Lavender Morning (42 page)

She laughs at his jokes and thinks his grandiose plans are great.”

“Do you think that people from Richmond are going to drive all the way to Edilean to go shopping?”

“No,” Tess said. “Why don’t you come into my office?”

Joce looked around her and realized she’d never been inside Ramsey’s office before. She’d walked and

driven past it many times, but had never been inside. It was an old house, probably built in the early 1900s, that

had been remodeled into a comfortable but elegant office space. In the front was a waiting room furnished in

reproduction eighteenth-century pieces.

“From Colonial Williamsburg?” Joce asked.

“Of course,” Tess said as they went to the back of the building. They passed two desks with women

behind them, and they looked up curiously when Joce walked by.

“They’re shocked that I have any women friends,” Tess said as she closed the door to her office. It was

beautiful but in a stark way that Joce couldn’t have stood for long. There were no photos on the desk, nothing

personal anywhere. Just like her apartment, Joce thought. It’s as though she doesn’t want anyone to know about

her life.

“So what was he up to today?” Tess asked as she sat down behind her desk, leaving Joce to take one of

the seats in front.

Joce didn’t like the desk between them, but she said nothing. “You mean Greg?”

“Yes, of course. I was so involved in the catering and you were so wrapped up in your book, that neither

of us paid any attention to Sara’s new boyfriend. It’ll be more difficult now.”

“True,” Joce said, but her voice was cautious. “You aren’t suggesting that we do anything about it, are you?

And, besides, as far as I can tell, Sara likes him. She doesn’t need anything to be done.”

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

157/176

And, be

3/16/2010 sides, as far as I can tell, Sara likes him. She doesn’t need anythin

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.htmlg to be done.”

“After I met him, I talked her into letting MAW handle the legal aspects of the store.”

“Meaning?”

“That I reminded her that she has no money, so she shouldn’t sign any papers. Let him pay for everything,

and let it be on his head when the thing fails.”

“You’re sure the store will fail?” Joce asked.

“I think that if Sara opened a little place with her own creations and did a lot of altering for a select clientele,

she’d do well. Sara is good one-on-one, but I can’t see her getting involved in Fashion Week in New York. Can

you?”

Jocelyn narrowed her eyes at Tess. “I can’t see that either you or I know what’s best for Sara and that we

should let her live her own life.”

“That’s a thought,” Tess said, then she glanced up at the window by her door. “Rams is back.”

For a moment, Jocelyn just sat there, staring at Tess. It had only been a flash, maybe a sixty-fourth of a

second, but there had been a light in Tess’s eyes when she saw Ramsey, that…Joce wasn’t sure what it meant,

but she knew that Tess was glad to see him.

Turning in her seat, Joce watched Ramsey stride through the building and straight to Tess’s office. He didn’t

slow down to set his briefcase down, or acknowledge the greetings of the many people who said hello to him.

He ignored the pink telephone notices that the two secretaries tried to hand to him. Instead, he raced across the

long room to get to Tess. He threw her door open so hard he nearly hit Joce with it—but he didn’t notice.

“What’s happened while I was away?” Ramsey asked her.

Joce sat in her chair, half hidden by the door, and looked from one to the other, and noted the way their

eyes saw only each other—and Jocelyn wanted to do a dance of joy. It was almost as though she could hear

bagpipe music in her head and she wanted to put her arms above her head and do a Highland reel.

Smiling so wide she was showing her back teeth, Joce said, “Hi, Ramsey. Have a nice time in Boston?”

When Ramsey turned to look at her, there was a second when his eyes didn’t register who she was.

“Jocelyn!” he cried, sounding as though she were the person he most wanted to see in the whole world. In the

next second he had his arms around her and was hugging her.

“Did you miss me? Did my horrible cousin try to run off with you?”

“Which one of your cousins would that be? You have so many.”

“Luke,” Ramsey said as he put his face in her neck, as though he meant to start kissing her.

Joce stole a look at Tess and saw that she had sat back down at her desk and was studiously looking at

some papers. Joce pushed Ramsey away from her. “How can anyone run off with me when I’m anchored to that

house? I was just about to tell Tess that Greg Anders offered to buy it from me. He knows I have no money to

support the place, so he volunteered to take it off my hands.”

“Who the hell is Greg Anders?” Ramsey asked Tess.

“Sara’s new boyfriend,” Tess said. “Bought a house here, has lots of money, and they’re opening a

designer dress shop in the old furniture store.”

Ramsey’s eyes widened. “This all happened in the short time I was away?”

“Mmmm,” Joce said. “Lots has happened since you were away.”

He turned a serious face to her. “Such as?”

“I think I’ll let Tess tell you,” Joce said. She was trying to get her smile under control, but she couldn’t. “I

need to go.”

“You aren’t going to do more painting, are you?” Tess asked.

“You’re painting Edilean Manor?” Ramsey asked, his voice full of horror.

“Lavender,” Joce said. “My favorite color. Think about the morning sun hitting that lavender house. The

image boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

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

158/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

“You can’t—” Ramsey began as Jocelyn closed the door, and she heard Tess say, “She was making a

joke, so try to find your sense of humor and don’t make a fool of yourself.”

Laughing, Joce left the office, aware that the secretaries were staring at her in disbelief. Joce was probably

the only person to ever leave Tess’s office and be laughing.

22

L
UKE WAS GONE for nearly two weeks. During that time, he didn’t call her or contact her in any way. But

Jocelyn was fine. She now knew where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. She thought it had a lot to

do with the way Sara looked at Greg, and that flash of light in Tess’s eyes when she first saw Ramsey. Love

didn’t have room for the word
should
in it. She
should
be interested in Ramsey because Miss Edi told her he

was the perfect man for her, and with that great house to care for, she
should
share it with Ramsey. He’d know

how to decorate it and care for it. Luke would probably put weeds in empty mayonnaise jars and think they

looked great.

But none of that mattered. Jocelyn knew where her heart lay, and that made her at peace.

She spent most of the time he was away in Williamsburg researching. One day she idly looked up the name

of Angus Harcourt and found that he’d been part of the founding of the country. He’d never been a politician, but

he’d been there and he’d had a lot to say about breaking away from England.

Joce hadn’t thought much about the man, just smiling at the story that Miss Edi had included in her letter in

her will. It was romantic to think of a young Scotsman kidnapping the laird’s daughter and running away with her

and a wagon full of gold, but she hadn’t thought about what they did afterward.

Jocelyn had joked about writing a history of Edilean, but finding Angus Harcourt’s name mentioned along

with that of Thomas Jefferson made her see the possibilities of such a book.

Joce organized all she’d been able to find out about Miss Edi’s time with Dr. Brenner, typed it, then went

over the earlier stories written by Miss Edi. Again, Joce laughed about Bertrand, marveled at the love between

Edi and David, then, as always, tears came to her eyes when she thought of David’s death. If only they could

have had a
life
together! she thought.

23

W
HEN THE PHONE rang and the caller ID showed that it was Luke, Joce put her hand over her heart to

quieten it.

“Did you miss me?” he asked without preamble, “or did you not even notice I was gone?”

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

159/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

What she wanted to ask him was if his annulment was finished, was he free, and she thought maybe she

wanted to tell him that she loved him. “Yes and no,” she said. “I kept really busy. I met Sara’s new boyfriend

and helped them paint the new shop.”

“Nice guy, huh?”

Jocelyn’s grip on her emotions left her. “You talked to someone here before
me,
” she half shouted.

Luke’s chuckle let her know that he heard her jealousy. “Not like you mean. Nana met the boyfriend, and

she told Gramps, who told me. That make you feel better?”

“Not much. So your grandfather talked to you while you were away.” She knew she was sounding like a

sulky little girl, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Sort of,” Luke said, and she could hear how much he was enjoying all this. “He was with me part of the

way, then I dropped him off and flew on. It was while we were together that he talked to Nana and she told

him.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better? Where have you been?! And don’t you dare call me ‘Mom.’”

“New Hampshire, then London. I left Gramps in New Hampshire, then I flew to London. I just got back an

hour ago.”

“London?” she asked softly. “You did something about Miss Edi, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Oh! And I stopped in New York too. Gramps has some friends there. Does that answer all your

questions?”

“Yeah, and now I’m completely content. When are you coming over here to explain what you and your sly

grandfather have been up to?”

“He is sly, isn’t he? Good observation.”

“Why don’t I meet you at
your
house? That would make a nice change. I’d like to see how you’ve

decorated it. Do you grow orchids in the shower?”

“Only if I haven’t had a bath in a couple of weeks. Then I get them in my left ear. I don’t know why it’s

always the left and not the right one. And my belly button—”

“Stop it! Leave the bad jokes to me. I want to know what you and your grandfather have been up to these

past weeks.”

“Snooping and spying in a big way.”

“Luke,” she said, and her voice was half warning, half pleading.

“Gramps went to New Hampshire to meet General Austin’s widow and sweet-talk her out of the letters.”

Jocelyn drew in her breath. “Did he get them?”

“Yes,” Luke said, but he was hesitant. “Listen, Joce, we found out some things that…”

“That what?”

“That I think might upset you a bit.”

“Oh, Lord, what now?”

“It’s nothing bad,” he said. “It’s just…I swore to Gramps that I wouldn’t tell you, so I have to keep my

mouth shut. If it were up to me I’d be over there right now with a stack of papers that—”

“What kind of papers?”

“History,” Luke said quickly. “Gramps has to rest today. He can’t take all this traveling, so how about if I

pick you up at four and we go to his house?”

“And he’s going to be there when I see all these papers?”

“That was part of the deal with him. Besides, he’s a doctor.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Luke said quickly. “Forget that I said it. Is four all right with you or are you going to be one of

the slaves Sara’s boyfriend uses on the new shop?”

“Ramsey and I have an appointment to get a marriage license at one, so I guess we can make it.”

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

160/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

“Joce?” Luke said. “I’m curious if you’ve ever made one of those marrying-Ramsey jokes around Tess.”

“Let me see…My head is still on my shoulders, I have both arms, and even my feet are still on. No, I don’t

think I have.”

“Finally, at last, you see it.”

“You could have
told
me.”

“Then have you tell Ramsey and Tess? No, let them find out all by themselves.”

“You could come over here before four, you know. I think that garden of yours looks pretty bad and it

needs some work.”

“Don’t try to entice me. If I spent ten minutes with you, you’d get everything out of me, and Gramps said

that if I told you when he wasn’t there, he’d make me play golf with him every day for a month. He even

threatened to use that ol’ I-won’t-be-here-much-longer bit that always gets me.”

“I hope you didn’t inherit his cruelty.”

“I probably did, since I haven’t let you see the inside of my house.”

That threw Joce for a moment. She’d teased him about not seeing inside his house, but she hadn’t thought

there was actually anything bad in there. Or maybe not bad but strange. “What’s, uh…what’s in your house?”

“Pictures of other girls,” Luke said. “I have to go. I need a couple of hours of sleep, then I have some things

to do. I’ll pick you up at four. By the way, Nana is copping out of this, so it’ll just be the three of us.”

After they said good-bye, Jocelyn held the phone a while and thought about what Luke had told her. The

letters from General Austin, then Luke went to London to…to do what? Was there something in the letters that

made him go to London?

Joce called Tess. “I want to get my hair…I don’t know…looking great. Where do I go?”