Lavender Morning (26 page)

“You read and I’ll make cookies.” As he opened his mouth, she said, “Wait a minute! I had this really

horrible idea and I wanted to ask you about it.”

“I like it already.”

“One time I made something called Margarita Cupcakes for one of Miss Edi’s charity events. They have a

bit of tequila in the batter, and the icing has lime juice and tequila. Do you think I dare do something like that for

Viv’s party?”

“You have the ingredients?”

She opened a lower cabinet and pushed aside a stack of paper bags to reveal two bottles of tequila and a

big sack of limes. “I didn’t know how your father would take it, so I had Tess sneak them in for me.”

“We won’t tell them. We’ll call them limeade cupcakes and leave it at that. You couldn’t spare a bit for

sipping, could you?”

Smiling, she poured two small glasses of tequila and handed him one.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I think so.”

Luke opened the papers and began to read.

12

LONDON, ENGLAND

1944

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

98/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

C
LARE!” CAPTAIN OWENS yelled at his sergeant, who was leaning against the jeep and staring into

space. When he got no response, he waved his hand in front of his face but there was no reaction. “What the

hell’s wrong with him?” He looked to a corporal standing on the other side of the jeep.

“Her,” Corporal Smith said as he reached up and took a cigarette from David Clare’s lips. It was burning

down and about to singe him.

“Who?” the captain asked impatiently. Sometimes these men didn’t seem to realize there was a war going

on.

The corporal took a last drag off Clare’s cigarette, then nodded toward the big building in front of them. It

had once been beautiful, but now a quarter of it was rubble. Standing on the steps was General Austin, a short

bulldog of a man who seemed to believe all words should be uttered as quickly, as succinctly, and as loudly as

possible. His orders had been known to put tears in grown men’s eyes. The soldiers played a game they called

“Worse than Austin.” First line of battle or fifteen minutes alone with Austin? Torture or Austin? In the last year

they’d developed a catchphrase. “Better than Austin.” They used it when they were about to charge into gunfire.

“This is Better than Austin,” they’d say before attaching bayonets and charging.

The short, sturdy general was standing on the steps, bawling out three young officers, and Sergeant Clare

was staring at him as though he were in a trance.

“Austin?” the captain said in disgust. “He’s paralyzed by Austin? Oh hell! Get somebody else to drive the

bastard. Clare! Come with me.”

Sergeant Clare didn’t move.

“Not him,” Corporal Smith said.
“Her!”

Captain Owens looked back just as “she” stepped from behind a pillar, and he smiled. Oh yeah,
her.
Miss

Edilean Harcourt, the general’s secretary. The Untouchable One. The woman who it sometimes seemed the

entire military force lusted after, but no man had been able to get near. There was a rumor that her legs were

three and a half feet long and there was a lot of discussion of what a man would do with legs like that.

Whatever their fantasies, no man had so much as received a smile from Miss Edilean Harcourt—but not for

want of trying. Every type of man had tried every method known to win her. From an Englishman with an accent

so elegant it was whispered he was royalty, to an American GI who’d grown up in the LA slums, they all tried.

Flowers, candy, love poems, nylons, even a banner saying MISS EDI, I LOVE YOU strung across the

building during the night had elicited no response from her.

It had been a great game for the men who’d been there a while to watch the newcomers fall apart when

they first saw Edilean Harcourt. She was a foot taller than the general and had a patrician beauty that the men

couldn’t take their eyes off. The most common phrase uttered by new soldiers was, “She’s a goddess.”

When “that look” was seen in a new man’s eyes, money started changing hands. They bet on the number of

days it would take before he was given Miss Edi’s “drop dead” look, and what the poor man would do to try to

win her. They knew the general kept the chocolates sent to her, and he threw the flowers out the window. It was

his hay fever. As for the nylons, all anyone knew was that
all
the girls in General Austin’s office wore perfect

nylons.

So now Captain Owens shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Another man had fallen under

her spell. “How long has he been like this?” he asked the corporal.

“Since yesterday. I don’t think he slept last night, just lay awake staring at the ceiling.”

“Great,” the captain said in sarcasm. “Just what I need. Clare was sent here specially to be Austin’s driver.

He drove another general straight through enemy fire, didn’t blink an eye. He’s up for some medal, and Austin

wants him.”

The corporal glanced at David Clare. He was a tall young man, dark blond hair, and blue eyes, and he was

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

99/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

still standing in comatose silence as he stared at the woman on the porch. “From the look of him, he’d throw

himself on a bomb for her.”

“Yeah, well, so would we all, but she’d probably just step over his body.”

“I see, sir,” the corporal said, “you’ve chosen the Ice Queen route.”

“Better that than to remember the roses I stole off a burned-out house and had tossed at my head by ol’

Hardheart Austin.”

“I understand, sir.”

“How about you?” the captain asked as he leaned against the jeep, took out a cigarette, and offered the

corporal one.

“Parachute silk,” he said as he lit the captain’s cigarette, then his own. “Stole it from the quartermaster. I

could be court-martialed,” he added, then shot a look at the captain.

“Don’t worry. Nobody reports crimes concerning Miss Harcourt.”

They smoked their cigarettes in silence, leaning against the jeep, the silent, staring Sergeant Clare between

them. After a while, General Austin seemed to tire of bawling out the poor officers and started down the stairs.

As always, close behind him was Miss Harcourt. They were an incongruous pair, she tall, thin, elegant; he short,

thick, and common-looking. It was said that when he was sixteen a judge gave him a choice of jail or the army. It

was also told that the general said the army was exactly like gang warfare except with better food, and that he’d

bullied his way to the top. Whatever he’d done to achieve where he was, he was brilliant at warfare.

The corporal and the captain stood at attention as the general drew near, and the captain wished he’d

dragged Sergeant Clare away. Austin would blame the nearest person for Clare’s inability to function—and that

meant Captain Owens.

But he’d underestimated Sergeant Clare. As the general approached, the sergeant snapped back into the

world and opened the passenger door for him.

Whatever complaints there were about the general, he was courteous to Miss Harcourt. Before her, his

secretaries had to be replaced every three months. A couple of the young women had been sent home, as their

nerves were at the breaking point. The men said, “Bombs don’t bother them, but Austin puts them in a hospital.”

Miss Harcourt had been assigned to him nearly a year ago. There was a story the newcomers were told

after their usual flowers and candy had been unsuccessful, about the first time the general yelled at Miss Edi. No

one knew the full story, but she drew herself up to her full height, looked down her long nose at him, and said

she’d like to see him in private. When the doors were closed, everyone pressed his or her ear up against them to

hear, but Miss Harcourt’s voice was low and quiet. They did manage to hear words like
bully
and
never again

dare
and
respect.

In the past year, those words had been greatly embellished and the story enhanced into legend status. It

was rumored that when Mrs. Austin met Miss Harcourt, she hugged her much harder than she did her husband,

and was much more concerned with Miss Harcourt’s comfort than she was with that of her husband.

Whatever the truth was, General Austin treated Miss Harcourt with the utmost courtesy. He got in the back

of the jeep, then waited patiently for her to take the passenger seat in front. While the sergeant got in, she handed

General Austin a folder. “You might want to read that,” she said.

The captain and the corporal watched the old man obediently take the folder and open it.

“Listen,” the captain said so only Sergeant Clare could hear him, “you might as well give up now. You can’t

win her.”

Sergeant David Clare gave the captain a look he’d seen many times before. It said that no one had won her

because
he
hadn’t tried.

Sergeant Clare started the jeep and maneuvered it through the many vehicles and people around them.

“So where are you from?” he asked Miss Harcourt.

“I think you should watch the road.”

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

100/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

David gave a couple of twists to the steering wheel to miss a truck and went between a man on crutches

and two pretty girls. That the tires almost ran over the man’s foot and the side of the jeep grazed the women’s

skirts didn’t bother him. The man raised a crutch and shouted at him and the two girls giggled. In the back,

General Austin glanced up from the papers he was pretending to read and gave a little smirk. There was nothing

he liked better than seeing a man make a fool of himself over his secretary.

“The South,” David said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

Edi didn’t bother to answer him.

“So where in the South?” David persisted. “Louisiana? No, too far south.” He looked her up and down as

he jerked the vehicle around a deep pothole. “No, I can’t see you sharing a table full of boiled crab. You’re

more the silver and china sort.”

Edi pointed toward the road, then had to grab the dashboard to keep from flying over it when David

slammed on the brakes. In the back, the general dug his heels into the floorboard, but said nothing.

David waited while a truck drove across the road in front of them. “Georgia,” he said. “Maybe Savannah.”

He looked at Edi for an answer, but she was silent.

“I’m from New York,” he said as he pushed on the accelerator, leaving about an inch between the jeep and

the side of the truck. “I drive a cab there and I have a little garage. I can fix most anything that has a motor.”

David was looking at her and again almost hit another vehicle, this one as it unloaded four British officers.

When he splashed water from a puddle on them, they shouted obscenities at him.

“Sergeant,” Edi said with her back teeth clenched, “I must insist that you stop talking and watch where

you’re going. You have a very important passenger on board.”

“I’ll take care of you, don’t you worry about a thing.”

“Not
me
!” she snapped. “The general. You have General Austin on board.”

“Him?” David said, glancing in the mirror as the general put the folder up to hide his face. “He’s from New

York. We have worse traffic than this in Manhattan. But you seem to be nervous.”

“I am not—” She broke off as she pointed to a big truck in front of them and another one coming toward

them on the right.

“I see it. I’ll fix it,” David said as he gunned the jeep and went around the truck in front of them. For several

long seconds, they were heading straight toward the oncoming truck. Edi grabbed the door and the top of the

windshield. David swerved a second before they would have smashed into the oncoming truck, which was full of

soldiers who cheered David’s daring. He blew the horn and waved as he passed.

“See?” David said. “You’re safe with me.”

Edi gave him a look of contempt even as she heard a noise from the general that sounded suspiciously like a

laugh. But when she turned to him, he had the open folder in front of his face.

“Virginia,” David said. “You’re from Virginia. ’Ol TJ’s country. That’s—”

“I know who TJ is,” she said. “Thomas Jefferson.”

“You teach school?”

“No, I barbecue New York cabdrivers in the back garden.” She was sneering at him.

“Had a bad day, have you?”

“Not until I met you, I didn’t.”

“Me? So you’re one of those snooty Virginians, are you? Overly proud to be from the land of our

Founding Fathers, that sort of thing? Well, I don’t blame you for being proud of your home state, but I don’t

think you should look down your nose at us poor Yankees. We—”

“Being from Virginia has nothing to do with my dislike of you. You are the worst driver I have ever seen.”

“Bad driver?” he asked incredulously. “I’ve never had a wreck. A few dented fenders and maybe a

smashed radiator or two, but nothing that I’d call a real wreck.”

In the back of the jeep, General Austin put the folder down and started watching his secretary and his new

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

101/176

In

3/16/2010 the back of the jeep, General Austin put the folder down and sta

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.htmlrted watching his secretary and his new