The Scent of Jasmine Read online

  “Actually, I learned it from my father, who learned it from your American Indians. I would imagine that it was your father who taught it to your brothers.”

  “He . . . ?” Cay couldn’t suppress her feeling of hurt that her father had taught such a useful movement to her brothers but not to her. What other things had he shown them but not her? “What else do you know how to do?” she asked Alex.

  “Do you think I’m going to show you how to do tricks that would let you run away from me?”

  “You said I wasn’t a prisoner and that I could leave at any time. Besides, now that my ribs are no longer tied down, I’m beginning to . . .”

  “To what? Enjoy yourself?”

  “No, of course not. But I—” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do stop looking at me like I’m a great bother to you and show me something else. When I see Tally next time I want to be able to do something that will impress him grandly.”

  “Ah, then if you want to impress him grandly, you might want to try this.” He knew he shouldn’t take the time to show her a horse trick, but he couldn’t bear for all the credit to be given elsewhere. He had her exchange horses with him, and told her to stand to the side of the road with his. He dropped the dirty handkerchief he’d offered her the first night, then walked her mare down the road. While Cay watched, he rode toward her at a blinding speed and when he came to the handkerchief, he bent down and picked it up. It was almost the same thing he’d done when she’d dropped the cloth days before, but this time he went lower, and Cay had no idea how he held himself in the saddle without falling off.

  Halting, he turned and walked the horse back to her.

  “I want to learn how to do that.”

  He got down and handed her the reins to her mare. “I’ll teach you, but not now. We don’t have time.” When he saw her face, he leaned toward her. “And if you try that alone and break your neck, you’ll answer to me.”

  “When will you teach me?”

  “When—” He wanted to say that he’d show her as soon as they got to Florida, but he knew that he was to leave with the exploration team and she was to stay behind. It was possible that he’d never see her after the two more days it would take them to get to the rendezvous place. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. “When we have time,” was all he’d say.

  For the rest of the day, Alex watched her practicing the first trick. He made her ride in front of him so he could see what she was doing wrong and correct her—and to save her if she was about to break any of her body parts. But having her in front of him turned out to be a mistake, as he watched her moving all over her horse in her too-tight breeches and her thin shirt.

  By the time they reached the tavern, he was in a bad mood. It made sense that she wanted to test her disguise, but he couldn’t make himself admit that. Or maybe it was that he wanted to spend the night on the trail with her again. He’d grown to like being close to another human being. During his hideous weeks in prison, for all his grief, there were times when he’d longed to be near people. To talk to someone past the few minutes he was allowed with T.C. To listen to a person other than a lawyer!

  “I can make people think I’m male,” Cay said when she was trying to persuade him to let her appear in public as a boy. He couldn’t bear to disappoint her.

  “All right,” he’d at last agreed. “But you have to do exactly what I say.”

  “I always do, don’t I?”

  Alex groaned. “You’re as obedient as a chicken.”

  “A what?” she said. “A chicken? Of all the animals you could have chosen, why did you have to compare me to a chicken?”

  “Maybe it’s the hair. Red rooster. Red hen.” Once again, she had restored his good humor.

  Now, he was in the tavern and waiting for her to appear. He’d ordered two dinners and two mugs of malt, then wondered if she’d ever drunk an alcoholic beverage. But he couldn’t keep the myth that she was male if he ordered her a pot of tea.

  Again he glanced at the door. She’d gone to the privy, but that was half an hour ago, so where was she, and what was she doing? Had she been recognized already?

  There were three men at the table next to him, and one of them said, “Come join us. You can’t be alone on such a fine night.”

  “I’m waiting for my, uh, my brother.”

  “Then both of you can join us,” the second man said.

  “No, but thank you,” Alex answered, doing his best to remember his American English. He hadn’t used it since he’d met Cay. When the three men kept looking at him, he said, “My brother is shy. He doesn’t do well with strangers.”

  “Is he a pretty boy?” asked the third man. “Thin as a reed?”

  Alex tried not to gasp or let the man see how his words had startled him. Alex fully expected the next sentence to be that the man knew she was a girl. But Alex managed to nod.

  “Then he’s not so shy,” the first man said, smiling. “I saw him with the barman’s daughter, and they were anything but shy with each other. They were laughing and talking.”

  Alex could do nothing but look at the men in horror. What in the world had Cay done now? She was going to give them away! He was half out of his chair when the front door opened and in she came. She’d left her coat on her horse so her slight figure was well outlined by the big white shirt and the breeches that slid over her slim hips. What in the world had made him think that she could ever look like a male?

  “Here he is now. So, boy, did you make any progress with the girl?”

  Cay grinned and said, “Aye, I did. But I’ll not tell you old men about it, so you can stop hoping.”

  Laughing hard, the three men went back to their mugs of ale.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Alex said, his teeth clenched, as soon as she took a seat next to him.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said under her breath as she raised her pewter mug to the men at the next table, who were still chuckling. She drank deeply of it.

  “Put that down!”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “All I need is for you to get drunk and start dancing about the place and show everyone what you really are.”

  “So what if I did dance?” Cay asked. “No one would think I was a girl. It’s only you who sees me that way.” She reached for a pickled egg from the bowl in the center of the table and took a bite. “Do you want to hear what I was doing? This is good. Maybe I could get the recipe.”

  “Males do not ask people for receipts.”

  “I could say that my mother . . . No! That I want my fiancée to make them for me after we’re married.”

  He took the uneaten half of the egg from her and ate it. “Say as little as possible to anyone and do not ask for any receipts. Understand me?”

  “I understand that you’re fretting about things that don’t need to be worried about. Ah, here’s our food.”

  “At least that’s one place where you’re as good as a man: your appetite.” Alex was so worried about what was going on that he hardly noticed the girl who delivered their two heaping plates full of food. There were thick slices of ham, green beans, buttered potatoes, cornbread, and apple butter. When Alex saw that Cay had been given almost twice as much on her plate as was on his, he looked up at the waitress in question.

  She was a pretty girl, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and a bosom that took up all the space from her neck to her waist—and a good deal of her was exposed by her low-cut blouse. When he glanced at the men at the next table, they were staring at the girl with their mouths hanging open.

  “Your bodice isn’t straight,” Cay said as she put both her hands on the girl’s prodigious bosom and proceeded to straighten the entire front of her blouse. If Alex had taken a bite, he would have choked. As it was, all he could do was stare in speechless shock.

  “There now,” Cay said, “much better.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the girl said as she dropped a curtsey to Cay, who turned her attention to the food.

&n