The Scent of Jasmine Read online

  He had his back to her, and she couldn’t see his face, but he drew his shoulders up for a moment but then released them. “I will do all that I can to protect you.” Turning, he looked at her, and for just a second she saw the deep pain that was inside him.

  I must make him laugh, she thought. His sense of humor was what drew him out of himself. She began to unbutton her shirt.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.

  “I’ve ordered a bath to be brought up and I’m going to get into a tub full of hot water.”

  Alex looked shocked for a moment, then his face relaxed. Yet again, the pain was hidden. “And I’m going to wash your back for you.”

  “Eliza’s going to do that.”

  “Then I’ll wash her chest.”

  Cay laughed, as he’d bested her. She couldn’t top that one. “Turn around. I have to remove this binding strip before I go to bed.”

  “You slept in a corset, so why can’t you sleep in that?” he asked as he turned his back to her.

  “A corset enhances what’s on top, but this thing . . . Oh, there. Yes, that’s wonderful. True heaven. You can turn back around now.”

  Turning, Alex looked at her and wished he hadn’t. She had the shirt on and it was buttoned, but it left little to the imagination. “Why in the world those men thought you were a boy is beyond me.”

  “Thank you,” Cay said as she sat on the end of the bed and removed her shoes and her stockings.

  “That’s it. Not one more thing are you to take off.”

  Cay couldn’t help smiling. She’d been paid many compliments in her life, but what Alex said seemed more real. He wasn’t saying nice things to her because he knew her family was rich or that she stood to inherit a lot, but because she was, well, desirable. For all the comfort of boy’s clothes, she liked being a girl better.

  Still smiling, still mostly dressed, she got into the bed on the side by the window, pulled the light covers over her, and watched Alex as he moved about the room. She thought how someday she’d be married and alone in a bedroom with a man she loved and they’d be a true husband and wife.

  Alex removed his boots and his vest, but as he started to unbutton his shirt, he looked at her and stopped. As she did, he slipped into bed wearing most of his clothes, blew out the candle, and pulled the cover over him.

  Cay lay in the darkness, listening to him breathe. They’d spent several nights together, but, somehow, being alone in this small room seemed more intimate. Between them was the long, heavy round pillow, but she knew he was near her.

  She was tired from a long day on horseback and wanted to go to sleep, but she could hear Alex’s breath coming on fast and strong and she knew that something was upsetting him. It took her a moment to figure it out, but then she realized that this was probably the first time he’d slept in a bed and a room since the night his wife had been murdered.

  Had been murdered, she thought and realized she’d remembered it in terms that said Alex didn’t do it. “What was she like?” Cay asked softly.

  “Quiet,” he said, and at first she thought he was saying he wanted her, Cay, to stop talking. But she could hear his breath and she knew she’d been right in guessing what he was thinking about.

  “Not like me then?” she asked.

  “No, not like you. She was quiet and gentle and refined.”

  “She didn’t spend her days jumping back and forth on a horse, did she?”

  “No. But I will say that I enjoyed some of your jumping quite a bit.”

  Cay could hear and feel the uneasiness beginning to leave him. Her strategy was working. Turning on her side, she put her head on her hand and looked at him across the big pillow. He was on his back and she could see his profile in the moonlight that came in through the window. “Tell me about her.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. Where did she grow up? What was her family like? Where did she go to school? How many brothers and sisters did she have?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said, and there was wonder in his voice. “I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.”

  “You don’t know where she grew up?”

  “No.” Turning, Alex looked at her. “I never asked and she never told me. But then, we were together for such a short time.”

  Cay lay back on the pillow. “That’s odd. I told you about my family ten minutes after we met.”

  “Aye, you did, lass. You’ve told me so much about your life and your family that I feel I know them. But Lilith wasn’t like you. She said little, just what was important.”

  “But family is important. Family is everything. I know your father means a lot to you. Did you tell your wife about him?”

  “I did. I told her a great deal about my life in Scotland and about my dad. She liked to listen to the stories. She couldn’t understand me when I didn’t speak with the American accent, but I couldn’t blame her for that, now could I?”

  Cay was glad to hear the humor in his voice and she was pleased to hear his breathing slow down. She’d done what she intended and calmed him. Of course it did cross her mind that if she had any sense at all she’d not spend the night locked in a room with a man who’d been convicted for cutting the throat of the woman lying beside him.

  Just as she felt his change in mood, he knew when there was a difference in her breathing. “If you’d rather I went into another room, I will.”

  “No,” she said. “I feel safer with you here.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, then he reached across the big pillow and took her small hand in his. “Thank you for that. You’re only the second person who has believed in me.”

  Cay liked his big, warm hand on hers—liked it too much. She removed her hand and turned on her side, facing away from him. “If you go off into Florida without showing me how to do that handkerchief trick, I’ll take it all back.” She smiled when she heard him chuckle, and his breathing eased and she heard him go to sleep. His soft, quiet breathing relaxed her, but she looked at the moon out the window and thought about what was going to happen in the next few days.

  Thanks to her many questions, she’d been able to piece together his “plan” for her. His intent was to dump her on some friends of Uncle T.C. while Alex went exploring. After a week or two, still dressed as a boy, Cay was to travel back to her parents’ home in Virginia and hope that nothing ever came about because of her escapade of helping a criminal escape. There was no more talk of trying to prove Alex’s innocence as there had been at first. Somewhere along the way, he seemed to have dropped that idea. For the last couple of days he’d spoken only of Cay returning to her family and safety.

  Had he given up his thoughts of justice? she wondered. And if he had, had he done it because of her? The way he spoke now, he meant to go into the jungles of wild Florida and maybe never return.

  But she’d heard the difference in his voice when he spoke of the past. When he talked about his horses, he was full of energy, even excitement. He’d left his homeland and his father with hope for his future life.

  Just as I have a plan for mine, Cay thought. She knew what she wanted out of life, and so did he. He’d even started working on it while he still lived in Scotland. She smiled at the memory of his story about illegally mating his mare with a “great beast” of a stallion. He’d done it so he could get to America and someday have his own farm, with his own wife and children.

  He wants exactly what I do, she thought, and sadness nearly overwhelmed her as she realized that it was possible that she’d get the future she wanted, but Alex never would. For all his life, he’d be haunted by the fact that he’d been convicted of murder and had escaped hanging by just one day.

  But what if Nate got her letter and went to Charleston and found out the truth about who killed Alex’s wife? Knowing who killed someone wouldn’t bring that person back to life. While it was true that Alex could possibly be cleared of the murder charges, he’d never get ba