Lavender Morning (8 page)

has to be back to its owner before hubby gets home.” Hurriedly, she rolled the dress in the towel and gathered it

in her arms. “Would you take those things in for me?” She nodded to the dishes and sewing box.

“Sure,” Joce said. “If you trust me.”

“I not only trust you, I think it’s possible that I like you. See you soon,” she called as she ran back toward

the house.

Jocelyn sat where she was, looking at the house and trying to make some sense of all that she’d heard since

walking into the lawyer’s office. One time when Joce was sixteen she’d come home from school to find that all

the Steps, mother and sisters, were gone and the house was quiet. Her father was alone in the garage, working

on one of his bikes. She’d stood in the doorway, watching him for a moment. They rarely had time together, as

his “new family,” as Joce always thought of them, took all of his time and energy.

“Off to Miss Edi’s?” he asked.

“Sure. We’re reading Thomas Hardy.” As she knew, he had nothing to say about that. Gary Minton wasn’t

given to contemplation.

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“Honey?” he said as she walked past him. “I hope you don’t give her all of your life. I hope you save some

for yourself.”

She liked that he called her “honey” but she didn’t pay attention to his words. As always, her only thought

had been to get away before the Steps returned and took over. Their noise and demands ruled the house, her

father, everything. Sometimes it seemed that when her stepsisters were around, they controlled the universe.

Now, she glanced at her watch. She had hours before Ramsey McDowell was to arrive, but she wanted to

see the house and take her time getting ready. She’d bought a dress that was perfect for a picnic in an old house.

Her house, she thought, and smiled up at it.

3

L
UKE WATCHED AS she—the new owner of Edilean Manor—left the house and strolled across the lawn

to sit with Sara. He knew how she felt. Sara was a magnet for people and had been since they were children.

Sara always cared, and always had time to listen to other people’s problems. He well knew that half of the

reason women called her to repair their clothes was because they wanted to talk to Sara.

Last summer he and some of the cousins, Charlie, Rams, and Sara, were having dinner in Williamsburg

when Charlie said she should put out a shingle and get paid for all her hours of listening to people about their

problems.

“I couldn’t stand all those years in school,” she said.

“Who said anything about school?” Rams asked. “Just put up the shingle. Luke here will carve it or paint it

or whatever for you.”

“And you’ll draw up a contract and charge her more than she makes in a year,” Luke shot back.

“If you two start going at each other tonight I’ll walk out,” Sara warned. “I want a nice, quiet dinner without

you two playing one-upmanship.”

When all three men were quiet and looking as though they planned to stay that way, Sara shook her head.

“All right, go to it. Tear each other up for all I care. Charlie, order me another one of these drinks.”

“You sure?” Charlie asked. “You’ve never been one to hold your liquor.”

“Then one of you will have to hold my hair while I throw up, and another one will have to carry me to the

car.”

Luke pulled a quarter from his pocket and looked at Ramsey. “Heads and I get the hair. Tails and you get

the rest of her. She’s put on too much weight for me.”

“You two are disgusting,” Sara said, but she was laughing.

Now, Luke sharpened the blades of the lawn mower on the whetstone as he looked out through the little

round window in the brick wall. He was in what used to be the stables of the old house, but most of it had fallen

down long ago. While old Bertrand lived there, the house had been taken care of, as per Miss Edi’s instructions,

but the outbuildings had been allowed to fall into ruin.

“You didn’t put the care of them in the contract?” Luke asked Ramsey. “You just took care of the house

and not the grounds?”

“Are you implying that
I
made out the contract in 1946?”

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“Okay, then your dad.”

“He was one year old.”

“Whoever, whenever, it is
your
job to look after the place,” Luke said when he’d returned to Edilean and

seen the state of the outbuildings.

“Maybe you should have stayed here and taken care of them,” Ramsey said, unperturbed by his cousin’s

anger. “Maybe you shouldn’t have run off to the far ends of the earth and done whatever it is that’s made you so

damned angry.”

Luke opened his mouth to say something, but closed it. “Go away. Go do whatever you do in your little

office and let me take care of this.”

It had taken Luke months to restore the old buildings. He only rebuilt part of the stables, but he used

materials from the time the house was built. He dug old bricks out of the ground, even dug up a well that had

been filled in with bricks that had been handmade and fired when Edilean Manor was the center of a plantation.

It had been hard, physical labor, something that Luke needed at the time, and he’d enjoyed the solitude of

working alone. No one was living in the house then, as old Bertrand had died. There was a housekeeper who

came every day, but she was so old she could hardly climb the stairs. When Luke saw her hobbling about, too

feeble to accomplish much, he’d taken over. He got her a fat chair and a radio, and he set her up in the living

room. When Ramsey, as the lawyer in charge of Miss Edi’s estate, saw what he’d done, he said he’d write Miss

Edi and tell her the housekeeper should be put out to pasture. But Rams looked hard at Luke as he said it. They

both knew the woman’s family needed the money, so she was kept on, and Luke did the work. He kept the

house in repair, and when the furniture arrived, it was Luke who saw to its placement. One Saturday with cousins

and beer and pizza got the larger pieces up the stairs.

Except for the tenants, in essence, the house had been Luke’s for the past few years. He was the one who

repaired the roof and got the dead pigeon out of the wall. And he rebuilt the top of the chimney when it was hit

by lightning.

When he was told that Miss Edi had died and left the house to some girl who’d never seen the place, Luke

had an urge to burn it down. Better that than let someone who didn’t appreciate it have it.

“Maybe she’s a historian,” Ramsey said. “Or maybe she’s an architect—or even a building contractor. We

don’t know what she is.”

Luke didn’t like the way his cousin was defending this unknown woman who was going to take over what

most people thought of as the heart of Edilean. All his life he’d heard people say that if Edilean Manor was

destroyed, the town wouldn’t live a year.

But Ramsey had been so happy about the new inheritor that Luke knew he was up to something. One day

after work he went to Tess. She answered his knock but didn’t invite him in. “What’s he up to about this new

owner?” Luke asked, not bothering with preliminaries. And there was no need to explain who “he” was.

Tess was a woman of few words. “Edilean Harcourt sent him a photo of her. In a bikini.”

Luke understood immediately. If he knew his cousin, Rams planned to make a play for her. He loved

Edilean Manor almost as much as Luke did. “Got it,” Luke said.

Tess stepped to the side and opened the screen door wider. “You want a beer?”

“Love one.”

Now, “she” had arrived, and Luke watched her as she sat and talked with Sara. She was pretty, but not

strikingly so. She was a little above average height, and her hair looked like the girls’ used to get in the summer.

It would turn from brown to sun-streaked over the months, and he wondered if hers was natural or if she spent

hours in a salon.

She was dressed as old-fashioned as Sara, and that made him smile. Sara loved to wear dresses with long

sleeves even in the heat of summer. But then she knew they looked good on her. She was as pretty and as

delicate as a flower, and when she wore something like a bright red tank top and jeans she looked almost odd.

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Luke thought that if he had a camera with him he would have taken their photo. There was Sara in her prim

little dress, her sewing on her lap, and across from her was this new woman wearing something like in an

illustration in
Alice in Wonderland.
He thought the headband was an especially perfect touch.

A priss and a prude, he thought. That’s who Miss Edi had left the house to. A woman heading toward

spinsterhood who would probably dedicate her entire life to the house. No doubt she’d work hard to find

furniture of exactly the right time period and within a few months she’d make Edilean Manor into a museum.

He’d made up his mind about her within minutes of first seeing her, and if it hadn’t been for his mother, he

would have told her he quit. Let Ramsey have her, he thought. Let him ooze charm all over her and have her fall

for him. Of course he’d probably do what he always did and find some little thing wrong with her, then dump her.

But maybe it would backfire and she’d be so heartbroken she’d put the house up for sale.

Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself. Maybe she’d sell the place.

But his mother’s voice was in his head, so he stayed where he was in the old stables and watched Sara and

the new owner.

He knew something was up when his mother appeared at his door at six this morning with a covered plate

of blueberry pancakes. Luke smiled. “So what’s Dad done this time that you’re bringing me his breakfast?”

Luke’s father had retired a year ago, and since then he’d nearly driven his wife insane with his puttering around

the house.

“Nothing. I talked him into going to a tractor show.”

“Without you?”

“In case he asks, I have the worst headache you’ve ever seen. That’s enough about me. Miss Edi’s girl

comes today and I want you to promise that you’ll be nice to her.” While she talked, she was heating up the

pancakes for her son and cleaning his kitchen as she moved about his house.

Luke groaned. “What is it you want me to do this time? Take her out to dinner? Show her the sights? It’s

too early for the water parks, so do I have to take her to some fife and drum concert?”

“I want you to leave her alone. She belongs to Ramsey.”

Luke’s eyes widened.

“No, you don’t,” Helen said as she put the pancakes in front of him. “You’re not going to take this as a

challenge. She’s already talked to Rams and she likes him.”

“Didn’t waste any time, did he? But then I hear there was a bikini shot of her that he liked before he ever

talked to her.”

“Men are like that,” Helen said in dismissal.

“Are we?” Luke’s mouth was full.

“Do you understand me? Be nice and stay away from her. Keep to the gardening.”

“What if
I
like her?” He told himself he was a grown man and it didn’t matter that his own mother was

taking the side of his cousin, but he couldn’t help feeling betrayed.

“You won’t. She was trained by Miss Edi, which means she likes men in tuxedos, not in…” She glared at

his tattered jeans and dirty T-shirt. “Do we have everything clear between us?”

“Sure,” Luke said. The last thing he wanted was female trouble. “Let Ramsey have her. Let them move into

Edilean Manor and raise a dozen kids. What do I care?”

But now, Luke kept watching Sara and the woman…What was her name? Jocelyn. An old-fashioned

name that suited her. As he watched the two of them, he was beginning to change his opinion of her. She laughed

easily and often. And whatever she was saying was interesting to Sara. In fact, Sara was doing most of the

talking, which was unusual. Usually, Sara was the listener.

Twice, Luke saw her…Jocelyn, look at the house with a mixture of love and disbelief, as though she were

shocked that it could be hers. But that couldn’t be, could it? Surely Miss Edi had told her she was leaving the

place to her.

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When the lawn mower blade was so sharp he could have sliced salami with it, he still stayed in the stables

and watched them. He opened a bottle of water and drank it while leaning against the wall and looking out the

little window. If he left, they’d see him, and he didn’t want that. Sara knew he was there, but she hadn’t called to

him to come meet the new owner. That meant they were having some serious girl talk.

Suddenly, Sara jumped up, grabbed the dress she was working on, and ran into her house. That she left her

precious sewing box in the care of this stranger told Luke a lot. Sara liked her.

The woman sat there for a while, then she picked up the dishes they’d used and the sewing box, and took

them back to her own part of the house. As far as Luke knew, she hadn’t so much as walked through the house.

He knew that upstairs was a bed that had been made up for her with clean sheets and new pillows. His mother

had done that yesterday. After she left, Luke went up there and looked at the pretty little soaps his mother had