Lavender Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  “You two are disgusting,” Sara said, but she was laughing.

  Now, Luke sharpened the blades of the lawn mower on the whetstone as he looked out through the little round window in the brick wall. He was in what used to be the stables of the old house, but most of it had fallen down long ago. While old Bertrand lived there, the house had been taken care of, as per Miss Edi’s instructions, but the outbuildings had been allowed to fall into ruin.

  “You didn’t put the care of them in the contract?” Luke asked Ramsey. “You just took care of the house and not the grounds?”

  “Are you implying that I made out the contract in 1946?”

  “Okay, then your dad.”

  “He was one year old.”

  “Whoever, whenever, it is your job to look after the place,” Luke said when he’d returned to Edilean and seen the state of the outbuildings.

  “Maybe you should have stayed here and taken care of them,” Ramsey said, unperturbed by his cousin’s anger. “Maybe you shouldn’t have run off to the far ends of the earth and done whatever it is that’s made you so damned angry.”

  Luke opened his mouth to say something, but closed it. “Go away. Go do whatever you do in your little office and let me take care of this.”

  It had taken Luke months to restore the old buildings. He only rebuilt part of the stables, but he used materials from the time the house was built. He dug old bricks out of the ground, even dug up a well that had been filled in with bricks that had been handmade and fired when Edilean Manor was the center of a plantation.

  It had been hard, physical labor, something that Luke needed at the time, and he’d enjoyed the solitude of working alone. No one was living in the house then, as old Bertrand had died. There was a housekeeper who came every day, but she was so old she could hardly climb the stairs. When Luke saw her hobbling about, too feeble to accomplish much, he’d taken over. He got her a fat chair and a radio, and he set her up in the living room. When Ramsey, as the lawyer in charge of Miss Edi’s estate, saw what he’d done, he said he’d write Miss Edi and tell her the housekeeper should be put out to pasture. But Rams looked hard at Luke as he said it. They both knew the woman’s family needed the money, so she was kept on, and Luke did the work. He kept the house in repair, and when the furniture arrived, it was Luke who saw to its placement. One Saturday with cousins and beer and pizza got the larger pieces up the stairs.

  Except for the tenants, in essence, the house had been Luke’s for the past few years. He was the one who repaired the roof and got the dead pigeon out of the wall. And he rebuilt the top of the chimney when it was hit by lightning.

  When he was told that Miss Edi had died and left the house to some girl who’d never seen the place, Luke had an urge to burn it down. Better that than let someone who didn’t appreciate it have it.

  “Maybe she’s a historian,” Ramsey said. “Or maybe she’s an architect—or even a building contractor. We don’t know what she is.”

  Luke didn’t like the way his cousin was defending this unknown woman who was going to take over what most people thought of as the heart of Edilean. All his life he’d heard people say that if Edilean Manor was destroyed, the town wouldn’t live a year.

  But Ramsey had been so happy about the new inheritor that Luke knew he was up to something. One day after work he went to Tess. She answered his knock but didn’t invite him in. “What’s he up to about this new owner?” Luke asked, not bothering with preliminaries. And there was no need to explain who “he” was.

  Tess was a woman of few words. “Edilean Harcourt sent him a photo of her. In a bikini.”

  Luke understood immediately. If he knew his cousin, Rams planned to make a play for her. He loved Edilean Manor almost as much as Luke did. “Got it,” Luke said.

  Tess stepped to the side and opened the screen door wider. “You want a beer?”

  “Love one.”

  Now, “she” had arrived, and Luke watched her as she sat and talked with Sara. She was pretty, but not strikingly so. She was a little above average height, and her hair looked like the girls’ used to get in the summer. It would turn from brown to sun-streaked over the months, and he wondered if hers was natural or if she spent hours in a salon.

  She was dressed as old-fashioned as Sara, and that made him smile. Sara loved to wear dresses with long sleeves even in the heat of summer. But then she knew they looked good on her. She was as pretty and as delicate as a flower, and when she wore something like a bright red tank top and jeans she looked almost odd.

  Luke thought that if he had a camera with him he would have taken their photo. There was Sara in her prim little dress, her sewing on her lap, and across from her was this new woman wearing something like in an illustration in Alice in Wonderland. He thought the headband was an especially perfect touch.

  A priss and a prude, he thought. That’s who Miss Edi had left the house to. A woman heading toward spinsterhood who would probably dedicate her entire life to the house. No doubt she’d work hard to find furniture of exactly the right time period and within a few months she’d make Edilean Manor into a museum.

  He’d made up his mind about her within minutes of first seeing her, and if it hadn’t been for his mother, he would have told her he quit. Let Ramsey have her, he thought. Let him ooze charm all over her and have her fall for him. Of course he’d probably do what he always did and find some little thing wrong with her, then dump her. But maybe it would backfire and she’d be so heartbroken she’d put the house up for sale.

  Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself. Maybe she’d sell the place.

  But his mother’s voice was in his head, so he stayed where he was in the old stables and watched Sara and the new owner.

  He knew something was up when his mother appeared at his door at six this morning with a covered plate of blueberry pancakes. Luke smiled. “So what’s Dad done this time that you’re bringing me his breakfast?” Luke’s father had retired a year ago, and since then he’d nearly driven his wife insane with his puttering around the house.

  “Nothing. I talked him into going to a tractor show.”

  “Without you?”

  “In case he asks, I have the worst headache you’ve ever seen. That’s enough about me. Miss Edi’s girl comes today and I want you to promise that you’ll be nice to her.” While she talked, she was heating up the pancakes for her son and cleaning his kitchen as she moved about his house.

  Luke groaned. “What is it you want me to do this time? Take her out to dinner? Show her the sights? It’s too early for the water parks, so do I have to take her to some fife and drum concert?”

  “I want you to leave her alone. She belongs to Ramsey.”

  Luke’s eyes widened.

  “No, you don’t,” Helen said as she put the pancakes in front of him. “You’re not going to take this as a challenge. She’s already talked to Rams and she likes him.”

  “Didn’t waste any time, did he? But then I hear there was a bikini shot of her that he liked before he ever talked to her.”

  “Men are like that,” Helen said in dismissal.

  “Are we?” Luke’s mouth was full.

  “Do you understand me? Be nice and stay away from her. Keep to the gardening.”

  “What if I like her?” He told himself he was a grown man and it didn’t matter that his own mother was taking the side of his cousin, but he couldn’t help feeling betrayed.

  “You won’t. She was trained by Miss Edi, which means she likes men in tuxedos, not in…” She glared at his tattered jeans and dirty T-shirt. “Do we have everything clear between us?”

  “Sure,” Luke said. The last thing he wanted was female trouble. “Let Ramsey have her. Let them move into Edilean Manor and raise a dozen kids. What do I care?”

  But now, Luke kept watching Sara and the woman…What was her name? Jocelyn. An old-fashioned name that suited her. As he watched the two of them, he was beginning to change his opinion of her. She laughed easily and often. And w
hatever she was saying was interesting to Sara. In fact, Sara was doing most of the talking, which was unusual. Usually, Sara was the listener.

  Twice, Luke saw her…Jocelyn, look at the house with a mixture of love and disbelief, as though she were shocked that it could be hers. But that couldn’t be, could it? Surely Miss Edi had told her she was leaving the place to her.

  When the lawn mower blade was so sharp he could have sliced salami with it, he still stayed in the stables and watched them. He opened a bottle of water and drank it while leaning against the wall and looking out the little window. If he left, they’d see him, and he didn’t want that. Sara knew he was there, but she hadn’t called to him to come meet the new owner. That meant they were having some serious girl talk.

  Suddenly, Sara jumped up, grabbed the dress she was working on, and ran into her house. That she left her precious sewing box in the care of this stranger told Luke a lot. Sara liked her.

  The woman sat there for a while, then she picked up the dishes they’d used and the sewing box, and took them back to her own part of the house. As far as Luke knew, she hadn’t so much as walked through the house. He knew that upstairs was a bed that had been made up for her with clean sheets and new pillows. His mother had done that yesterday. After she left, Luke went up there and looked at the pretty little soaps his mother had put out for her, and the new, freshly washed towels. If royalty had visited Edilean, there couldn’t have been more of a fuss made.

  Luke didn’t know why it all made him feel angry, but it did. What did they know about this woman? Except what she looked like in a bikini, that is.

  When she was inside the house, Luke left the stables and cleared away his tools. His truck was parked in back and he tossed shovels and loppers in with a bang. If she came out and had something to say about…about anything, he’d tell her he was quitting.

  He got in the truck, started it, and drove to the road that went out the back of the property, the servants’ exit. But on impulse, he turned toward the front of the house.

  Just as he got to the gate, Ramsey pulled in in his black Mercedes sedan and blocked the exit. Luke just wanted to leave, but he could see that Rams wasn’t about to let him pass. When his cousin put his window down, Luke stuck his head out the truck window.

  “Have you seen her yet?”

  “Who?” Luke asked.

  “Miss Edi’s ghost. You know who I mean. Have you seen her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So what’s she look like?”

  “Bad. Real bad. She’s so ugly I had to use a mirror to look at her,” Luke said.

  “That good, huh?” Ramsey said. “I was hoping so. I was a little worried about…Nothing. I wasn’t worried at all.”

  “Would you move that gas guzzler of yours and let me by?”

  “I need your help,” Ramsey said. “Aunt Ellie said Sara’s with Jocelyn, so I want you to get Sara to keep Jocelyn busy for twenty minutes while I set up.”

  “Set up?” Luke asked. “What are you talking about? Are you planning fireworks?”

  “Maybe,” Ramsey said with a grin. “She knows I’m coming and I’m bringing dinner, but I don’t want her to see me lugging this stuff out of the car and hauling it into the house. Hey! I know. I’ll go talk to Jocelyn and you set up for me. You know how to chill champagne, don’t you?”

  “Put it in the creek with the beer,” Luke said as he backed up his truck. What the hell was up with this whole town? he wondered. First his mother tells him to stay away from this woman, then Ramsey wants him to play butler.

  When they got to the wide, graveled area in front of the house, they parked their vehicles by Jocelyn’s silver Mini Cooper and got out. Ramsey was in black trousers, white shirt, and blue tie. He pulled the tie off and tossed it onto the front seat of the car. “What a day! I planned to be here an hour ago, but old man Segal nearly drove me crazy. He and his son had another fight, so the old man changed his will again.”

  Ramsey opened the back car door, pulled out a huge picnic basket, then looked up at the windows of the house. “You don’t think she’s watching, do you?”

  “Why are you asking me? You obviously know more about her than I do.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ramsey asked. “You have a falling-out with your latest girl?”

  “Never has happened, never will. Can you tell me why you’re so interested in this woman?”

  “I think she may be the one.”

  “Not again,” Luke said with a groan.

  “This girl spent most of her life with Miss Edi. She spent her weekends at the ballet. She can play the piano and dance a waltz. And she has a brain.”

  “So that means she’s someone you can show off at the country club and at those benefits they give over in Williamsburg.”

  “If by that you mean I’d like to meet someone with an education, who also happens to be beautiful, yes.”

  Luke glanced up at the windows. “Sounds like I should get to know her.”

  Ramsey snorted. “You’d probably scare her to death. Or she’d faint at the smell of you.”

  “A lot of those girls like bad boys.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. Bad boy. Give me a break. Just go to Sara’s, knock on the door, and tell her to keep Jocelyn busy for about twenty minutes. I’ll ring the bell when I’m ready. Think you can do that?”

  Luke started to tell him that Sara wasn’t home, and that Jocelyn was in her own house, but he didn’t. His mother had asked him to be nice to the new owner. She didn’t say anything about driving Ramsey crazy. In fact, annoying his cousin was Luke’s favorite game in the world.

  “Sure,” Luke said, trying to look grumpy, but he was smiling on the inside.

  Jocelyn looked at the little clock on the bedside table and saw she still had thirty minutes until Ramsey was to arrive. She was already so nervous she felt like a teenager going on her first date. After Sara left, she’d made a quick run-through of the house and seen that the rooms had not been altered. As she’d been told, what little furniture there was in the rooms was from Miss Edi’s house in Florida. There were no knickknacks, just empty cabinets and shelves. Three of the rooms contained a rug and four or five good pieces of antique furniture, but nothing else. The kitchen was still in the 1950s, a bit better than Sara’s, but not much. She liked the huge sink and the big pine table, but thought the stove would benefit by being turned on its back and having flowers planted in its belly.

  After her cursory look through the house, she wrestled her suitcase up the stairs and began to get ready for her date.

  She’d been delighted when she saw the bed with its clean linens and the bathroom that was filled with towels and beautiful soaps. She didn’t know who had prepared this welcome, but she certainly wanted to thank them.

  She took a long shower, washed her hair, then blow-dried it. She got out her new white cotton dress with the Battenberg lace along the bottom of the skirt and knew it would be perfect for tonight. While still in her robe, she heated her little travel iron, then set about ironing every wrinkle out of the cotton. Miss Edi had been a stickler for well-ironed clothes. She didn’t believe in permanent press or even knitwear. “You can tell a lady by the quality of her clothing and how well it’s maintained,” she’d said many times.

  When Jocelyn finished dressing, she thought, Now what do I do? Her only thought was to see if Sara had come home. She’d left Sara’s dishes and sewing box in her own hall, so maybe she should take them back now.

  Minutes later, she was in Sara’s apartment—she’d left the back door unlocked—but she wasn’t home. Just as Jocelyn put the dishes down, there was a knock on the front door. She wasn’t sure she should answer it. After all, it was Sara’s house. But then it was also her own house.

  Jocelyn opened the door to see a tall, dark-haired man standing there. He had on jeans and a dirty T-shirt, and he hadn’t shaved in days, but these things didn’t detract from his beauty. He had dark green eyes above a nose that could only b
e described as patrician, and his full lips were finely chiseled above a well-formed chin. Sara had said he was “beautiful” and he was.

  “You’re the new owner.” It was a statement, not a question.

  His voice was deep and rich, just as it had been on the telephone, and she was sure she’d never seen a man she was more attracted to. “Yes, I am. And you’re Ramsey.”

  “Ramsey? Lord no! He’s a lawyer. Do I look like a lawyer?”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed. She looked away to try to conceal her attraction to him. “No, I guess you don’t look like a lawyer. You’re here to see Sara, aren’t you? She’s not here.”

  “I know. I saw her leave.”

  She turned back to look at him, still standing in the doorway. “If you know she’s not here, why did you knock on the door?”

  “I’m your gardener, Luke Connor.” He was watching her closely, as though he was trying to figure her out.

  Before she could reply, she heard a noise outside, to her right, then he leaned back, looked toward the front of the house, and waved his hand, as though to tell someone to go away. In the next second, he pushed his way past her and into the house.

  “Would you mind!” Jocelyn said. “You can’t come barging in here like this and—”

  “Don’t get your pin feathers ruffled,” he said as he shut the front door behind him.

  “This isn’t my place and I don’t think you should be in here.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Is what?”

  “Your house.”

  “Yes, technically, it is, but this part is rented to Sara Shaw. She—”

  “She’s my cousin,” he said over his shoulder as he went to the kitchen.

  Jocelyn was close behind him. “If you’re Sara’s cousin, does that mean you’re Ramsey’s brother?”

  He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. As he leaned back against the counter, he looked her up and down in a way that Jocelyn had never liked. It was the way all men who knew they were good-looking looked at women, as though they knew the women belonged to them—if they wanted them.

  “What is it with you and ol’ Cousin Rams? You two have something going already?”