Lavender Morning

by Jude Deveraux

  “Yes.”

  “David Clare.”

  Joce looked at Dr. Dave. “I’m not getting the point here. What am I missing?”

  “Who else do you know is named Clare?”

  “No one I know has that last name.”

  The two men kept looking at her.

  “My mother is named Claire.”

  Dr. Dave and Luke smiled at each other.

  “Wait a minute!” Joce said. “You’re not trying to tell me that my mother—”

  “Was the daughter of Edilean Harcourt and David Clare. Yes, she was. Show her,” Luke said.

  Dr. Dave handed Joce some charts such as she’d often seen on TV. DNA charts. She looked at them blankly.

  “Sorry for all the secrecy, but if what we suspected hadn’t been true, we didn’t want you to be hurt,” Dr. Dave said. “It was easy to get DNA from you, and not so difficult to get it for Edi. She was a great letter writer and she’d licked a lot of envelopes.”

  “Miss Edi was my grandmother?” Joce asked in a faint whisper.

  “She didn’t know,” Dr. Dave said. “If she’d known, I’m sure she would have told you. I think that Alex knew about her pregnancy, but no one else did. She stayed in London where no one knew her so she wouldn’t have to answer questions. She was burned just a couple of weeks before she was due to deliver.”

  “But the general said the child was stillborn.”

  “We figure that’s what he was told. We have no paper proof, but it looks like Alfred Scovill was in Europe at the time, making contracts for helmets, and there was a dying woman who’d just given birth to a baby. As far as we could find out, the birth certificate was made out with Alfred and Frances Scovill as the parents—which, of course, wasn’t true because his wife was back home in the States. But it was wartime, and there were a lot of orphans, a lot of tragedies. No one asked many questions. I think Mr. Scovill took the baby home to his wife in the U.S., moved down to Boca Raton, where no one knew them, and never told anyone the truth. His only concession was to name the child ‘Claire’ from what the dying mother kept saying.”

  When Jocelyn tried to stand up, her legs were so weak that she wobbled. Luke put his arms around her to steady her, and held her against him for a few minutes. But Joce pushed away and looked at him.

  “This is why you said I might need a doctor here.” She was trying to make a joke, but neither man smiled. They were looking at her hard.

  “Are you okay?” Luke asked.

  “Just in a state of shock, that’s all. How I wish she’d known. Wish I’d known when she was alive. To share that bond!”

  “But you did,” Dr. Dave said, taking her hand. “Alex found out about your mother, about the people who’d adopted her, and he bought a house close to them. He set it all up for her to administer the trust, but then he began to lose his memory.”

  “Alzheimer’s,” Jocelyn said.

  “Yes. He set everything up through MAW and he concocted that story about knowing the people who adopted you. We figure Alex meant to let Edi spend some time getting to know you, then he’d tell her the truth. But Alex…he simply forgot.”

  Luke went to a side table and mixed her a drink. “I think you need this,” he said as he looked at his grandfather.

  Jocelyn took the drink and sipped it. “I can feel that you two have something more to tell me. Better get it out before I faint from what you’ve already told me.”

  “We found David Clare’s relatives.”

  She looked up at the two tall men, both of them hovering over her, watching her as though she might collapse at any moment. But their words made her feel less like collapsing than anything they’d said. It would take her a long time to deal with the fact that Miss Edi never knew what they were to each other, but the idea of relatives was startling.

  “You mean I might have relatives who have an IQ over seventy, who don’t make it their life’s work to belittle me and make me feel bad?”

  “Actually, I think that’s what all relatives do,” Luke said. “My cousins—Ow!” he said when his grandfather punched him on the arm.

  “You have the telephone number?” Dr. Dave asked Luke.

  “Sure. Right here with me. I thought I’d call, then Joce could—”

  She snatched the paper out of his hands. “They’re my relatives; I’m calling.” She went to the big phone on Dr. Dave’s desk. “Shall I put it on speaker?”

  Both men nodded.

  Joce took a couple of deep breaths, then called the number in upstate New York. Immediately, a man’s voice answered. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I’m looking for anyone connected to a man named David Clare, who fought in World War II.”

  “Speaking.”

  Jocelyn shrugged in puzzlement to the two men. “Are you related to him?”

  “I guess I am,” the man said, chuckling.

  “You know about Sergeant David Clare who served with General Austin, that David Clare?”

  “Young lady, I don’t know how else to tell you that I am David Clare and that I served with old Bulldog Austin.”

  “You,” Jocelyn began, but her voice dropped to a whisper. “But you were killed.”

  “I was reported dead, but actually, I was held prisoner until the war was over. I can assure you that I am alive, not particularly healthy, but alive.”

  “Did you know Edilean Harcourt?”

  There was a long pause from him. “Yes. She was…killed in 1944.”

  “No. Miss Edi died only last year.”

  The man’s voice rose in anger. “I don’t appreciate this. Edilean Harcourt was killed in a fire when a jeep exploded.”

  “She wasn’t,” Jocelyn said, near to tears. Was she really talking to Miss Edi’s David—to her own grandfather? “She lived. Her legs were horribly burned, but she lived. I met her when I was ten years old and she was my guide, my foster mother—I don’t know what you call her. When she died, she left me her old house—”

  “Edilean Manor,” he whispered.

  “Yes. Miss Edi never married. She spent most of her life traveling all over the world with a Dr. Brenner and helping him with disasters. They—” Joce broke off and looked at Luke. “I think he’s crying.” But then Joce could no longer hold back her tears.

  Luke took the phone from her, and by that time a man was yelling. “I don’t know who the hell you are to make Uncle Dave cry, but—”

  In the background, Luke could hear, “No, no, no. It’s about Edi. They knew Edi.”

  The angry young man stopped shouting. “You know something about Miss Edi?”

  “You’ve heard of her?” Luke asked.

  “Are you kidding? I grew up hearing that name. The Lost Love, the only woman Uncle Dave ever loved. You know something about her? Like where she’s buried? Wait! Uncle Dave wants the phone back.”

  Luke put the phone back on speaker so they could all hear.

  “Who are you?” David Clare asked.

  “I think I’m your granddaughter,” Joce said before she started crying again, then David also gave way to tears.

  The young man took the phone over again. “Holy hell! What is up with you people?”

  In the background David was saying, “Come here. Now. Today. I want to see you now.”

  The young man said, “It looks like he wants you to come here. If you do, should I have a defibrillator on standby?”

  “We may need one for both of them,” Luke said, then took the phone off speaker and quickly told the story of Miss Edi being pregnant and delivering the baby, but no one thought she’d live, so a man named Scovill adopted the baby.

  “You mean Uncle Dave had a kid?”

  “A daughter named Claire.”

  “Claire Clare,” the young man said, amused.

  “Yeah,” Luke said, looking at Joce, who was crying hard. “Claire Clare. Could we visit? Would that be all right?”

  “What I’m wondering is why the hell you’re still on the telephone. Can you take a red-eye?�
��

  “I don’t know,” Luke said, looking at Joce. “Can we be there tomorrow?”

  She nodded.

  “Listen, uh…” He didn’t know the man’s name.

  “Eddie,” the man said, then paused. “My name is Edward Harcourt Clare. I was the last of the litter, so they let Uncle Dave name me. If I’d been a girl I’d have been named Edilean.”

  Luke looked at Jocelyn. “His name is Edward Harcourt Clare.”

  Joce started laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Okay,” Luke said, “let me check flights, and I’ll call you back in an hour and tell you when we’ll be there.”

  “When you get here, we’ll never get the lot of them to stop crying.” Pausing, he lowered his voice. “I just want to say that this is great of you. Uncle Dave has been like a second father to all of us kids. I can’t begin to tell you all that he’s done in our little town. He’s not well and he doesn’t have long, but to get to see his own granddaughter…Well, thanks. All I can say is thanks a lot.”

  27

  IN THE END, after much discussion, David Clare decided that he’d rather go to Edilean than for them to come to him. “I don’t have much time,” he said, “and I want to at last see her home.” He told how he’d tried to force himself to go many times before, even once buying plane tickets, but he couldn’t do it. He knew he’d be reminded of her too strongly and the pain would be more than he could bear.

  Luke and Jocelyn spent a frantic two days getting the house ready. The women of Edilean Baptist Church lent beds, linen, and even furniture, and Luke’s mother made all the complicated arrangements for transportation. She’d worked for her father off and on for most of her life, so she knew about medical transport. David Clare was driven from the airport in Richmond to Edilean in an ambulance, and he’d made the two EMTs in the back with him laugh through the entire journey.

  “Your granddaughter is just like you,” Luke told him. “She makes the world’s worst jokes at every possible opportunity.”

  “Go away,” Dr. Dave said, “or you’ll make them start crying again.”

  The first meeting between Joce and her grandfather had been so fraught with emotion that neither could say a word. They’d just stared at each other, holding hands as he was lowered from the emergency vehicle and taken into Edilean Manor.

  The downstairs parlor, where Joce had done all her research, had been made into a bedroom for Sergeant Clare. After he’d rested for twenty-four hours, he could walk about on two canes—just as Edi did at the end. And the first place he wanted to see was where she was resting.

  “But before we go,” he said, “is there room beside her for me?”

  “Yes,” Jocelyn said, holding his old hand on her arm.

  Everyone—meaning most of the town—marveled at how much alike Joce and David looked. Their square chins with a dimple, their pale skin, their dark blue eyes. They were even built alike.

  “More like me than Edi,” David said, looking with love at his granddaughter. “Too bad you didn’t get her legs.”

  “That’s all right,” Luke said. “Anyway, I like the parts that stick out better.”

  “Luke!” Joce said, and David laughed so hard he nearly choked.

  “She’s built just like my mother, and my dad liked her too, as I had eight brothers and sisters.”

  “We read that.” Joce’s eyes widened. “That means I have cousins.”

  “Hundreds,” David said.

  “Just so I have more than he does,” she said, looking at Luke.

  “A true marriage already,” David said.

  The stone for Miss Edi’s grave was small. “We’ll fix that,” David said, then looked around her at Luke. “I bet you, college boy, know where I can get a sculptor.”

  “I can find one.”

  “‘College boy’?” Joce said, smiling. “Luke works for me. I can’t afford to pay him, but he’s my gardener. And he works for other people too.”

  David looked at Luke, shaking his head. “I may be old, but my mind still works. One of my grandnieces stood in line to get a book autographed by you, and she came home wanting you more than the book. She downloaded a photo of you and hung it over her desk. I recognized you the minute I saw you.”

  Jocelyn stopped walking, glared at Luke, then dropped her grandfather’s arm and started walking back to the house.

  “Uh, oh,” David said, “did I say something wrong?” He turned on his canes when Luke went after Joce.

  “You bastard!” she said when he caught up with her.

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you, but—”

  “Why not? Everyone else has. Are there no more honest people in the world?”

  “I wanted you to see me as me,” Luke said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I write books, and sorry I didn’t tell you I was married, but Ingrid’s major interest in me was my royalty checks.”

  “Everyone in this town knew about your marriage and your occupation but they didn’t tell me.”

  “I asked them not to.”

  “And that’s it? You just told them not to menton your writing and they obeyed?”

  “Yes,” Luke said simply.

  “Well, isn’t it just lovely that you have people who love you so completely? Personally, that’s never happened to me.” She turned and started back to the house.

  “Yes, you have,” Luke said. “Me. I love you that much. I’ve loved you since that first night when I dumped mustard all over you.”

  “That was an accident,” she said over her shoulder.

  Luke moved to stand in front of her. “Yeah, it was, and I liked that you were honest and told Ramsey the truth.”

  “Honest? Do you know the meaning of the word?”

  “I’m learning it,” he said. “But then, I’ve had some master teachers of how to hide the truth. You, Ingrid, my family, Ramsey, even Miss Edi.”

  Jocelyn tried to get past him, but he kept moving to block her way. Finally, she put her arms across her chest. “All right, so what do you write?”

  “Thomas Canon,” he said.

  Joce’s mouth dropped open. Thomas Canon was the main character in a series of books that were very popular. They were set in the eighteenth century, just before the American Revolution. Thomas had been in love with a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba since they were children, but her parents made her marry a rich man she didn’t love. Heartbroken, Thomas spent book after book traveling around the newly forming country, meeting people and getting into one scrape after another.

  “Luke Adams,” Joce said, for that was the name of the author.

  “That’s me.”

  “So the gardening—?”

  “My degree is in botany and after Ingrid I was…” He shrugged.

  “Who gets a degree in botany?” Joce said. “How can you make a living with a degree in botany? You should have—” She broke off because he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  “Jocelyn, I love you. I apologize that it took me so long to say it and that I kept so many things from you, but I had to be sure. Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

  “Sure she can!” David Clare said from behind them. “If Edi could forgive me for being an uneducated lout, she can forgive you for pretending to be one.”

  Luke and Jocelyn smiled at him because they’d learned that since the war he’d built his little garage into a franchise that was all over the Northeast. He was a multimillionaire. And he’d put all his businesses under the name of his beloved brother, Bannerman, who’d perished in the war. The switching of the names was why Edi had never found out her David was still alive.

  “Can you forgive me?” Luke asked.

  How could she not? she thought. But she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. “On one condition. You have to tell me if Thomas Canon is ever going to get Bathsheba.”

  “Not you too,” Luke groaned. “I have a huge box full of letters in my house, all from readers asking me the same damned question. I don
’t know.”

  “Who do you mean you don’t know? You created those people. You control them.”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does that mean?” Joce asked.

  David was laughing. “You’d better give up now,” he said to Luke. “She may look like me, but she’s just like Edi.”

  “I’m not at all like her,” Joce said, her eyes wide.

  “Identical,” David said. “Did she tell you about the time—”

  “Wait right there,” Joce said. “I’m going to get a tape recorder. Unlike some people, I don’t make up characters.”

  When Luke and David were alone, the older man was still chuckling. “You have your hands full there, boy.”

  “Yes, I do,” Luke said, grinning.

  It was later, after dinner, when David was asleep, that Luke and Joce sat alone in the kitchen and talked. She was still feeling a bit distant toward him about his concealing his occupation from her, but Luke was wearing her down.

  “Last night my mother told me the oddest story,” he said, then watched Joce’s ears perk up at the word story. “She went to Miss Edi’s house about six months before she died.”

  “Why?” Joce asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Luke said. “My mother’s never been a good liar, but—”

  “Unlike you?”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, grinning. “She said something about a secret that needed to be repaired.”

  “A secret about what?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me, but it’s my guess that my mother knows why Alex McDowell felt like he owed Miss Edi for his whole life.”

  “That secret?” Joce asked. “And your mother knows what it is?”

  “Maybe. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I think I will.”

  “Anyway,” Luke said, “she said that she and Miss Edi talked a lot about me, about my writing, my dead marriage, about how I used to spend so much time alone with her grumpy ol’ father-in law. You know what? That time Grampa Joe sneaked me out of the house to go fishing? Mom knew all about it. She said I always got along better with old people.”