Pulling away from him, Cay slipped her arms into her shirt. “She was your wife and you loved her. I understand. Would you please hand me my shoes?”
“We aren’t going to have another fight, are we? You aren’t going to stop speaking to me again, are you?”
“No,” she said as she kissed him softly on the lips. “In fact, I don’t think I’m ever going to do that again. The next time you do something I don’t like, I think I’ll punch you in your old, ugly face.”
Alex smiled as he lowered his eyelids and looked up at her in the way that had made many women forgive him for whatever he’d done. “Is that so? Old and ugly, am I?”
“Warthogs are prettier than you. And if you don’t quit looking at me like that, I’ll put that yellow flower under Tim’s pillow, the one that makes him sneeze. He’ll be wheezing all night long.”
Alex stopped his seductive looks and lay back on the grass, groaning. Since he and Cay had made up from their argument, she’d not moved back into his tent. Eli had said to Alex, “I think it’s your turn to sleep with the boy,” and his eyes said that he wasn’t going to give in.
Alex didn’t tell Cay, but he thought Eli’s stance had something to do with the fact that Alex and Cay had made love in the tent next to Eli’s. To hide his embarrassment, Alex had turned away. “You win,” he said to Cay. “I can’t stand the boy’s whistles, much less his sneezes.” Twice, Tim’s very loud sneezes had frightened flocks of birds out of overhead trees—and the people below had been cascaded by a rain of feathers and other not-so-pleasant droppings. “I hope we never fight again.”
“So do I,” Cay responded, but her voice was less hopeful. She wasn’t sure why, but she was dreading tomorrow. It wouldn’t be their little group of people, but there would be strangers at the trading post—and strangers carried news. She worried that fellow explorers had been to the settlement where Thankfull lived and asked questions. If law enforcement people knew Alex had gone into the swamps, maybe they’d do whatever was necessary to get there ahead of him, and they’d be waiting for him.
“Don’t look so glum,” Alex said as he put his arm around her. “You could always go back to those men who asked you to marry them. Now what were their names?” Laughing, he walked ahead of her.
“Alex,” she whispered. “They were all named Alex.”
“I know him,” Alex said, and his breath was so tight that Cay could hardly hear him. They’d arrived at the trading post two hours before, but both Cay and Alex had hesitated. They’d taken a long time to adjust the moorings of the boat, and Cay had made the excuse that she wanted to see to her drawings. Tim ran off the second the boat touched land. After where they’d been, the trading post, with its half a dozen small houses nearby, looked like a big city. Mr. Grady and Eli had also paused, but after a while, they went ahead, but they walked slowly and looked closely at everyone who passed them.
After a couple of hours and no one had run toward them with guns and handcuffs, Alex and Cay decided to go into the long, low building that was the center of the tiny settlement. It was where men came to take the furs they’d collected to exchange for goods and cash from the trader. He would then sell the trappings to the men who came down the river, and eventually, the furs would end up on the back of some rich woman in New York.
But when Alex and Cay cautiously entered the post, Alex had turned pale, whispered, “I know him,” and quickly left. The young man behind the counter looked up from the bird feathers he was counting—to be used on ladies’ hats—and saw only Cay. He looked her up and down, as though trying to remember if he’d seen her before, then went back to the feathers. Mr. Grady and Eli stood to one side, mugs of cider held to their lips, watching what was going on around them.
Cay slipped back out the door and began running, looking frantically for Alex. She found him sitting on a log not far from the boat.
“Who is he?” she asked as she sat down beside him. She was trying to remain calm, but her heart was beating in her throat.
“Believe it or not, he’s one of the rich boys from the race track.”
“Did you take much money from him?”
“What does that mean? You sound like I robbed him.”
“Some gamblers feel that way. I want to know what we’re up against, that’s all.”
Alex looked up at a tree full of white birds and sighed. “No, he wasn’t like that. His name is George Campbell, and at one time I would have said he was my friend. He was invited to my wedding, but he was out of town.”
Cay didn’t like to think about Alex’s wedding. “Maybe he hasn’t heard about what happened to you, or maybe he was your true friend and won’t say anything when he sees you.”
“Is there anyone in this country who hasn’t heard about me?”
“To be safe, I think we should assume there aren’t,” she said. Her mind was swirling with things that they’d need to do if the man could identify Alex. First of all, they needed to stay away from him. They couldn’t let the man see Alex for fear of what he’d say or do. If he did see Alex, or even heard he was here, even though no one was here now to arrest him, how long would it be before the trader, this George Campbell, told someone who was going north? It could be just a matter of days before they were found.
“I want you to talk to him,” Alex said.
“Talk to him? To the storekeeper? Are you insane?”
“Probably. After I married Lilith, everything I heard and saw is a blur to me, but maybe if George wasn’t there he won’t . . . won’t hate me so much.” Alex took a breath. “When George left town, he told me he was going to miss the way I stole everything he owned.”
“Nice man,” Cay muttered.
“It was a man’s joke.”
“Then I guess I couldn’t possibly understand, could I?” she asked belligerently.
“You aren’t going to start a fight, are you?”
“How can you ask that of me? All I’m trying to do is—” She stopped because she realized she was trying to get into an argument. Better that than to face what was going through her mind. “What do you want me to talk to him about?”
“I want you to find out what he knows.”
“You mean find out what he’s heard about people searching for you?”
“Yes,” Alex said.
“I don’t know if I’m any good at lying.”
“What would you be lying about?” Alex asked. “Tell him you know of me through my father. Isn’t that the truth?”
“And do you think that Mr. Grady and Eli won’t know who I’m talking about? Even Tim will be able to figure this one out.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get them to come outside. You just talk to George and find out what you can. And I’ll be right there with you.”
“Making sure that he doesn’t attack me at the mention of your name?”
“Aye, lass, that’s just what I mean.”
Cay swallowed. “All right,” she said, but she didn’t like the idea of being a spy. She slowly walked back to the trading post and stayed outside the door until she heard what sounded like an explosion in the direction of the boat. Immediately, Mr. Grady and Eli came running outside, and Cay stepped into the shadows.
“What’s that fool boy done now?” Eli said.
She gave only a second to wondering if he meant her or Tim before she went into the cool, dark trading post where the young man was counting a pile of furs. “Did I hear that your name is George Campbell?”
“As far as I know, I’m the only one in Florida.”
Cay started to smile at him in a way that she knew appealed to men, but she stopped herself. She was supposed to be a boy. “My father has a friend named McDowell and he has a son who—”
“Alex?”
“Right,” Cay said, her face lighting up. “Alex mentioned a George Campbell, and I wondered if you might be the same man.”
“That I am.” When George bent down behind the deep counter to pull up more furs, Cay saw Alex slip in throu
gh the door to hide behind a cabinet full of men’s shirts. “How is Alex?”
Cay had to hide her astonishment at his question. “Fine. When did you see him last?”
“The day before I left Charleston. We got so drunk they had to carry me out and put me on the boat. When I woke up, I was in New Orleans, and I had a headache that lasted a week.”
“New Orleans? Is that where you wanted to be?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “That’s where I wanted to be. So where’d you go to school?”
“William and Mary,” Cay lied quickly. It looked like she’d yet again given away too much about herself. “So you knew Alex well?”
“Knew? You sound like he’s dead. He isn’t, is he?”
“No,” Cay said cautiously. “Last I heard, he was alive.”
“Glad to hear it. I had some good times with Alex, even though I lost to him in about a hundred races. He brought in this horse . . .” George gave a whistle and shook his head. “That animal must have been bred on another planet. It was faster than anything I’d ever seen before. But then Alex is a great horseman.”
“Is he?” There was a stool by the counter and Cay slipped onto it. It was nice to hear about Alex from someone who knew him before he’d been called a murderer.
“What he can get a horse to do, nobody else can.” George looked up from the furs. “What happened to him?”
“What do you mean?” Cay tried to keep her voice calm.
“I thought he was going to marry old Mrs. Underwood’s niece, but, obviously, he didn’t.”
It took all of Cay’s will power not to turn around and look in Alex’s direction. “Why do you say that?” she asked as calmly as she could.
“Because I saw Lilith in New Orleans two weeks ago.”
“You what?”
“I had to make a quick trip there and back because—” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Anyway, while I was there, I saw Lilith.” George bent down again and came back up. “I could have sworn she saw me, but she turned away. I ran after her because I wanted to ask her about Alex, but Lilith slipped into a building and I didn’t see her again. I even asked people about her, but no one knew her.” He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was someone who just looked like her. Except . . .”
“Except what?”
“Lilith had this little mole on the side of her neck, just where it meets her shoulder, and it was heart shaped. You’re too young to know what I mean, but I can tell you that all of us men used to fantasize about that mole.”
“And this woman in New Orleans had this mole?”
“She sure did. It’s what made me notice her. Everything else about her seemed to be different. Her hair was pulled back, and she wasn’t as pretty as she had been. Don’t get me wrong, she was still beautiful, but she looked, well, almost frightened. When she saw me, I thought she was going to scream. Her eyes looked like some wild animal’s. I felt sorry for her. Why didn’t she marry Alex? They have a fight?”
“I don’t know,” Cay said, and her voice was little more than a whisper. “I don’t know anything about anything anymore.”
“I thought I was the only one who felt like that. I came out here hoping that if my father didn’t see me for a while he’d forget about what I did in New Orleans, but from what he said in his last letter, I may have to spend the rest of my life here.”
Feeling as though she were in a daze, Cay slid off the stool. She couldn’t help but look at Alex in the shadows behind the cabinet. When he motioned to her with his hand, it took her a moment to figure out what he meant. He wanted her to get George to leave the store. She looked back at the trader. “Was that someone at the back door?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Oh. Maybe it was just some alligators. You know how they are. Tim nearly had his leg bitten off by one of them, but I hit the thing on the head with a paddle and killed it with one blow. I tell you, if I hadn’t been there, that boy would have died. I think Mr. Grady is glad of the day when he hired me.”
George looked Cay’s slim form up and down in disbelief.
“What’s more, I—”
“I think I better check that door,” George said as he hurried out.
Alex slipped out from behind the cabinet. “And you said you weren’t good at being a liar.”
She ignored his remark. “What do we do now?”
“You don’t do anything different. You’re to stay here with the others and go south, just as planned.” Turning, he left the store. Cay was about two inches away from his heels.
“And what do you plan to do?” she asked him.
“Go to New Orleans, of course.”
Cay wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be a different step to his walk, a quickness that hadn’t been there before. “I’m going with you.” She had to nearly run to keep up with him.
“No you’re not.”
She stopped walking and glared at the back of him. “Good! Then I’ll have weeks and weeks alone with Jamie Armitage.”
Alex halted in his tracks, stood still for a moment, then turned around to glare at her.
She smiled sweetly at him.
“Meet me back here in one hour.” He walked ahead too fast for her to catch up with him.
“You leave without me and I’ll send you an invitation to my wedding,” she called after him. He raised his hand, but he didn’t look back at her.
Cay stood still for a moment. Lilith might still be alive. Alex’s wife might be alive and living in New Orleans. The woman he loved more than life itself could possibly be waiting for him just a few days’ hard ride from where they were.
Cay’s hands made into fists. “I hope she’s not too big,” she said under her breath. “I don’t want to have to take too much trouble to kill her.” That said, she felt better, and in the next second, she was running. She had to get ready to travel, this time on horseback, and alone with Alex. She’d heard of worse ideas.
Twenty-three
New Orleans, 1799
“How in the world are we going to find your brother?” Alex asked. The two of them were dirty, sweaty, and tired beyond imagining. But as he looked across his horse at her, he couldn’t help but give a one-sided grin.
“I’m glad you see something amusing because I don’t. I want to take a bath and sleep for about three days.”
“I was just remembering the first trip we took together. You were exhausted after just a couple of hours on a horse.”
“Couple of hours?” She rubbed her itchy nose with her sleeve. “You mean when you made me ride without stopping for a day and a half, and you left me under a tree at the mercy of whatever scalawags came by? That trip?”
“Aye,” Alex said. “That’s the one I mean. You’ve ridden much harder this time.”
“Had to, didn’t I?” Cay mumbled as she followed him into the outskirts of the city. Even though it was well after midnight, she could see lights and hear music in the distance.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” What she’d meant was that he was so determined to find the woman he loved, that he would have ridden all the way without sleep if it were possible. As it was, that’s nearly what they’d done. From the trading post, they’d hitched a ride upriver on a boat, but it went too slow for Alex’s taste, so they’d stopped at a plantation and used the last of the money T.C. had given them to pay an exorbitant price for two horses. Alex had ridden hard along the shore of the river, always heading north, and Cay was right behind him. They’d only stopped every other night, and one time they’d had what Alex called an “unfortunate” encounter with a bunch of alligators that were hiding in the sand.
Cay would have loved to have climbed a tree to safety, but that would have left Alex alone. He shot one with a rifle, tossed a loaded pistol to her, and Cay shot another one. There was no time to reload, so they’d had to use knives. Running, they did what they could to escape the creatures that were chasing them. In one of Eli�
��s stories he’d said that alligators couldn’t run in a zigzag pattern, so Alex and Cay went back and forth as they sought higher ground.
When they reached safety, Cay looked at Alex, and in the next minute she was in his arms and crying from fear. He held her so tightly she thought her ribs might break, but she didn’t care. She clung to him just as hard.
They didn’t sleep much that night, and the next morning, Alex had to find their horses. Cay didn’t think he’d be able to, but he did. When he returned, she ran to him and kissed his face in such relief that they ended up taking a hour to make love, then they were off again, this time staying farther from the shore.
That evening they’d had to stop early because both of them were asleep on their horses, and their animals were too tired to go any farther. Alex built a fire, so they could eat and drink before bedding down together. Cay had been thinking about her brother Nate all day, wondering what he’d found out about the murder accusation. As she and Alex snuggled together after making love, and just as they were going to sleep, she told him the story of her brother Nate corresponding with someone in Scotland for most of his life. “My brother thinks we don’t know anything about it, but we all know. We’re pretty sure it’s our cousin Lachlan. He’s only a few years older than Nate and they get along well when we visit. Want to hear a big secret?”
Alex hoped she wasn’t feeling how hard his heart was beating. “Aye, lass, I would like to hear a secret. Just so it’s something good.”
“It is to us, but I doubt if you’ll think so. Nate calls his pen pal Merlin.”
“Does he?” Alex asked, trying to sound disinterested and sleepy. “And why does he call him that?”
“I don’t know. If anyone were called by a magician’s name, I’d think it would be Nate.” She could feel herself drifting into sleep. “I wonder what Merlin calls my scientific brother?”
When Alex felt Cay’s breath calm and knew she was asleep, he whispered, “Archimedes.”
The Scent of Jasmine Page 24