The Scent of Jasmine Read online

  “Aye, I have, but I’m not going to tell you what’s in my mind, so there’s no use in nagging me now.”

  “I don’t nag,” she said.

  “You could give lessons in it. You could open a school that teaches how to nag a man until he’s crying for relief from your tongue.”

  She truly hated the way he treated her like a child! “Micah Bassett didn’t want relief from my tongue. In fact—”

  “Lass, you’re alone in the forest with a convicted murderer. Tell me you’re not going to talk to him about what a girl can do with her tongue.”

  “I, uh . . .” Cay couldn’t think of what to say to explain herself, but then there was no explanation she could give. Instead, she rolled to one side of the cloak and, after a moment’s hesitation, she threw the other side over him. He grunted his thanks, and when he moved closer to her, she could feel his body heat on her back. Maybe it was the comfort or maybe it was the soft sounds of the rain, but she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  Seven

  “I am not going to dress as a boy,” Cay said. “Absolutely, positively no! That’s the end of it, and I won’t discuss it anymore.”

  “Good!” Alex said. “Then I won’t have to hear more of your complaining. When you get dressed—as a boy—you can keep your mouth shut—unless you meet some man you think you should marry, then you can do other things with your mouth.”

  “You are disgusting. You’re worse than any of my brothers.”

  “Does that include Adam?” he asked. “Or is he too perfect for unchurchlike thoughts?”

  She was pulling the cinch on her mare and she looked under the horse’s neck to glare at him. He didn’t look at her, but she could see that he was pleased with himself, thinking that he’d bested her in a duel of words. “My brother Adam doesn’t have any thoughts that he couldn’t repeat in front of a congregation in church. Are you ready to go or do you need help?”

  “I don’t need any help, and your brother sounds like a bore,” Alex said as he walked around her horse, bent, grabbed Cay by the calf, and nearly threw her up into the saddle.

  Only years of experience and very strong thigh muscles kept her from going over the other side. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of complaining.

  “Look at that, you’re half male already.” He looked up at her. “The truth is, lass, if you didn’t have all that hair, you could pass for a boy.”

  In that one sentence, he said everything she’d ever feared. Her mother was so beautiful that men had written poems about her. One young man composed a song about her beauty. But Cay, the only daughter, didn’t look so much like her mother as she did her father and brothers. In fact, when they were growing up, what with only ten months difference in the ages between her and Tally, sometimes people thought they were twins—male twins.

  Alex, standing by her feet and looking up at her, saw that he’d hurt her feelings and she was trying hard not to cry. He hadn’t meant to. The truth was that after a good meal and a full night’s sleep, he’d awoken this morning to see a very pretty girl in a beautiful gown reaching up over her head to try to get a bag down from a tree. At first, he hadn’t remembered where he was and all that had happened in the past few months. He was in the moment and he thought he’d never seen a prettier sight in his life—and therein lay the problem.

  The idea of dressing her in boy’s clothes had come to him when he’d told old man Yates that he was traveling with his young brother, but Alex hadn’t told her his thoughts for fear that she’d react just as she had. What was it with women that they thought they didn’t exist if they weren’t wearing ribbons every minute of the day?

  “It’s just for a while,” he said gently as he looked up at her. “There’s a town near here and today’s Sunday. I figure we can get inside a store while it’s closed and get what we need. And leave money to pay for it all,” he added because he already knew her well enough to know that she’d want to do that. “After you’re kitted out, we can go down to Florida. I’ll leave you with T.C.’s friends and you can wait there until I’ve been gone a couple of weeks, then you can go home. People won’t notice a boy traveling alone, but a pretty girl by herself will cause nothing but problems.”

  “Not according to you. You think I look like a boy as it is. I guess you want me to hide my hair under a wig.”

  When he didn’t answer, she saw that he was studiously working on packing his horse. She drew in her breath. “You want me to cut my hair, don’t you?”

  Alex mounted his horse and after a cowardly moment, he met her eyes. “I’ve thought of that and your hair would ruin the disguise. You look very young as it is, and in boy’s clothes you’ll look even younger. If you wear a powdered wig, you’ll draw attention to yourself. Besides, with the way you ride, the wig would come off, then all that hair of yours would show.”

  Cay put her hand on her hair, which was hanging down past her shoulders. As a child, it was her hair that had finally stopped her from being compared to her brother. “I won’t cut it.” She moved her horse forward. “I might consider the clothes,” she said. “But I will not cut my hair.”

  “All right,” he said softly. “We won’t do any cutting.” Even as he said it, he knew he was lying. He wasn’t going to risk her life and his because of her vanity.

  “Why don’t you lead for a while?” he said in a conciliatory tone. It was the least he could do when he thought of what he might have to do to her. If she wouldn’t do it voluntarily, he’d have to do it without her permission—and that thought scared him. If he cut her hair while she was asleep, he’d better never close his eyes while around her or she’d cut something on him—and it wouldn’t be his hair.

  They rode for three hours in the early morning dark, staying off the major roads and making their way through fields whenever they could. As they went farther south, there was more distance between the towns, and they began see plantations. The plantations were like small towns, with everything that was needed by the family and the workers grown or made on their land.

  Cay was quiet for most of the ride, and Alex knew her silence was because she didn’t want to dress as a boy, but he could see no other way of keeping her safe. Thanks to her arriving wearing a dress that looked as though it was made of starlight, the men chasing him had easily seen that she was female. So now they were looking for a man and a woman together. If Alex could change even one aspect of that description, they’d be safer.

  He wasn’t about to tell her, but he figured that by now there were handbills out about them both, and her hair was the most recognizable feature of the two of them. He could almost see the words on the handbills. “Flaming red hair.” Or “three feet of thick, lustrous, dark red hair” and “porcelain skin that looks as though it’s never been exposed to the sun.”

  As for him, he’d like to shave, but the woodcut in the newspapers during the trial had been of him shaved. If he was going to be recognized, it would be with a clean face. Also, as Cay had told him many times—too many for his liking—the beard made him look much older than he really was.

  Cay glanced back at him, then reined in her horse so she could move beside him. “What’s that look for?”

  “Nothing. It’s the way I look,” he said grumpily.

  “I don’t know why I have to put up with your bad temper. I’m the innocent one, and I’m only in this mess because I volunteered to help you out.”

  “Now who’s in a bad temper?”

  “I have a right to be. You should be grateful.”

  “I thank you for saving my life, but I don’t thank you for nearly getting us caught.”

  “When did I—?” she began, but then closed her mouth. In the next moment she’d turned her horse and was heading back the way they came at full speed.

  Alex had a difficult time catching up with her, and he cursed the fact that his horse was so weighted down with equipment and supplies that the poor animal had difficulty moving. When he did reach her, he nearly pulled his