Garden of Scandal

by Jennifer Blake

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” The set of her mouth was mutinous. “Anyway, I don’t care! You are the most arrogant, unprincipled, impossible man I’ve ever met. I’d be willing to bet you don’t even want to fix the lawn mower!”

  “Wrong. I’d like to get at it right now. If you’d be so kind as to get your cute little fanny back in that car, I’d appreciate it.” It was sheer provocation, as arrogant and unprincipled as all get-out. But he didn’t care what she called him, what she did to him, so long as she stopped crying.

  “Would you, indeed?” she retorted, her eyes narrowing to blue slits. “Why don’t you go stand behind it again, and we’ll see how fast you can jump this—” She stopped on a sharp intake of breath and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  He gave her a wry smile. “I do make you mad, don’t I?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said, her face changing as she lowered her hand. “Oh, Alec.”

  “I know you didn’t. Don’t worry about it. Besides, I have thick skin and a hard head. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.” He caught her arm, led her toward the open car door again. “But I’m going to move the log, and get in the Buick with you. This time, you’ll back out nice and easy. Then we’re going to look for tread marks.”

  She resisted every step of the way. Her hands trembled so badly he thought he was going to have to put the thing in gear for her. It took several more outrageous gibes, but she finally set her teeth and reversed the car. Once the Buick was sitting in the drive, he pointed out the two sets of tread marks—one black and new, the other faded and filled in with blown dirt and leaves. Watching the tension drain out of her face as awareness and acceptance moved over her, he couldn’t help wondering why no one had shown her before.

  Yet it wasn’t hard to guess—not really. No one had listened to her, no one had cared how she felt about her husband who’d died, or about the guilty thoughts that spun in cycles through her head. And because they didn’t know, couldn’t begin to imagine, they had no answers for her.

  He knew because he had been there. There and back again.

  Laurel Bancroft was quite a lady, though. When it was all over, she turned to him. Relief and a new ease showed in her face as she smiled at him. Her voice quiet and clear, she said, “Thank you, Alec.”

  Thank you. After what he had done to her. He felt as if she had given him a medal. And stabbed him through the heart when she pinned it on.

  The afternoon turned oppressively hot and sultry. Alec tinkered with the lawn mower, changing the spark plug, cleaning the carburetor, clearing the gummy residue of old gas from the tank, and sharpening the blades. He didn’t try to start it, however, because Laurel was resting. After watching over his shoulder for a few minutes, she had wandered away and settled on the front-porch swing. She had been still so long she was almost certainly asleep. He smiled at the thought, because it meant she felt safe as long as he was close by. He also thought it was an indication that she had let go of some of the old guilt and pain and could be easy in her mind. He hoped so.

  She was up and about a half hour or so before quitting time. By then there was a blustery wind whipping around the house that threatened rain. He knocked off early and headed for home. He even managed to catch a quick nap himself before Grannie Callie called him for supper.

  By midnight, Alec was back at Ivywild in what had become his regular place, the bench seat under the pergola. He had brought a rain slicker that he’d found in Gran’s closet. The rain that threatened earlier had faded away, but a black patch of cloud had heaved up again out of the northwest in the past hour. It hovered over the house now, flickering along its flat underbelly as if it held giant lightning bugs captive inside instead of rain.

  He hadn’t ridden all the way up to the house on his Harley, but had left it pushed into the woods a couple of miles down the road. Laurel didn’t need to know what he was doing, what he had been doing every night since he’d found the footprint. Everybody had their weak spots, and one of his was a dislike for having his more foolish impulses pointed out by a woman. He knew it was a bit melodramatic, playing the bodyguard, but he was the one losing sleep because of it. If he didn’t mind, he couldn’t think why anyone else should.

  Laurel would, of course. She would worry and try to make him leave until he was ready to do something desperate to keep her quiet. Most of the methods he contemplated to accomplish that feat did little to make his vigil more comfortable—especially when he thought about her actually cooperating with them. They did, however, go a long way toward helping the hours pass more quickly.

  Seeing her shadow move across the window curtains now and then helped, too. That, and watching her on the rare occasions when she stepped out on the veranda to walk up and down in the cool night air. It was something for his fantasies, all right, the way her hair and the flowing caftan thing she wore over her nightgown shimmered and swayed in the moonlight.

  There was no moon tonight because of the clouds, though it would be full in a few days. That would signal Beltane, Midsummer’s Eve night. He wondered if Laurel realized it, if she was aware of all the lecherous legends associated with the night coming up and the Green Man plaques she kept making.

  Beltane, Mr. Wu had once said, was the night the pagan worshipers of the old Earth Goddess wove flowers and ribbons in their hair and danced naked among the grain crops to celebrate life and love and fecundity. Afterward, they made love in the moonlight to seal the bond between mother earth and her children. Sounded like a fine custom to Alec.

  The Green Man, on the other hand, was the symbol of the lust that lay hidden in the moonlit midsummer darkness—or so the Christian fathers had believed. Actually, the concept was a metaphor for the latent sensuality in all of nature, and for the perfectly normal response of lovers to a full moon on a warm night.

  If Laurel had no idea of the implications of her sculptures, far be it from him to enlighten her. If she did, then it put an entirely different spin on the whole thing.

  Alec shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench. He had better turn his thoughts to something else, anything else. Not that his state of helpless arousal was anything unusual lately. He couldn’t remember a time when nothing—not even unrelenting hard work—prevented him from reacting to the thought of holding a woman. Only not just any woman, but the widow Bancroft. Mrs. Bancroft. Laurel. He groaned silently as he realized even her name could do it to him.

  There was a light on in the parlor tonight, and another in her bedroom. It must be almost midnight and she was still up, probably because of that afternoon nap. Or maybe she just couldn’t sleep for thinking of what was going on around her. Or possibly of this afternoon when he had held her.

  Jeez, but he needed another direction for his thoughts.

  He was neglecting Gregory for this vigil. He felt bad about leaving Gran with the responsibility, but she understood. In any case, his brother was doing better with the new pain medication. He was sleeping for longer periods, seemed less on edge. He even appeared to be getting around better.

  Anyway, it wasn’t as if it was a permanent job, watching over Laurel. It shouldn’t take long to find out what was going on at Ivywild.

  The storm was coming on. The rising wind swayed the trees in the woods behind him, sending bits of new green leaves flying. The low rumble of thunder jarred the air. Lightning walked high in the night sky, giving off a blue-white light that drained the world of color for the seconds it took to streak from cloud to cloud.

  Alec heard the car just seconds before he caught sight of it in the glow of lightning. It crept down the road as if sneaking up on something.

  He slid off the bench in a smooth movement, then leaped the picket fence and ghosted toward the encroaching line of trees. He had barely slipped into their cover when the vehicle rounded the curve near the house and came even with the driveway of Ivywild.

  It slowed still more, barely moving. A late-model Lincoln, its powerful engine made little sound above the noise of the wind
and thunder. The color was light, but its exact shade was impossible to tell in the darkness. One thing was certain, however. Whoever was at the wheel was up to no good. He was driving without headlights.

  Cursing softly, Alec jolted into pursuit, skimming along the edge of the woods for cover as he tried to get close enough to catch sight of the license plate. That had to be close, indeed, since there was no illumination over it with the car’s lights off.

  It was no good. Either the driver had seen whatever he wanted to see, or didn’t fancy his chances for mischief as long as lights were on in the house. He stepped on the gas and sped off down the road.

  Alec said a few more choice words as he stood staring after the receding vehicle. What in hell was going on here? There had to be something more than what he had been told, but he would be damned if he could figure it out.

  The first drops of rain began as he turned toward the house once more. They were chilly, but too scattered for him to get in any hurry. Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, he slouched morosely back along the drive, then swung beside the fence and skirted along it toward the pergola. He vaulted the pickets again, landing in part of the flower bed that he had left conveniently unplanted.

  Thunder grumbled, rolling into a roar like a cannon barrage. Hard on it, lightning crackled in a white explosion. He was startled into stillness by its sudden power and sulfurous smell, was caught flat-footed in its bright glare before it zipped the world up into darkness again.

  It was as the last of the light faded that he saw the pale shape moving from the shadows of the veranda. It came forward, and leaned at the curved end of the railing.

  Laurel’s voice, perfectly even and without expression, floated toward him in the darkness. “You’d better come inside,” she said. “It’s a great temptation to let you get scorched, but I don’t think the residue would help the roses.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he said in stark denial.

  She crossed her arms. After a moment, she said, “What if I offer to put you back on the payroll?”

  “What if?” He kept his tone laconic, unimpressed.

  “I seem to need a night watchman. You could sleep on the job.”

  She couldn’t possibly intend that the way it sounded—or the way his one-track brain chose to interpret it. His voice taut with suspicion, he prompted, “Meaning?”

  “The idea of you out here in the storm is keeping me awake. This house has six bedrooms. Surely one of them would suit you?”

  “No doubt, but what will the neighbors say?” He was fighting hard, but he was afraid it was a losing battle.

  “Who will know?”

  “Gran and Gregory, for starters.”

  “Where do they think you’re sleeping now?” she asked irritably. “Come inside, you’re getting wet.”

  He was. And he hadn’t even noticed. If that wasn’t enough to convince him that even thinking about what she was suggesting was a mistake, then nothing would.

  Nothing whatever.

  He hesitated, he really did, hovering where he stood long enough to discover he wasn’t half as noble as he should be. Then he gave it up.

  11

  “Why?”

  The question seemed natural enough, yet Laurel felt as if she were pushing her luck to ask it. Alec was different again tonight; there was something strange and sure about the way he moved, the way he spoke. In an odd way, it made her different, too. She didn’t care at all if what she asked was dangerous.

  She had shown him to the middle bedroom and given him a towel to dry himself. She had almost left him to it, but she’d turned back at the door. Now she let the question stand, knowing very well that he understood. He paused for a moment, considering her from where he stood in the middle of the floor with the towel clutched in his strong, brown hands.

  “Because I don’t like sneaks,” he said at last, “and I hate seeing anybody take advantage of you being alone out here.”

  “I’m not your worry.”

  “Aren’t you?” he asked and smiled.

  Charm. As Gregory had said, it was so easy for him. The light that came into his eyes was what got to her, she decided. It was calm and serious, yet it also laughed at her and himself and the world, inviting her to share the joke. And she wanted to share it, so badly.

  Fighting that weakness, she said, “I don’t want to be. I need to look out for myself.”

  His smile widened, as if that was the biggest joke of all. “Can’t help it. You’re the kind of woman a man just naturally wants to take care of.”

  The tremor that ran along her nerves had as much to do with the velvet texture of his voice, and the construction she put on what he said, as the words themselves. “I have a gun,” she informed him with a tilt of her chin, “and I know how to use it.”

  “Good for you. But have you ever shot anything more lethal than a tin can?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “I have a few other methods of self-defense,” he said evenly as he began to towel the raindrops from his shoulders. He went on without a pause. “Who do you know that drives a Lincoln?”

  That was easy. “Mother Bancroft. Zelda, Howard’s sister. Half the doctors and lawyers in town. Your grandmother. It’s a popular make, not to mention the only car dealership still open around here.”

  He frowned as he rubbed the towel over his hair, then slung it across a chair arm before he began to unbutton his shirt. It was time she left him alone, she thought; she had made her point. “Well, if you have everything you need, I’ll say good-night.”

  His glance skimmed from her head to her heels. “Sure,” he said abruptly. “Good night.”

  In her bedroom, she turned out the light and climbed into the high four-poster bed. Pulling the covers to her chin, she lay listening to the rain. It was still coming down in a steady pounding. Lightning blinked beyond the windows, the kind of constant, low-level flickering that she associated with the threat of tornados. She hoped there was nothing like that in store. It would make such a mess of the garden, even if it didn’t touch the house.

  She felt safe from the weather, however. She always had at Ivywild. The big old house had withstood the storms of more than a hundred years. There was no reason it couldn’t take a few more.

  She also felt safe from any other threat, at least for now. She shouldn’t, she knew—not given the things people had said about Alec. Yet she did.

  She thought of him as she had seen him earlier, standing in the garden with lightning outlining him in its silver fire, glinting in his hair, flashing off his earring. It had given him an unearthly appearance, like something out of a myth or a dream. She had wanted to go to him then, to touch him, as she had never wanted anything in her life. Instead, she had invited him inside.

  She must be crazy.

  Invite the murderer in, the man who preyed on older women? Sure. And she felt safe? Yes, as insane as it seemed.

  He wasn’t sleeping. She recognized the familiar creak of certain floorboards as he prowled the hall, moved from window to window in the parlor, passed by her door to check the other bedrooms. She thought he stepped out onto the screened back porch, stayed a moment, then came inside again.

  What would happen if she got up and followed him, approached him in the dark? If she slid her arms around him and pressed against him, would he hold her? Would he carry her to bed and love her while the rain fell and the lightning glowed in his eyes?

  She didn’t dare, of course; wouldn’t really dream of such a thing. Yet the thought made her shift uncomfortably on the mattress and fling back the covers to cool the sudden flush of warmth that engulfed her.

  It had been a long time since she had been troubled by such feelings. That she was aware of them now was disturbing. It was possible that any attractive and personable man might have brought them on, but she didn’t think so. In fact, she was certain of it.

  She felt so alive, so exhilarated at having Alec in her house. It might simply be the clandestine thrill of
it all, the secret delight of doing something she knew everyone would consider scandalous. It could also be that she was enjoying the sharp edge of danger after so many dreary, uneventful years.

  She had been reasonably content with the endless, secure monotony of her life before Alec arrived on her doorstep. Now that had changed. There were many things that could be said about him, but no one could call him dull.

  He was coming back down the hall; she recognized the groan of the board next to the marble-topped petticoat table, though she could not hear his quiet treads. Outside her door, he paused, listening. She lay perfectly still while her heart thudded against her ribs.

  What would she do if he opened the door and came in, if he slid into bed beside her? Reached to hold her. Touch her. Cover her with his warm, hard weight. She didn’t know, couldn’t think.

  He moved on. Laurel let her breath out in a long, silent sigh. The noise of the rain on the roof drummed in her veins, in her mind. It was a long time before it faded into stillness, longer still before she drifted into sleep.

  In the morning, Alec was gone. His bed was neat, unused. It almost seemed she had dreamed he had been there—except for the fresh, rain-wet rose that sat in a bud vase on her kitchen table. And when he showed up for work at the usual time, he smiled but did not wish her a good-morning.

  The day passed, somehow. Alec spent the early hours of coolness mowing and trimming outside the picket fence and did not come near the house. They ate lunch but said nothing of the night before or the night to come. He went back to his mowing afterward. When he left for the day, the air was sweet with the scent of cut grass drying in the sun.

  Laurel took her bath early and sat trying to read. He would come; she knew he would. Still, she jerked and dropped her book when the knock fell on the back door.

  The light spilling from the house reflected in his eyes when she opened the screen door. It also illuminated the rolled sleeping bag he carried under his arm.

  “Hi,” she said and immediately thought the greeting sounded silly and breathless coming from a grown woman. He had showered before he came—she caught the wafting scent of clean male, soap and some subtle grass-and-wood aftershave.