Garden Of Scandal

“Yeah, well, there’s always that part.”

He tilted his head. “So she’s hiding out. But why, if she really didn’t mean to do it?”

“You want to know that, you’ll have to ask her.”

Maisie was avoiding his gaze. Alec wondered why. “Think she’ll tell me?”

“Might.” The older woman stood and began stacking dishes. “Depends maybe on how you go about it and why you want to know.” She walked off with her load, leaving him to himself.

Alec sat on for a few minutes, drinking water as the ice melted in his glass, and gazing out over the garden at what he had done and what he still needed to do. From up here, he could see the outlines, barely, of what had been a typical front yard in the old days. It had been fenced with white pickets to keep out the cows that ranged freely back then, with a gate accessing the driveway, which passed in front of the house, then made a sharp right turn into the garage that was separate from the house. A straight brick sidewalk cut from the front gate to the steps, and curving walkways followed the oval ends of the house around toward the back.

Planting had apparently been haphazard, except for the great treelike camellias and Cape jasmine at the fence corners and the roses along the pickets and over the arbors above the gates. He had found evidence of bulbs of all kinds everywhere, from daffodils and iris to licoris. Originally, the soil between the plantings would have been swept clean of every blade of grass and raked in patterns. Sometime in the forties or fifties, probably, Saint Augustine grass had been planted in the open spots. There were still patches of the thick sod here and there, although the rest was choked with weeds and briers and enough saplings to stock a small forest.

And he had to get after it. He drained his glass, picked up his sweat-damp gloves and went back to work.

Maisie left in the middle of the afternoon, flipping him a quick wave as she drove off in her old boat of a car. He dug up the tough tubers of a mass of saw briers that were trying to climb a column while he allowed a little time to pass. When he thought it might not look too much like he had waited for the housekeeper to leave before storming the house, he pulled his discarded shirt back on, then went and gave the antique brass doorbell a quick twist.

The harsh, discordant sound rang through the house, and from around back, Laurel’s German shepherd, smart dog that he was, started barking immediately. Earlier, Alec had seen Sticks shut up on the porch. The two of them had eyed each other through the screen. Leaning against the doorjamb now, Alec wondered whether Laurel Bancroft was protecting him from the dog or the dog from him.

Laurel didn’t want to answer the door. She felt threatened, almost beleaguered inside her own house. She wished she had never mentioned the garden to Maisie, then this Alec Stanton would never have shown up. She could have gone on as she had been for nearly five years, in comfortable solitude with little contact with the outside world beyond her housekeeper, her grown children, and the man who drove the brown truck that brought her mail-order purchases.

Catalogs had become her lifelines to the world. It was a catalog of antique roses from a place in Texas that had started her thinking about the garden again after all this time. Now look where it had gotten her.

It was a strange blend of fear and irritation that made her snatch open the front door after the third ring. Her voice sounding distinctly tight and unwelcoming, she said, “Yes?”

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” the dark-haired man who leaned on the doorjamb said, “but I needed to ask a couple of questions.”

He wasn’t sorry at all; she could see that. What she couldn’t see was why he couldn’t have come to the door before Maisie left. The urge to slam it in his face was so strong, a tremor ran down her arm. The main thing stopping her was the suspicion that he might prevent it if she tried.

Through compressed lips, she asked, “What is it?”

“I wondered if you could show me where you want your fountain? And it would help if I had some idea how you’d like to lay out the rose beds you mentioned. Plus, I’m not exactly sure what to save and what to get rid of.”

She glanced at the yard beyond him with a doubtful frown. “Surely you haven’t got as far as all that? I thought you were just clearing and cleaning.”

He smiled, a lazy movement of sensuously molded lips that made her breath catch in her throat. “It always helps to have a plan. Would you mind stepping out here just a minute to tell me a couple of things?”

How could she refuse such a polite and reasonable request? It was obviously impossible. In any case, she was intrigued by the clear line of sight he had created by fighting back the growth along the sidewalk from the steps to the gate. It had seemed a great distance between the two points before, when trees and brush had choked the passage and obscured the view. Now it appeared to be only a few yards.

Before she knew it, she had moved across the porch and down onto the brick path. Alec was talking, pointing out dying jonquil foliage along the walk, asking if she wanted to leave the yellow jasmine vine that had woven its way through a huge spirea near the side gate, and a dozen other questions.

She answered, yet she was painfully aware of being outside in the afternoon sun, exposed and vulnerable to another human being. At the same time, she felt a rising excitement. She could almost see the garden she had envisioned emerging from the shambles around her. In a single day, this man had laid bare the form of the front yard so she could tell how things used to be and how she wanted them again.

Roses. She wanted roses. Not the stiff, formal, near-perfect hybrid blooms everyone thought of when they heard the word, but rather the old Chinas, teas, Bourbons and Gallicas of years gone by. They were survivors, those roses. They had been rescued from cemeteries and around the foundations of deserted houses where they’d been growing, neglected, for countless years. Tough, hardy, they clung to life. Then in early spring, and even through the searing heat of summer and into fall, they unfurled blooms of intricate, fragile beauty, pouring their sweet perfume into the air as if sharing their souls.

Standing in the center of the front garden, Laurel said, “I’d like the fountain here, with the path running around it on either side, then on to the steps. I thought maybe an edging of low boxwood of the kind they have in French gardens would be good, with a few perennials like Bath’s pinks, blue Salvia and Shasta daisies. Beyond that, just roses and more roses.”

She glanced at Alec, half afraid she might have spoken too extravagantly. He was watching her with consideration in the midnight darkness of his eyes and a faint smile hovering at one corner of his mouth. For long moments, he made no answer. Then, as if suddenly becoming aware of her gaze, he gave a quick nod. “I can do that.”

“You think it will work?”

“I think it will be perfect.”

He sounded sincere, but she could hardly take it on trust. “You’re only saying that because you can see it will take weeks of work.”

His smile faded. “I wouldn’t do that. Actually, what I am is relieved. I was afraid you were going to want big maintenance-free beds of junipers all neatened up with chunky bark mulch.”

She made a quick face. “Too West Coast subdivision.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, his eyes warm and steady.

For a fleeting instant, she felt such a strong rapport with the man beside her that she was amazed. They were nothing alike, had little in common as far as background, yet they seemed in that moment to be operating on the same wavelength.

Perhaps this would work, after all. Just so long, of course, as they kept it simple and businesslike. She not only wanted this garden, she needed it. She had come to think, lately, that without it she might go into her house one day and never come out again.

“Let me show you something around here,” Alec said, intruding on her thoughts. Turning, he led the way toward the back of the house where the old outdoor kitchen had been before it was moved inside just before World War II. Her footsteps slowed as she saw where he was headed.

He kicked aside a tangle of brier and weeds, which he had apparently hacked down earlier at the house corner. Underneath was a low brick curbing covered by a large concrete cap. Moving with quick efficiency and lithe strength, he bent and lifted the heavy concrete cover. It made a harsh grating noise as he shoved it from the curbing.

“Don’t!” she cried, stepping back.

He straightened, putting his fists on his hips. “You know what this is?”

“A cistern, of course,” she answered, incensed. “But my husband never—That is, he always said it was extremely dangerous. No one ever goes near it.”

Alec frowned. “It’s just a brick-lined hole in the ground. There’s not even any water in it anymore.”

“Howard was always afraid somebody, one of the kids, would fall in.”

“Then he should have filled it in. But it could be used now as a reflecting pool, if you wanted. It wouldn’t take much to seal the brick lining, make it watertight.”

“It would be so deep,” she protested.

“So’s a swimming pool,” he offered with a shrug, “but that doesn’t stop people from having them. Anyway, it’s not as if there are any kids toddling around to fall in.”

She shook her head, suppressing a shiver. “I’d rather not.”

“Suit yourself. It was just an idea.”

He was disappointed, she thought. The enthusiasm had died out of his face and his movements were stiff as he replaced the heavy concrete cap. Abruptly, she asked, “Did you see the creek?”

“I saw where one crosses the road below here. That it?”

Nodding, she led him toward the winding waterway that ran behind Ivywild, gliding among tall beeches, sweet bay trees and glades of ferns. She was halfway there before it came home to her what she was doing. She had actually left the fenced-in yard. She was moving farther away from the safety and comfort it represented with every step. How long had it been since she had done that so easily?

A shiver moved over her and the skin on the back of her neck prickled. She felt naked, as if she had deliberately abandoned her protective covering. Panic rose inside her, but she choked it down, breathing slowly in and out.

She would be all right—she would. The wide shoulders and hard body of the man at her side spelled protection. He was solid, like a wall or fence that stood between her and whatever danger might lie around her. She had felt it the night before, felt it even more strongly now.