Garden of Scandal

by Jennifer Blake

  Was she? If so, it felt good. “I’m saying what should have been said a long time ago. You think I killed Howard on purpose and have been telling people so for years. You feel I should have gone to jail, that maybe I still should. Ivywild is a substitute, and you don’t care who you hurt so long as you keep me shut up here where I belong.”

  The older woman came slowly erect. Eyes narrowing, she said, “All right, then, since you brought it up yourself. I know you murdered my Howard. You never were the right wife for him, not from the first. You thought you were better than my son—smarter, sharper—and you even made him believe it. You were always idle, always dreamy-eyed and artistic, reading or playing with that disgusting pottery mud out in the shed. What’s more, you were no proper mother to his children. I dread to think what Marcia and Evan will say when they hear what you’re up to now.”

  “And you’ll make certain they do.” The pain in Laurel’s chest was sharp as she thought of her son and daughter hearing the ugly things coming from her mother-in-law’s mouth.

  “They have a right to know,” the woman said, compressing her lips. “But you were never smarter than my Howard. And you’re sure not so smart now if you can’t see this Alec person for what he is.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know Alec or anything about him.”

  “Any fool can figure it out. All you have to do is listen to the things his brother is saying all over town.”

  Alec’s brother. Dread for what might be coming moved along Laurel’s nerves, though she refused to let Mother Bancroft see it. “And what is that?”

  “Gregory Stanton told Zelda herself, down at the beauty shop, that this Alec of yours lived with an older woman out in San Francisco. Seems he started as her gardener, but wound up a lot more than that before it was over. She even married him, the silly fool. And when she died, she left him all her money.”

  “No,” Laurel whispered. The protest lacked conviction. Howard’s sister, Zelda, was always the first to hear everything.

  “Yes, indeed. Ask him if you don’t believe it. Just you ask him!”

  There was gloating triumph in the other woman’s face. Laurel turned away from it since she couldn’t deny the rumors. How could she, when they had come from Alec’s brother, his brother who was dying?

  When her mother-in-law had gone, Laurel wandered around the house, too disturbed to think of dinner, unable to settle anywhere. She didn’t want to believe what had been said about Alec, yet it made a terrible kind of sense. Why else would he appear out of nowhere to help her? What other reason could he have for slaving so hard? People didn’t do something for nothing—that had been one of Howard’s maxims. More often than not, it had turned out to be depressingly true.

  She thought of Alec’s concern for her, and the appreciation she had seen in his eyes. Fake. Why should he feel such things for someone her age? No reason unless it was because he wanted something from her.

  Laurel crossed her arms over her chest as she paced. She had almost believed him, almost let him get to her. She felt like such a stupid, sentimental fool.

  He was gone, then. History. She would pay him for what he had done so far and send him on his way.

  Yet that didn’t seem enough somehow. She wanted to pay him back for the ache of betrayal inside her, for making her feel things she didn’t want to feel, had never wanted to feel again.

  Not that she was in love with him, or anything like that. How could she be? She hardly knew him.

  But he had gotten to her. For him, she had taken a small step out of her protective isolation. She had almost been willing to risk a bigger one.

  She was so angry. She could feel the rage simmering, circulating through her like a poison in her blood. How long had it been since she had felt that strongly about anything? She had almost forgotten what it was like. In a strange way, it felt good, as if she were really alive.

  So much life inside her. Alec had said that. But he had been an old woman’s darling, a gigolo.

  A gigolo. Was it really possible?

  It must be, had to be. There was no other explanation.

  She reached up to remove the elasticized cloth band that held her hair, dragging it free of the length and stuffing the band into her jeans pockets. She ran her fingers through the heavy strands as if that would help cool her temper. No, she wasn’t going to fire Alec Stanton. That wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t help her feelings one iota.

  It would be much better if she let him work like a dog, doing all the things Ivywild required, then gave him nothing in return except his hard-earned wages. Let him charm and cajole; it would get him nowhere. Let him waste his time, thinking he had another gasping, panting older woman ready to fall into his arms. Then, when he was done, she would smile politely and send him on his way.

  Fall into his arms. God, but what a thought. Was that really what he wanted of her? Maybe she could lead him on, just a little, just enough to…

  No. How stupid could she get?

  Still, it would make him think he had won, wouldn’t it? When she got rid of him later, he might feel as used and as enraged as she felt now.

  Could she do it? Did she dare?

  Probably not, but it was a fascinating thought. Entirely too fascinating. That should tell her something, but she wasn’t sure just what.

  As she passed through the dining room, she caught sight of her reflection in the tall windows beyond the heavy mahogany table and chairs. It had grown dark outside without her noticing, turning the window into a mirror. In it, she looked pale and wild with her hair flying around her. Maybe it was a good thing her mother-in-law had come while Alec was not there, after all. If he saw her like this, he would think she was crazy.

  Yes, and maybe he would be right. Moving to the window, she put her hand on her reflection, staring into her own glittering eyes. Then she lowered her lashes and bent her neck to let her forehead rest against the cool glass.

  She didn’t want to feel like this, caught once more in pain and guilt and, yes, despair. She had gotten over all that, had been comfortable, almost, in her numbness.

  Of course, she had not felt a great deal before Howard died, either. Hers had been a jailbreak marriage right out of high school; she had needed to get away from home, where her mother drank and screamed at her and her father. The irony was that her parents had died in a car wreck just seven weeks after the wedding.

  Howard. Her heart felt heavy as she thought of him. He had loved her with silent, dogged devotion, and she had been grateful. Affection and compassion had kept her with him. Sometimes she had wondered about the grand, death-defying passion she read about in books but didn’t think she was capable of feeling.

  If she closed her eyes, she could remember the last quarrel with her husband. It had been no great thing, though it had seemed important at the time. Howard had wanted to buy his son a pickup truck, since his own father had bought him one when he was fifteen. He didn’t see anything wrong with letting Evan drive up and down the back roads before he had his license. But Laurel had known Evan wouldn’t be satisfied with that. He was immature, spoiled by his grandmother who always gave him anything he wanted. Evan would be speeding up and down the main highway before the truck was a week old. He would kill himself, or maybe someone else.

  Instead it was Howard who had died. Laurel had killed him, then withdrawn into guilty solitude. The reason, she knew, was not because she had cared so much, but because she hadn’t cared enough.

  She was so tired. Tears rose, burning like acid as they squeezed from her eyes. She didn’t try to stop them.

  What the hell was going on?

  Alec slammed the lid on a paint can and hammered it down as he asked himself that question for at least the thousandth time.

  He had expected to start over with Laurel, using all sorts of strategies to get her back out of the house. It hadn’t been necessary. She had greeted him with a bright smile when he showed up again, given him a list of about a
million things to do, and disappeared into a shed at the back of the house. Emerging now and then, she pointed out any errors he had made or problems he needed to solve, then went away again.

  She didn’t eat her lunch with him on the veranda, but showed up there to check on his progress as if he might not get anything done if she didn’t keep after him. She was polite but firm—the lady of the house—but any special courtesy or consideration was gone. She gave orders and expected him to obey. She didn’t look at him at all.

  Alec had never worked so hard in his life, but he couldn’t seem to please her, no matter how he tried. He was tired of it, so tired.

  At least the house was nearly painted. He had one more wall to do, then he could clean the sprayer and take down the paper covering the windows. After that, he was going to have a talk with Mrs. Bancroft.

  He found her in the shed. The building, standing back behind the garage, dated from the same time period, as it was built from identical lumber. Construction was probably in the late twenties or early thirties, when whichever set of Bancrofts that owned Ivywild at the time had bought their first Model T. Lined with small-paned windows on three sides, floored with unpainted pine boards, it was fairly large.

  The front wall supported a woodworking bench that was cluttered with carpenter’s tools, which must have belonged to her husband. The back wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves crowded with bags and boxes of supplies. A big black ovenlike kiln occupied one corner. In the center was a potter’s wheel, over which Laurel was hovering with her hands deep in swirling clay.

  As he appeared in the doorway, Sticks, lying beside her, lifted his massive head from his front legs and began to growl low in his throat. Alec stopped. It was the first time he had seen the dog in several days. Laurel must have been keeping him close again.

  She looked up, staring at him as he lounged in the open doorway. Ordinarily, she called the dog off when he arrived. Sticks had learned to tolerate him as long as he was given an early-morning assurance that Alec was acceptable. This time Laurel didn’t open her mouth.

  Sticks rose to his feet. With his ruff raised, he looked twice his normal size. He padded forward with his neck outstretched, snarling like a crosscut saw.

  Alec held his ground. He had no particular fear of the dog, though he didn’t want to hurt him again while Laurel watched. Neither did he intend letting himself be mauled to protect her tender sensibilities.

  Sticks came on, showing his canines, but easing lower. He stopped a few feet away, half crouching as his growl slowed. Alec held the dog’s gaze without moving. The dog growled once more, then looked away. He whimpered and dropped to the ground.

  Alec hunkered down and put out his hand, letting the dog lick it. “Good boy,” he murmured, leaning to dig his fingers into the thick ruff and shake it before smoothing the fur down. “Good dog.”

  The clay Laurel was forming collapsed abruptly. She squashed it onto the wheel with both hands, squeezing the slick, malleable mass with unnecessary force. In a chill voice she asked, “You wanted something?”

  There were a lot of answers he could make, but he didn’t trust himself to keep them civil. He settled for neutrality. “I didn’t know you were a potter.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

  “I’m learning.” That was too true. “What are you making?”

  “A pot.”

  That told him exactly nothing. He watched her for a long moment, his eyes on the expressive clarity of her face. What he saw there, he was fairly sure, was contempt.

  “Okay,” he said on a tight breath as he rose to his feet and braced a hand on the doorjamb. “What did I do wrong?”

  Her rich blue gaze was steady. “Nothing that I know of. Can you think of anything?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t turn the bike around when you asked me. I didn’t understand. Now I do, all right?”

  Her smile was cool and brief, a meaningless movement of the lips. “Certainly. Don’t think of it again.”

  Fat chance. “I didn’t mean to upset you or make you do anything you didn’t want.”

  “You didn’t make me do a thing, Alec. I know my own mind.”

  He should be happy that she had used his name. Instead, it made him feel like the hired help. Which was exactly what he was, he supposed. Voice grim, he said, “If everything is all right, then why did you stop working with me?”

  “I had other things I would rather do.”

  He had no right to complain; that was what galled him. He wanted the right. But if this was the way she preferred it, he could do that, too.

  “I’ve finished the painting. Unless you have other ideas, I’d like to get started on the fountain.”

  Without looking at him, she said, “I think the big pine next to the fence shades the garden too much for roses. You could cut it. That’s if you know how to do it without letting it fall on the house.”

  She expected him to refuse. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. “No problem. I’ll need to take out the big limbs, then top it, so will have to have climbing gear.”

  “My husband’s belt and spikes are around somewhere.”

  “He worked in the woods?”

  Her hands stilled, buried in the clay she was molding with quick, hard movements. “He was a lineman for the utility company—a good one.”

  He’d had to ask, he thought with resignation. Changing the subject slightly, he inquired, “If he had the equipment, why didn’t he take the tree down?”

  “He liked it there.” The look she gave him was brief. “You’ll have to ask Maisie about a saw. I think her husband keeps one for cutting firewood.”

  Maisie’s old man was a mechanic, kept tools of all kinds, if he remembered right. “I’ll check it out. In the meantime, I can start gathering supplies for the fountain. I’ve run up quite a bill at the hardware already, but I’ll need plastic pipe, fittings, and so on. And I should lease a ditchdigger, or contract somebody to do the work.”

  She squashed the clay flat again. “You’re asking if I have the money?”

  Her tone set his teeth on edge. In taut control, he replied, “I’m asking if I have the authority to spend it.”

  “So long as I see a copy of the bills. Otherwise, you needn’t concern yourself with my finances.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his brows meshing in a frown at her scathing tone.

  She looked at him, her gaze steady. “Did I say something that struck a nerve?”

  She knew. He didn’t know how she knew, but he would bet on it. Jesus. He thought he’d left all that behind him; but no, he was dragging it along like a piece of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Not that it made any difference. He had beaten the odds before. He could do it again.

  “For the record,” he said deliberately as he pushed off the door frame and started walking away, “it isn’t your money that interests me.”

  It was the next morning that the opportunity came for Alec to talk to Maisie. Laurel had just gone back into the house after instructing him to prune the paint-spotted leaves on the shrubs around the base of the house. As if he couldn’t see for himself that it needed doing. She hadn’t said a word about the paint job, either. He didn’t expect compliments, exactly, and it annoyed him that he still wanted her approval, but she could have made some comment. For two cents, he would tell her to find herself another man to cut down her pine tree.

  “What is it with her?” he asked the white-haired housekeeper in frustration when she brought him a glass of water. “Why is it I can’t get the time of day from her?”

  A shrewd look came into Maisie’s fine old eyes. “She gets like this sometimes, usually when her mama-in-law has been around, or Zelda—that’s the sister-in-law, you know.”

  “They get on her nerves?”

  “You could say so. Mostly, they pick at her. Pickiest, most negative people I ever saw. Never a good thing to say about anything or anybody.”

  Alec
turned his water glass in a circle. “You think they’ve been talking? About me?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised. Not that they got a lot of room for it. Zelda Bancroft is no better than she has to be. Never was. But she likes making trouble. The mama-in-law, now, she just has it in for Laurel.”

  “Because of how Howard died?”

  Maisie nodded. “Did her best to have Laurel arrested, called everybody she knew, pulled every string she could get hold of. Didn’t do her any good, mainly because of the sheriff. Tanning’s always been sweet on Laurel. Said any fool could see she couldn’t bring herself to hurt a flea if it was having her for supper.”

  “She thinks she may have. You know that?”

  Maisie nodded. “Have to say I’m amazed she told you, though. She didn’t say anything about her kids, did she?”

  “Not much.”

  “Something else she don’t talk about—guess it hurts too much. They think she did it, too. Got the idea from that mama-in-law of hers.” The housekeeper paused with distant consideration in her eyes. “Well, and maybe from the way Laurel acted at the time. She never said she didn’t mean it, you know. Never could say exactly how it came about.”

  “Rough.” The comment didn’t seem adequate but was all he could manage.

  “You got that right,” the older woman said and heaved a gusting sigh. “Strange, but she couldn’t make herself leave him while he was alive, still can’t leave him now since he’s dead.”

  “You think she wanted to? Leave him, I mean?” He was much too eager for the answer, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Lot of women would have left. Howard was a moody sort, not what you might call a barrel of laughs. Sort of tormented like, you know? What matters, though, is that he thought she might. That’s why he ran out after her that day.”

  “She tell you that?”

  “Lord, boy, she didn’t have to. I was there.”

  He gave her a hard look. “You saw what happened?”

  “Saw him take off after her, saw the look on his face. The rest I just heard.” She shook her white head. “They’d been arguing, something about their boy Evan and what Howard wanted to do for him, though it ran into all sorts of other things as fights will between husbands and wives, like what Laurel could and couldn’t do in the yard. Howard was hollering like a crazy man when he stepped behind that car, telling her he’d do anything if she’d stay. Pitiful, really.”