The Scent of Jasmine (Edilean 4)

It was late, and someone was knocking on Adam’s door, and he felt sure it was Alexander McDowell.

“Is she gone?” Alex asked as he stepped inside Adam’s room.

“Yes. Cay left for Edilean with Tally this morning. Nate is waiting to help you in whatever needs to be done. Cay wanted to stay, but we all think it’s better that she be with our family now.” Adam did his best to think and act in a rational manner, but he couldn’t help himself. “What in the hell were you thinking when you kissed that woman in front of Cay?”

Alex sat down heavily on a chair. He looked as though he’d aged twenty years in one day. “First of all, I didn’t know Cay was hiding in the room. I told her—” He ran his hand over his eyes. “That I’d told her she couldn’t go should have made me know that she’d be there.”

Some of Adam’s anger left him; that was exactly like his sister. “So why did you kiss a woman who’d done what she did to you?”

“I don’t know. I think it was relief that she was alive and not dead, which meant that the nightmare of my life was going to end. A thousand things went through my mind.”

“Cay . . .” Adam was torn between wanting to shout at the man and feeling sympathy for him. But if there was one thing he knew, it was that Alex loved Cay. He’d seen it. Their love for each other was so strong a person could almost touch it. “Are you in love with your wife?”

Shaking his head, Alex gave a derogatory little laugh. “I’d never spent a whole day with her, and after today, I don’t know how I ever believed I was in love with her. Cay told me I was a fool for marrying someone I didn’t know, and she was right.”

“I saw her, and her beauty dazzles a man.”

“Aye, it does. That she wanted me made me feel that I had been given some great honor. But she also made me feel that I needed to earn masses of money so I could give her everything, houses, carriages, beautiful clothes. I wanted to give all that I could to her.”

“She isn’t like my little sister?” There was curiosity in Adam’s voice.

Alex smiled. “Cay couldn’t be more different. I think that if I told her I wanted to set up housekeeping on the moon, Cay would start packing.”

“I always knew that if she fell in love, it would be hard.”

“So she wasn’t in love with her three men?”

Smiling, Adam sat down on a chair across from Alex. “It was me who persuaded our father to let her go to Charleston to have some time to think about her three marriage proposals. I wanted her to meet some other people, to see new places. I hoped that time and distance would make her forget those men she was thinking about marrying.” Adam got up and poured two glasses full of single malt MacTarvit Scotch and handed one to Alex. “Did she tell you about the Daisies?”

“Never heard of them.”

“Several of my father’s friends, your father’s friends, too, settled in Edilean, and got married. By chance, there were five baby girls born in the same year as Cay, and as they grew up, they became fast friends. When they were eight, they announced that they were going to call themselves The Chain because their friendship was as strong as steel. I think the idea came from Jess, the daughter of Naps and Tabitha who . . .” Adam waved his hand in dismissal. “If you knew them, you’d understand. Anyway, Tally heard this decree and said they were more like a chain of daisies than of steel. The name stuck. The five girls are still the best of friends, and we all call them the Daisies.”

“All Cay talked about was her brothers,” Alex said. “Night and day, it was all about the four of you. I didn’t hear anything about her friends, except about one of them having ten brothers and

sisters, and parents with a bad marriage. She said the daughter stayed at her house all the time to escape her home.” Alex also remembered what Cay had told him about a girl named Jessica and her tongue, but he didn’t say that.

“That would be Jess. Yes, her parents fight a lot, but Jess stays at our house because my sister rolls out the red carpet for her. Dresses, riding, schooling. Whatever Jess wants, Cay gives it to her.”

“That sounds like her.” Alex was smiling.

“Are you hungry? I haven’t had dinner. I could order something to be brought up. I figure you have a lot to tell me, and we can do it just as well over dinner.”

“That sounds good,” Alex said. He got up to look out the window as Adam pulled a cord on the wall and a white-coated steward appeared. Alex knew he was being given time to relax because Adam wanted all the information he could get, and he felt sure that Adam had some decrees of his own to make. Alex suspected that Adam was going to tell him that he couldn’t see Cay again until the mess about Lilith was finished. Marriage, murder, all of it had to be done with and behind him before Alex could see Cay again. That was all right, because that was the same decision Alex had reached.

The two men didn’t talk much until the food arrived, and they sat down to eat. Adam held out a plate of brussels sprouts and his eyes told Alex that it was time for him to start talking.

There was so much to tell that Alex wasn’t sure where to start. “I’m not married.”

“Oh?” Adam asked.

“The woman who walked down the aisle to me has a husband living in England. It seems that she murdered her husband’s nephew, his heir, and I was used as a way for her to get out of being arrested. When she was living in Charleston, she discovered that some men were searching for her, so she came up with the plan to fake her own death in a very public way. She thought the men would report back to the English authorities that she was dead, then she’d be free to change her name again and . . .” He waved his hand. “I have no idea what she planned to do.”

Alex took a few bites. “As soon as she told me she had a living husband, I took her to a judge here in New Orleans. I can tell you that that was no mean feat to get her there.” Alex took a bite of food and chewed slowly. It was difficult to tell all that he’d learned in the last day. “The judge told us that if all two people had to do was swear that one of them was still married to someone else and thereby their marriage would be dissolved, there wouldn’t be even one marriage left in this country. He said, ‘I need proof! If she was married in England, then go to England and get me some documents. I want papers with seals on them. Gold seals. Just so I believe all of it.’”

“So you have to go back to England with her?”

“If I want all this horror taken from my life, yes I do.” Alex took a deep breath. “I think that all I’ve been through because of that woman has taken away my ability to feel pity—at least for her.” Alex took a bite of his steak and waited before speaking again. He was determined to get his anger under control.