"I knew you'd come to me," he muttered. She heard him even though he spoke quietly. "All this time, I knew somehow you'd find me."
This stranger’s voice was tranquilizing. Deep, somewhat rasping, and yet, for all his convalescing appearance, the voice was strong, but tainted with despair. The surprise of hearing him speak such words struck Lauryn dumber still. His next utterance nearly caused her heart to stop!
"Give me your hand, Laura," he said. Lauryn closed her eyes and shook her head in unbelief at what she had heard. Had he actually spoken her name? No! Not her name—but a name almost as familiar. Lauryn’s astonished thoughts were interrupted as he repeated, "Your hand. Please! I need you now.”
Ever so tentatively, for she knew not what else to do, Lauryn reached up placing her small left hand at his left shoulder. The soldier reached up with his left hand and took hers, bringing it to his side in a tight grip. His touch! The touch of this faceless stranger was undeniably and instantly invigorating! And when he pulled her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it tenderly, Lauryn could not avoid bumping against his back, her knees nearly buckling beneath her. The soldier clasped her hand tightly between both of his and then turned to look at her. "Your hand is oddly warm today," he muttered, and Lauryn saw, for the first time, the face of the soldier to which she had been so irrevocably drawn.
At that moment, Lauryn knew she had never met this man before. A brief second before she had wondered if, perhaps, this was an old school chum she simply had failed to recognize. Now, she knew that was not true. She would have remembered such a face. The man who stood before her boasted a jaw line any man would envy. It was squared, powerful, and blessed with an ever-so-slight cleft chin. His nose was not large and not small but just the right size for his face…but his eyes! His eyes! One eye was heavily bandaged, the other had a lighter gauze covering it, and Lauryn's heart nearly bled for the disappointment of not being able to see his eyes. The eyes of a man were the first attribute she usually noticed—the first thing she found to be attractive or not—the way she hoped to read a man’s integrity. Further, she realized this man could not see her. Even had she known him, how would he have known to use a name so close, so familiar to her own?
"I…I haven't forsaken you, Laura," he whispered, a frown puckering his brow and causing his mouth to curve downward. "I…I haven't been able to get home. I…I…you are oddly warm. Your hand…I can feel it so…so definitely. As if you were…and yet the fragrance lingers, faint as it may be."
Lauryn had to speak to him. He had obviously confused her with someone else. "Sir I…" she began.
The stranger gasped, released her hand and demanded angrily, "Who are you? What kind of trick is this?"
"Sir…I assure you…I'm only here to help. My name is Lauryn Kensington. I'm bound for my home in Franklin and I only…" she stammered.
"Kensington? Franklin?" he mumbled seeming confused. Then much to her dismay, he began tugging at the lighter patch that protected one eye.
"Sir, please! I meant you no harm! I only wanted…" Lauryn began, tears unexpectedly filling her eyes and threatening to spill.
"What's the matter over there?" Doctor Nelson called from the other end of the car.
"Lauryn? Honey? Are you alright?" Nana inquired. Lauryn glanced over her shoulder to see Nana making her way toward her.
"I'm afraid I've upset him somehow! I…I didn't mean to," Lauryn explained.
"Captain! You leave the patch on that eye! You have another three weeks, at least, before it's supposed to come off. Brant! Do you hear me?" Doctor Nelson shouted.
"Brant?" Lauryn breathed looking back to the soldier in time to see him succeed in tearing the bandage from his eye.
Lauryn gasped as she saw his eye. Though he shaded it with his hand against light from the open car door and there was deep bruising caused from an injury, his eye was fascinating! Fascinating in its depth of blue and fascinating in it's familiarity—the Captain’s very eye color!
"Brant?' she whispered in disbelief.
The color of his eye was the only resemblance the man bore to the Captain, but it was frighteningly familiar to her. And his name…Brant? It was nearly the Captain's very name! And yet, he was completely different from the Captain. Far more handsome! Larger, brooding, angry.
Before Lauryn could fathom anything else, the soldier reached out. Taking her chin firmly in one hand, he growled, "Who are you?" he growled. The demand was neither gentle nor congenial.
"Brant! Unhand that girl this minute!" Doctor Nelson snapped as he quickly walked toward them, tripping over one poor, convalescing soul.
"I…I told you. My name is Lauryn Kensington. I'm only on my way home…I…I didn't mean to upset you, sir. Truly." Lauryn’s eyes filled with tears.
Bending toward her, the soldier closed his eye. Placing his face close to her neck, he inhaled deeply. "That fragrance. Why did I sense it before? It’s gone now."
"I…I'm sorry if I offend you, sir. I truly only wanted…" But she was interrupted as the man suddenly pulled her protectively against his body wrapping her in his arms as Doctor Nelson and Lauryn’s Nana reached them.
"Now, boy…you let that girl go. She didn't come in here to be assaulted by some delirious man," Doctor Nelson coaxed quietly but firmly.
"It'll be fine, Doctor," Nana said calmly. "I believe I know this young man."
Lauryn felt the man's possessive hold loosen at her grandmother's words. "Who are you?" he asked. "Everything is cloudy still…and I don't recognize your voice."
"I'm Virginia, Brant," Nana explained. "Virginia Anne O’Halleran Kensington. I’m Laura’s sister and young Lauryn’s grandmother. We met in Vermont once when you were just a boy. Do you remember?"
Lauryn looked up into the searching, clouded eye of the man who held her. Her heart beat erratically as she felt a sudden, instant and overwhelming attraction to the man. She wanted to embrace him, sooth him. For Pete’s sake…she wanted to kiss him! What had come over her? She couldn’t begin to understand. He seemed so lost, so helpless and desperate. And, at the same time, the most powerful man she’d ever met.
Looking down into Lauryn’s face, the soldier spoke to her Nana. "Lauralynn's niece?" he asked.
"Her grand-niece. Yes, Brant," Nana soothed softly.
"The one who sees the Captain?" he asked.
"What? Nana…who is he? I…" Lauryn began.
The soldier looked searchingly at her again, but Lauryn could not tell for certain whether he could, in fact, see her.
He took her chin firmly in one hand, his thumb traveling caressively and rather intimately over her soft lips as he whispered, "Who am I? I'm Brant Masterson. Brandon Masterson’s grand-nephew.”
The next moment surely was an hallucination. A dream purely! Surely it was. There was no way on earth that what Lauryn sensed happening could, indeed, be happening! For she felt the moist tenderness of the soldier’s lips caress her own in the softest, rather saddest of kisses. Yet even for the tenderness of it…even for the sorrowful, regretful mood of it…still it thrilled her beyond anything she had experienced in her entire life! The sensation of his lips meeting with hers, however brief, was almost unendurably perfect.
Then he pressed his unshaven cheek to her own soft one and whispered quietly into her ear, "The only person alive who understands exactly what you’re looking for.”
This revelation, coupled with the mighty reaction sent through Lauryn’s body by his fleeting kiss, was too much for her senses, and she felt the soldier’s arms tighten around her protectively as consciousness was lost to her.
Lauryn seemed to be swimming in a black dream. A dream of sound void of light and vision. She could discern voices…the Doctor's as he spoke to her grandmother and then ordered the soldier to set Lauryn down softly. She heard Nana’s as she soothed the two worried men, Betty’s as she approached inquiring about what had happened. And, she could hear his voice, Brant’s, as he argued with the doctor about replacing his bandages.
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The biting stench of the smelling salts caused Lauryn to cough. She opened her eyes to find that her head rested on Betty Ann's lap. Nana leaned over her with concern showing in her face. Dr. Nelson labored to replace Brant Masterson’s eye bandages as he sat in an attitude of defeat, leaning back against the boxcar’s inner wall.
"Nana?” Lauryn whispered.
"Are you all right, darlin'?" her grandmother asked. Lauryn nodded reassuringly as her grandmother smiled down at her and helped her to sit up.
"Nana…he's…he's," Lauryn stammered pointing to the soldier that now was on the receiving end of a lecture from Dr. Nelson.
"He's Brant Masterson. And he's obviously had a bad time overseas.” Lauryn simply continued to stare at the man who ran his fingers through his dark hair in discouragement.
"I met him when he was a boy,” Nana confessed quietly. “His aunt contacted me once upon a time, concerned for his well bein'.” Lauryn looked to her Nana as the older woman lowered her voice. "It seems…he was somewhat haunted by the past."
"I am sorry, Miss Kensington,” Dr. Nelson apologized, returning to the two women and offering a hand to Lauryn to help her to stand. “Are you alright? I mean truly?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” Lauryn answered, though her attention was completely arrested by the slumped shoulders of the defeated-looking Brant Masterson.
Following Lauryn’s gaze, Dr Nelson whispered, “He's a very frustrated young man. But strong. Very strong. And I'm encouraged about his sight. I do worry about leavin’ him off at Memphis alone though. I hope he didn’t upset you too much, Miss Kensington."
"Alone?" Nana and Lauryn asked simultaneously
"Well…yes,” Dr. Nelson stammered. “Apparently there was some difficulty and his family will be over a week late in gettin' there to meet him. I've arranged for someone to help care for him. This will infuriate him when I tell him. He's an independent little devil."
"You can't just leave him off in Memphis!" Lauryn exclaimed. "With strangers?"
"Of course not,” Nana stated. "I'll telephone his family myself and the boy can come home with us to Franklin."
"Oh, my no, Ma’am," the Doctor protested. "He needs a world of assistance still and…"
"We're related…by marriage way back," Nana interrupted. "We're nearer to family than some strangers in Memphis."
"It's highly unheard of to just leave off a man somewhere when prior arrangements have been made and…" the Doctor began to argue.
Then he looked at the soldier still sitting and looking so very beaten. Returning his attention to Nana, he finished, "Still…it's the most life I've seen in the boy since he staggered off the ship."
Lauryn looked to where Brant sat. There was an air about him of being utterly conquered. It was heartbreaking. The conversation between her grandmother and the doctor concerning the man's fate faded from her mind. Lauryn found herself being propelled toward the soldier, her feet seemed to suddenly have a will of their own.
"A woman's step is so much lighter than a man's," Brant muttered. "But I can still hear it.” He rose to his feet and turned toward her. Lauryn's heart ached brutally for the lack of being able to see his eyes. "I'm sorry if I frightened you, Miss Kensington," he spoke. "I…I…"
"I understand," Lauryn finished. "It was quite a shock to me as well." She noted the way his shoulders sagged. "Please, sit back down. You need your rest, I'm sure."
He sat, without argument. Lauryn sat next to him and studied him intently. He was far more interesting and attractive, even with his bandaged eyes, than any other man she had ever met. A pang of guilty disloyalty pricked at her heart as she thought of the Captain waiting back home in Franklin…the man she’d thought no other could compare to…until now. Her thoughts of the Captain led her to the reality of the knowledge owned by the man that sat next to her.
"You know then that I…that I…” she found herself stammering awkwardly in a hushed voice.
“That you see him," he stated without pause.
Lauryn inhaled deeply, afraid to confide her greatest secret to anyone! Let alone a stranger.
"I do," she whispered. It was inconceivable to her. All these years…all these years that the Captain had been wandering in search of Lauralynn…all the years that she had kept her secret about her spirit friend…someone outside the family had known?
"What scent does he carry?" the man at her side asked. It seemed a very odd question. In fact, it was so incredibly odd that it threw Lauryn’s thoughts into a jumble.
"Scent?" she asked.
"Yes. When he appears to you. How…how do you first know he's there?"
"He…he appears. I sense him coming…he appears…we talk and…"
"You mean you talk," he corrected her.
"No. I mean we talk. Together. Converse. As you and I are now.”
What ever was the matter with her? She was telling her deepest secret, details of it, to this stranger! This man whom she’d been kissed by, deliciously kissed by, but whom she had no acquaintance with otherwise. Had she lost her mind completely?
But then Brant Masterson turned his face toward her quickly, as if he wanted to look at her, as if he were, at last, surprised by what she was saying.
"You hear his voice?" He seemed angry and disturbed.
"Of course. He has been with me since I was eight. We're great friends.”
He must think her an utter lunatic! There she sat calmly confessing relationships with ghosts. And yet, he looked away again, unsurprised, his lips curled downward in a frown. His silence was irritating. She had offered him a part of her most cherished secret and now he was silent?
"Why?" she asked simply.
He didn't answer for some time. Then raising his face and laying his head back against the car he said, "She can't talk to me."
"What? Who? What do you mean?"
"All she can say to me that I can hear is her name. Lauralynn. Laura. It's how I know she is coming to me. It brings with it a familiar perfume…a scent with the only sound of her voice that I hear. It’s…it’s the fragrance of her name."
Lauryn sat dumbfounded! For as many years as she had been friends with the Captain, had this man been haunted, too? Was Brant Masterson telling her that he knew Lauralynn?
“You…you know Lauralynn?” she asked in an astonished whisper.
He made some sort of a sound similar to the beginning of a chuckle. “Of course! What? Do you think you’re the only person in this mess that sees ghosts?”
“All your life?” she asked.
“For as long as I can remember. I was…oh, three or four when I first remember her clearly, though. She’s more of a feeling before that.”
Lauryn put a hand to her forehead to try and sooth the confusion in her mind. Lauralynn could appear to this man, but not to her own husband who was searching so desperately for her? It didn’t make any sense. No sense at all.
“You mean no one ever told you that I know her?” Brant asked.
Lauryn shook her head, as a gesture of assuring him that no one ever had.
“If you’re nodding or shaking your head, sweetheart…keep in mind…I can’t hear your brain rattling,” he growled resentfully. Lauryn looked at him angrily, only then remembering that he was sightless. Of course, he couldn’t hear her head nodding.
“No one ever told me about you,” she told him humbly.
He was angrily silent for a moment. Then sighing heavily he mumbled, “I suppose no one would’ve ever told me about you either if they hadn’t thought I was going insane.”
“I’d be insane if I couldn’t talk to the Captain,” Lauryn muttered out loud to herself.
“You call him that?” Brant asked. His voice was so affecting to her senses that a tickle ran down her spine causing her to shiver. Its deep intonation seemed to vibrate through her soul. “Captain?”
“I do,” Lauryn admitted.
Then she began to study him again. The man couldn’t see her, so why not take the opportunity
to look at him. She studied the lines of his face, the strength of his jaw, the texture of his hair, which was the darkest shade of brown, not quite black, but almost. His shoulders were incredibly broad, his arms very muscular and his hands very masculine. Nothing was pampered or manicured about them. They visually told the tale of a hard-working man, even considering the weeks he had been unable to labor because of his loss of sight. Lauryn noted the large scar that ran diagonally over the back of his right hand, noted the calluses on his palms. The breadth of his chest nearly matched that of his shoulders! The shirt he wore bordered on being too small, for it was stretched to its limits, revealing a very well-sculpted torso beneath. Brant Masterson was, undeniably, magnificent to look at. And Lauryn fully appreciated the opportunity to study him so without his knowledge.
“And…and he talks to you?” he asked again interrupting her thoughts. Brant shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “You actually hear his voice and hold conversations with him?”
“Yes,” is all Lauryn could say, for somehow she felt devious for studying him so intimately without his knowledge and guilt-ridden for the blessing of the Captain’s friendship.
“I met your grandmother when I was younger,” Brant began. “I was fourteen. And incredibly frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t help Laura. I flew into a rage at my Aunt Felicity one day and she…she thought I was losing my mind.” He paused for a moment and mumbled, “I wonder now if maybe I was.” Shaking his head he continued. “So my aunt contacted your grandmother and she came out to Castledale and talked with me. She told me that her little granddaughter, you, knew Brandon…that he wanted you to help him find Lauralynn. I couldn’t understand it. If I had Laura and the little granddaughter had Brandon…why couldn’t we just tell them where they each were and have it all work out?”
The Fragrance of Her Name Page 4