Garden Of Scandal

She didn’t want to put it to the test, and that was both irritating and depressing. “Oh, all right,” she told him, bending to snatch up her gloves he had dropped. “When do you want to go?”

“Now?” he said promptly.

He obviously thought she would back out if they waited. It was possible he was right, although the last thing she would do was admit it. “Let me tell Maisie, then.”

“I already told her,” he said and had the nerve to grin. Turning, he walked away toward where his Harley stood in the driveway.

She watched him go; watched the easy, confident swing of his long legs, the way his jeans clung to the tight, lean lines of his backside, the natural way he moved his arms as if he were comfortable with his body, comfortable in it. He expected her to follow, was supremely certain she would.

Of all the conceited, know-it-all, macho schemers she had ever seen, he took the prize. She would be damned if she would trot along behind him like some blushing Indian maiden, all hot and bothered because he wanted her company.

He turned, his smile warm, almost caressing, a little challenging as he held out his hand. “Coming?”

She went. She didn’t know why, but she did. It was better than being called chicken.

Alec didn’t give Laurel a chance to balk, but led her straight to the bike. He swung his leg over it, then held it steady with his feet on the ground either side while he helped her climb on behind. As she settled in place, he put her hand at his waist as a suggestion. She took it away the minute he released it, and he had to duck his head to hide his disappointment.

“It’s bigger than I thought,” she said, her voice a little breathless.

“You’ve never done this before?” he asked, grinning a little to himself at the private double entendre.

“Never.”

“First time for everything. Ready to get it on—the road?”

“Just do it and stop talking about it,” she said through her teeth.

He flung her a quick glance over his shoulder, wondering if she could possibly tell what was going on in his head. But no, her face was tight and she certainly wasn’t laughing. He turned the key, let the bike roar, then put it in gear.

She was holding on to the seat, but it wasn’t enough to keep her steady for his fast takeoff. With a small yelp, she grabbed for his waist, wrapping her arms around him and meshing her fingers over his solar plexus. He could feel her breasts pressed to his backbone—a lovely, warm softness. Her cheek fit between his shoulder blades. Perfect, he thought, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. Just perfect.

He settled back a little and decreased his speed. His passenger would like it better, no doubt. Besides, it would make for a longer ride. After a moment, he turned his head to yell, “Am I going too fast for you?”

“No, it’s fine,” she replied above the engine noise, but she didn’t sound too sure.

Still, he was good, the soul of restraint. He spun along the blacktop roads, took the turn onto the dirt-and-gravel track she indicated without a murmur or hesitation. He didn’t show off, held the bike dead straight. The only time he stopped was to look at the creek where it passed through culverts or under bridges in its winding passage toward Ivywild.

It was a decent-size stream, fed along its route by a number of springs, which kept the water fresh and clean. Several dry washes fed into it, which, he guessed, must run fairly high during spring and winter rains. It also carried the runoff from a series of low ridges that twisted and turned for quite a few miles. Dams had been built along its course for a pond or two, but they hadn’t slowed it down a great deal.

The creek would be fine for his purpose; he saw that much in short order. Tapping it for a fountain should not cause a problem with either landowners or environmentalists. And it certainly wasn’t as if Louisiana had any shortage of water. If the state could only find some way to pump it out west, it would be rich.

“I’ve seen enough,” he said as they idled beside a rusting iron culvert. “What shall we do now?”

“Go home,” she replied, the words definite.

He gave a slow nod. “Right. But first, I’d like to see where this road comes out.”

She said something in protest, he thought, but just then he gunned the bike into motion so he didn’t quite catch it.

It was a dirt road, a hard-beaten, sandy track that meandered through the woods. There were a few big old trees standing on nearly every rise, as if it had once been lined with houses. All this land had been farms back before the turn of the century, with pastures and fields stretching over the rolling hills as far as the eye could see. That was according to Grannie Callie, anyway. She could still remember a lot of the family names, could tell him who gave up and moved to town to work in the mill, who took off to Texas, who went away to the big war, World War II, and never came back. It was strange to think about all those people living and working, having children and dying here, and leaving nothing behind except the trees that had sheltered their lives.

“Turn around!” Laurel yelled into his ear. “We’ve got to go back!”

He nodded his understanding, but didn’t do it. Zipping around the tight curves of the unimproved road, passing from bright sun to dark tree shadow and into the sun again, he felt free and happy and lucky to be alive. He wouldn’t mind riding on forever. He couldn’t think when was the last time he had enjoyed anything so much as roaring along this back road with Laurel Bancroft clinging to him, bouncing against him as they hit the ruts, tethered together now and then by a long strand of her hair that wrapped around his arm like a fine, silken rope.

“Stop!” she shouted, shaking him so hard with her locked arms that the bike swerved. “This road cuts through to the main highway. We’re getting too close to town!”

She was right. There was an intersection ahead of them as they rounded the bend—one with a red octagonal stop sign. He could hit the brake right here and throw them into a skidding stop, or he could coast to a halt within spitting distance of the road where cars whizzed past. It wasn’t much of a choice with Laurel behind him. He coasted.

She was trembling; he could feel the tremors running through her and into his own body as he pulled up beside the stop sign. This fear of hers must have been coming on since they’d left her house. It was not a reasonable thing—not something she could control at will—or she would be doing just that instead of letting him know it. He grimaced, mouthing a soundless curse for his misjudgment.

“Which shall it be?” he asked over his shoulder in quiet concern. “A fast trip back to the house on the main road, or a slower one the way we came?”

There were cars passing in both directions in front of them. The occupants turned their heads to stare as they sat there. Laurel hid her face against his back. “The way we came,” she answered, her voice uneven. “Please. Right now.”

“You got it.” Swinging in a wide circle, he headed back.

She was okay by the time they pulled up in front of the house. At least she had stopped shaking. Regardless, she didn’t say a word, only jumped off the bike and stalked away. Cutting through the garden, she ran up the steps. The door slammed behind her.

Alec cursed softly as he struck the handlebar of his bike with a knotted fist. He was such an idiot. Why couldn’t he have paid attention? Why did he have to keep on when she’d said turn back? Things had been going so well.

He hadn’t realized. Even when he’d accused her of having a phobia, he hadn’t really believed it ran that deep. He had drawn her outside easily enough; somehow he had thought getting her to go the rest of the way would be the same.

But he recognized, as he sat staring at the garden in front of Ivywild, that the yard was fenced in, a small enclosed space almost like an extension of the house. She could only take that much, or so it seemed.

Seen in that light, the fact that she had gone with him on his bike at all was a near miracle. She’d trusted him more than he knew, had depended on him to take care of her, keep her hidden, secure.

He had let her down.

After today, he would be lucky if he ever got her out of that house again. Hell, he would be lucky if he still had a job.

Dear God, but he couldn’t stand it. He had been so close. Now he would have to start all over.

But he would do it. He would. His heart and mind left him no other choice.

4

Laurel stood grasping the handle of the front door, staring out the sidelight panes that surrounded it. Her husband’s mother was coming up the walk. Overweight and shaped like a pear, the older woman was graying to a color best described as “dirty mouse.” Her dress was a polyester tent, her shoes were too small for her wide feet, and she carried her mock alligator purse from the crook of her arm. She was searching the garden with darting glances. Her pale, formless lips were drawn into a tight line and mottled color lay across the grooved skin of her face.

Laurel’s heart throbbed at a suffocating tempo. Why, she wasn’t sure; it wasn’t as if the visit was unexpected. She was only surprised that her mother-in-law had waited until Maisie and Alec had gone for the day. It wasn’t like Sadie Bancroft to waste breath when there was no audience.

At that moment, Sticks came hurtling around from the back of the house, barking and growling as if at a sworn enemy. He very nearly was, since he had taken a dislike to Mother Bancroft as a puppy, after she’d kicked him for trying to chew the toes of her new shoes. There was little danger he would actually attack her, of course, but the older woman never saw it that way. She always squealed and ran from him as she was doing now, which naturally brought out the worst in the dog.

Laurel pulled the front door open and called off Sticks, then waited while her portly mother-in-law scurried up the steps and inside. As Sticks came loping up onto the veranda behind her, Laurel blocked his entrance, but gave him a reassuring scratch behind the ears to show she was not upset with him.

“Vicious animal,” Sadie Bancroft snapped from the safety of the long hallway. “I can’t imagine why you don’t have him put down!”

Laurel ignored the suggestion. Closing the door, she said as agreeably as she was able, “ How are you, Mother Bancroft? It’s been a while since you were here.”

“Too long, from the looks of things. What on God’s green earth have you been doing to the place?”

“Just a little clearing. You’ll have to admit things had gotten out of hand.”

“That’s no excuse for butchering everything,” the older woman said. “And don’t tell me you’ve been doing it yourself, either. I know very well that’s not so.”

She knew about Alec, then; Laurel had thought as much. At the same time, her mother-in-law couldn’t resist getting in a barb to suggest that Laurel was lazy, though it was one so old and often repeated, it no longer had the power to sting. Sadie had always resented the fact that Laurel had kept Maisie on after her two children were out of diapers. The older woman didn’t have household help, and saw no earthly reason Laurel should need any. Of course, she conveniently forgot that she herself had moved away from Ivywild, her husband’s old family home—with its huge rooms, hardwood floors that needed constant waxing and polishing, and antiques that collected dust—the minute it was clear he had deserted her and was never coming back.

The place had stood empty for years, until Laurel and Howard married. Mother Bancroft had been ecstatic that Laurel actually wanted to take on responsibility for the old barn of a building, though she naturally maintained a proprietary interest. Since this took the form of inspecting the premises and pointing out any laxity in upkeep with more accuracy than tact, she had never been a particularly welcome guest, even before Howard’s death.

“I wouldn’t dream of telling you anything,” Laurel muttered under her breath as she closed the door.

The other woman swung around. “What was that?”

“I said, would you like anything to drink? Coffee? Juice? Iced tea?”

“I never drink coffee or tea this late in the day, you know that. I don’t suppose you have any Perrier?”

“I don’t believe so,” Laurel said dryly.

“Forget it, then.” Mother Bancroft turned and marched into the parlor. She seated herself in an upright chair, crossed her thick ankles, then set her purse in her lap and closed her hands on it as if she thought someone might take it. “I can’t stay long,” she went on as if Laurel was pressing hospitality on her. “I only came because I feel it’s my duty to talk to you about this young man you have doing all this yard work.”

“You mean Alec Stanton?”

“Who else would I mean? You don’t have other young men hanging around, I hope?”

“No,” Laurel said simply. She had thought they’d slide easily into the inevitable discussion, but now she dropped down onto the overstuffed couch and waited to see how Howard’s mother meant to handle the subject.

“He’s got to go.”

That was certainly short and sweet. “I suppose you have a reason?”

“Several of them,” the other woman replied in tones of grim condemnation. “To begin with, it can’t be good for your reputation to have someone like him making free of the place.”

“I don’t think you can call it ‘making free’ when all he does is work.”

“He comes and goes as he pleases, riding that outlandish motorcycle like some kind of Hell’s Angel. Which is another thing. He’s not our kind at all.”

“And just what kind is he?” Laurel crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the couch.

“You have to ask, when it’s as plain as day? Just look at all that long hair and earrings.”

“One earring. A lot of men wear them these days.”

Her mother-in-law dismissed that without a pause. “If that’s not bad enough, there’s that disgusting tattoo he flashes for everybody to see!”

“Yes, and he’s from California, too,” Laurel said in dulcet and entirely false agreement.

“Exactly! Full of weird ideas of all kinds, I don’t doubt. Politics, religion—”

“Sex?” Laurel supplied helpfully. The word, she knew, was one her mother-in-law always had trouble saying.

Mother Bancroft’s indrawn breath was perfectly audible. “What do you know about that? What have the two of you been up to out here? I can just imagine it’s nothing good, with you being a widow and him a—I don’t know what!”

It had been so long since Laurel had felt the almost-painful anger that threaded through her veins. Voice taut, she said, “A nice-looking young man?”

Disgust squirmed across the other woman’s wrinkled features. “He has been up to something! I knew it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Laurel said sharply. “Nothing whatever is going on except that I’m reclaiming the front garden and planting it with roses, and Alec is giving me a hand with the heavy work. Well, he’s also going to paint the house, but—”

“There! You see?” the other woman exclaimed in triumph. “He’s moving in on you. He’ll find more and more to do around here until you won’t be able to get rid of him. The man’s a hustler, Laurel.”

“Oh, come on, that’s crazy.”

“Can’t you see it? Are you so naive you can’t tell from the way he acts and talks to you?”

“Apparently not. How is it that you know when you haven’t even met him?”

Sadie Bancroft breathed heavily through her bulbous nose, kneading her purse with fat, white fingers. “He’s got you under his spell, I can tell. This is awful. He’ll be climbing into your bed, if he hasn’t already. Then he’ll start asking for money. He’ll take every penny you’ve got.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Laurel snapped as the heat of indignation rose in her face.

“He will! He’s a gigolo, can’t you see it? He preys on lonely older women. You may not be as old as some he’s taken, but you keep to yourself out here, don’t have any friends, so you’re fair game. He’ll smile and pay you all sorts of compliments, but then he’ll screw you unless you get rid of him first.”

Laurel was startled her husband’s mother would use such a word, though not especially surprised she would think it. She was the kind of woman who kept the tabloid press in business; it was her favorite entertainment next to listening to television preachers and joining right-wing conservative letter-writing campaigns. For all her discomfort with talking about normal sex, she reveled in the salacious and bizarre, loved knowing people’s secrets, and positively enjoyed believing the worst about the best of people.

Her voice tight, Laurel retorted, “There’s not a word of truth to anything you’ve said. You just want to be sure I don’t change anything here at Ivywild, including myself. You would like to keep me from ever looking at another man.”

“Laurel!”

“It’s true. I’m supposed to bury myself here because Howard is dead.”

“Oh!” Mother Bancroft fell back with a hand to her chest. “How can you say such a thing to me?”

“Because it’s the way it is. You think I don’t know how you feel? You think I don’t realize that you want me shut up here as a punishment for causing Howard’s death? I’ve always known!”

“You’re getting hysterical, saying things you don’t mean—”

Was she? If so, it felt good. “I’m saying what should have been said a long time ago. You think I killed Howard on purpose and have been telling people so for years. You feel I should have gone to jail, that maybe I still should. Ivywild is a substitute, and you don’t care who you hurt so long as you keep me shut up here where I belong.”

The older woman came slowly erect. Eyes narrowing, she said, “All right, then, since you brought it up yourself. I know you murdered my Howard. You never were the right wife for him, not from the first. You thought you were better than my son—smarter, sharper—and you even made him believe it. You were always idle, always dreamy-eyed and artistic, reading or playing with that disgusting pottery mud out in the shed. What’s more, you were no proper mother to his children. I dread to think what Marcia and Evan will say when they hear what you’re up to now.”

“And you’ll make certain they do.” The pain in Laurel’s chest was sharp as she thought of her son and daughter hearing the ugly things coming from her mother-in-law’s mouth.

“They have a right to know,” the woman said, compressing her lips. “But you were never smarter than my Howard. And you’re sure not so smart now if you can’t see this Alec person for what he is.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know Alec or anything about him.”

“Any fool can figure it out. All you have to do is listen to the things his brother is saying all over town.”

Alec’s brother. Dread for what might be coming moved along Laurel’s nerves, though she refused to let Mother Bancroft see it. “And what is that?”

“Gregory Stanton told Zelda herself, down at the beauty shop, that this Alec of yours lived with an older woman out in San Francisco. Seems he started as her gardener, but wound up a lot more than that before it was over. She even married him, the silly fool. And when she died, she left him all her money.”

“No,” Laurel whispered. The protest lacked conviction. Howard’s sister, Zelda, was always the first to hear everything.

“Yes, indeed. Ask him if you don’t believe it. Just you ask him!”

There was gloating triumph in the other woman’s face. Laurel turned away from it since she couldn’t deny the rumors. How could she, when they had come from Alec’s brother, his brother who was dying?

When her mother-in-law had gone, Laurel wandered around the house, too disturbed to think of dinner, unable to settle anywhere. She didn’t want to believe what had been said about Alec, yet it made a terrible kind of sense. Why else would he appear out of nowhere to help her? What other reason could he have for slaving so hard? People didn’t do something for nothing—that had been one of Howard’s maxims. More often than not, it had turned out to be depressingly true.

She thought of Alec’s concern for her, and the appreciation she had seen in his eyes. Fake. Why should he feel such things for someone her age? No reason unless it was because he wanted something from her.

Laurel crossed her arms over her chest as she paced. She had almost believed him, almost let him get to her. She felt like such a stupid, sentimental fool.

He was gone, then. History. She would pay him for what he had done so far and send him on his way.

Yet that didn’t seem enough somehow. She wanted to pay him back for the ache of betrayal inside her, for making her feel things she didn’t want to feel, had never wanted to feel again.

Not that she was in love with him, or anything like that. How could she be? She hardly knew him.

But he had gotten to her. For him, she had taken a small step out of her protective isolation. She had almost been willing to risk a bigger one.

She was so angry. She could feel the rage simmering, circulating through her like a poison in her blood. How long had it been since she had felt that strongly about anything? She had almost forgotten what it was like. In a strange way, it felt good, as if she were really alive.

So much life inside her. Alec had said that. But he had been an old woman’s darling, a gigolo.

A gigolo. Was it really possible?

It must be, had to be. There was no other explanation.

She reached up to remove the elasticized cloth band that held her hair, dragging it free of the length and stuffing the band into her jeans pockets. She ran her fingers through the heavy strands as if that would help cool her temper. No, she wasn’t going to fire Alec Stanton. That wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t help her feelings one iota.

It would be much better if she let him work like a dog, doing all the things Ivywild required, then gave him nothing in return except his hard-earned wages. Let him charm and cajole; it would get him nowhere. Let him waste his time, thinking he had another gasping, panting older woman ready to fall into his arms. Then, when he was done, she would smile politely and send him on his way.

Fall into his arms. God, but what a thought. Was that really what he wanted of her? Maybe she could lead him on, just a little, just enough to…

No. How stupid could she get?

Still, it would make him think he had won, wouldn’t it? When she got rid of him later, he might feel as used and as enraged as she felt now.

Could she do it? Did she dare?

Probably not, but it was a fascinating thought. Entirely too fascinating. That should tell her something, but she wasn’t sure just what.

As she passed through the dining room, she caught sight of her reflection in the tall windows beyond the heavy mahogany table and chairs. It had grown dark outside without her noticing, turning the window into a mirror. In it, she looked pale and wild with her hair flying around her. Maybe it was a good thing her mother-in-law had come while Alec was not there, after all. If he saw her like this, he would think she was crazy.

Yes, and maybe he would be right. Moving to the window, she put her hand on her reflection, staring into her own glittering eyes. Then she lowered her lashes and bent her neck to let her forehead rest against the cool glass.

She didn’t want to feel like this, caught once more in pain and guilt and, yes, despair. She had gotten over all that, had been comfortable, almost, in her numbness.

Of course, she had not felt a great deal before Howard died, either. Hers had been a jailbreak marriage right out of high school; she had needed to get away from home, where her mother drank and screamed at her and her father. The irony was that her parents had died in a car wreck just seven weeks after the wedding.

Howard. Her heart felt heavy as she thought of him. He had loved her with silent, dogged devotion, and she had been grateful. Affection and compassion had kept her with him. Sometimes she had wondered about the grand, death-defying passion she read about in books but didn’t think she was capable of feeling.