The Fragrance of Her Name (28 page)

“
So, Brant,” he began. “Did Lauryn ever tell you about the time she and Penny got caught skinny dippin’ out at the old millpond?”

“
Sean Kensington!” Georgia scolded immediately. She was too late and Sean was bent on humiliating his little sister.

“
Well, not that I can remember,” Brant admitted smiling and winking at Lauryn.

“
Sean,” Lauryn warned. “Don’t you dare do it.”

“
Oh, go on, Sean,” Uncle Johnny urged. “Do it.” Lauryn reconsidered for a moment her opinion of Uncle Johnny.

“
Well,” Sean began. “How old were you two, Lauryn?” Lauryn glared at him and tried to halt the hot sting of tears rising in her throat. “About fifteen? Just a few years back right?”

“
Sean…” Georgia tried to warn again. But he was dauntless.

“
So, Lauryn and Penny decide they need to go swimmin’ one night. They’d been in town and didn’t have their bathin’ suits with them. But, they
did
have their birthday suits along. Wasn’t it old Mr. Jackson himself that warned the two of you that the entire population of the town was on its way to go canoein’?”

Lauryn stood up, angry, hurt and completely humiliated. “We were entirely modest, Sean!” She shrieked at him.

“
Modest? You were bucknaked!” he laughed.

“
We were not! And you know it! The only thing we took off was our shoes, stockin’s and dresses!”

“
What else was there to take off, Lauryn?” he teased.

“
Plenty!” Lauryn breathed The tears were brimming in her eyes, but she was determined not to let everyone see her cry. The incident at the mill pond had been very embarrassing. Mr. Jackson had, indeed, called to Penny and Lauryn as they swam, warning them that several couples were on their way from town to go canoeing. The girls, though dressed in their underthings, were still quite mortified to have to wade out of the pond and allow Mr. Jackson to hand them their dresses. Someday Lauryn knew she would laugh at the memory. But not yet. It was still too fresh.

So, with a polite, “Excuse me,” she left the parlor and fled the house to the back gardens. Neither she nor Brant, who followed immediately, heard Sean’s mother scold him. They didn’t hear Sean laugh and tell his mother that someone in the family had to give those two some dramatics in order to let them have some privacy.

The night was warm and fragrant. The cricket’s song and other bug noises created a soothing hum to accompany the sweet evening breezes. Still, Lauryn let her tears fall freely as she reached out and caressed the soft yellow petals of one of her early roses. She loved her roses, for they were hers. She’d planted them the year she was thirteen and she’d nurtured them lovingly ever since. Her mother had insisted she plant something after she’d torn up a place in the gardens one year during her mad, frantic search for Laura’s remains. Lauryn had chosen roses, yellow ones. She’d worked so hard that year and years since to make them flourish and they would be beautiful again this year. Already they were blooming and fragrant.

“
How can Sean be such a beast?” she mused aloud.

“
It’s the nature of brothers’ the world over,” Brant answered form behind her.

Lauryn jumped and turned to face him, angrily wiping the tears form her cheeks—from insult to injury! Now, not only did he know about one of her deepest, darkest and most embarrassing escapades, he had caught her red-faced and crying like a child in the rose garden.

“
Don’t let him bother you so much, Lauryn,” he counseled. “He’s just teasing you.”

“
Well, some things take a while to get over,” she mumbled.

Brant smiled. “Tell me the story…your version, why don’t you,” he suggested. Lauryn shook her head and blushed. “It’ll make you feel better. I promise.”

His face was kind and concerned. She almost felt guilty for she could see he felt badly, as if it were his fault she was feeling so attacked.

“
It’s true,” she confessed. “What he said. Penny and I…we were hot. We’d been in town working in old Mrs. Robertson’s gardens all day. We were dusty and hot and tired. When we passed the millpond…well, it was dark out, and the pond looked so cool and invitin’ and so we…”

“
Went skinny dipping,” he finished for her.

“
But not really!” she insisted frantically. “We were still dressed. We had on our camisoles and our…our other underwear. It’s just that…well, they’re white and all. So, when we got out of the water…”

“
Modesty was thrown to the wind?” he finished for her, dramatically.

“
Yes,” she admitted. Then sighing relievedly she added, “I’ve always been so thankful to Mr. Jackson…that it was him that found us and helped us get dressed before everyone arrived. Besides, his sight isn’t so wonderful anymore and it was dark…so I’ve always lived in hope that…that…”

“
He didn’t get a really good look at you?”

Lauryn smiled. “Yes, exactly.”

“
Can I ask you something?” Brant inquired. Lauryn’s heart began to beat nervously. Did he want, perhaps, more details of that embarrassing moment in Lauryn’s life?

“
I suppose,” she stammered.

“
Why were you so horrified that Sean told us that story?” His question was simple, but very unexpected.

“
Because…because…it’s not the most flatterin’ thing to tell. Not the wisest thing I’ve ever done either. I don’t want you to think…I don’t want your family to think that…”

“
That what?” he asked in low voice as he took a step closer to her. He was so close to her now that she had to tip her head back and look straight up in order to see his face and not be looking directly at his chest.

“
That I’m an absolutely ridiculous little girl who is always and forever in a mess,” she confessed. “The first glimpse your Aunt and Uncle had of me was when I was up a tree like a nine year old boy! I had a tear in the seat of my skirt, for pity’s sake!”

Brant smiled, obviously amused at the memory. “That was my first glimpse of you, too.” Again, the knife of humiliation twisted in Lauryn’s stomach. It was true! She’d momentarily forgotten that Brant had never truly seen her before that moment. Lauryn felt her shoulders sag, felt her heart seem to fall with a thud into her stomach. But Brant took her shoulders between his strong hands and told her, “And it was more perfect than I could ever have imagined.” He chuckled for a moment. Then he brushed a strand of hair from her face and asked. “Are these your roses?”

Lauryn smiled. How chivalrous of him! First to follow her out of the house, regardless of what anyone else in there might think. Then to encourage her so and, finally, to change the subject like a true gentleman would.

“
Yes,” she answered. “Mama made me plant them one day after I’d torn up the garden diggin’ for…” she began.

“
Laura’s bones?” he finished for her. She kept forgetting that Brant seemed to have no trouble, whatsoever, discussing the fact that Laura’s body was what they were looking for.

“
Exactly,” she giggled.

“
All yellow, like this one?” he asked.

“
Yes. I like yellow one’s best.”

“
You’ll need to show these to Aunt Felicity. You’re beginning to understand what a love of flowers she has, aren’t you?” he asked, winking at her.

“
I believe I am,” she admitted.

“
All right then,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I think it’s time to make our list. My time here is short and we’ve got a lot to figure out.”

Lauryn’s lighter mood darkened at his mentioning that he would be leaving soon. But he was right. Their time was short.

“
Well, let’s get busy.” she agreed, plucking the lovely yellow rose blossom from it’s branch. She held the blossom out to him. “Thank you.”

“
For what?” he asked.

“
For…for…” she couldn’t just confess that it meant the world to her that he’d followed her from the parlor. “For helpin’ me. With everythin’.”

Brant accepted the rose and smelled it briefly before tucking its stem in shirt pocket. “Any time, sugar,” he chuckled. He placed his hand caressively on her cheek and smiled. Lauryn noticed the way his mouth twitched at one corner, almost indiscernibly. “Any time.” When he bent and placed a soft, rather lingering kiss on her cheek near the corner of her mouth, Lauryn thought she might truly faint! It was exhilarating to receive such affection from him and her cheek burned warm and delighted.

He took her hand then and began leading her back toward the house. “I think we should make our list in the attic,” he suggested. Lauryn was a bit disappointed that he’d changed his mind from their having their discussion in the privacy of her room. “That way we’ll have it right there at hand while you’re reading the Captain’s letters.”

“
Me?” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to read them!”

“
Well, I don’t either,” he chuckled as they approached the back porch of Connemara house. “Besides,” he continued playfully. “I’m a guest. It would be bad manners to force me to read them. And anyhow…you know the Captain better than me.”

“
But you’re a man,” Lauryn reminded him. “You’d have more insight into his feelin’s and such.”

“
Ah,” he teased. “But you’re a woman. You’ll read a woman’s letters from her lover with much more heart.”

As they climbed the stairs to the attic, after having retrieved paper and pen from Lauryn’s room, their playful banter continued. Lauryn saying, “But if you read them, I’ll be able to listen as she would’ve listened to him speak and…”

“
But she didn’t hear him speak if she was reading a letter. So, you see,
you
need to read them.” He still smiled devilishly, as he pushed open the attic door and stepped aside for her to enter.

In the end, Lauryn would win out and Brant would begin to read the letters. As they sat in the attic, night having fallen fully, Lauryn listened intently as he read. The deep intonation of his voice was intoxicating. Lauryn reached back and tugged at the ribbon that held her braid, releasing her hair and laying down on the floor in front of Brant, propped herself up on one elbow as she looked at him and listened.

“The fighting is brutal, my beauty,”
he read.
“The dying men, the blood, the stench of rotting flesh. Sometimes at night…even when there’s a breeze that blows the smell away…even then the stink of war seems to be branded into my nostrils and I can’t smell anything else. I try to imagine Connemara…you sitting out in the gazebo under the wisteria blossoms. I try and try to remember how it smelled, that beloved fragrance of your favorite bloom. But it eludes me, darling. Still…I can see you there…see your beauty. So, at least my mind has beautiful visions to dream of.”

Brant paused in his reading and Lauryn fancied there was excess moisture in his eyes. He blinked several times and then continued.

“Tom Harper was lost today. They didn’t get his leg sawed off fast enough and he bled to death. I’ll miss him sorely. It was such a great comfort having him here…a hometown boy…someone with such a close connection to the family, estranged though it was.

Write to me, my angel. Let me feel your love for me through your words. I need you so much, every minute of every day. I fight for you, even if I am on the wrong side in some eyes. I’m fighting for you…to end this Hell so that we can be together again. I’ll try not to write such dreadful things next time. But it’s hard to think of anything else to tell you. All that there is now is death, blood, mud, fire. Just remember that I love you, my Sweet Lauralynn. Soon we’ll be together again, I’ll hold you in my arms and let the sweet scent of your hair fill my lungs…let it make my mind forget the stench of war. I’ll let the taste of your kiss free me from the bitterness of losing friends daily.

I love you,

Brand.”

Lauryn did not miss the deep understanding written across Brant’s face. The Captain’s description of the horrors of war were, not doubt, too fresh in Brand’s own mind to be at all comfortable.

“
It’s hotter than Hell up here,” he swore under his breath as he began to unbutton his shirt. “Sorry,” he apologized half-heartedly. Lauryn didn’t say anything. It wasn’t hot in the attic at all. The evening breeze blew threw the open window giving a very cool environment to them. No doubt his blood was boiling because of the residue of war still in his mind.

“
Let’s stop for a while,” Lauryn suggested. “Let’s look at the list.”

Brant sighed heavily, a frown still puckering his brow. He nodded rather indifferently and Lauryn began to look over the list.

“
All right. What do we know?” she began.

“
We know that it’s hotter than Hell up here,” he grumbled taking off his shirt and rather angrily throwing it down on the floor. “Sorry.”

Lauryn smiled, amused yet sympathetic, and continued. “She’s not in the house. She’s not in the springhouse. She’s not in the servant’s house. She’s not in the cellar or the basement.”

“
And she ain’t out waltzing around with that statue out by the cemetery,” Brant spat.

Lauryn smiled, understandingly. “She was still alive the last time Nana and the others saw her. She had a child’s teacup with her at some point…”