Lavender Morning Read online

“Is this supposed to make me feel better? Where have you been?! And don’t you dare call me ‘Mom.’”

  “New Hampshire, then London. I left Gramps in New Hampshire, then I flew to London. I just got back an hour ago.”

  “London?” she asked softly. “You did something about Miss Edi, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Oh! And I stopped in New York too. Gramps has some friends there. Does that answer all your questions?”

  “Yeah, and now I’m completely content. When are you coming over here to explain what you and your sly grandfather have been up to?”

  “He is sly, isn’t he? Good observation.”

  “Why don’t I meet you at your house? That would make a nice change. I’d like to see how you’ve decorated it. Do you grow orchids in the shower?”

  “Only if I haven’t had a bath in a couple of weeks. Then I get them in my left ear. I don’t know why it’s always the left and not the right one. And my belly button—”

  “Stop it! Leave the bad jokes to me. I want to know what you and your grandfather have been up to these past weeks.”

  “Snooping and spying in a big way.”

  “Luke,” she said, and her voice was half warning, half pleading.

  “Gramps went to New Hampshire to meet General Austin’s widow and sweet-talk her out of the letters.”

  Jocelyn drew in her breath. “Did he get them?”

  “Yes,” Luke said, but he was hesitant. “Listen, Joce, we found out some things that…”

  “That what?”

  “That I think might upset you a bit.”

  “Oh, Lord, what now?”

  “It’s nothing bad,” he said. “It’s just…I swore to Gramps that I wouldn’t tell you, so I have to keep my mouth shut. If it were up to me I’d be over there right now with a stack of papers that—”

  “What kind of papers?”

  “History,” Luke said quickly. “Gramps has to rest today. He can’t take all this traveling, so how about if I pick you up at four and we go to his house?”

  “And he’s going to be there when I see all these papers?”

  “That was part of the deal with him. Besides, he’s a doctor.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” Luke said quickly. “Forget that I said it. Is four all right with you or are you going to be one of the slaves Sara’s boyfriend uses on the new shop?”

  “Ramsey and I have an appointment to get a marriage license at one, so I guess we can make it.”

  “Joce?” Luke said. “I’m curious if you’ve ever made one of those marrying-Ramsey jokes around Tess.”

  “Let me see…My head is still on my shoulders, I have both arms, and even my feet are still on. No, I don’t think I have.”

  “Finally, at last, you see it.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “Then have you tell Ramsey and Tess? No, let them find out all by themselves.”

  “You could come over here before four, you know. I think that garden of yours looks pretty bad and it needs some work.”

  “Don’t try to entice me. If I spent ten minutes with you, you’d get everything out of me, and Gramps said that if I told you when he wasn’t there, he’d make me play golf with him every day for a month. He even threatened to use that ol’ I-won’t-be-here-much-longer bit that always gets me.”

  “I hope you didn’t inherit his cruelty.”

  “I probably did, since I haven’t let you see the inside of my house.”

  That threw Joce for a moment. She’d teased him about not seeing inside his house, but she hadn’t thought there was actually anything bad in there. Or maybe not bad but strange. “What’s, uh…what’s in your house?”

  “Pictures of other girls,” Luke said. “I have to go. I need a couple of hours of sleep, then I have some things to do. I’ll pick you up at four. By the way, Nana is copping out of this, so it’ll just be the three of us.”

  After they said good-bye, Jocelyn held the phone a while and thought about what Luke had told her. The letters from General Austin, then Luke went to London to…to do what? Was there something in the letters that made him go to London?

  Joce called Tess. “I want to get my hair…I don’t know…looking great. Where do I go?”

  “So Luke’s back,” Tess said. “Let me make a call and I’ll call you back.”

  Ten minutes later, Joce was in her car and heading into Williamsburg for what Tess called an “emergency appointment.” “I’m not that bad,” Joce had mumbled, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to look good for this evening.

  When Luke came to pick her up, he was in his car, a dark blue BMW sedan. He got out and came around to open the door for her. “Wow! This is great,” she said as she slid onto the leather seat. “You said you wanted your grandfather there because he’s a doctor. Are you being nice because you’re planning to tell me that I have only six months to live?”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked at him sharply. “Luke?”

  “People’s lives change,” he said solemnly. “Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  He reached out and took her hand in his. “Sorry for all the mystery, but it’s what I promised Gramps. Right now I think he’s the happiest person on earth. We talked on the plane, and he told me how much he truly loved Miss Edi. He can never say that around Nana, of course, but he did love her. Gramps said he and Edi spent their entire childhoods together and it’s because of her that he became a doctor. After he saw her legs, he went back to school on the GI bill, and…” Luke squeezed Joce’s hand harder. “You look different.”

  “Tess sent me to a salon where I got plucked and dyed and buffed. It took hours and I was so nervous I could hardly sit in the chair.”

  “No, it’s not that, although I do like that pink polish. I’ve seen peonies just that color.”

  He dropped her hand and put his back on the steering wheel. “There’s something else different.”

  “I, uh, decided that I like you better than Ramsey.”

  “Did you?” Luke said, sounding as though that meant nothing, but she could see the tip of his eyebrow begin to twitch. So it wasn’t just lying that caused that, but also great emotion.

  “I like you better than Ramsey too,” he said softly.

  “Let’s ask him to be our ring bearer.”

  Luke laughed. “That’s a deal. But only if he wears a powder blue velvet jacket.”

  Jocelyn’s heart was pounding in her throat so hard that she could hardly breathe. She wasn’t sure, but she may have just been proposed to. Or proposed to him. Whatever it was, she didn’t think she’d ever felt happier.

  When they arrived at Dr. Dave’s house, every light seemed to be on, but the brightest thing was his face. He looked as though he’d found the Secret to Life.

  “I really wish you two would tell me what’s going on.”

  “I thought we’d have some tea first,” Dr. Dave said.

  “You have got to be kidding,” Luke and Joce said in unison, then broke into laughter.

  “I’d be embarrassed to know where you two have been all afternoon.”

  “In a hair salon,” Joce said.

  “Taking a nap,” Luke said.

  Dr. Dave looked from one to the other. “Well, something has happened.” He put up his hand. “Don’t tell me. My old brain can’t take any more information.”

  He turned to Jocelyn. “My grandson and I know most of what we’re about to tell you, but some of it we can’t do until you know what we do. If you don’t want to wait until after tea, then I suggest that we have tea while my grandson reads us the last part of Miss Edi’s story. Are you ready, Jocelyn?”

  “Is the tea hot?”

  “Steaming.”

  “Then I’m ready.”

  24

  ENGLAND

  1944

  I AM FEELING A bit peckish,” Hamish said at breakfast, and both Edi and David had to hide smiles. “Peck