Lavender Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  “I haven’t seen much of the garden at all,” she said, looking out through the big trees.

  “You’ve been too busy—”

  “Don’t say it!” Joce ordered.

  “What?” Luke asked with exaggerated innocence.

  “That I’ve been too busy with Ramsey.”

  “I was going to say that you’ve been too busy getting to know people to spend much time in the garden, but if your mind goes to Ramsey and stays there, who am I to contradict you?”

  “You can be a real pest, you know that?”

  “I’ve never before had a woman tell me that. My mother, yes, my cousins often, and some of my uncles, but women never say I’m a pest.”

  “Spare me,” Jocelyn said, but she was smiling. “You have dirt on your face.”

  “Yeah, so get it off.”

  He leaned down so his face was close to hers. She lightly brushed her hand across his cheek, but the dirt didn’t move. She brushed harder. “Is this stuff glued on?”

  “Take your shirt off and wipe hard,” he said without a hint of a smile.

  Joce shook her head at him and stepped back. “Get it off yourself.”

  He wiped his forearm across his face and the dirt came off. “Better?”

  For a moment Jocelyn just looked at him. He was a very good-looking man, with his dark hair and his green eyes. “When’s the last time you shaved?”

  “When House did.”

  It took her a moment to realize he meant Dr. House on TV. It was one of her favorite shows. Smiling, she followed him as he made his way through the trees.

  As she looked at the land around her, she couldn’t help thinking, All mine. Everything she saw belonged to her. “Could you show me the property lines?”

  “Glad to,” he said.

  He took her around the eighteen acres she now owned, all that was left of the thousand acres the young man from Scotland had bought for his kidnapped bride. Luke knew the grounds well and pointed out where the old cabins used to be, the well house, the dovecote. He stopped at a treeless spot and said the blacksmith shop used to be there.

  “When we were kids, we’d come over here and dig in this area and find pieces of hand-wrought iron. Charlie found three horseshoes.”

  “What about Sara? Did she find anything?”

  “She was good at finding arrowheads. She said that the nineteenth century was too new for her to care about, so she didn’t bother with horseshoes.”

  “Interesting that you know that about her, but she says she hardly knows anything about you.”

  Luke gave a little smile, then moved farther into the trees. “The old brick kilns used to be back here. Look.” He pushed aside some bushes, and she saw a low brick wall. “I put these bricks back together so you could see the foundations.” He spread his arms out. “We could put your lavender in here. The ground is sandy, and lavender likes that. And it gets a lot of sun.”

  “I can almost imagine what this place was like. Maybe I should restore it to what it once was.”

  “It would cost too much to do that, and besides, Colonial Williamsburg has done a better job than we could.”

  She liked that he said “we.” It made her feel like she was part of something.

  “This place likes having been here all these years,” Luke said. “It likes the living, and likes the generations that have been here. I think the house breathed a sigh of relief when old Bertrand died.”

  “Maybe the house was glad he didn’t get down to selling the doorknobs.”

  “He did, but Rams stopped him.”

  “Did you help?” Joce asked.

  “I wasn’t here then,” Luke said quickly. “What do you think about this place for your lavender?”

  “It looks great, but what do I know? Do you mean you were gone for that week or that you weren’t living here in Edilean?”

  “So tell me more about making love on top of blue corn chips.”

  “Point taken,” she said. “No more personal questions. I wonder if Miss Edi let her brother sell so much because she was cleaning the house out for the next family.”

  “That’s what Rams said, but I think she just wanted to be rid of the old junk. Of course the attic is still full of it. Have you been up there yet?”

  “No. I went up the stairs but the door is locked and I don’t have a key to it.”

  “Rams will give you one when he tells you about your inheritance.” Luke started walking again and she followed him.

  “So how much do you know about the deal with the house?”

  “You stay, you get it all. You leave, the money stays with the house.”

  “Just what I heard,” Jocelyn said, “but wasn’t that supposed to be a secret?”

  Luke shrugged. “Somebody took the dictation; somebody typed the document. Who knows how things get out?”

  “It’s my guess that you know exactly how it got out, but I also guess that you won’t tell me.”

  “You’re smart, aren’t you?”

  “Does that make a change from most of the women you know?”

  Luke didn’t answer but pointed to a long, low brick building in the distance. “I put that place back together.”

  “But it looks old.”

  “Thank you,” Luke said. “That’s a good compliment. I had to dig up old bricks, then clean them off before I could use them.”

  They had reached the building, and she saw the way Luke’s hand touched the side wall. “It was a labor of love, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “More or less.”

  “Did you always want to be a gardener?”

  He looked at her oddly and seemed to be about to say something, but then changed his mind. “No, I came to it later in life. I decided that there was nothing like working with the earth. Nothing gives a man more pleasure and more satisfaction.”

  “Think it’s an ancestral thing? Are you from generations of farmers tilling the soil?”

  “Not that I know of,” Luke said. “My dad ran offices full of salesmen and my grandfather was a doctor.”

  “Like Sara’s father.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, obviously pleased that she knew that. “Uncle Henry worked with my grandfather for years before Gramps retired.”

  “To take you fishing,” Joce said. “Just the two of you.”

  “That was the other grandfather.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Luke opened the door to the brick building and Joce knew they were in his workshop. It was nice in there. Above the workbench with its tools was a round window. She stood on tiptoe to look out it and saw how close they were to the house. In fact, when she turned her head, she could see the entire back of the house and both apartment doors. She saw the little white table where she’d sat with Sara and talked.

  She got off her toes and looked at Luke as he studiously moved some tools around on top of an old cabinet on the opposite wall. “When you’re in here, you can see everything that goes on at the back of the house.”

  “Can you?” he asked. “I guess I never noticed.”

  She glared at him until he turned to look at her, giving her a one-sided grin. Yet something else she’d learned about him. Now that Luke was looking a bit guilty at what could possibly be interpreted as spying, she thought she’d do what she could to get information out of him. “So who was Tess talking to on the phone today?”

  Luke walked to the door of the shop. “About three?”

  Jocelyn nodded.

  “Her brother. She talks to him every Sunday afternoon no matter what. You could take her to a rock concert or have her hypnotized and if it was Sunday she’d call her brother.”

  “You sound almost jealous.”

  “You’re an only child like I am, so aren’t you jealous of people who have siblings to share their lives with?”

  “Only child,” Joce said. “What a lovely thought. I have—” She broke off. There was no way she was going to tell him who her stepsisters were. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of
fantasies about having sisters who were good and kind and who actually liked me.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Did my remark open a can of worms?”

  “If you did, let’s have Ramsey make us a casserole,” she said quickly, making Luke laugh.

  “Pies. He made pies with a mud crust,” he said. “When he was seven and Sara was barely a year old, he almost got her to eat one, but her mother caught him, and…” He looked around, as though to see if anyone was listening. “None of us ever knew what happened, but Aunt Ellie—that’s Sara’s mother—took Ramsey into her house, and when he came out, he looked downright green, and he never again made a worm pie.”

  “I don’t know if I wish I’d grown up in this town or I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “What was it like living with Miss Edi? Afternoon tea and concerts on weekends?”

  “I didn’t—” Jocelyn began, but closed her mouth. Let him think that she lived with Miss Edi full-time if he wanted to. It was too complicated to explain that her elegant mother fell in love with a man who thought what was painted on the gas tank of a Harley was high art. Too much trouble to explain her mother’s death, her father’s remarriage, and how Jocelyn had grown up with people who were so unlike her that she often felt as though she were from a different planet. Until she met Miss Edi, Jocelyn knew no other world.

  “You didn’t what?” he asked.

  She started to make up something, but his cell phone rang.

  He opened it and said “Yeah” four times, then handed it to her. “It’s for you.”

  “Me? But who…” Luke’s eyes told her. Ramsey.

  “Hello,” she said. “Everything okay?”

  “So you’re going through the garden with Luke,” Ramsey said. “I wish I’d known you wanted to see it. I could have taken you.”

  “Or I could have gone myself,” she said. “Luke works for me, remember?”

  “How could I forget, since I sign his checks?”

  “Do you?” Joce asked with interest. “I hate to pay bills. Could we continue this way?”

  “Jocelyn, I’ll continue with you any way you want. After church today all anyone could talk about was how pretty you looked in that pink dress. They liked the hat too.”

  Luke was staring at her as though he wanted to hear every word that was said. She turned her back to him.

  “Can you come into the office tomorrow?” Ramsey asked. “We can talk about the terms of the house.”

  “You mean you’re planning to talk to me about business?”

  “I most certainly am,” he said, and she could hear his smile. “You wouldn’t like to have lunch afterward, would you?”

  “Are you asking me out?”

  “Unless you want to go to my house and eat pasta again. By the way, I need to get Viv’s chocolate pot.”

  “Did she have the baby?”

  Ramsey hardly paused before he laughed. “No, she didn’t have the baby and she isn’t trying to make a new one. She wants it for some party for one of the kids she already has. Wanta go with me?”

  “Sure. When is it?”

  “Tuesday afternoon. One-ish. Can I pick you up? Or do you think that arriving at a party with me will make it look too much like we’re a couple?”

  “Maybe we should take Luke so it’s not too obvious about us.”

  “He hates kids and kids’ parties. Better not take him. So how about coming to the office at eleven, then we’ll go to lunch? Sound good?”

  “Sounds delicious. I’ll see you then.”

  She closed the phone and handed it back to Luke.

  “Another date?”

  “Business, then lunch, and on Tuesday, a party at his sister’s house.”

  “What party?” Luke asked quickly.

  “Ramsey said it was for one of his sister’s children. A birthday party?”

  “None of the kids has a birthday now. It’s…” He trailed off, frowning for a moment, then he looked at her. “I think I better make an appointment if I want you to go to the nursery with me to pick out the herbs. How about tomorrow afternoon? If you can tear yourself away from Rams after lunch, that is.”

  “Why do you want me to go with you to buy herbs? I don’t know one from the other.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll plant some hemlock and henbane.”

  She thought Ramsey was kidding when he said Luke “hated” kids, but his remark made her unsure. “Nothing poisonous.”

  “Let’s see, you told me you don’t have any preference on the herbs, but so far you’ve told me you want lavender and nothing poisonous. What about mint?”

  “I like mint,” she said cautiously. He was up to something, but she didn’t know what.

  “Okay, you want the entire garden done in mint and nothing else.”

  “Not the whole thing, just some mint.”

  “For your information, mint is one of the most invasive plants known, so if you put mint in the herb garden, that’s all you’ll have. So do you want mint or not? Wait! Let me get a pad and paper, because this list of things that you do and do not want is getting too long for me to remember.”

  “All right!” she snapped. “Tomorrow afternoon I’ll go with you to buy plants. I don’t know what kind of plants, but whatever you tell me we need, we’ll get. Why do you want me to go with you? Just to annoy Ramsey?”

  “You don’t have to go with me,” he said, his voice lowering. “You could tell Rams that you can stay at lunch all afternoon because you have nothing else to do. Or you can tell him you have to leave because you’re going with me to buy flowers.”

  Jocelyn blinked at him a few times, then smiled. “You have a brain under those whiskers, don’t you?”

  “My mom thinks so. My dad is less sure.”

  “What time do you want to leave?”

  “Two. On the dot. I’ll pick you up outside the restaurant.”

  “How do you know where he’s taking me for lunch?”

  Luke snorted. “The Trellis. That’s where he always takes his women out on the second date—if there is one, that is. It’s in Colonial Williamsburg. He’ll order the special, then tell you you must share a piece of chocolate cake with him. It’s great cake. The best. But it will take you until two-thirty to eat everything.”

  They were back at the new herb garden site and Luke’s truck. “So I’m to tell him I have to leave at two?” she asked, thinking about what he was saying. All in all, she liked it. “If I were a less cynical person, I’d think you were trying to help me with Ramsey.”

  “He is my cousin,” Luke said with a shrug, but he turned away so she couldn’t see his smile.

  “That’s nice of you,” she said, but her voice was hesitant. She slapped at a mosquito on her arm and decided it was time to go inside. “I think I’m done for the day.” The light was fading. “Are you going to work much longer?”

  “No, I’ll just clean up, then go home.”

  She started to ask him where he lived but decided it was too personal a question.

  “Tess let you keep enough food for tonight?” he asked as he scraped dirt off a shovel with a trowel, then put it in the back of the pickup.

  “Yes, but I need to buy some cookware for the kitchen,” she said. “And I need to go to a grocery store.”

  “Easy enough,” he said as he put a pitchfork into the truck. “Maybe tomorrow we can—”

  “Just show me where things are and I’ll find them,” she said as she started for the house. “See you tomorrow at two.”

  In the next minute she was back in the house, and the stillness of it seemed almost eerie. It was a house that needed people. When there was one other person in it or several, the house came alive. It almost seemed to smile. But when Jocelyn was in it alone, she wanted to run upstairs and shut the bedroom door.

  She went to the kitchen and picked up a couple of oranges out of a bowl. The table was covered with clean dishes that had contained the welcome food people had sent. Sara said that during the week the women would
stop by to pick up their dishes and to have a chat. “People haven’t been in this house in years and they’re dying to see the inside of it,” she said.

  Jocelyn had groaned, dreading the constant tour guiding she’d have to do.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sara said. “They’ll come in groups and save you from having to do too much.”

  Joce had smiled weakly. Now, she turned off the light, went into the big hallway, and checked both doors to make sure they were locked. She left a low-wattage light on in the hall and started up the stairs. Just as it was downstairs, there was a wide hall with rooms leading off of it. One side was the big master bedroom with an enormous bathroom, while the other side had been made into two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.

  She took a shower, moisturized her entire body, put on her nightgown, then walked toward the bed. On impulse, she looked out the window, parting the curtain just enough to see out. Luke’s truck was in the driveway and the engine was running. Was he waiting for Tess? she wondered. Reaching over, she turned out the bedside lamp, and when the room was dark, Luke slowly drove through the gates. He’d been waiting for her to turn out the light.

  Jocelyn meant to get into bed and wait a bit, then she’d turn the light back on and read a while, but the next thing she knew a ray of sunlight was coming through the curtains. It was morning.

  8

  JOCELYN LAY IN bed for a while, her hands behind her head, and looked at the ceiling of the bedroom. The house was hers, but since she’d arrived, she’d had very little time to herself.

  She glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it wasn’t even seven, and she didn’t have to be anywhere until eleven. She’d use the time to look at the house thoroughly, not in the cursory way she had done.

  She washed and dressed quickly, not bothering to blow-dry her hair, but pulling it back off her face. She glanced at her shiny skin, thought about putting on makeup, but didn’t. Miss Edi was of the Estée Lauder school that believed a woman should wear full makeup at every moment. Even at the end, Miss Edi had dressed beautifully and always wore lightly applied cosmetics.

  But this morning, Miss Edi’s voice seemed farther off than usual, and Jocelyn didn’t want to take the time to “put on war paint,” as her father used to say.