The Scent of Jasmine (11 page)

“Aye, I am,” he said solemnly.

“Maybe that’s good. If I committed that big of a sin my mother will find me wherever I am.” She picked up Hope’s big cloak off the ground and wrapped it around her. She planned to use it as a cover and as protection from the earth, but as she looked down at her breeches, she thought about the reality of their situation. If someone guessed that she was female, and if they saw that she was with Alex, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out who they were. They could both be put in prison.

“I want you to cut my hair now,” she said softly, and she didn’t dare touch her hair or she’d start crying again.

She saw that he was about to apologize, or maybe make an excuse about why they should leave it until the morning, but he didn’t. He nodded toward a piece of log nearby, and she sat down on it, her back rigidly straight.

Alex took the scissors he’d taken from the store out of the satchel on the ground and went behind her. Her hair was still damp from her swim, but as it was drying, it was fluffing out into fat curls. To cut such hair was a great waste of beauty.

Cay glanced up at him, saw his hesitation, and wanted to tell him not to make this harder for her. Instead, she decided to goad him on. “Did I tell you about Benjamin?”

“And who is that?” Alex asked as he picked up a strand of her hair and held it. He wanted to put it to his face and feel it on his skin. Between the time in jail and the weeks of the trial, it had been months since he’d felt the softness of a woman. “You have a fifth brother?”

“Benjamin is the youngest of my suitors. He’s just twenty-two and very handsome. Not as handsome as Ethan, of course, but very nice to look at. His family is quite wealthy, and he loves to gamble and play games and bet on horses.”

“Bet on horses? Surely you aren’t thinking of marrying a gambler!” Holding a thick strand of her hair, he made the first cut. As the glorious red hair fell to the ground, he stared down at it.

When Cay felt her hair being cut, she was determined not to cry. “But he makes me laugh and he comes up with wonderful games to play. I think maybe he’s the one I should marry. He’d think it was a great adventure that I ran across the country with a convicted murderer.”

“What kind of man is he that he cares naught about what you’ve been through?” Alex cut more of her hair. “What if I were guilty as everyone thinks I am? Do you have any idea what I could have done to you by now?”

“But you haven’t, and when I get back, I’ll tell Ben all about everything. He’ll even laugh about the jasmine oil I put in your hair.”

“Will he now?” Alex asked, frowning as he cut more of her hair. “He won’t be jealous?”

“Ben says that being jealous is a stupid emotion and when we’re married I must never be jealous of him no matter what he does.”

“He sounds like he means to run off with other women while you stay home with a passel of brats.”

“Isn’t that what a wife is supposed to do?”

“No,” Alex said. “I think a couple should work together to raise a family.”

“So you’re saying that a man
should
be jealous?”

“I think—” He stopped because he realized she was teasing him. “You’re a bothersome bairn, is what you are. There now, I’ve finished.”

When Cay stood up, the cloak fell from her shoulders, and for a moment she just stood there looking at him, afraid to move her head. What would it feel like to have so little hair? Slowly, tentatively, she moved her head to one side, then the other. Actually, it didn’t feel so bad. He’d cut it until it hung just to her shoulders so she could tie it back at the nape of her neck as her brothers did.

She moved her head to one side, but this time faster. With about a foot of her thick hair gone, it was surprisingly light. She began to shake her head, and her hair flew about her face. When she stopped, she looked at Alex. He was watching her with wide eyes, the scissors still in his hand.

“I do believe that I rather like it.” She put one foot on the log and held an imaginary pipe in her hand. “So, tell me, sir, what do you think of the price of wheat today? Do you think it will go up again or have the English ruined that for us as well?”

He’d never seen anyone look less like a male than she did. Her hair swirled about her shoulders in thick curls and her long lashes made shadows on her cheeks. “I think you should let me do the talking.”

She stood up straight and swung her hair about her some more. It really did feel wonderful.

“Will you stop doing that!” Alex snapped.

“Why?”

“It bothers me, is all. You should go to sleep.”

“And what about you?”

“What I do is my own business,” he said, knowing he sounded grumpy. He knew he was still in love with Lilith, but it had been a long time since he’d been alone with a woman, and Cay was . . . He searched for the right word.
Enticing.
She was indeed enticing.

She was standing there staring at him, and he knew what she wanted. She wanted to know where he was going, what he was going to do, and when he’d be back. He wanted to again tell her that what he did was his concern, not hers, but he didn’t. “I’m going to wash this vile oil out of my hair,” he said at last. What he was really going to do was take a long plunge in the icy cold stream.

“You can’t do that,” she said. “You need to leave the oil in at least until morning to smother whatever’s in your hair. You can wash it out before we leave tomorrow.” She picked up the cloak and wrapped it around her. “But do what you want. I’m going to sleep now.”

She stretched out on the ground near the fire and lay there in silence for a moment, then she flipped one side of the cloak away from her. It was an invitation to him. It wasn’t much, but the wool would be separating them, and for her, she felt safer when he was nearby.

For what seemed like a long time, Alex didn’t move. It was as though he was making a decision. Finally, she heard his soft chuckle—a sound she was coming to know—and he stretched out on the grass next to her and pulled the side of the cloak over him.

“Good night, Cay,” he said.

“Good night, Alex,” she answered, and when she felt the heat of his body through the wool, she went to sleep.

Nine

“It still reeks,” Alex said as he sat down on the log and lowered his head, his fragrant hair hanging about him. “I can’t get rid of the stench of it. I soaped it three times, but all I can smell is . . . is flowers. I smell like a bloody
flower
!”

Cay was behind him with the scissors and trying to cut a few inches off his long hair. Personally, she envied him the smell of his hair, but she knew better than to say that.

She thought his real problem was that when they woke up this morning, they’d been snuggled together like puppies. While it was true that the heavy wool of the cloak was between them, they were still close together. Alex was on his side, facing the fire, and Cay was behind him, her body against his and her arm over his chest. Her face was buried in his fragrant hair, and she was having sweet dreams.

She knew Alex didn’t want to admit it, but he must have been having good dreams, too, because he’d picked up her hand and put her palm against his cheek.

But when Alex had awakened more fully, he came to his feet in a roar of anger. But he didn’t frighten Cay. She stretched out, smiled up at him, and told him he smelled wonderful. That’s when he ran to the stream, stripped off, and did what he could to remove the jasmine oil.

It hadn’t worked. His hair still smelled great. Cay got him to sit on the log so she could cut it, and every time she made a remark or, worse, put her nose to his hair, he got even more angry.

“I’ll shave my head, that’s what I’ll do,” he muttered. “I’ll go bald.”

“You’ll have to shave your face, too, as I do believe that that beard of yours smells just as heavenly.”

Turning, he glared at her.

“Sorry. The smell is very masculine. However, I can’t wait to tell my women friends about it. I wonder if I can get the recipe from the shopkeeper’s wife. I’ve never smelled jasmine oil so strong. I wonder what her jasmine tea is like?”

Alex stood up, still glaring at her, and took the towel off his shoulders. Unfortunately, it was the towel that was coated in jasmine oil, and just moving it made the air around them fragrant.

Cay had to bite her lips to keep from laughing out loud, but then she was tired of trying to placate him. He was being ridiculous. “At least you’re not a bank robber,” she said.

“And why is that better than being called a murderer?” He was saddling his horse and putting on the packs.

“They could identify you as soon as you walked in the door.” When he turned and gave her a look meant to make her stop talking, she just blinked at him. “They’d hire ladies to track you.”

Glowering at her, he took a step forward and she went backward. If she’d had on a dress, she would have tripped over some twigs on the ground, but with her breeches and her newfound freedom, she agilely stepped over them. “What would the handbill for your arrest say? ‘Smell this criminal.’ Maybe they could pass out little samples of the oil on bits of paper. People could compare the smell to the hair of every man they met.”

“You—” Alex began, but she could see that the anger was no longer in his eyes.

“The men who use rosewater would be eliminated. No, only jasmine would be guilty. Think what you’d do for the world of criminals. It wouldn’t be a man’s picture but his smell that would identify him.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Alex said, but he was hiding a smile. “Get on your horse and let’s go. If you can stop making fun of me, that is.”

“I’ll make my best effort, but I have a request. May I ride downwind of you?”

He couldn’t keep his laughter in. “Go on, lass, get up or we’ll never get to the rendezvous with Mr. Grady.”

She climbed into the saddle, and when she reined her horse past him, she ostentatiously took a deep breath and closed her eyes, as though in ecstasy.

Ignoring her gesture, he led the way out of the little clearing and back onto the road. “Remember, now. When we see people, keep your head down and say nothing. It wouldn’t take much for them to know you’re a girl.”

“But I don’t smell like one,” she said, grinning. “I leave that to you.”

He shook his head at her and they started moving.

Ten

Where is she? Alex asked himself again. Cay should be in the tavern beside him but she wasn’t. It had been her idea to give her disguise a test, and earlier, they’d had an argument about it.

“You will not!” he’d said in a way that was meant to be an order.

“I’m going to have to appear in public sometime, so why not now?”

“We’re still too close to Charleston.” He was sitting on his horse rigidly, his eyes straight ahead, not looking at her.

“I know we’re south of Savannah. Not that I’ve been allowed to look at the map, and not that you’ve told me anything about where we are, where we’re going, or how long it will take us to get there. In fact, you’ve still not told me what your plan for me is. I saved you from death, I’ve put my own life in jeopardy, but you don’t so much as inform me where and when, and when I ask you—”

“All right,” Alex said loudly. “If you’ll stop your chatter I’ll let you go into the tavern in your boy’s clothes. But you have to behave yourself. And stop fiddling with your hair!” As he looked at her on the horse next to him, he felt as though they might as well turn themselves in to the local sheriff now. To him, Cay didn’t look like a boy at all. And her absurd posturing that she said was like one or other of her brothers was laughable. No one in the world was going to believe she was male.

Cay’s smile was brilliant. “Do stop looking like you’re facing your doom. Only you think I look like a girl. By the way, is my dress packed away carefully?” She didn’t tell him, but she was concerned about the diamond pins in the bodice.

“Aye, lass, it is.” He couldn’t help looking like he was near to death because that’s how he felt when he saw her. He was sure they’d be caught as soon as she showed herself.

Glancing at him, she smiled and pulled her horse back so she was behind him. It was minutes later that he saw her lifting herself up on her right foot while removing her left from the stirrup. “What is that you’re trying to do?” he asked as calmly as he could muster.

“It’s a trick that Tally does that I couldn’t do because I always had on a dress. My cousin Derek taught it to him. He’s—”

“To be the laird,” Alex said quickly and he couldn’t help his feeling of . . . well, it was a feeling very much like jealousy. Alex was the one who’d shown her cousin, Derek Moncrief, how to put both feet into one stirrup and hide at the side of the horse. Alex had often used the trick when he wanted to sneak away from his father after he’d been forbidden to ride in the heather during the night.

“Not like that,” Alex said with more anger than he meant. “Put all your weight on your right foot, then slide your left leg back around. There, lass, now crouch down. No one can see you from that side of the horse.”

Cay grinned at him with such thanks that he looked away. “I guess it’s a Scottish trick.”

“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.

Every other eye in the tavern—all of them male—watched the girl leave the room to go back to the kitchen.

When she was gone, all the men started to laugh, and their good humor was directed toward Cay. Two of the men walked over and slapped her on the shoulder.

“Good for you, boy!”

“Well done!”

Cay’s head almost hit her plate after the second slap, but she stole a look at Alex, who was glaring at her in anger.

When the laughter and attention had finally calmed down, she said quietly, “See? They all think I’m a boy.”

“You drew attention to yourself,” Alex said under his breath, then smiled at a man who congratulated Cay as he walked by. “That was a truly disgusting display! And that the girl allowed you to do such a thing to her is beyond belief!”

“You’re sounding more prim than Adam,” Cay said, her mouth full. “Could you please pass me that mustard? They have Apple Brown Betty for dessert.”

“And what do you plan to do with
her
?”

After a moment’s look of confusion, Cay smiled. “Tickle her under her petticoats?”

Alex drew in his breath in shock.

“Would you please calm down?” Cay said as she smiled as another man hit her on the shoulder. “I knew what I was doing. I need to tell you what happened in the stables. I talked to—”

“Please tell me I didn’t hear you correctly. You did not say that you
talked
to someone, did you?”

“You’re not going to listen to me now, are you? I think I should just wait until we’re in bed together, then I’ll tell you.”

That statement was so outrageous that Alex couldn’t think of another word to say. He finished his dinner, and when a hush came over the tavern, he knew without looking up that the barman’s daughter was back. “Touch her and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” she asked, glaring at him.

“I’ll make you spend the night outside and I won’t sleep anywhere near you.”

Cay started to protest, but the prospect of being alone at a campsite made her close her mouth. She murmured “thank you” to the waitress when she served their dessert, but Cay didn’t touch her. When the girl was gone, the men in the tavern let their disappointment be known, but the lack of further display made them quieten down.

“That’s better,” Alex said.

Cay moved her apple slices about in the earthenware bowl. “I was trying to help, but you won’t listen to what I have to say.”

Alex lowered his head so it was near hers. “I’m just worried that someone will recognize you.”