Whisper of Jasmine Page 2
Gabriel cut in. “Hang on, how do you know Delilah? I thought the Marches were too ancient and exclusive a family to mix with Louisiana sugar millionaires.”
Tarquin gave a little sniff, and Gabriel smiled. He knew exactly what gesture accompanied that sniff. Tarquin would be polishing his spectacles, his dark, clever brows knit together. “I don’t. I was invited at the request of Quentin Harkness. He’s a fellow I think you should meet. Whatever your plans were for New Year’s Eve, cancel them. You’re going to Delilah’s.”
Before Gabriel could respond, Tarquin had severed the connection. He sighed and replaced the receiver before pouring himself a small glass of single malt. It was the last of the good whisky, he realised ruefully. Time to turn his hand to earning more money. And that meant going to Delilah’s party, whether he wanted to or not.
Chapter Three
“Hold still before I run you through with a pin,” Evie’s Aunt Dove said severely.
Evie held her breath. “I’m sorry. You’ve been an angel. I’m just wondering if I’ve lost my nerve.”
She darted a glance towards the ancient cheval glass, but Aunt Dove pricked her lightly with a pin.
“Ouch!” Evie sucked her finger, glowering at her aunt.
“I did tell you to hold still,” Aunt Dove countered with deceptive mildness. “And I told you earlier, no peeking until it’s finished.”
Appealing to Aunt Dove to find her a suitable evening dress had been an inspired choice, but Evie had regretted it almost instantly. Dove was the most eccentric of her relatives. She had made a name for herself as a Victorian adventuress—in both senses of the word. She had travelled the world collecting stories and artefacts, and she had made a string of notorious conquests along the way, returning to England only when she was between lovers or patrons.
“Well, we Pomeroy-Finches mightn’t have tuppence to rub together, but we do have style,” Aunt Dove remarked as she tugged Evie into a different position.
“I’m a Merryweather,” Evie reminded her.
Aunt Dove shot her a dark look. “Pomeroy-Finch blood is very strong. It will always out. One of these days you’ll start racing cars or sail a yacht around the world. I have hope for you yet.”
Evie suppressed a sigh.
“I heard that,” Aunt Dove told her. “I blame myself for you, you know. If I’d been around when you were growing up, I might have taken a hand in your education, shown you the world.” She paused to fix another pin. “Of course, most people wouldn’t approve of handing a child over to a well-travelled nymphomaniac with superb dressmaking skills, but then most people lack imagination, I always find. Stand up straight, child! You must have had ballet lessons at some point. Didn’t they teach you about posture?”
Evie stiffened her spine, darting a glance out of the tail of her eye. “I did, but it never seemed to take. I probably ought to have been corseted like you.”
“Corset? Rubbish. Never wore the beastly things. They aren’t healthful,” she said, tacking a sleeve into place. “No, the best training for good posture is a nice, heavy tiara.”
“A tiara?”
“Nothing to make you hold your spine straight like the fear of dropping a few thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds onto the floor. Now, turn around and let me take a good squint at you.”
Evie did as she was told, turning smoothly.
“When I asked you to do this, I thought you might have something pretty lying around in a trunk somewhere,” Evie said as Aunt Dove frowned at the hem. “I never expected you to cut up a Worth gown.”
“Don’t be daft, child. It’s just fabric,” she said, but distractedly. She knelt, joints creaking in protest, to pin the hem tighter.
“Aunt Dove, I won’t be able to walk in it!”
“Stop fussing. You want a fashionable skirt, don’t you? It must be properly pegged to get that lovely tulip shape,” Aunt Dove told her firmly. She thrust another pin into the emerald-green satin for good measure, and Evie tried not to think about the masterpiece Dove was carving up for her. The original gown had been ornately embellished in the overblown style of the 1870s, but Dove was working magic upon it. She had already torn off the long train and ripped out the inner petticoats so the skirt hung long and slim about Evie’s legs. The sleeves had been the next to go, snipped away with a few passes of her flashing scissors while the intricate lace had been unpicked leaving only the satin foundation behind.
“Where did you wear this?” Evie asked, stroking the cool satin.
“Hmm? Oh, Turkey. I had a rather tempestuous encounter with the French ambassador to the sultan’s court in Constantinople. He had the most divine moustaches. Very tickly on the thighs they were,” she added absently. Before Evie could respond, Aunt Dove went on. “That should do for now. Let’s get you out of it and we’ll make a pile of hot buttered toast and exchange savage gossip.”
“You realise your memories are more interesting than my actual life, don’t you?” Evie said, holding up her arms for her aunt to ease her out of the dress.
Aunt Dove stepped behind her and looked at her reflection in the cheval glass. “You haven’t been to India, pet, but in the Nilgiri Hills, there’s a flower called a kurinji flower. It doesn’t bloom often. In fact, you can go a dozen years or more without seeing a single blossom. But then, just when you’ve given up hope of ever seeing one, they burst into flower, whole mountainsides at the same time, carpeted in the most astonishing shades of purple. It’s as if God himself shook out a rug of petals and spread it at your feet. It’s unexpected and magnificent, and very much worth the wait.”
Evie rolled her eyes. “Are you honestly comparing me to a rare flower that happens to be a late bloomer?”
Aunt Dove grinned. “No. I was simply reminding you the world is full of miraculous things the likes of which you have yet to see. If I were going to compare you to a flower, I would have chosen a carrion flower from Sumatra. Six feet tall, smells like death, and blooms long after you’ve given up hope of it ever doing anything interesting.”
“I do not smell like death!”
Aunt Dove gave her a pitying look. “No, you don’t smell of anything, actually. Except soap. It’s high time I introduced you to Guerlain, child. Come along. You’ve much to learn.”
* * *
“Taste this and tell me what you think,” Delilah ordered. She ladled out a cupful of punch and handed it to her husband.
Johnny gave it an experimental sniff, admiring the pale ruby colour. “Looks harmless enough,” he told her with a grin. He took a deep swallow and gasped, thrusting the cup back at her as he struggled for air. “Good God, what the devil is that?”
“Planter’s punch. Our family recipe,” she told him promptly. “Don’t you like it?”
“How much liquor did you put in there?” Johnny fished in his pocket for a handkerchief for his streaming eyes.
Delilah began ticking off items on her fingers. “There’s whisky, cognac, two types of rum and a few other things that are a secret to the L’Hommedieus. I’ll have you know my Granny Miette is famous for that punch.”
“Really? How many people has she killed with it?” He licked his lips experimentally. “I don’t think I can feel my tongue.”
“Don’t be feeble. It’s divine,” Delilah told him darkly. To prove her point, she downed the rest of the glass and smacked her lips. “Delicious! I could dance all night on a glass of this stuff.”
“Now that you mention it—” Johnny reached for the ladle and refilled the glass. He sipped again and this time he gave her a slow nod. “I think I’m coming around. What else is in here?”
Delilah narrowed her eyes. “Oh, no you don’t. You might be my husband, but I don’t know you well enough to tell you all the family secrets,” she teased. “Do you really like it?”
Johnny took a third sip, this time savouring the sweetness of the punch followed by the warm trill of the mingled liquors on his tongue. “It’s growing on me. But you might want to be careful to whom you serve it. That stuff is a bowlful of rather bad decisions waiting to happen.”
Delilah gave him a dazzling smile. “That’s what I’m betting on.”
“What do you have up your sleeve, Delilah?”
She grinned. “Just a little playing at Cupid is all. Not only do I plan to introduce Evie to Quentin, I’ve got just the girl for Gabriel Starke. I haven’t told him a thing about her yet because I want her to be a surprise, but she’s utterly perfect—a blonde from Scandinavia with a shocking reputation. She’s an artist’s model and tall, like something out of a Norse storybook for very naughty boys.”
Johnny shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing, meddling with other people’s love lives like this.”
“You know my Granny Miette isn’t above doing a little conjuring over the sugar cauldron,” she reminded him. “I know how to fix people together. A little May Water in the punch bowl is just the thing to make some sparks fly.”
“May Water? Should I bother to ask what that is?”
“You can ask, but it won’t do you any good. I don’t even know. It’s Granny Miette’s secret recipe. Don’t worry—it won’t bring anyone together with someone they shouldn’t be with. But everybody needs a little shove once in a while.”
He slid his arms around her. “Is that how you fixed us together? Magic potions in my evening whisky?”
She put her hands into his hair, twisting her fingers and tugging ever so slightly. “I didn’t have to fix us. We came that way.”
* * *
At that moment, Aunt Dove was wrestling Evie into the finished dress with dire threats if she peeked into the looking glass before the finishing touches. The shimmering emerald satin gown went on first, and Evie was startled at how many changes Aunt Dove had made in just a few short days. The neckline had been cut daringly low, but not as low as the back where it had been slashed nearly to her waist., Evie moaned a little as she felt the cool air pass over her skin.
“I’ll look like a prostitute,” she muttered as Aunt Dove circled her, twitching the skirt into place.
“What was that, dear?” “Nothing,” Evie said with a feeble smile. Aunt Dove tried her patience on a regular basis, but never more than when she was trying to help. She clearly wanted to play godmother to Evie’s Cinderella, and with her tiny income, cutting up an old gown was the best she could do. Evie looked at her face, wrinkled and mapped with memories and glowing with pleasure at her efforts, and she decided then that she’d rather go out stark naked than hurt her feelings by complaining.
“It’s lovely,” she said gamely.
Aunt Dove shot her a repressive look. “Don’t patronise me, child. You’re indecent as a Roman concubine. It’s only half-finished.”
With a flourish she produced an armful of fabric and gave it a crisp shake. The fabric fluttered out like a banner, and Evie gasped. The material was black and sheer, embroidered heavily here and there with silken butterflies of deep jewel hues. They shimmered against the black, and Evie gave a little wriggle of pleasure at the whisper of it against her skin. Aunt Dove had created a sort of overgown with sheer sleeves to the elbow ending in a row of plain black silk fringe. It covered her back, hinting at the bare skin underneath, and flowed over the green satin skirt, both ending at her ankles.
“Now, let’s see if you can walk in it,” Aunt Dove ordered.
Evie took a few experimental steps and the butterfly robe fluttered open, turning back on itself to reveal the green satin. When she stood still it composed itself like folded wings, and Evie gaped at the effect.
“It’s absolute magic. How on earth did you think of it?”
Aunt Dove shrugged. “I knew it needed something special, and when I was climbing out of the bath yesterday and putting on my dressing gown, I realised that was it.”
Evie blinked. “This is your dressing gown?”
Aunt Dove’s expression turned mulish. “It’s a very nice dressing gown. It was a gift from a judge in Kowloon.”
“I am going to a New Year’s Eve party thrown by the most glamourous woman I know wearing a dressing gown.”
“It was either that or dress you in a bedsheet and tell everyone you’re bringing back the fashions of classical Greece,” Aunt Dove said waspishly. “Now, hold still and stop grumbling. I have to do something about your hair before someone discovers we are related. It’s a disgrace.”
With a little careful application of pomade, Aunt Dove coaxed Evie’s cropped waves into dark curls, sweeping them off of her brow and away from her face. She tipped up Evie’s face and gave her a critical glance.
“We need to do something about your face, as well.”
“My face is quite nice!”
“Your face is lovely,” Aunt Dove assured her. “But you might as well make the most of what you have. Now, your skin is a delight—I’d sell my soul to one of the lesser demons for skin like that again. Actually, now that I think of it, mine was better.”
“Was it?”
“There’s a white rose in Argentina named for me. What do you think?” She leant forwards and dusted a swansdown puff over Evie’s face. She touched her cheeks with a bit of rosy rouge, and did something clever with a slender stick of kohl. When she’d finished, Evie looked like herself, but more herself than she had ever been. The last touch was a bit of carmine to her lips, reddening them until they looked just bitten.
“Delicious,” Aunt Dove pronounced. “Not a man there will be able to stop himself from kissing you.”
She passed a hand mirror to Evie and stood back. Evie surveyed herself and shook her head. “You really are a witch, do you know that? But a very good one. I would kiss you but I don’t want to mar this mouth. I look glorious.”
Aunt Dove beamed at her. “Rather an improvement on that sad little creature that crept in here a few days ago wanting help, don’t you think?” Without waiting for a reply, she picked up a golden glass atomiser from her dressing table and misted Evie.
A cloud of delectable scent hovered in the air, landing lightly on her hair, her silk-clad shoulders, her hands. Evie sniffed appreciatively. “Oh, that’s heaven! What is it?”
Dove smiled in satisfaction. “Something I picked up in the south of France. It’s the purest jasmine from Grasse, which makes it very special indeed.”
“Why?” Evie sniffed again. The scent was rich and sensual, curling against her like a cat and warming itself on her skin.
“Child, jasmine is one of the most seductive scents imaginable, and the stuff from Grasse is the finest in the world. In the little village where I collected that, the farmers won’t even let their nubile daughters walk through the fields when the flowers are ripe for fear they won’t be able to control themselves.”
“I can see why,” Evie murmured. The heavy fragrance was intoxicating, and she felt like someone entirely new.
Dove handed over a pair of high-heeled black satin shoes just a tiny bit too tight and very slightly shredded at the toes. Evie had only her own plain black coat to wear, but Aunt Dove assured her it wouldn’t matter.
“It will make the reveal all the more dramatic. You will come in looking like a nun, and then when the coat comes off—dazzling! Now, one last thing.” She turned away and rummaged in a jewellery box, emerging with an enormous green stone in an ostentatious setting. She threaded it onto a black satin ribbon and tied it around Evie’s neck. “You need a bit of glitter, and that will bring out the green in your eyes.”
Evie touched the lump of green. “I couldn’t. It’s your favourite and far too valuable,” she began, struggling for a tactful way to get out of wearing it. But Aunt Dove would not be dissuaded.
“That bit of rubbish? Bah. It’s only glass, child. Besides, a hint of vulgarity is just the thing. It makes people wonder what you’ve been up to.”
She bundled Evie into her coat and handed her fare for a cab, refusing to take no for an answer. “Those shoes are too tight for you to walk, and it might rain.”
“There isn’t a cloud in the sky,” Evie said, dropping a kiss to her papery cheek. “But thank you.”
Aunt Dove gave her a wink. “Just enjoy yourself, pet. And if you see a likely lad, make sure you dance with him, something nice and slow.”
“I’m not looking for romance, you know.” “Who said anything about romance?” Aunt Dove widened her eyes. “But if you dance slowly with a fellow, you can usually tell if he knows what he’s about in the bedroom. And make sure you feel his bottom. You want one that’s nice and pert. It means he’s a good thruster.”
Evie fled before Aunt Dove could offer any further advice, hurrying down the stairs and hurling herself into the first cab she saw. Already her feet were throbbing and she could feel the evening chill cutting through her coat and the sheer silk over her shoulders. But Aunt Dove was waving gaily from her window, and Evie leant out of the cab to blow her a fond kiss. Aunt Dove might be a lot to take, but she meant well. And thanks to her, Evie was perfectly prepared for a very good evening indeed.
Chapter Four
“You’re not holding a grudge because I married another beau, are you?” Delilah asked archly. She waggled her eyebrows at Gabriel and he laughed.
“How could I be? I climb mountains and dig up mouldy relics. I couldn’t possibly hope to hold the interest of a dazzling creature like you.”
She raised herself on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving an imprint of her scarlet lipstick behind.
“If you’re going to run away with one of my friends, darling, don’t make it Gabriel. He might be handsome enough to turn your head, but he hasn’t a bean to his name,” Johnny cut in. He nodded to a corner where Tarquin March and Quentin Harkness were apparently introducing themselves. “You’d be far better going back to Quentin. He’s got more money than Croesus and he’s older. You might make a young, rich widow,” he finished, slipping an arm about her waist. He bent his head to nuzzle her neck and she shrieked.