Garden of Scandal

by Jennifer Blake

  “I wouldn’t, I’m not! I got one of those horrible letters, too, this very morning.”

  The corner of Laurel’s mouth curled. “If you got one, it’s because you sent it to yourself.”

  Her mother-in-law stared at her, then a malicious look came into her eyes. “I didn’t do it, but that doesn’t make any difference, does it? You want it to be me. You’d like that because then you wouldn’t have to be so scared.”

  “What I am is mad!”

  “Maybe, but you’re afraid, too,” the older woman said vindictively. “You ought to be, too, because there’s somebody besides me who thinks you should be punished. So you’ve got a bigger problem than Marcia, and this one is your own fault.”

  “That’s crazy!” Laurel felt the hair rise on the back of her neck even as she spoke.

  “Is it? You’d better start doing what’s right, better stop sleeping with that young man in that disgusting way, or—”

  “Disgusting?” Laurel repeated in indignation. “Frankly, I find that idea a little strange coming from a woman who once slept with men of all ages for reasons that weren’t quite so nice.”

  Mother Bancroft turned as white as a sheet of paper. Gasping, she staggered away from Laurel and stumbled into the living room where she fell into a chair. A low moan came from deep in her throat as she rocked back and forth, holding her heart.

  Alarm touched Laurel as she followed after her. “Are you all right? Should I call a doctor?”

  “Stay away…from me!” The other woman held out a hand as if to ward her off.

  “I have to do something if you’re really ill.”

  “No! I don’t need…anything. Especially from you. No.” Mother Bancroft drew a rasping breath. “Just go away.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I should do that,” Laurel replied stiffly. It was impossible to say whether the older woman’s distress was genuine or an act to prevent further argument.

  “I don’t want you here, don’t need you, don’t care if I never see you again,” her mother-in-law said in rapid agitation. “Get out of my house.”

  That sounded more normal. She also seemed to be regaining her color, Laurel thought. To stay now would only upset her again. “Shall I call someone for you? Zelda, maybe?”

  “I can do it myself,” the other woman snapped.

  Perhaps she could. Laurel turned from her and moved toward the front door. She paused with her hand on the knob and looked back. Howard’s mother was staring after her with tight, bloodless lips and impotent malevolence in her eyes. Laurel left the house, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Once back in her car, she sat motionless behind the steering wheel with her gaze fixed on the featureless bungalow, which was as tired and barren as the woman who lived in it. Her anger and triumph streamed through her veins like acid and bile, but there was no pleasure in them. She felt pity for the woman inside the house. She also felt pity for herself. Coming here to confront an adversary, she had only faced a phantom from her own mind. And now that it was vanquished, what was she going to do?

  She had been so certain it was her mother-in-law behind the attacks. She could see her poisoning Sticks, not only because she despised dogs, but because poor Sticks had frightened her and made her lose her dignity. As for smashing the plaques and writing the poisonous letters, they had seemed the kind of underhanded acts she might think of to repay Laurel for defying her.

  Firing the pottery shed was not quite the same thing, of course. It took considerable effort to imagine the older woman parking her car away from the house and trekking through the woods in the dark. It was even harder to think of her finding the gas can, spreading the flammable liquid, throwing the match, stepping nimbly out of the way.

  Still, if it hadn’t been her, then who was it?

  There had been a certain comfort in being so sure of the identity of her tormentor. They were old enemies, she and Mother Bancroft; they knew each other, knew what to expect. Their warfare was petty, bloodless and had limits. The only damage was to pride, property and feelings. If someone else was involved, then all that had changed.

  Who else disliked her so much?

  It had to be a vendetta. She wanted it to be that instead of an attempt by Alec to isolate her and make her dependent. In spite of her momentary concern last night, she didn’t really believe it was possible. Surely he wasn’t that cunning and heartless and diabolically clever.

  Marcia’s husband, Jimmy, had slapped her around, and he might well be fanatical enough to feel that Laurel’s supposed sins required punishment. More than that, he had enough macho swagger to think he could get away with whatever he might choose to do. Laurel had never cared for him, and he knew it. Still, she had always been polite. There had been no open animosity because there had been little contact. He didn’t really know enough about her, surely, to destroy the things she loved.

  Perhaps Gregory, then? He was clever and had a mind that preferred tangents. He both loved and hated his brother and had made it plain that he considered Laurel wrong for Alec, a danger to him in ways beyond the physical. Gregory might consider it a handy diversion from his dicing with death to separate them.

  Did he have the strength? Alec had said his brother was better. But what did that mean? Did it mean anything?

  Then there was Zelda. Gossip was her passion. Knowing the details of people’s lives helped fill the emptiness of her own, and embellishing the details with a bit of lurid hyperbole was the creative license of her art. She had been annoyed with Alec, certainly, and not too thrilled with the changes at Ivywild. Still, she had no reason to be vengeful, and she was hardly one to rant about sin and Satan. More than that, she had always been friendly enough, in her fashion. Yes, and Sticks had been killed well before her recent visit.

  Who else was there?

  Maisie? It would be ridiculous to suspect her. And Grannie Callie was far too cheerful and busy with her own life, plus her concern for Gregory, to have time to interfere.

  Marcia and Evan? Laurel refused categorically to suspect her own children. It was just impossible.

  Dan Tanning had taken an unusual interest in her of late, and he might have some cause for believing he could get away with anything in Hillsboro. Regardless, what earthly reason could he have for trying to hurt her? The mild attraction that had existed between them for a short while gave him no cause to be jealous of Alec.

  In all truth, it was hard to accept that anybody could, or would, try to harm her. Normal people didn’t do things like that. Didn’t that make whoever was behind this a nutcase by definition? Then what was the use of trying to uncover reasons and rationales since there might be none at all?

  Laurel started her car and backed out of the drive. As she pulled away, she saw the curtains at the bungalow window jerk, then fall back into place.

  17

  Alec watched Laurel drive into the garage. A moment later, she emerged from its interior dimness and stood with her hand held to her brow, shielding her eyes as she looked toward the woods. He knew she didn’t see him, couldn’t penetrate the thicket where he had taken his stand.

  She was pale and not quite composed. Wherever she had gone, whatever she had been doing, it had not been a comforting trip, he would judge, or a successful one.

  Her shoulders sagged a little as she turned away. It wasn’t from despair or fatigue or even defeat, he was sure, but because she wanted him and he wasn’t there. He didn’t intend to move, but his footsteps took him out of the dim, green shade and into the sun. She turned back and saw him.

  He halted, fenced in by his own disappointment and appalled recognition. She had been afraid she would see him; had been relieved when she did not. The truth was there in her eyes.

  He wouldn’t allow it to matter. He knew she needed him, whether she admitted it or not, and that was enough. At least she didn’t back away as he came closer. Her body was taut as he drew her into his arms, but then she sighed and yielded. Wrapping her arms around his waist,
she put her head on his chest and shut her eyes.

  Molten sunlight poured over them, healing, relaxing in its heat. A breeze drifted through the trees with a disconsolate sound. In the garden beyond the picket fence, bees made a drowsy hum. His arms full of warm woman, breathing the scents of her perfume and tree sap from the saplings he had been clearing, he felt marginal contentment. Then the drifting breeze brought the acrid stench of wet, fire-blackened wood and still-warm ashes.

  Against the silk of her hair, he said, “I found the letter.”

  She didn’t move, but he felt her sudden tension. Her voice was not quite steady as she repeated, “Letter?”

  “You left it on your vanity table. Weren’t you going to tell me?”

  “I—don’t know.” The words were low and uneven.

  He could think of several reasons why she might consider keeping it to herself. Embarrassment. Concern for his feelings. Fear of what he might do. There was one more.

  “What have I done to make you not trust me?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied as she lifted her head and released him to draw back a little, resting her hands on his chest as she looked up at him. “I just—had this idea I could take care of it myself. My mother-in-law was my choice for the person most likely to have written it. Apparently I was wrong.”

  It was plausible. It might even be true. Still, he didn’t think that was all. “I failed you once,” he said, “possibly even twice, and you thought I would again.”

  “Or I might have thought you wouldn’t,” she said in low and musical tones. “She isn’t a young woman, my mother-in-law, and I don’t think she is particularly intelligent.”

  “But you are.”

  “Am I? I nearly killed her myself because I was too angry, and because I forgot how much it might matter if she couldn’t tell me anything.”

  He wasn’t sure she meant what he thought, but he had to ask even if she could feel the dread of her answer in his heartbeat under her fingers. “Such as who else might be familiar enough with Ivywild to find their way about in the dark? Besides me, of course?”

  “Of course,” she said. “And I still haven’t found the answer.”

  She hadn’t hesitated, had even managed a smile as she spoke, but the truth was there, anyway, hidden in the smoky blue depths of her eyes behind veilings of artifice and apprehension. She was trembling a little; he could feel the faint, fine shivering in her thighs against him. The warmth of her, the stalwart courage and delicate vulnerability, made him want to take her inside and teach her never to fear him again, or else to fear him completely. And he wasn’t sure which impulse was strongest.

  To keep his voice light and shaded only by whimsy was harder than anything else he had done or tried to do at Ivywild. “Are you sure you haven’t? Possibly it has occurred to you that I might be the snake in your Eden?”

  The effort it took to control her surprise showed plainly in Laurel’ s face. Yet she was far stronger than he had expected, for she lifted a wary brow. “I’ve never much believed in that snake.”

  “You think Adam and Eve reached for that apple themselves?”

  “Doesn’t it make more sense? The forbidden is irresistible enough without any prodding from the devil.”

  “Poor Adam,” he said in low tones. “I think the temptation Eve had for him had little to do with apples.”

  She gave him an oblique glance. “Do you, now?”

  “I always figured he lost his paradise because he let Eve take the blame. He’d have been a lot better off if he had stood flat-footed and asked why in the name of Heaven the two of them had been made, if not for love and loving.”

  “Right in front of God and everybody?” she asked in husky mockery. “Adam might have been killed by the wrath of his benevolent God, and then where would he and Eve have been?”

  “Together in paradise,” he said. “If she had stood by him.”

  He watched her closely, wondering if she would take his point, and what she would do with it if she did. A pulse was beating in her temple. The breeze fluttered a soft tendril of silver-gold hair against her cheek. The sun burnished them, brought out a sheen of perspiration that made their skin cling where they touched. However, the trickle of sweat that ran down his back under his T-shirt was from pure fear. He was fighting for something important, and he was losing.

  “They were together, anyway,” she said.

  “Were they?” The query was soft. “Or have they always been apart because Eve could find no reason to trust Adam, ever again?”

  Her gaze flickered from one of his pupils to the other, as if she were searching for something in his eyes that was not there. “I suppose Adam’s guilt stood between them. Past crimes, they say, cast long shadows.”

  He drew a sharp breath. Before he could speak, the screen door slammed. Maisie came stomping out on the front veranda and looked around. Catching sight of them, she called, “Lunch, you two!”

  “Coming,” Alec replied, his voice floating on a tide of gratitude for the intervention. Also silent hosannas that some women, at least, were not complicated. Or enticingly lovely. Or so lethal in their infinite kindness.

  It was midafternoon when Laurel’s son appeared. Evan was alone this time. He looked around as he got out of his car, his attitude a little cocky, possibly from his nervousness. The kid saw him out there in the woods, Alec knew, since he was in plain sight, but Evan pretended not to notice. To be ignored felt like a slight, though Alec acknowledged it might also have been from sheer social ineptness. A wave would have done, or even a nod—Alec wasn’t proud. He was protective, though, and being overlooked irritated him just enough that he didn’t mind showing it. Moving without haste, he started toward the house.

  He met Laurel and Evan at the ruin of the pottery shed. As she introduced them, Alec extended his hand. He thought the boy was going to refuse the courtesy, but Evan caught the quick look flung his way by his mother and accepted the handshake.

  His grip was firm. For a moment, it seemed Evan might make a contest of it. Then something he saw in Alec’s eyes must have dissuaded him, for he spoke a polite greeting and stepped back.

  Laurel, her voice strained, said, “Evan had one of the letters, too.”

  “It was sent through the mail?” Alec asked. He thought Laurel’s copy had been hand-delivered to her rural mailbox, which was a federal offense in itself. Still, one with a postmark would be a much more damning piece of evidence.

  Evan shook his head. “Just showed up in my box on campus. But that’s not the only reason I came.”

  The words carried a trace of belligerence, as if part of a running argument that had begun as soon as he saw his mother. Laurel added to the impression as she said, “I’d have called you about the fire if I thought there was something you could do about it. There wasn’t, there isn’t.”

  “I guess it would have been all the same if the whole place had burned down. I’d probably never have heard about that, either.”

  Laurel gave him a stern look. “If you had called me about the letter instead of going to your aunt Zelda, I’d have been happy to tell you.”

  Her son looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t know whether you knew about it. I figured it would be just as well if you never did.”

  “So you talked to your aunt who can be depended on to spread the story for miles around?”

  “Aunt Zelda’s not that bad. Besides, she knew about it already because she had one, too—not that it makes any difference. Didn’t you give a thought to how I might feel, knowing you’ve got all this trouble out here? You’re my mother!”

  Evan shot Alec a defiant glance as he said the last words. Alec gave him a grim smile. Laurel eyed them both before she said, “I know, and I appreciate your concern, really I do. I just happen to think that school is more important for you now.”

  “I can deal with more than one thing at a time, Mom.”

  The exasperation in the boy’s voice came from his need to be allowed to help.
Alec understood it very well, and thought better of Evan Bancroft for it.

  Laurel sighed. “There’s nothing to deal with, Evan. Nothing anybody can do until we find out who is behind it.”

  “I could stay with you, watch out for you. I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but you should have somebody on your side, somebody to show people you’re not alone out here.”

  Alec waited with his breath caught in his chest for what she would say. Would she acknowledge him and what they had become to each other, or would she accept Evan’s offer? And if she permitted her son to move back into the house with her, where would that leave him?

  The light breeze blew over the smoldering pile of charcoal in front of them. Alec could feel the sweep of the dead fire’s remaining heat, smell its smoke. It felt a little like standing outside the gates of hell, waiting to learn his fate.

  Laurel, her gaze on the woods where the growth had been removed from beneath the trees for several yards back, said, “I don’t need anybody.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mom,” Evan countered. “What if whoever set this fire decides to torch the house next? That big pile of dried-out wood will go up faster than a Christmas rocket. They may not stop there, either. What if they come in the house? They could get in any window without half trying, and the damn place is so big there’s no way you could hear them until it was too late.”

  She gave him a hard look that was completely at odds with the pale fragility of her face. “What do you think you could do about it, then? Do you sleep any lighter than I do? Are you any better at using a gun?”

  “At least there would be two of us to keep a lookout!” Evan’s gaze flicked to Alec for an instant of stabbing challenge.

  Three, not two, Alec thought, but then Laurel’s son knew that very well. If Laurel was trying to save the boy’s feelings, it was wasted effort. Then she said it—the words he had been waiting to hear.