Lavender Morning (20 page)

the only one who can make them.”

Joce looked at him in consternation. “I think I’m missing the point here. Why would someone
need
for me

to make cupcakes?”

“The truth?”

“That would be nice.”

“It started out as a way for me to get to know you better, a way for us to spend more time together. After

our first date, I felt that we…”

“Ran out of things to talk about?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“So after you left me, you went to Tess to ask her female opinion about what to do to get you and me more

involved with each other?”

“Yes,” he said sheepishly. “Sorry, I—”

She cut him off because she leaned across the quilt and kissed him on the lips. It wasn’t a kiss of great

passion, but it was a kiss that let him know she wasn’t displeased with what he’d said.

“Wow,” he said, blinking at her. “Was that for…I mean, was that because I told the truth?”

She didn’t want to tell him why she’d kissed him. Maybe it was just relief that he really had gone to Tess to

talk about her, Jocelyn. She knew it was stupid, but Miss Edi said that Ramsey was the perfect man for her, and

in a way, she felt like he was hers.

She leaned back on the quilt and looked up at the leaves of the tree overhead. “So tell me about this

cupcakes crisis.”

Ramsey moved toward her. “I’d rather talk about kissing.”

“No, not now,” she said as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I think I have other things in my

life to resolve before serious kissing.”

Ramsey gave an ostentatious sigh and lay back on the quilt, the picnic basket between them. “Tess took

care of it. The cupcake crisis, that is.”

“So even before she met me, she knew that I needed something to occupy myself.”

“Yes,” Ramsey said as he put his hands behind his head and looked at the tree leaves. “But she doesn’t

know the truth about the money. Joce, I know that everyone probably tells you that Tess—”

“
Warns
me that Tess—”

“Right, warns you that Tess takes care of my entire life, but it’s not true. Yes, I’ve learned to play dumb so

she does the work—she is a workhorse if there ever was one—but there are many aspects about me that she

knows nothing about. And
you
are at the head of that list. I’m sure this has to do with my having heard about you

since I was a kid, and I know this is early, but, Jocelyn, I like you a great deal. You’re smart and funny, and I

enjoy being with you. You make me feel good. Is that enough to base something between us on?”

“Yes.” Every word he said made her feel better. She didn’t want to think she’d been jealous of Tess, but it

was nice to be reassured that there was no reason to be.

She sat up on the quilt and looked in the basket. “Did you eat all of that pâté?”

“Every bite of it.” He turned onto his side, his head on his hand; his eyes on her were warm.

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“E

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Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html yes on her were warm.

She had to make herself look away from him. Too soon, she thought. Much, much too soon. Miss Edi said

that women who attached themselves to one man right away spent their lives regretting that there’d been no

courtship. She said that David had courted her “ardently.” “It was a long time before I agreed to…to be his

girlfriend.” When she said the word, she always blushed.

Jocelyn didn’t like to think how that “ardent” courtship had turned out. Miss Edi had come home from

World War II, her legs a mass of scars, and found her beloved David married to another woman.

“So tell me about the cupcakes,” Jocelyn said again as she spread cheese on a cracker.

“I don’t know the details. You’ll get a call from somebody, probably my sister and probably tonight, and

she’ll ask if you know how to make a cupcake.”

“This will be the children’s party you invited me to?”

Ramsey took the cracker she handed him. “Yes.”

“Have you seen my kitchen?”

“Sure,” he said, chewing. “It’s—” He looked at her. “It’s bare. So how do you make cupcakes without…

without whatever it takes to make cupcakes?”

“I thought you could cook.”

“My sister taught me how to make that pasta dish. It’s the only thing I can cook.”

Jocelyn made a cheese cracker for herself and ate it while she thought. “I guess your sister’s doing this to

get her poor unmarried brother hitched with the woman she thinks is rich and lives in the biggest, oldest house in

town.”

“Sure. My mother has despaired of my ever marrying, and it looks like my sister is also about to give up on

me.”

“So I’m your last chance.”

“
Very
last.” He was smiling bigger by the minute. “I’m getting the idea that you have something in mind.”

“Do you know what the latest thing in children’s food is?”

“Dying it purple?”

“That’s so old school,” she said. “No, the latest thing is to dump a batch of puréed spinach in with the

chocolate.”

Ramsey gave her a look of such horror that she laughed. “It just sounds bad. Actually, it tastes good. You

put squash in their mac and cheese, zucchini in their hot dogs. Of course the kids grow up never having actually

eaten broccoli, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is to get them big and strong. When they go to college,

they’re on their own.”

“A whole generation of children is going to grow up not knowing what real chocolate tastes like,” Ramsey

said, still looking as though this were the worst idea he’d ever heard.

“Does your sister have any money? If she’s part of your family, then she must be rich.”

“What?” Ramsey looked at her as though he couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“If your sister had called me this morning and asked me to bake a few dozen cupcakes for a kids’ party, I

would have made them for her for free. But then, I’d been led to believe that I’d inherited a fortune with the

house, not just a money pit that’s going to take everything I earn just to keep the termites at bay. What I want to

know is if your sister can afford to pay me for the cupcakes.”

“Yeah, she can afford them. Her husband works at Busch, and he makes good money.”

“And of course there’s the trust fund from your grandfather.”

“And there’s the trust fund from my grandfather,” Ramsey said, smiling. “What’s going on in that pretty little

mind of yours?”

“I don’t think I want to spend my life making cupcakes, but for now, I can’t think of anything else I can do.

Sara said there weren’t any good jobs in Edilean.”

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“None that I know of. People either work elsewhere or they open their own businesses. Maybe you and

Sara could do something together.”

“Open a dress shop where I serve the customers cupcakes? I don’t think so. Besides, if I started doing this

baking full-time and started making money at it—”

“You’d have the health inspector down your neck,” Ramsey said.

“Right. Sometimes I almost forget that you’re a lawyer.”

“Is there a compliment in that?”

Jocelyn was looking at the stream and thinking hard. “Okay, so I’ll have one chance to show the world,

meaning Edilean and the surrounding area, what I can do. If I do a good enough job, maybe I can earn enough

money to feed myself until…until…”

“This is making me feel bad,” Ramsey said. “I’m the one who steamrollered you into quitting your job and

coming here. I told you there was money with the house.”

“Please hang on to that guilt. I may use it if I need a loan.” In the distance, she heard a horn blow. “What

time is it?”

Ramsey grimaced. “I don’t need a watch to know it’s two o’clock. Why are you going out with Luke?”

She was tossing things into the basket. “Plants. We have to buy lavender.”

“What for?” He picked up one end of the quilt and Jocelyn the other.

“Cookies. I can make those too.”

“You certainly don’t seem upset to hear that you’re broke.”

“I think maybe someone just lit a fire under me.” When the horn blew again, she looked at him.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll get this.”

“Thanks,” she said as she turned toward the path, then looked back at him. “Three twenty-five.”

“What?”

“That’s what they charge in New York for super cupcakes. Three dollars and twenty-five cents each.”

“Of course they do,” he said, his face showing his shock at the price. “All right. I’ll get my brother-in-law to

agree to the price. I’ll champion you, but if those cupcakes are awful, you’ll make me look like a fool. And you

won’t get another job around town.”

“I’ll make you proud,” she said as the horn blew again. “My car keys are in the basket.” He nodded, and

she took off running.

9

J
OCELYN RAN THROUGH the meadow to Luke’s truck, which was parked by her car under the oak

tree. He didn’t get out and open the door for her, just waited with the motor running. She opened the door of the

big green truck, put her foot on the running board, and vaulted in. Luke was pulling away before she got the door

closed.

“Are you angry because you were wrong?” she asked.

“I’m not angry and I’m not wrong, so what would I be angry about if I were?”

“About Ramsey not taking me into Williamsburg as you said he would.”

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Luke shrugged. “I guess Tess sent him somewhere else.”

Jocelyn didn’t say anything because that was too close to the truth. But Ramsey had wanted to tell her

some important things, and she was glad they were alone when he told her. All in all, she thought she’d done well

at hiding her shock at his words. The lack of money to care for the old house was bad, but not something she

couldn’t, somehow, deal with. Surely there were government programs to help with a house that old.

What bothered her was all the information about Miss Edi. It seemed that every hour she found out

something else that wasn’t true. Since she was a child, she’d spent as much time as possible with a woman who

taught her everything that was important in life. Jocelyn had seen Miss Edi as the wisest person in the world. But

now she was finding out Miss Edi hadn’t been honest with her. She told herself that the woman had every right to

keep huge parts of her life private, but it still hurt.

“Hey!” Luke said softly. “What’s made you frown like that? You and Rams have a fight?”

“No,” she said as she put her head against the side window and looked out at the road. “Have you ever

believed in someone completely, then found out that that person wasn’t at all what you thought?”

“Yes,” he said. “You find out something about Ramsey?”

“No, I mean yes. He really cares about people, doesn’t he?”

Luke gave her a glance as he turned a curve. “I guess so. What does he care about?”

“Everything. Everyone.” She sat up straighter. “Where are we going?”

“Plants, remember?”

“I can’t afford them,” she said before she thought.

One minute Luke was driving straight ahead, and the next he’d done a U-turn and was heading back the

way they came.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you home, then we’re going to sit down, and you’re going to explain what you just said.”

Ramsey hadn’t said to keep what he’d told her a secret, but Jocelyn felt that it was just an oversight on his

part. Whatever had gone on between Miss Edi and his grandfather had been kept quiet for so many years that

she didn’t think she should blab it now. “It’s just some legal stuff,” she said. “It’s, uh, probate. It takes a long

time to get the money Miss Edi left me to take care of the house, so I have to wait. Meanwhile, I have nothing

but what I have in savings, which isn’t much. But Ramsey got me a job at his sister’s tomorrow. I’m going to

bake some cupcakes even though I don’t have so much as a baking pan, but if I can make the cupcakes,

everything will be fine. I think. I hope.”

Luke pulled into the driveway of Edilean Manor, turned off the engine, then went around to the other side

and opened her door. “Out,” he said when she just sat there. “Unless you want me to carry you, get out of the

truck.”

She got out, went to the front door, then fumbled in her pocket for the key. “The house key’s with my car

key, and Ramsey has it.”

Luke reached across her and opened the door. “Who locks their front door in this town?”

“But you said—” She didn’t bother to finish as he walked into the kitchen and she followed. He pulled out

a chair at the big table and waited until she sat down, then he put a teakettle on the stove to boil.

“Where’d that come from?” she asked.

“My mother. I told her you liked tea, so she gave me a box of stuff for you. Okay, start talking.”

“Probate,” she said. “Ramsey said—”

“Ramsey said no such thing, and if you don’t stop lying to me, I’m going to start shouting. I can be very

loud when I want to be. All those years of sports.”

“Don’t shout,” she said as she put her head on her hand. “Why are you doing this? I thought we were going

to a nursery and…” She trailed off.

“You look like you got hit by a freight train,” he said as he took the kettle off the burner and poured tea into

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