Lavender Morning (29 page)

“And what a perfect match we’d be. McDowell money with the Harcourt land. I don’t have the name, but I

do have the house. I saw all those people you were courting today. Think of how you could entertain them in

such style here. You aren’t thinking of running for office, are you?”

Luke gave a sound in his throat like a chuckle. “She’s got you there.”

Jocelyn turned blazing eyes on him. “And
you
took up my time so I wouldn’t meet another man while

Ramsey was working. It was all so clever. So very well done.”

“Joce, it wasn’t like that,” Ramsey began.

“No? At the second picnic you told me about the letters you’d read with your grandfather. What a touching

story. You made it sound as though you’ve been in love with me since I was a child. But of course after that

revelation, I didn’t see you again for days.”

“I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Luke said.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Joce said, and he sat back down.

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“O

3/16/2010 h, no, you don’t!” Joce said, and he sat back down.

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“Look!” Luke said. “I never misrepresented myself. I’m your gardener, that’s all. My personal life has

never been an issue between us.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a reply. Gardeners don’t…don’t take such an interest in their

employers as you have in me. You’re just like my father, with his slick talking, his Harleys, and his penchant for

girls who don’t know which side of a book to open.”

“Your…?” Luke said, aghast. “You think I’m like your
father
?”

“A photocopy if I ever saw one. And, by the way, your cousin pays your salary.”

“I know,” Luke said, his face still showing his shock over Jocelyn’s words. “Every week I pad my bill by

half.”

“Why you—” Ramsey began.

“Out!” Jocelyn said. “I want both of you out of my house this instant, and I don’t want to see either of

you…maybe never.”

“Jocelyn,” Luke said as he tried to recover himself. “I apologize for whatever you think that I’ve done to

you, but the garden needs—”

“Stay out of my garden,” she said. “Don’t come near it or me.”

“But it needs care. It needs—”

“I’m sure I can find a high school boy who will mow the lawn.”

“Jocelyn,” Ramsey said, pleading, “you aren’t being fair to me. I know that your stepsister was a real snake

today, and I’m sure you’re upset about it all, but I haven’t done anything to deserve being told to get out of your

life. Whatever Luke did to make you think that he was…” Ramsey looked at his cousin. “What the hell
have
you

been doing to make her so angry to find out that you’re married? So help me, if you’ve touched her in any way,

I’ll—”

“I am not property!” Jocelyn shouted as she stood up and glared at both of them. “I am not a piece of land

that you two can fight over and eventually win. Or in this case, that one can hold for the other. I am—”

“Joce, please,” Ramsey said. “If Luke has been too familiar, it’s not my fault, don’t take it out on
me.
”

“Why don’t you go to Tess and tell
her
your problems?”

When Luke chuckled, Jocelyn glared at him. “And
you
can go to your
wife.
Now go! Both of you!”

15

J
OCELYN LOOKED UP from her desk and stared vacantly out the window. The lawn needed cutting—

again—and it looked like some bug was eating those…whatever those bushes were that ran around the side of

the house. One morning she could have sworn she heard termites eating the wall, but it turned out to be only Sara

and her boyfriend at it—again.

She looked back down at the slant-top drafting table she’d bought and at her papers. The desk wasn’t

what she someday hoped to be able to put in the house, but for now it was what she could afford.

She’d done a lot in the six weeks since she’d told Ramsey and Luke to get out of her life. First, she’d gone

to a bank in Williamsburg and borrowed fifty grand on the house. She figured she needed that much to live on

while she did her best to write a biography that she could sell to a publisher. She was tempted to write something

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about Thomas Jefferson, as all those books seemed to sell, but her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to write about

Miss Edi.

Jocelyn knew from experience that no publishing house would give an advance to a writer who’d never

written a book before, so she’d had to find other ways to support herself while she wrote. To repay the

mortgage, she spent her days in Williamsburg researching the eighteenth century for a very successful novelist for

a trilogy set during the American Revolutionary War.

During the evenings and into the night, Joce worked on the book about Miss Edi. Tess had told Joce she

didn’t know Luke was married. In fact, Tess said she and Ramsey had had a big fight about it. He told her that

what went on in his
family
was his business.

Tess swore that if she’d known she would have told Joce. “I
hate
the way this town hides its dirty little

secrets. Someone should have told me—you—
us
that he was married.”

Tess’s tone was so angry that Joce felt herself pulling back from her. But Tess got her the key to the attic

and Joce had spent days going through every box and trunk. As far as she could tell, everything of value had

been removed, and all that was left were thousands of account books. Perhaps someday she could do something

with them, but she’d been hoping for a diary where someone admitted killing someone else, and after her bio she

could write about it and make millions.

“So make up your own story,” Tess said. “Kill someone, then figure out who did it and why.”

It sounded so simple, but in the past whenever Joce had tried to do it, she couldn’t. She liked to read about

real
events and
real
people, so that’s what she wanted to write about.

“Miss Edi!” Tess said, putting her hands over her ears. “I’ve heard so much about that woman that if I saw

her ghostly form standing in the doorway, I’d just tell her to go away.”

“If you see her, please ask her to tell me what to do,” Joce said gloomily.

It was yet another night that Tess was in Joce’s kitchen making cupcakes. After the party at Viv’s house—

The Disaster, as Joce thought of it—Tess had agreed to do the next two catering jobs. Luke’s father, Jim, said

she was the best negotiator he’d ever seen. She didn’t let anyone even suggest what was to be served at their

own party. Tess told them what she’d show up with, and her manner was so authoritarian that they just agreed to

whatever she said.

Since then, Tess, with Jim’s help, had catered over a dozen kids’ parties and ladies’ teas. And all the

cooking had been done in Joce’s kitchen. While she worked on her book, she saw boxes of wonderously

decorated cupcakes and cookies going out her front door.

As for Sara, a hundred percent of her time was taken up with her new boyfriend and the plans for the dress

shop. All Sara talked about was what Greg said, did, thought. “Greg says we should—” seemed to start her

every sentence.

During the day—morning, afternoon, or night—Joce and Tess would hear the sounds of their energetic

lovemaking through the walls. At first it had been embarrassing, then laughable. After a couple of weeks it had

become so commonplace that all they did was look at each other and say where it was happening. But that

ended abruptly one night.

“Kitchen,” Joce said.

“No, that’s the pantry,” Tess said.

Joce listened. “You’re right. Oops. There they go into the living room.”

“Sara really should let those carpet burns on her knees heal before she goes at it again in there. She—”

Tess broke off because she’d looked up to see Jim standing in the doorway, a box of supplies in his hands. He

didn’t say anything, just put the box down and left the house.

Wide-eyed, the two women grabbed drinking glasses and held them to the wall. They knew Jim was going

to Sara’s apartment and they wanted to hear what he’d say. But, unfortunately, Jim kept his voice so low they

couldn’t make out a word. When he returned to the kitchen, Joce and Tess were busy at the table, their faces

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looking innocent. Whatever Jim said, they never again heard the sounds of lovemaking coming through the walls.

Later, Tess said, “I don’t know whether I’m happy at the silence or miserable.”

“Me either,” Joce agreed.

For the first two weeks after The Disaster, while Tess baked, Joce wrote letters and e-mails, and made

calls. Dr. Brenner’s widow was so happy that Joce was going to write a biography of her husband—Joce gave

up trying to tell her the truth—that she sent so many boxes of papers that they filled half a UPS truck. But as

Joce went through them, she had to work to stay awake. Dr. Brenner may have been a great physician, but he

was a horrible journalist. She would find entries of several deaths on one day, but there was no explanation of

how or why. She began sending out more inquiries. She wrote the American embassies of countries where Dr.

Brenner had worked. Twice she was told that the official word was that no American doctor had ever worked in

their country.

While she waited, Joce wrote down all she could remember of Miss Edi’s stories of her time with Dr.

Brenner. Joce carried a notebook with her and wrote at every possible moment.

Through all the searching and recording, she thought of Luke. No! she told herself, she thought of the story

Luke had read her while she was cooking. Joce had loved hearing about Miss Edi and her David, the jeep driver

who she despised but came to love very much. But how did it happen? What put them together in a way that

allowed them to fall in love? Joce hoped it wasn’t just proximity and the passions of war. She hoped that they got

to know each other, to really and truly
love
each other.

She very much wanted to contact Luke’s grandfather and ask for the rest of the story, but she couldn’t

bring herself to do it. She couldn’t believe he’d give her, a stranger, the stories, especially not after the way she’d

thrown out his grandson.

Thinking of the story made Jocelyn Google General Austin. She saw that he’d been decorated many times,

and there was mention of a son who’d received the last award for his father posthumously. Joce didn’t think

there was much hope that his family would remember a secretary from World War II, but she wrote them a

polite inquiry to ask if they’d possibly heard of Miss Edilean Harcourt.

Four days later, Joce received an enthusiastic e-mail from William “Bill” Austin, the grandson of General

Austin, saying that he was writing a biography on his grandfather, and, yes, he knew of Miss Harcourt, but not

much. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” he wrote.

The problem was that what she’d heard of General Austin was from a story written by Miss Edi and the

portrait of the general was so unflattering that she wasn’t sure the man’s grandson would want to hear it. She told

him that since what she had was from Miss Edi’s life
after
the war, it would be of little help to Bill with his

biography. However, she asked if she could please see whatever he had on Miss Edi.

Bill wrote back that there were some letters that mentioned Miss Harcourt, but they hadn’t been

transcribed yet so they were still in boxes—and he wasn’t going to let the originals out of his hands. “My

transcriber was my ex-girlfriend and I’m either going to have to get a new transcriber—which I can’t afford—or

a new girlfriend who can type, or ask my ex to marry me. If I had a three-headed coin I’d flip it.”

Joce bought some super glue and fastened three quarters—each from a different state—together to form a

pyramid and mailed it to him without so much as a note. Two days later she got an e-mail from Bill saying that he

and his ex-girlfriend could have bought a house for what her family was shelling out for a wedding. “It’s going to

take weeks of my time. And then there’s the honeymoon. My work on the biography has been postponed

indefinitely. I don’t know whether to thank you or hate you.”

“Me neither,” Joce mumbled. She went back to what she could find out about Dr. Brenner. Twice, she hit

pay dirt with people who remembered him and Miss Edi. When she found a nurse who’d worked for him, Joce

drove to Ohio and spent three days recording what the woman could remember. But she’d only worked for Dr.

Brenner for six months and she remembered Miss Edi as being “scary.” “Coldest woman on earth. No heart at

all,” she said. Joce had to work hard not to tell the old woman off.

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all,” she

3/16/2010 said. Joce had to work hard not to tell the old woman off.

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

Now, as Joce looked up from her desk in the office she’d set up in the second parlor, she didn’t know

whether to give up or to keep butting her head against a wall.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

Quickly, Joce looked down at her papers. “Miss Edi?” she said to Tess, who stood in the open doorway.