap.”

“Lass, I don’t think—”

“That you can control your ‘passion’ for me?” she asked without a smile. “Are you afraid you’ll touch me and fall in love instantly?”

He knew she was making fun of him and he didn’t like it, but on the other hand, she had a knack for making him laugh. “I’ll save myself for someone older and let Michael have you.”

“Micah,” she said as he put his head on her lap and she began to comb his hair. When she had the tangles out, she poured the oil on it, and began to work it through. The heavenly fragrance of jasmine filled the air around them.

“I did this once to my brother Ethan when he got honey and beeswax in his hair. My father wanted to shave his head, but I couldn’t bear that, so I said I’d get it out.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven, I guess.”

“So that means he was . . . ?”

“Fourteen.”

“Were you always like a mother to them?”

“Not at all.” She massaged the oil into his scalp. For all that she’d complained often about his having lice, she didn’t feel anything, just his scalp and his too-long hair. “Maybe I was a bit of a mother to Ethan, but he’s the sweetest of my brothers, and the most gentle and the prettiest.”

“Pretty? Like a girl?”

“No. At least no girl thinks he’s pretty in that way. Women old and young make such a fuss over him.”

“That must be pleasant.”

“He takes it well. It’s my mother who has the hard time. She says that girls of my generation have no restraint and no shame at all. She says that girls today throw themselves at men.”

“Like you and your young man?”

“I never—”

“Didn’t he teach you about using your . . . ?” He waved his hand about in the general area of his mouth.

“No,” Cay said hesitantly, reluctant to admit that she’d lied. “Jessica told me about that. She’s had more experience with boys than my other friends and I’ve had.”

“So you didn’t do anything you shouldn’t have with the boy Micah?”

Cay didn’t like the way he sounded like her father. “He’s hardly a boy. He’s thirty years old, has never been married, and conducts services on Sundays.”

Twisting about, Alex looked up at her. “He’s a minister? You’re thinking about marrying a pastor?”

“And what’s so wrong with that?”

“You agreed to help a convicted murderer escape from prison. Don’t you think that’s a wee bit against what the good wife of a holy man would do?”

“I told you that I didn’t do it for you but for Uncle T.C.”

“And this is the man who was passionately in love with a woman named Bathsheba?”

“Yes,” Cay said, not understanding what he was getting at.

“Tell me, child, did T.C. ever do anything about his passion?”

When she didn’t say anything, he looked up at her.

“Come on, lass, I can see it on your face. What did he do?”

“Hope.”

“He
hoped
he’d find the woman he loved alone someday?”

“No!” she said as she put her hands on his scalp and turned his head back around. “Bathsheba had a daughter named Hope and she looks a lot like Uncle T.C.” She glared down at him. “If you keep looking at me like that I’ll pour this oil into your smirking mouth.”

Alex closed his eyes, but he was still grinning. “All I’m saying, lass, is that if you marry the pastor and people find out what you did, it won’t make life easy for your husband. But then, he might be an understanding man and forgive you for your sins.”

“I haven’t . . .” She trailed off, not sure what to say. What
would
Micah do when he was told what she’d done? How could she explain that she’d spent days alone with this man, had even had his head on her lap, but nothing sinful had happened? When she saw the way Alex was smiling at her, as though he actually could read her mind, she was tempted to make good her threat and pour the oil in his mouth. “Are you forgetting that you’re a convicted murderer and we’re alone out here? I know you don’t want me to talk to you about . . . about men.”

“And rightly so. I just wanted to know that you haven’t done something you shouldn’t have.”

“The more I know you, the more you sound like one of my brothers.”

“Which one?”

“Part Nate and part Tally.”

“But not the beautiful Ethan?”

“Definitely not Ethan.”

“What about the perfect Adam?”

“Adam is unique. No one is like Adam.”

For a while they were quiet and Alex closed his eyes as the smell wafted about him and Cay’s small hands worked on his scalp. “I swear, lass, that you have put me in a trance.”

As she stroked his hair, pulling it out across her legs, she began to think more about her family, and where she was, and the fact that she didn’t know where she was going or what was going to happen. All her life had been well planned, and she’d always known what she wanted to do with her life. She could have drawn pictures of herself at thirty. She would have two boys and a girl by then. All she had to do was decide which man was to be her husband. Now she wondered if one of her prospects would even want her after her time of running from the law.

Suddenly, tears began to form, and one of them dropped on Alex’s forehead.

He had his eyes closed, his mind and body given over to the first comfort he’d felt in a very long time, but he knew what she was feeling. He didn’t like to think that he’d made a girl cry, especially such a sweet and innocent one as she was. “Did you know that I came here to this country to race horses?” he asked, his voice so soft she could barely hear him.