Lavender Morning (46 page)

In the background David was saying, “Come here. Now. Today. I want to see you
now.
”

The young man said, “It looks like he wants you to come here. If you do, should I have a defibrillator on

standby?”

“We may need one for both of them,” Luke said, then took the phone off speaker and quickly told the

story of Miss Edi being pregnant and delivering the baby, but no one thought she’d live, so a man named Scovill

adopted the baby.

“You mean Uncle Dave had a kid?”

“A daughter named Claire.”

“Claire Clare,” the young man said, amused.

“Yeah,” Luke said, looking at Joce, who was crying hard. “Claire Clare. Could we visit? Would that be all

right?”

“What I’m wondering is why the hell you’re still on the telephone. Can you take a red-eye?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said, looking at Joce. “Can we be there tomorrow?”

She nodded.

“Listen, uh…” He didn’t know the man’s name.

“Eddie,” the man said, then paused. “My name is Edward Harcourt Clare. I was the last of the litter, so

they let Uncle Dave name me. If I’d been a girl I’d have been named Edilean.”

Luke looked at Jocelyn. “His name is Edward Harcourt Clare.”

Joce started laughing and crying at the same time.

“Okay,” Luke said, “let me check flights, and I’ll call you back in an hour and tell you when we’ll be there.”

“When you get here, we’ll never get the lot of them to stop crying.” Pausing, he lowered his voice. “I just

want to say that this is great of you. Uncle Dave has been like a second father to all of us kids. I can’t begin to

tell you all that he’s done in our little town. He’s not well and he doesn’t have long, but to get to see his own

granddaughter…Well, thanks. All I can say is thanks a lot.”

27

I
N THE END, after much discussion, David Clare decided that he’d rather go to Edilean than for them to

come to him. “I don’t have much time,” he said, “and I want to at last see her home.” He told how he’d tried to

force himself to go many times before, even once buying plane tickets, but he couldn’t do it. He knew he’d be

reminded of her too strongly and the pain would be more than he could bear.

Luke and Jocelyn spent a frantic two days getting the house ready. The women of Edilean Baptist Church

lent beds, linen, and even furniture, and Luke’s mother made all the complicated arrangements for transportation.

She’d worked for her father off and on for most of her life, so she knew about medical transport. David Clare

was driven from the airport in Richmond to Edilean in an ambulance, and he’d made the two EMTs in the back

with him laugh through the entire journey.

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“Your granddaughter is just like you,” Luke told him. “She makes the world’s worst jokes at every possible

opportunity.”

“Go away,” Dr. Dave said, “or you’ll make them start crying again.”

The first meeting between Joce and her grandfather had been so fraught with emotion that neither could say

a word. They’d just stared at each other, holding hands as he was lowered from the emergency vehicle and

taken into Edilean Manor.

The downstairs parlor, where Joce had done all her research, had been made into a bedroom for Sergeant

Clare. After he’d rested for twenty-four hours, he could walk about on two canes—just as Edi did at the end.

And the first place he wanted to see was where she was resting.

“But before we go,” he said, “is there room beside her for me?”

“Yes,” Jocelyn said, holding his old hand on her arm.

Everyone—meaning most of the town—marveled at how much alike Joce and David looked. Their square

chins with a dimple, their pale skin, their dark blue eyes. They were even built alike.

“More like me than Edi,” David said, looking with love at his granddaughter. “Too bad you didn’t get her

legs.”

“That’s all right,” Luke said. “Anyway, I like the parts that stick out better.”

“Luke!” Joce said, and David laughed so hard he nearly choked.

“She’s built just like my mother, and my dad liked her too, as I had eight brothers and sisters.”

“We read that.” Joce’s eyes widened. “That means I have cousins.”

“Hundreds,” David said.

“Just so I have more than
he
does,” she said, looking at Luke.

“A true marriage already,” David said.

The stone for Miss Edi’s grave was small. “We’ll fix that,” David said, then looked around her at Luke. “I

bet you, college boy, know where I can get a sculptor.”

“I can find one.”

“‘College boy’?” Joce said, smiling. “Luke works for me. I can’t afford to pay him, but he’s my gardener.

And he works for other people too.”

David looked at Luke, shaking his head. “I may be old, but my mind still works. One of my grandnieces

stood in line to get a book autographed by you, and she came home wanting you more than the book. She

downloaded a photo of you and hung it over her desk. I recognized you the minute I saw you.”

Jocelyn stopped walking, glared at Luke, then dropped her grandfather’s arm and started walking back to

the house.

“Uh, oh,” David said, “did I say something wrong?” He turned on his canes when Luke went after Joce.

“You bastard!” she said when he caught up with her.

“I didn’t mean to lie to you, but—”

“Why not? Everyone else has. Are there no more honest people in the world?”

“I wanted you to see me as me,” Luke said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I write books, and sorry I

didn’t tell you I was married, but Ingrid’s major interest in me was my royalty checks.”

“Everyone in this town knew about your marriage and your occupation but they didn’t tell me.”

“I asked them not to.”

“And that’s it? You just told them not to menton your writing and they obeyed?”

“Yes,” Luke said simply.

“Well, isn’t it just lovely that you have people who love you so completely? Personally, that’s never

happened to me.” She turned and started back to the house.

“Yes, you have,” Luke said. “Me. I love you that much. I’ve loved you since that first night when I dumped

mustard all over you.”

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“That was an accident,” she said over her shoulder.

Luke moved to stand in front of her. “Yeah, it was, and I liked that you were honest and told Ramsey the

truth.”

“Honest? Do you know the meaning of the word?”

“I’m learning it,” he said. “But then, I’ve had some master teachers of how to hide the truth. You, Ingrid,

my family, Ramsey, even Miss Edi.”

Jocelyn tried to get past him, but he kept moving to block her way. Finally, she put her arms across her

chest. “All right, so what do you write?”

“Thomas Canon,” he said.

Joce’s mouth dropped open. Thomas Canon was the main character in a series of books that were very

popular. They were set in the eighteenth century, just before the American Revolution. Thomas had been in love

with a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba since they were children, but her parents made her marry a rich

man she didn’t love. Heartbroken, Thomas spent book after book traveling around the newly forming country,

meeting people and getting into one scrape after another.

“Luke Adams,” Joce said, for that was the name of the author.

“That’s me.”

“So the gardening—?”

“My degree is in botany and after Ingrid I was…” He shrugged.

“Who gets a degree in
botany
?” Joce said. “How can you make a living with a degree in botany? You

should have—” She broke off because he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

“Jocelyn, I love you. I apologize that it took me so long to say it and that I kept so many things from you,

but I had to be sure. Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

“Sure she can!” David Clare said from behind them. “If Edi could forgive me for being an uneducated lout,

she can forgive you for pretending to be one.”

Luke and Jocelyn smiled at him because they’d learned that since the war he’d built his little garage into a

franchise that was all over the Northeast. He was a multimillionaire. And he’d put all his businesses under the

name of his beloved brother, Bannerman, who’d perished in the war. The switching of the names was why Edi

had never found out her David was still alive.

“Can you forgive me?” Luke asked.

How could she not? she thought. But she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. “On one condition. You

have to tell me if Thomas Canon is ever going to get Bathsheba.”

“Not you too,” Luke groaned. “I have a huge box full of letters in my house, all from readers asking me the

same damned question. I don’t know.”

“Who do you mean you don’t know? You created those people. You control them.”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean?” Joce asked.

David was laughing. “You’d better give up now,” he said to Luke. “She may look like me, but she’s just

like Edi.”

“I’m not at all like her,” Joce said, her eyes wide.

“Identical,” David said. “Did she tell you about the time—”

“Wait right there,” Joce said. “I’m going to get a tape recorder. Unlike some people, I don’t make up

characters.”

When Luke and David were alone, the older man was still chuckling. “You have your hands full there,

boy.”

“Yes, I do,” Luke said, grinning.

It was later, after dinner, when David was asleep, that Luke and Joce sat alone in the kitchen and talked.

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It

3/16/2010 was later, after dinner, when David was asleep, that Luke and Jo

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html ce sat alone in the kitchen and talked.

She was still feeling a bit distant toward him about his concealing his occupation from her, but Luke was wearing

her down.

“Last night my mother told me the oddest story,” he said, then watched Joce’s ears perk up at the word

story.
“She went to Miss Edi’s house about six months before she died.”

“Why?” Joce asked.

“I’m not sure,” Luke said. “My mother’s never been a good liar, but—”

“Unlike you?”

“Yeah,” Luke said, grinning. “She said something about a secret that needed to be repaired.”

“A secret about what?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me, but it’s my guess that my mother knows why Alex McDowell felt like

he owed Miss Edi for his whole life.”

“
That
secret?” Joce asked. “And your mother knows what it is?”

“Maybe. Why don’t you ask her?”

“I think I will.”

“Anyway,” Luke said, “she said that she and Miss Edi talked a lot about me, about my writing, my dead

marriage, about how I used to spend so much time alone with her grumpy ol’ father-in law. You know what?

That time Grampa Joe sneaked me out of the house to go fishing? Mom knew all about it. She said I always got

along better with old people.”

“Me too,” Jocelyn said. “My mother’s…” She hadn’t had time to think about the people she’d loved so

much but who had never told her about the adoption. “Those grandparents, then Miss Edi.” Joce looked at him.

“What about Ramsey?”

“Everyone knows he and Tess—”

“No! I mean in her will.” Joce put her head in her hands. “Now I understand. Miss Edi knew I hated being

told who to date. She fixed me up with some really nice men, but I went out with them with the idea that I’d hate

them. I was awful! I refused to laugh at their jokes. Everything they said or did, I didn’t like…” She looked back

at Luke. “I think maybe Miss Edi told me Ramsey was the man for me because she didn’t want me to have him.”

Luke looked at her in wonder. “And my mother told me to stay away from you. She knows I can’t resist

the forbidden.”

“Do you think they were working
together
? Is it possible that you and I have been manipulated?”

They looked at each other. “No,” Luke said.

“Too diabolical,” Joce said.

“Too conniving. Too—”

“Right,” Joce said.

“Certainly not,” he agreed.

After a moment, Luke said, “You can have Ramsey if you want him.”

“No,” she said, smiling as she reached across the table and put her hand on his. “I’ve decided that I’ll

follow the tradition of my female ancestors and stick with men who work with their hands.”

Luke’s eyes warmed. “Why don’t you come over here, sit on my lap, and let me show you how well I can

work with my hands?”

“Yes, please,” Jocelyn said as she got up and walked into his open arms.

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