Whisper of Jasmine (4 page)

“I told you, you’re just a dream. A gorgeous, wonderful dream.”

He pointed behind them to where their shadows stretched along the rooftop, dark whispers against the silvery moonlight.

“Can a dream cast a shadow? I’ve got one, the same as you.”

“Maybe you’re not a dream. Maybe you’re Peter Pan and some unfortunate girl stuck that shadow on for you with a bit of soap.”

He shook his head. “Not on, pet. Remember? The soap didn’t work. Wendy had to sew it. That’s how she got involved with Peter in the first place. She let him into the window and after they talked she went away with him.”

“She had been warned never to speak to him. He was dangerous,” Evie reminded him.

“But Wendy had the adventure of a lifetime,” he countered.

Evie shook her head. “You’re just a dream. A figment,” she said stubbornly.

He thought a moment. “Have you ever been properly kissed? I mean really, thoroughly, knee-shatteringly kissed?”

“No. Never.”

“Then how on earth could you dream this?” Before she could reply he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. He left them there, warming them against her softness before he slid his arms completely around her and pulled her body fully against his. She made a soft sound, like the wind murmuring in the trees before a storm, and before she knew what she was doing, she was kissing him back, her hands tangled in his hair, her thigh trapped between his.

At last he pulled back and Evie stared at him with eyes that would never look at anything the same way again. She reached up and traced the line of his cheek. Then, without warning, she pinched hard, twisting until he clapped his hand over hers.

“Jesus, love, if you don’t want to be kissed you could just tell a fellow,” he said, his tone surprisingly light for a man who’d just been modestly assaulted. He rubbed ruefully at the spot. “I’ll wager that’s going to leave a mark.”

She reached up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry. I just had to know. You do seem rather like a dream, and I had to be entirely certain—
ow!
” She rubbed at her bottom, swatting his hand away. “What on earth was that for?”

“It’s the dreamer who gets pinched,” he supplied helpfully. “Not the figment. Now, do you feel properly awake, or shall I try again?”

She dodged his eager hands. “That’s quite enough of that! No, I suppose you are real enough. I just can’t quite believe it. It seems enchanted up here, doesn’t it?”

Together they looked out over the city that stretched before them as far as they could see. A few low clouds had rolled in, roundbellied and threatening snow, but the stars still shone. The bell tower of the church across the square rose into the night sky, the clock face silver in the moonlight, and beyond was a landscape of rooftops and chimneypots, light blazing from every window as the minutes counted down to midnight.

“Oh, bless them,” Evie breathed.

“Bless whom?”

“All of them,” she said, throwing her arms wide as if to embrace the whole city. “They don’t care there’s a war on. They mean to welcome 1915 and show the kaiser they won’t be beat. I love them for it.” She turned to him, her eyes anxious. “What about you? Will you go?”

“Not yet,” he told her, edging as close to the truth as he dared. “I am hoping to head an expedition to China soon. I’m attempting the Karakorum range again.”

“But surely—” she stopped, feeling heat rise in her cheeks.

“Surely I mean to enlist as there’s a war on?” he asked. He quirked his brow as he put the question to her and Evie felt a little thrust of admiration.

“Oh, how do you do that? I’ve always wanted to cock one brow like that. I used to practise in the mirror until one of my aunts caught me at it and asked if I was mentally feeble.”

“Rather unkind,” Gabriel said. He didn’t like the notion of anyone not appreciating every particle of her charming originality. She was his; she had all but agreed to it, and he felt a keen proprietorial interest in everything about her.

“She didn’t mean to be unkind. She simply wasn’t accustomed to young people. Poor lamb—it was rather a shock when I turned up to live with her. But she did take it well enough in the end. She clothed and fed me and made certain I learnt maths and prepositions. Do I mean prepositions? Maybe it was adverbs I learnt from her.”

Gabriel followed the willow-the-wisp darting of her conversation as if he were chasing a butterfly. He was grateful to her for leaving off the subject of the war. It pierced him to know there were things he could not tell her, could never tell her. If there was a moment, could ever have been a moment, it passed swiftly before the stream of words. With a rush of tenderness, he realised she was nervous. He put a hand over hers, calming and stilling the flood of words.

“It’s going to be all right, Evie.”

Her eyes were wide. “Do you think so?”

“I promise. I will do everything in my power to make you happy. I can make you happy. If I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t be up here with you, saying these things I can’t seem to stop myself from saying.”

“I’m not worried about being happy,” she told him. “Because you’re talking nonsense and I know you are. None of this is real. I’m only worried about fairies.”

Her expression was so serious; he smothered the urge to laugh. “Fairies?”

“Not real fairies, of course. I mean, they might flit about in Peter Pan’s adventures, but I have grown up a little more than that,” she said, her voice ever so slightly indignant that he might think her a trifle young for her nineteen years. “Do you know what the word
fey
means?”

He shrugged. “It’s a Scots word, isn’t it? Something to do with fairies?”

“It means a sort of grand happiness, a joy so indescribable that it must be followed by a terrible calamity.”

He began to understand, and he enfolded her in his arms. “I see, pet. You’re worried it’s all too wonderful, is that it? That we should have found each other like this, on this night?”

She tipped back her head to look from his silvered face to the moon. “It’s like something in a romantic novel. There’s a war on and it’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m wearing my first Worth gown in the moonlight. And there’s you. I shouldn’t tell you because it isn’t modest or proper, but I think you’re marvelous. You’re handsome and debonair and you’ve the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen on a man. Actually, you’ve the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen anywhere. And for you to...” she hesitated then plunged on, “for you to want me, too, it’s just too unbelievable. It’s all too perfect. You’re too perfect.”

Again he suppressed the urge to laugh. “My darling girl, I wouldn’t tread on your feelings for all the world, but someday, when we’re both more than forty, I’m going to remind you of this night when we found each other for the first time and you thought I must be perfect.”

“Aren’t you?” she demanded.

“Not a bit. In fact, I’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with me. To begin with, I’m poor. Not so you’d notice if you met me at my club, but as our acquaintance will be far more intimate, you will come to know precisely how badly fixed I am. I live by my wits. I can be lazy, and when I get stuck into a good book, I’ve been known to anger many a society hostess by crying off an engagement and ruining the numbers.”

“That’s hardly a character flaw,” Evie put in.

“It is when you’re a hostess with seven women and six men and I’ve just telephoned with the news that I simply cannot be bothered to put on trousers and come round for dinner.”

“What else?” Evie prodded.

“I gamble a little, I swear too much. I have occasionally known the company of light women.”

“You aren’t supposed to tell me that!” she protested. “A gentleman never speaks of such things.”

“Then I’m not a very good gentleman. Add that to the list of my sins,” he told her. “I do not like to talk first thing in the morning. I am too fond of a hot bath and not fond enough of my family. In fact, I loathe them.”

“If this weren’t a dream and you were serious about marrying me, would your family like me?”

“Absolutely not. Everything I do comes under criticism, and marrying you will only confirm to them that I am a feckless black sheep unworthy of the Starke name.”

“What if they refused to come to the wedding?” she asked in mock horror.

“We shouldn’t give them a chance to refuse. I would carry you off to be eloped with.”

“An elopement!” Her eyes shone in the moonlight. “How romantic.”

“And practical,” he added. “No awkward conversations with disapproving relations on your side who want to ask difficult questions about my means.”

“There would be no one to ask. All of the relations are gone except Aunt Dove, and she would be utterly thrilled. She’s always after me to do something interesting. I suppose eloping with you would fall neatly into that category.”

“Aunt Dove? I like her already.”

“Men always do,” Evie said darkly. She reached up to stroke his jaw. “Such a nice, firm jaw. I’m glad I dreamt this jaw. I could never love a man with a weak chin.”

“Well, then, lucky for me I had the good sense to be born with a strong one,” he told her. He bent his head and kissed her more, and after a long while, she shivered deliciously in his arms.

“That was…I’m sorry. I don’t have words for that. I ought to read poetry and find some.”

“I can give you poetry enough for both of us,” he murmured into her ear. “A little Donne, I think.” He matched his caresses to the words, licensing his hands to go a-roving, and Evie repaid him with little cries and a thoroughly uninhibited response. When he’d finished, she stared at him with glazed eyes, her lids heavy and her lips parted as she composed herself.

Gabriel himself was looking slightly dazed as he adjusted her stockings. He had been right to call her delectable. There wasn’t a square inch of her that wasn’t lovely and willing and utterly intoxicating.

“God, you smell intoxicating.”

“It’s jasmine,” she said dreamily.

“It reminds me of Damascus,” he told her, brushing the tip of his nose against her skin as he inhaled her. “Oh, I definitely think an elopement is in order,” he muttered. “The sooner I get you all to myself, the better.”

She gazed up at him adoringly. “If we eloped, would we be doing many more things like that?”

“Many, many more,” he promised, and she sighed in response.

He finished making her presentable and made a few adjustments to his own attire—Evie had managed to wrench his necktie free from its neat bow with surprising vigour—and took her by the hand.

“Come on, pet. It’s time we left.”

“Oh, no, wait!” she cried, pointing to the church clock tower. “It’s almost midnight. Let’s stay until then. I want to start 1915 with you. Then I can say I knew you last year.”

He smiled and noticed that the neighbours’ orchestra had struck up “
Salut d’amour
” again. He pulled her into another dance.

“I don’t even know your name,” he murmured into her hair.

“Evangeline. Evangeline Merryweather.”

“Evangeline Starke has a nicer ring to it, don’t you think?”

She laughed, but he pulled back and looked her squarely in the eye. “I’m dead serious, you know. I imagine I’ll make a rotten husband, but I know I’d be better with you than with anyone else.”

She laughed again. “How can you possibly know a thing like that?”

“Because I want to. Believe me, it’s a shock to me, as well. I’ve never considered being anyone’s husband before.”

She gave him a suspicious glance. “You haven’t had too much of Delilah’s punch have you? Rumour has it she has voodoo spells and love potions from New Orleans. I wouldn’t put it past her to have tipped something into the punch.”

“I took one sip and poured the rest into a plant. I’m sober as the pope. And I meant every word. I want to marry you.”

Evie didn’t answer directly. “You still haven’t told me your name. I heard Starke, but what else?”

“Gabriel. Gabriel Wilberforce Starke.”

“Now I know you come from a good family. No one but a gentleman’s parents would saddle him with a name like Wilberforce.”

“Could you marry a Wilberforce?”

She opened her mouth to laugh again, but something in his expression stopped her. She went very still in his arms.

“Oh, my heavens. You’re serious. This isn’t just some New Year’s fancy of yours, is it? You really want to marry me.”

She stopped dancing and they were simply standing, very close, wrapped in one another against the chill of the starry night.

“I am serious, Evie. Serious in a way I’ve never been in the whole of my life about anything.”

“How did you know to call me Evie? I never told you.”

“I’ve always known you. It just took me awhile to find you.”

She put her lips against his. She didn’t need to say the word
yes. Yes
was in every caress, every sigh, every whisper of her skin against his.

He began to move again, leading her into a dance until the clock began to strike.

“This is it,” she said, tightening her hold on him. Together they counted off the twelve chimes of the clock bell. Across the city, the bells began to ring out, one brilliant burst of joyful sound to herald in the new year. And on the rooftop, Gabriel Starke and Evangeline Merryweather danced on as the first snow of the year 1915 began to fall.

Downstairs, Delilah handed a fresh glass of punch to Quentin Harkness.

“Don’t be too sad, dear boy. I can’t imagine where Evie has taken herself off to, but I know you’ll love her. She’s adorable! Very pretty, just like me, but much nicer. And she might seem like a sweet little homebody, but mark my words—she’s got a taste for adventure.”

Quentin sipped at his punch. “This is poisonous stuff, Delilah.”

She laughed merrily by way of reply and topped off his glass.

“How can you tell this Evie is adventuresome anyway?”

Delilah shrugged. “I can smell it on her. The same way I can smell it on you.”

Quentin’s handsome brows lifted in mock astonishment. “Whatever do you mean? I am a solicitor. I assure you, there’s no less adventuresome occupation on the planet.”

Delilah laughed again. “Protest all you want to, Quentin, but I know better. For those of us who dream about living large, it doesn’t matter what you do to us. You can stick us in dry little careers like law or business or make us wives and mothers, but we will always find each other. Like calls to like, my boy, no matter how much you try to fight it. There’s a
rougarou
in you.”

“What’s that when it’s at home?” he asked mildly. Talking to Delilah was always like trying to capture lightning in a bottle.

“A
rougarou
is a wolf-man. He’s the dark thing Louisiana parents terrify their children with to make them behave. He comes for all the bad little boys and girls and gobbles them up, but if you’re really bad,” she leant closer, pitching her voice low, “really,
really
bad, the
rougarou
turns you into one of his own.”

“And you think I’m bad? Really, Delilah, you are too much.” Quentin looked genuinely offended and Delilah laughed again, leaving one of her trademark crimson lipstick prints on his cheek.

“No, not really. But I do think you’re keeping secrets. You’re up to something, Quentin. I can smell it on you just like I can smell wildness on Evie Merryweather. That girl’s going to kick over the traces one of these days and do something so breathtakingly audacious it will be the making of her.”

“In that case, perhaps it’s best if we don’t meet,” Quentin put in smoothly. “In spite of your fancies, I promise you I am the very picture of staid respectability.”

“You keep saying it, doll. Maybe one of these days you’ll persuade yourself but you’ll never convince me.” She nodded towards the corner where Tarquin stood polishing his spectacles as he paged slowly through a book on fossils. “Although if you spend much more time with that fellow Tarquin, I might be forced to change my mind. I know he’s your friend, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a duller man in my life.”

“Oh, Tarquin’s all right,” Quentin protested.

“He’s a blancmange in human form,” she said waspishly. “Now, go entertain him before he brings down any of my guests. Give him some punch, for heaven’s sake, or introduce him to Jack,” she added with a nod towards a devastatingly handsome young man who was attempting to juggle fire in the sitting room. “Jack could have gotten Victoria herself to crack a smile.”

* * *

Quentin collected a fresh cup of punch and made his way to Tarquin.

“What did our delightful hostess want?” Tarquin asked softly.

“She wanted to know why you are such a miserable sort,” Quentin told him, his eyes dancing with amusement. “She called you a blancmange in human form.”

Tarquin didn’t smile, but there was an unmistakable air of satisfaction about him. “She’s no idea how hard it has been to cultivate dullness. My family are notorious for eccentricity. Pretending to care about fossils has nearly ossified my brain.”

Quentin passed over the punch cup. “She was hoping a bit of New Year’s cheer might brighten your mood. And she thinks you ought to make the acquaintance of young Jack over there,” he added with a significant flick of his eyes towards the fire juggler.

Tarquin rolled his eyes. “If she only knew. I spend half my time
avoiding
Jack.”

“How many times has he asked you for a job tonight?”

Tarquin sighed. “Three. He’s beginning to lose his touch. At Christmas it was seven. Of course that was a family house party and he rather had me cornered. I promised his mother I would do everything I could to put him off, but honestly, I don’t see how I can refuse him much longer. He’s got all we’ve been looking for.”

“Just like young Starke,” Quentin said.

“Precisely.”

The clock on the mantelpiece began to chime, and the party guests shrieked and toasted and kissed. Jack had just managed to set the sitting room curtains alight to raucous laughter.

Quentin raised his glass. “To 1915, old man. I hope to God we know what we’re doing.”

Tarquin watched Jack stamp out the flames and take a bow to the applause of his hostess and a toast from his host.

He raised his glass to Quentin’s and clinked it. “Quite right, dear boy. Quite right.”

* * *

As the clock struck a quarter past twelve, the party was in full swing again. The gramophone had been wound up and guests were drinking or kissing or attempting to dance to Delilah’s beloved jazz. Young Jack had finally been persuaded to extinguish his torches and was demonstrating sleight of hand to a glamourous young Amazon from Scandinavia with ice blue eyes and platinum blond hair.

“I am an artist’s model,” she told him. “I pose entirely nude.”

Jack grinned. “We should go someplace quiet where you can tell me all about it.”

He put an arm to her back, guiding her through the throng and out into the corridor.

“How do you like that?” Delilah asked Johnny, mildly put out. “I invited Simona to meet Gabriel Starke, and she goes off with Jack instead. And I haven’t seen Evie for the better part of two hours, and I so wanted her to meet Quentin.”

Johnny shrugged. “Perhaps you’re not as good a matchmaker as you are a hostess.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Perhaps not. But I still say they’d have made excellent matches. Evie needs someone rock solid to depend upon, a man with a sterling character who can appreciate her. And Gabriel needs someone alluring enough to distract him from mountains and mudhills or whatever it is he plays around with.”

“Well, if there’s anyone who knows about distraction,” Johnny murmured. He slipped an arm around her waist. “It’s about time to close up shop, don’t you think? Let’s send them all home while they’re still sober enough to remember where they live. Otherwise we’ll wake up with half of London nursing hangovers in our sitting room.”

She put a hand to his cheek. “Or, we could run away and leave them all.”

“Run away? What did you have in mind?”

“The best suite at the Savoy Hotel—already paid for with the last of grandfather’s allowance this quarter.”

“Delilah, that money is supposed to pay for your upkeep while I’m gone,” he protested.

She shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. I always do. In the meantime, we’re going to finish off this party in style, just you and me and a do-not-disturb sign. After all, we never got a proper honeymoon in a nice hotel. So let’s do it now.”

He grinned. “Fine. Abduct me. But how do we get out of here?”

“Easy,” she said. “Follow me.”

She had packed their overnight cases and stashed them in the boot of the Aston Martin. They had just opened the door, laughing wildly at the thought of leaving their own party when they heard the engine roar to life.

“What the—” Johnny broke off the sentence as he realised the Aston Martin was edging away.

“Come back here!” Johnny shouted.

Delilah started after it, her heel snagging in a grate. Johnny caught her before she fell and the two of them turned to see a pair of familiar faces smiling back at them over the boot of the Aston Martin as it headed down the street.

“Gabriel Starke! You’re stealing my car!” she shouted. Gabriel merely grinned and gunned the engine, and to Delilah’s astonishment, Evie Merryweather merely shrugged and sent her a wide smile as she snuggled against Gabriel’s side.

Against her will, Delilah started to grin.

“Shall we ring the police?” Johnny asked.

Delilah blinked. “Whyever would I? Because a friend borrowed my car?”

“You just accused him of stealing it in front of the entire neighbourhood,” Johnny pointed out. The neighbours and partygoers, hearing the commotion, had poured into the street and were hanging from windows.

Delilah shrugged. “That’s before I knew he was using it to abduct one of my friends.”

“All the more reason—”

Delilah put a finger to his lips. “You’re the last one who should interfere in another man’s elopement, Johnny. If I remember, you stole your brother’s car for our escape. Gabriel’s just paying us back in kind.”

“You really think they’re eloping?”

“Have you ever seen Gabriel Starke with a smile that big?”

Johnny shook his head. “Now that you mention it…well, our own quiet escape seems to have been scuppered. What now?”

She grinned. “We will go in and make scrambled eggs and toast and cocoa and tell everyone they can sleep over if they can find room.”

She took Johnny’s hand and they made their way back inside. On the steps, they passed Quentin and Tarquin, staring after the Aston Martin as it vanished around the corner.

“I thought you said he wouldn’t do anything stupid,” Quentin said acidly.

Tarquin’s eyes glittered coldly behind his spectacles. He turned, not entirely surprised to find Jack at his elbow. The boy’s black hair was rumpled and one long, shimmering blond hair trailed over his shoulder, but his expression was serious.

“Congratulations, Jack. We suddenly find ourselves with an opening. Report to my office on Monday.”

Jack smothered a grin and gave Tarquin a serious look. “Yes, Tarq—er, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“That’s the trouble, lad,” Tarquin said softly. “All of you do. Eventually.”

* * *

Nestled against Gabriel’s side, Evie felt the solid warmth of her soon-to-be husband and sighed.

“This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever done, you know,” she told him.

“Me, too.”

She gaped at him. “How can you say that? You’ve climbed in the Himalayas.”

“Yes, but I’ve never stolen a car before.”

“Borrowed,” she corrected. “And if Delilah didn’t want it borrowed, she really ought to have kept it in a garage.”

Gabriel gave her an admiring look. “I’m beginning to think you might be something of a pirate. Perhaps you aren’t Wendy after all. Perhaps I’m marrying Captain Hook.”

She shrugged. “I can think of worse professions than piracy. I might make a rather good pirate. I’d like to see the world, sail the seven seas. I’ve always thought it the most romantic phrase in the world, haven’t you?
The seven seas…
”

“Hmm,” Gabriel said absently. He was listening, but not entirely. He had seen only too clearly the look of chilly disapproval on Tarquin’s face as he dashed away with his bride. And worse, he had seen the flicker of something absolutely gutting—Tarquin had not been surprised. He had expected Gabriel to muck it up, and he wondered just how badly things were going to be now that he had run away with Evie.

He looked down at the dark head resting on his shoulder and felt a surge of protectiveness. It didn’t matter, he told himself fiercely. Evie was the only thing that mattered now. He would keep her and he would find a way to make Tarquin happy, as well. He could have everything he wanted. Never mind that other men couldn’t seem to do it. He would make it happen by the sheer force of his own will. He had to. Now that he had found her, giving her up would be too much to ask of any man.