Whisper of Jasmine (3 page)

Evie touched the lump of green. “I couldn’t. It’s your favourite and far too valuable,” she began, struggling for a tactful way to get out of wearing it. But Aunt Dove would not be dissuaded.

“That bit of rubbish? Bah. It’s only glass, child. Besides, a hint of vulgarity is just the thing. It makes people wonder what you’ve been up to.”

She bundled Evie into her coat and handed her fare for a cab, refusing to take no for an answer. “Those shoes are too tight for you to walk, and it might rain.”

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky,” Evie said, dropping a kiss to her papery cheek. “But thank you.”

Aunt Dove gave her a wink. “Just enjoy yourself, pet. And if you see a likely lad, make sure you dance with him, something nice and slow.”

“I’m not looking for romance, you know.” “Who said anything about romance?” Aunt Dove widened her eyes. “But if you dance slowly with a fellow, you can usually tell if he knows what he’s about in the bedroom. And make sure you feel his bottom. You want one that’s nice and pert. It means he’s a good thruster.”

Evie fled before Aunt Dove could offer any further advice, hurrying down the stairs and hurling herself into the first cab she saw. Already her feet were throbbing and she could feel the evening chill cutting through her coat and the sheer silk over her shoulders. But Aunt Dove was waving gaily from her window, and Evie leant out of the cab to blow her a fond kiss. Aunt Dove might be a lot to take, but she meant well. And thanks to her, Evie was perfectly prepared for a very good evening indeed.

“You’re not holding a grudge because I married another beau, are you?” Delilah asked archly. She waggled her eyebrows at Gabriel and he laughed.

“How could I be? I climb mountains and dig up mouldy relics. I couldn’t possibly hope to hold the interest of a dazzling creature like you.”

She raised herself on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving an imprint of her scarlet lipstick behind.

“If you’re going to run away with one of my friends, darling, don’t make it Gabriel. He might be handsome enough to turn your head, but he hasn’t a bean to his name,” Johnny cut in. He nodded to a corner where Tarquin March and Quentin Harkness were apparently introducing themselves. “You’d be far better going back to Quentin. He’s got more money than Croesus and he’s older. You might make a young, rich widow,” he finished, slipping an arm about her waist. He bent his head to nuzzle her neck and she shrieked.

Gabriel smiled indulgently. “I’m no threat to you, old man. Delilah may be beautiful as any Grecian goddess, but you know what happened to all those fellows in myths who ran away with pretty wives.”

“Buggered in the end?” Johnny supplied helpfully.

“Got it in one.”

They grinned at each other and Delilah poured out a cup of punch for Gabriel. “Drink this down and get in there and start mingling,” she ordered, nodding towards the seething mass of people she had managed to pack into their small flat. “But mind you don’t go too far. I’ve got
just
the girl for you. As glamorous as I am, but without the burdensome husband.”

Gabriel lifted his glass as he edged away. Johnny was bending to Delilah’s neck again and she let out another shriek, spilling a full glass of punch and laughing uproariously at the dripping carpet. They were in high spirits, no doubt because of all the punch they had already drunk, but Gabriel sensed there was more. There was a hectic quality to Delilah’s mood, a defiance that he guessed she’d summoned as a sort of bravado to cover her terror at Johnny leaving for war. She was too proud to show her true feelings, but they were easy to see if you looked hard enough. There were lines under her eyes, and where her fingers gripped her punch cup, the knuckles were white. She was hanging onto her sangfroid, but only just, and Gabriel quietly saluted her courage. Johnny would go off to war with only Delilah’s smile and not her tears, and it was an act of breathtaking bravery on her part. He felt a momentary stab of envy and smothered it. He didn’t envy Johnny his wife. He’d figured out only too quickly Delilah wasn’t his type. But damnation, he envied Johnny the fact that someone would miss him when he’d gone.

As Gabriel turned, he bumped into a girl, narrowly missing her punch cup.

“Terribly sorry, although you might have thanked me if I had spilled it. That stuff is lethal—” he began, but he stopped dead in his tracks. Delilah was wrong to call her glamorous. The girl in front of him was something entirely different. Taken one by one, nothing about her should have caught his attention. Her height was middling, she was neither thin nor fat. Her hair was dark and her eyes indeterminate, hazel perhaps? But the whole was absolutely arresting, most of all for the expression of absolute amazement she was directing his way. Her lips were parted and her eyes were shining, just like a child on Christmas, and Gabriel realised with a surge of pure, savage joy that it was because of him.

He recalled himself with a shake. “I do apologise. I nearly ran you over. I was trying to escape from our host and hostess,” he added with a jerk of his head to where Johnny had now picked Delilah up and was spinning her around.

“Happily married people are such a bore, aren’t they?” the vision said. Her voice was lovely, low and soft, and he bent his head closer to hear her. And as he did, he caught a whisper of the most delectable scent.

Just then, the ribbon around her neck came undone and the emerald pendant at her neck fell into his punch cup.

“Hell and damnation,” she muttered, but loudly enough for him to hear.

He grinned. “Good. I’m glad you swear. I can’t bear prissy girls. Don’t worry—I’ll get it for you.”

He whipped out a handkerchief of soft white linen, excellent quality if a little frayed around the edges, and fished in the cup for the stone. He lifted it out, triumphant, and placed it carefully on the handkerchief.

“Oh, you shouldn’t! It will ruin your handkerchief,” she told him.

“Too late.” He held it out to her. “I guess you’ll just have to keep it to remember me by.”

Evie, who had never flirted with a man in her life, said the first thing that came into her head. “Does that mean a memory is all I’ll have?”

The halfsmile on his face widened, and she saw there were two deep dimples to match the cleft in his chin. It was as if a creator, not content with giving him strong, even features and the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen, had been unable to resist signing the handiwork with a flourish. He was, quite simply, the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen.

“Stay here. I mean it—if you move, I will hunt you down, and I can do it,” he instructed.

She gave him a halfshrug and he turned away, refilling both of their punch cups while she tucked the soaked ribbon and sticky pendant into her small bag.

He returned, nodding towards her bare neck. “I hope the pendant wasn’t valuable. It looked awfully costly.”

She shook her head. “It’s just something my aunt wanted me to wear. A bit of tat she thought would make me look particularly fetching.”

“Why? Is tonight a special occasion?”

She shrugged again. “Not particularly. But Delilah is determined to play matchmaker and set me up with some old beau of hers.”

He leant closer and she caught a spicy whiff of shaving lotion. “Actually, it’s me.”

Evie blinked. “You?”

He smiled again. “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

She gave him a serious look. “I don’t know yet. You might have disappointing habits like biting your toenails or playing Gregorian chants on the recorder in the nude.”

His expression was amused. “I promise you I cut my toenails like any other gentleman and my musical tastes are firmly fixed in the seventeenth century. It’s Palestrina and Purcell for me, and I usually play them clothed, although I can’t make you any promises.”

“Well, then, we’re definitely not compatible.” She nodded to the gramophone. “I happen to love jazz.”

“Jazz? What the devil is that? Are you talking about that fiendish noise playing now? I’d rather slice my ears off than listen to a moment more of it.”

Evie opened her mouth to reply, but she realised those magnificent eyes were twinkling at her. He was having her on, and enjoying himself immensely in the process.

He hesitated a moment, as if deciding something, and she saw his eyes flicker to the pair of men standing in the corner. They were watching Gabriel with decided interest, but before she could wonder why, Gabriel reached down and took her hand.

“Come on. Let’s get out of this press.”

* * *

Watching Evie and Gabriel slip through the crowd, Quentin Harkness and Tarquin March sipped at their punch and made polite conversation. A tall Nordic-looking blonde standing nearby heard them exchanging views on the current situation in Ireland and hurried in the other direction to avoid being drawn in to what must have been the dullest party conversation she had ever heard.

Aware they were outside of earshot of anyone else, Quentin kept his expression pleasantly bored, but his voice was emphatic. “I am worried about that one. Do you think he is up for this?”

Tarquin picked up a statue of Cupid from the bookshelf behind him and seemed to be studying a mark on the bottom. He pointed at nothing and Quentin leant near as if to examine it. “Have a little faith, man. I chose him myself. He won’t do anything stupid.”

* * *

Gabriel had never visited Johnny and Delilah’s flat before, but he was not an explorer for nothing. He had already figured out that the hallway staircase must lead up to the top storey, and he reasoned there would be access to the roof from there. He had hoped for a staircase, but there was only a ladder. He turned to Evie doubtfully, but she merely smiled and drained her cup of punch.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, coughing slightly. “It’s just like cold fire, isn’t it?”

“Was that your first cup?”

“My fourth.”

“My God, it’s a wonder you can still stand,” he told her.

She considered that. “Standing isn’t a problem. It’s minding what I say that seems to be the trouble. For instance, ever since I first saw you, I’ve wanted to tell you how utterly beautiful your eyes are and ask you what they remind me of because I know I’ve seen that colour, but I can’t think where. And I knew I was going to just blurt that out—oh!”

She stopped because he kissed her, quickly and hard, on the cheek. “Forget-me-nots,” he told her.

“Yes! That’s it. And your shaving lotion is quite nice, although I probably oughtn’t tell you that either.”

She reached out and took his punch cup and drained it.

“Slow down, child. You’ll be legless in ten minutes if you keep that up.”

She widened her eyes and he took the cups, putting them down on the floor. “Come on, pet. You need some fresh air, and I want to get you alone.”

“Oh, why? Are you going to try something caddish? I should so enjoy that,” she murmured.

“Well, I wasn’t, but if you insist.”

“I don’t insist. I mean, if you don’t want to be a cad with me,” she started. She trailed off as he stripped off his coat and laid it across her shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“It’s going to be cold out there. You’ll catch your death in that dress, however delectable you look in it.”

“I don’t think any man has ever said I look delectable before.”

“Then they’re fools.” He nodded towards the ladder.

“You go up first so I can enjoy watching your bottom.” She widened her eyes at the words that had slipped out. He smiled.

“I want you to go first so I can catch you if you slip.”

“Oh, you are a gentleman.”

“Every inch of me.”

She turned and gripped the ladder carefully, placing her feet slowly upon the bottom rung. She hadn’t had four cups of punch before she’d seen Gabriel. The one she’d drunk in front of him had been her first. But she needed an excuse for the things she wanted to say to him, the things she wanted to do to him. Nice girls, properly brought up girls,
polite
girls didn’t tell men they’d just met that they’d like to feel their bottoms or kiss them senseless, no matter what Aunt Dove said. But those were only a few of the thoughts swimming around in Evie’s head, and she thought it best to give him at least half an excuse for what she might blurt out.

She ascended cautiously, but Gabriel was right behind her, large and reassuring. She wouldn’t fall, and even if she did, there was simply no way Gabriel would let any harm come to her. She emerged at last into the brisk night air, and she gasped as she stepped onto the roof. Above them, a thousand stars shimmered against the night sky. A low, pearly moon rose above the rooftops, and somewhere not far away, from another party came the sound of music, an orchestra this time, with rich, throbbing strings.

He slipped his arm around her waist and gathered her close to his body.

“What are you doing?”

“Dancing with you,” he told her, easing her into a slow waltz. “Don’t you hear the music from the neighbours’ party?”

She couldn’t hear anything above the blood beating in her ears for a moment, but then it came, faint and haunting and lovely. “What is it?”

“It’s
‘Salut d’amour.’
Elgar. Pretty piece.”

“It’s sublime,” she murmured, relaxing in his arms. “The most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

He moved her about the small rooftop, guiding her around chimney pots and wires and stacks of bricks, holding her carefully out of danger as if she were the most precious thing he had ever seen.

Evie tipped her head back. “I’ve never seen so many stars in the city,” Evie breathed.

Gabriel came to stand behind her. “Must be our lucky night.”

“‘A night of nights,’” she agreed.

“What did you just say?”

She turned to face him, flapping a hand. “Oh, nothing. It’s embarrassing, really. It’s a quote from
Peter Pan
. You must have seen it as a child.”

“About a thousand times,” he said slowly. “It was my favourite play. I took
Peter and Wendy
with me on my last Himalayan expedition.”

“You went to the Himalayas? With Peter Pan?”

“And Wendy and Hook and all of the Lost Boys.”

“What on earth were you doing in the Himalayas?”

“Trying to climb an excessively elusive mountain.”

“You’re a mountaineer!” Her eyes were brilliant with excitement.

“For my sins. I’m also an archaeologist and explorer. I’m seldom in England, which is why I think Delilah decided to take pity on me and find me a lovely girl to coax me to stay home.”

“You’d be better off with a lovely girl who’d want to go with you,” she blurted out, clapping a hand over her mouth.

He reached out gently and took her hand. He brushed his lips over the love line running across her palm. “And now I have one.”

She swallowed hard. “I should tell you that you’re mad, you know. We’ve only just met.”

“You haven’t just met me,” he said, his voice low and mesmerising. “You’ve known me all of your life, haven’t you?”

“Have I? I think I must have. Otherwise, how could I be dreaming you now?”

“You think you’re dreaming?”

“I am. I’m going to wake up in my own little bed in that horrid flat any minute now and hear Marjorie snoring and smell her liquorice pastilles.”

“Liquorice pastilles?”

“She sucks them to keep from biting her nails,” Evie explained.

“And Marjorie is?”

“My flatmate and the bane of my existence. She steals my shoes and pretends she doesn’t, but I can tell because she stretches them out with her bunions.”

“See? That’s good enough reason to come with me. I seldom snore, and I never suck on liquorice pastilles, and I have very handsome feet.”