Reluctantly, Alex pushed her thigh off his stomach. “Your brother is in the room next door, and with the noise you make, I don’t dare do anything with you.”
She put her leg back over him. “Since when are you afraid of Tally?”
“It’s Adam who’s next door.”
Cay removed her leg, opened her eyes, and lowered her voice. “In that case, what are you doing in here, and when did you take a bath?”
He put her head back on his shoulder. “I’ve been up all night talking to Nate.”
“Nate? My brother Nate?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“It’s just that Nate doesn’t talk to anyone. He’d rather watch and learn than give out information. So what did he tell you?”
“I wanted to know what Grady was told or figured out, but we can’t ask him until he gets back from the jungle.”
Cay knew Alex was stalling and waited for him to get to the important news. But she knew what he was going to say before he spoke because Alex’s arm tightened around her so she couldn’t move.
“Nate told me about Lilith.” When Cay started to roll away, Alex held her in place. “You’re going to have to hear this sooner or later, so you can let one of your brothers tell you, or you can hear it from me. Your choice.”
She knew that Alex would tell the story with more diplomacy than three of her brothers would. If Ethan had been there, she would have asked him to explain it all to her, but he wasn’t. Cay took a breath. “All right, tell me. But if we hear anyone at the door and we think it might be Adam, you have to go out the window.”
Alex smiled. “You do know that we’re on the fourth floor, don’t you?”
“If we were on the twelfth floor, you’d still have to go out that way. Neither your life nor mine would be worth anything if Adam were to find you in here with me.”
“Nate said almost the same thing, and that’s why he’s keeping Adam busy.”
Cay lifted her head to look at him. He was clean and had shaved, and she thought he was by far the most handsome man she’d ever seen. She’d never tell him, but she thought he was even better-looking than her brother Ethan. “You’ve certainly become friends with my brother in a short time.”
Alex put her head back down. “Do you want to hear the story or not? There’s only so long Nate can occupy Adam before your eldest brother gets suspicious.”
“Tell me,” she said and felt her body stiffen. She didn’t like to think about what she was going to hear. “Why is your . . .” She couldn’t say the word wife. “Why is that woman alive when so many people saw her with her throat cut?”
“That’s just it. Very few people saw her. On that night the only people who saw her were the judge, the doctor, and the two men who handcuffed me. After that, Lilith’s body was taken to the doctor’s office, where she was put in a coffin that was nailed shut, and she was buried three days later.”
“I take it she wasn’t inside the coffin,” Cay said, and wanted to add “more’s the pity.”
“No. What Nate found out was that the doctor was in on the whole scheme. He provided the drugs that were used to put me to sleep, and he wrote the note that was careful not to say that I had murdered my bride, but just that I could be found with her. The doctor threw the note through the judge’s window and woke him up. The doctor also got the policemen, and he led all of them to my room. But only the doctor actually looked closely at Lilith. The other three men were too busy throwing me to the floor and telling me that I was a first cousin to the devil. Even I only had a quick glimpse of Lilith. But what I saw has haunted me since that moment. That one look was enough.”
“I guess I should ask why she did such a horrible thing to you.”
“That part we don’t know and won’t know until I talk to her today.”
“Today?” There was fear in Cay’s voice.
Alex stroked her hair as he held her close. “Aye, today. Your brothers have three hired guards surrounding her now.”
“She knows you’re here?”
“No. She knows nothing. Since she’s so good at slipping away from people, your brothers thought it would be better not to warn her. They just hired men to follow her and watch everything she did, but not to let her see them. Your brothers want me to ‘surprise’ her.” Alex’s tone told what he thought of that.
Cay’s face lit up as she remembered something. “The doctor died. Didn’t you tell me that the doctor died of a heart attack?”
“Aye,” Alex said. “I like to think the man had enough of a conscience that the guilt over what he’d done to me killed him. Nate says he doesn’t think Lilith meant for me to be accused of her murder. He thinks she meant for the doctor to declare her death a suicide.”
Cay was aghast. “And that would have been better? All your life you would have been haunted by that. A woman killed herself rather than spend the night with you.”
Alex put his hand under her chin and lifted her face. The kiss he gave her told how grateful he was for her understanding.
She put her leg back over him—and he pushed it off. She sighed. “So you’re going to go see her today and ask her why she did such a rotten, horrible, devious thing to you and almost got you hanged?”
Alex chuckled. “I’m glad you’re on my side. But, aye, that’s just what I’m going to do.”
“If her plan was to fake her suicide, please be sure to ask her why she didn’t come to your rescue when she heard or read that you were about to be hanged for murdering her.”
“That question is at the top of my list.”
“Then what? You’ll . . .” She hesitated. “After you settle this, you can go back to Virginia with us.”
“No,” he said softly, “I can’t. I have to clear my name.”
“That’s easy. Just get someone to verify that she’s alive, have a lawyer present the paper to a judge in Charleston, and you’re free. My family will help you. My father knows lots of people, so you should have your sentence removed in no time at all. You . . .” She could tell by the way Alex was saying nothing that there was more. “All right, tell me all of it, even the part you’re hiding.” Her voice was heavy, dreading what she was going to hear.
“I can get the charges dropped, true, but I need for my name to be cleared.”
“You keep saying that, but exactly what do you mean?”
“I hope you never know what it’s like to go from thinking that you have many friends to finding out you have none. Before the day of my wedding, I would have sworn that I had some truly good friends. George told you how he and I used to go out drinking. I . . .” He paused for a moment. “The truth is, I thought I’d done some good things. I can’t tell you the number of betting debts that I forgave. If a man couldn’t afford what he’d lost, if he had a wife and children to support, I often said that I didn’t get his bet in time to post it and gave him his money back. There were many times when men slapped me on the back and told me I was a truly good person. It’s the way I conducted my life. And as for the women, I received many offers, but I never took up any of them. I didn’t want a husband chasing me with a gun, or have a father or brother angry at me for what I’d done to an innocent girl.”
Cay kissed his chest through his clean white shirt.
“I did what I could to earn friendship and respect,” Alex said. “But after Lilith was found dead in my bed, not one person, not one! stood up for me.”
“Except Uncle T.C.”
“Aye, except for him.”
Cay was trying to put together what he’d told her, and when she understood, she wanted to cry. “You want to go back to Charleston with . . . with her and show all those people that she’s still alive. A piece of paper and a quiet settlement aren’t enough for you.”
He gave her shoulder a hug. “You understand.”
“No. I just know you well enough to know that’s what you want to do.” She lifted up to put her head on her hand and looked at him. “I don’t want you to go.”
&nb
sp; “I have to.”
“No, you don’t, and I’m asking you not to. At least don’t go alone. Adam will go with you.”
“Nate is going with me.”
“Nate?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why is he talking to you so much? Nate doesn’t make friends easily.”
“There’s more to this than just the murder. Did you forget that?”
Cay was well aware that Alex hadn’t answered her question about Nate and had changed the subject. She knew what Alex meant. She fell back onto the pillow. “Marriage. If she’s alive, then you’re still married.”
“Exactly. Nate and I think that if a judge is told what Lilith did to me, he’ll declare the marriage invalid right there.”
“An annulment.”
“Aye, a legal decree that says the marriage never existed. The whole country knows it wasn’t consummated.”
She turned to look at him. “I am going with you.”
“No, you’re not! You’re going back to Edilean with Adam and Tally. It’s already been settled.”
“And who did the ‘settling’?”
“Don’t look at me like that. Nate and I talked about everything all night long, and we decided that this is the best way. You’re to go to Virginia and wait for me there.”
“Wait, am I?” Her voice was rising. “I guess I’m supposed to strap on a corset, put on a pretty dress, get into a carriage, and go back to my mother in Virginia.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Alex said firmly. “And I’m not going to argue with you about this. You cannot go with me to Charleston.”
“‘Her eyes met mine, and I was hers,’” she quoted.
“What?”
“That’s what you said. I asked you if you loved her and you said, ‘With all my heart and soul.’ Then you said that you loved her in the first moment you saw her, and that when your eyes met, you were hers.”
Alex snorted. “I’m sure I never said such a ridiculous thing in my life. A man doesn’t talk that way. It’s too . . . too flowery. Now, if I had jasmine in my hair . . .” His eyes darkened and he rolled toward her, obviously meaning to kiss her.
She put her hands on his chest and pushed. “If you think you’re going to distract me, Alexander McDowell, you have another think coming. So help me, if you don’t answer my questions, I’ll scream, and you can bet my brother will come through that door—or through the wall if he has to.”
With a sigh, Alex lay back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. “I’m not going to fall back in love with her, if that’s what you’re worried about. This is about justice and trying to make myself whole again. I’ll never get rid of the stench of that prison from my mind, but I’m going to do the best I can. Did I tell you that they threw rocks at me on the way to the courtroom?”
“At least fifty times. What I want to know about is your stupid plan of going back to Charleston and living with a woman you are madly in love with.”
“I’m not going to live with her, and I’m no longer in love with her.” Turning, he looked at Cay. “I’m in love with someone else.”
She glared at him. “Don’t even consider saying what I think you’re about to. You’re a married man.”
Alex sat up in bed and glared down at her. “That’s what I’ve been saying! It’s what I’m trying to explain to you! I have to get myself cleared of murder charges, and I have to get out of being married to her. Are you daft, girl, that you can’t hear the simplest thing?”
“I can hear you and so can half the people in this hotel.”
Alex fell back onto the pillow, shaking his head in frustration. “If any man in the world actually knew what it was like to be married, he’d never do it.” Turning, he looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “You can’t go with me because I don’t want your name tainted. If I show up in Charleston with you on one arm and Lilith on the other, no matter what the truth is, people will say that you are the reason she had to fake her own death. People will look for something to prove that they weren’t the fools and morons that they were. When they find out that they condemned an innocent man to death, they’re going to search for a reason to forgive themselves. If they see another woman with me they’ll blame her—you.”
“But I didn’t meet you until after the verdict came in.”
“Do you think they’re going to believe that? You were in Charleston and your godfather was my only visitor. And are you forgetting that you were seen helping me escape? I know your family cleared your name legally, but no one will believe that anyone was innocently gullible enough to agree to help an escaped convict who she’d never even met. That’s more than enough ammunition for them to make up stories about my having another woman. They said that the only reason I married Lilith was for the money she was supposed to inherit. They even wrote that in the newspapers. Nate has proof that Lilith isn’t old lady Underwood’s niece, but do you think people will believe that?”
“They’ll see you had no ulterior motive for marrying her. Besides, I am the rich one,” Cay said. “She’s poor, but I’m rich, so if you were after any woman for her money, it would be me.”
Alex lifted his hands in frustration. “That’s perfect. They’ll say that when I found out Lilith wasn’t rich, I looked for a woman who was. They’ll say that I made Lilith’s life so miserable she had to fake her own death to get away from me.”
Cay frowned. “And no doubt people will look at that woman and at me, and they’ll decide that the only possible reason you’d chosen me was because of my family’s money.”
“Aye, they will,” Alex said. “They’ll take one look at that dirty hair of yours, and your face, which is usually streaked with swamp mud, and they’ll never understand why I prefer you over a renown beauty like Lilith.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I think you should feel so certain of me that you know I could walk into a room full of naked women and all I’d think about was you.”
“Even I know that in New Orleans that’s possible, so I’d better not hear from Nate that you decided to test that theory.”
When Alex was silent, Cay tried to come up with a logical reason of why she must go with him, but she couldn’t think of one. All she felt was blinding, heart-piercing emotion. “You are in love with her. You’re deeply and passionately in love with her. I know you are.”
“No, I’m not. I hardly know her.”
“You told me a person doesn’t have to know everything about someone to be in love with her or him. You even made fun of my lists. That woman makes your blood boil! You said so yourself.”
“And may I cut out my tongue for having done so,” Alex said. “Cay, lass, don’t you know what I’ve learned in these last weeks? What you have taught me? I’ve learned that love is more than just passion. It’s caring about someone, knowing her, and overlooking her faults because you love her so very much. It’s more than just looking at a beautiful woman with a glorious bosom and thinking that you’ll die if you don’t go to bed with her. It’s—” One glance at Cay’s face told him that he’d made a mistake.
Cay got out of the bed and stood by it, looking down at him. She was wearing her dirty boy’s clothes, and she could feel the grime in her hair, but Alex was fresh and clean. “So you’re saying that I have faults while she has a . . . What did you say? A ‘glorious bosom.’ And she’s beautiful, is she? Always well dressed, is she?”
Alex put his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. He knew he was in for a bout of Cay’s anger and he’d just have to wait it out.
“I’ll have you know that when I met you I was well dressed. I had on a silk gown that cost more than some houses, and I had diamonds in my hair. Does your wife”—she sneered the word—“have diamonds to wear in her hair? And the reason I’ve had to wear boy’s clothing and bind my not so ‘glorious’ bosom has been to save your worthless, ungrateful neck. Maybe you think all women should prance around in silk and ribbons, bu
t I couldn’t because you needed my help. Did your precious Lilith ever help you? No, she did not. She was the reason people threw rocks at you. Might I remind you that if it hadn’t been for me, you would be dead now.”
Alex sighed, his eyes still on the ceiling. “You’re not going with me and that’s final.”
Cay flopped down on the bed beside him, all her anger gone. “I could wear boy’s clothes that you’ve now decided you despise. I won’t be the great beauty that that woman is, but I’d be there with you.”
“No,” Alex said as he swung off the bed and stood up. “You’re going to go back to Virginia and stay there. When this mess is finished, I’ll . . .” He looked at her.
“You’ll what? Come for me? Did you ever think that while you’re with her I might meet a man who also has some glorious body parts, and I’ll run off to a plantation in Florida with him?”
Alex gave an amused half smile. “And which body parts would that be, lass?”
“The one you love the best,” she shot back at him.
Alex frowned. He’d thought she meant a man’s face, but she was talking about going to bed with other men. “You must do what you think is right,” he said tightly.
Cay went up to her knees and threw her arms around his neck. “Alex, don’t leave me behind. You and I have been through so much together, and we’ve stood it all. This is just one of those times.”
Alex held her tightly. “Do you think I want to go without you? I can’t imagine waking up without you there. In those days when you were in Eli’s tent, I thought I was going to go mad.”
“That was just Tim’s snores driving you crazy,” she said, her face nuzzled in his neck.
“No,” he said softly. “It was more than that. You make me whole.”
“You mean because you lost so much in the trial? I know I make you laugh.”
“You make me . . .” He pulled her arms from around his neck so he could look at her. “You’re correct when you say that now I have no right to tell you what I feel about you and what I hope will happen between us. Right now I’m a married man and I’m still hunted by the law. Until I can come to you pure, and clean, I can’t allow myself to say all the things I want to, to tell you what you mean to me.”
The Scent of Jasmine Page 27