Whisper of Jasmine

Notorious socialite Delilah Drummond won’t be deterred by the war. Instead, she decides to throw the event of the year, and she’s handing out invitations with an eye for wanton fun and wild abandon.

There is the dashing explorer and archaeologist Gabriel Stark, a man at a crossroads in his life. Brilliant and restless, he’s just committed to a secret enterprise that forces him to play a public role very different from the man he truly is.

And then there is the charming if flighty Evangeline Merriweather. Evie has dreamed her whole life of adventure. Little does she know, she’s about to get more than she bargained for. Especially after her vivacious Aunt Dove acts as fairy godmother, if a saucy one, providing a scandalous gown and a whisper of jasmine on her skin….

Evie will shake cool Gabriel to his core, but just how far are they willing to take love at first sight?

One seductive night will change Evie forever. Watch for her next adventure, in the City of Jasmine.

Whisper of Jasmine

Deanna Raybourn

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

Chapter One

Christmas, 1914

London

Delilah stared at the printed words on the sheet of paper and knew that her life had just changed forever. It was thin, that sheet of paper, insubstantial as a ghost and twice as scary.

“So these are your orders,” she said to her husband. Her voice didn’t break, but Johnny knew her too well.

“I told you I was enlisting,” he reminded her gently.

“Yes, but I thought that was just something people say, like ‘the cheque is in the mail’ or ‘my, what a pretty baby you have.’ I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“I have to, Delilah. My brothers are going, so many of my friends. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I didn’t.”

“I know,” she said, offering him a thin smile. “You don’t have to explain it, really. If I were a man and English, I’d beat you to the front lines.”

Her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She held them back, purely with the force of her will, and Johnny shook his head.

“They’d be better off with you,” he said, his voice light. “You’re a damned sight braver than I am. It takes a lot more courage to stay behind than it does to go along with the crowd. I don’t want to go, Delilah. It’s going to be bloody and brutal and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I want to stay here with you and write my book and eat your awful cooking and get a dozen babies off of you,” he told her, running his hands around her waist. “But—”

She put a finger to his lips. “I told you you didn’t need to explain it. It’s stupid and tragic, and when this war is over no one will even remember why it started. That’s how wars always go. But you have to live with yourself when it’s done. So,” she added, dropping her finger to toy with the button of his shirt. “You’ll go off to war and I’ll keep the home fires burning. It’s what the little woman is supposed to do, right?”

He dropped his head to her neck, resting his brow in the curve of her shoulder. “Delilah—”

“But we can’t talk about it,” she told him, rearing back to look him in the eye. “I can’t. I’ll put on a brave face even if I have to paint one on with powder and lipstick. I’ll smile and wave you off to war and I’ll mark off every day you’re away on a calendar. I’ll roll bandages and make myself useful and pretend everything’s quite all right, but I can’t talk about it again. Not even with you. If I talk about it, if I think about it, I’ll never be able to let you go.”

He cupped the back of her head with one large hand and kissed her, slowly, sweetly, as if he were courting her again. When he pulled away, he wasn’t surprised to find the tears that had stood unshed in her eyes were gone. He had always said Delilah Drummond was a force of nature. She had swept into his life with all the impact of a hurricane, and he had never entirely recovered from the first time she had looked up into his eyes and given him her slow, inviting smile.

“Very well. We won’t talk about it,” he said seriously. “What shall we do instead?”

She slid her fingers under a button and slipped it free. “First, we’re going to bed for the rest of the day and we’re not getting up until tomorrow. I want to make a thousand new memories of you, Johnny.” She kissed him fervently. “And then you’re going to help me throw a party, the best New Year’s Eve party anyone has ever thrown. We’re going to spend every last penny we have and invite everyone we know and we’ll ring in 1915 in style with champagne and lobster patties and dancing until dawn.”

He grinned. “You realise I’m reporting for duty on the second of January?”

“Good. Then the last memory you’ll have of me is wearing a party frock and knocking back cocktails while I kick old 1914 right in the teeth. Let’s send it off in style.”

* * *

Delilah was as good as her word. On Boxing Day morning she woke up early and began writing out the invitations, and the next morning she was up at dawn, roaring around London in her beloved Aston Martin coal scuttle. It was a discarded prototype, and Johnny still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to persuade an old beau to sell it to her. She had painted it bright yellow and the thing could drive indecently fast. She drove it like she did everything else, with a great deal of flair and a careless certainty that everything would turn out for the best. Of course, the cart horses she scared and the errand boys she nearly mowed down weren’t quite so sure, but Delilah had discovered that a wide smile and a few kisses blown on the wind went a long way towards pacifying the bystanders who had to jump out of the way. She tore through the London streets as quickly as she dared, collecting regular admonishments by the authorities and more than a few admirers. She paid boys to watch the automobile for her when she parked haphazardly in front of the wine merchant and the butcher and the florist, and by December 27 parcels began to arrive, filling their small flat with party preparations. There were crates of vintage champagne, the best she could find on such short notice and marked up so drastically it took Johnny’s breath away to read the bill. But getting Delilah to change course once she got the bit between her teeth was like trying to hold back a storm. Far easier just to go along for the ride—and far more fun. She put him to work testing canapés and mixing cocktails, a taste for which she had brought with her from Louisiana, while she dashed off again on another of her interminable errands. She shopped for a party dress and chose flowers, and—to Johnny’s amusement—hauled home a gramophone and two dozen recordings to play on it.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hire musicians,” Johnny told her, only half in jest.

Her expression was thoughtful as she surveyed the flat. “I would have, but they’d take up too much room. If everyone we’ve invited turns out, it’s going to be a terrific crush, and I want them to have room to dance. They must be able to dance.”

“Why, exactly?”

“Because I’m doing some matchmaking. Poor Quentin Harkness was so gutted when I ran away with you, I thought I’d throw him a nice juicy little bone,” she told him, her eyes dancing.

“And what might the bone’s name be?”

“Evangeline Merryweather. She’s a darling girl. Granddaughter of one of those moth-eaten old earls who died without an heir so everything’s gone to some cousin or other. She’s had to go to work,” she said with a frisson.

“There are worse things in life than working for a living,” Johnny put in mildly.

“Not for a girl who hasn’t any skills, and Evie is hopeless. Darling, but hopeless. No, I need to marry her off, and now is the perfect time to find her a husband. We’ll have a pack of young men just itching for a pretty girl to make love to before they head off to war. Why not Evie?”

“It’s a fairly long way from wanting to make love to a girl to marrying her,” Johnny reminded her.

“Not for you. And if I can have you bagged and tagged in two days, I can do the same for Evie in a single evening. Just watch me.”

He burst out laughing. “So it was all just a bit of sport to you? And I was the trophy?”

“Precisely.” But she was grinning, and Johnny’s expression turned pensive.

“I think you’re out of your depth here, love. I’ll wager you can’t get Evie Merryweather paired off like one of Noah’s animals.”

“How much?”

They were alone, but Johnny was still too much of a gentleman to say the words above a whisper. “Come here and I’ll murmur into your delicate little ear.”

Chapter Two

Across London, Evangeline Merryweather was staring at the invitation and suppressing a groan. Her flatmate, an unpleasant girl named Marjorie, or Margery—Evie had never bothered to learn and cared even less—gave her a repressive look. “I say, some of us are trying to study here.”

Evie sighed and picked up her coat. “I was just leaving.”

“You will catch your death in this weather. And when you come over with a cold, don’t expect me to take care of you,” Marjorie called after her as she left.

“Of course not. You’re only studying to be a nurse,” Evie muttered as her coat caught on the door.

“What did you say?” Marjorie said, her voice sharp with suspicion.

“I said, I would never expect you to,” Evie said with an effort at brightness. She freed her coat and banged the door closed behind her. Marjorie was right. The weather was filthy, bitterly cold and sleeting heavily, but she couldn’t bear another minute cooped up inside. She had agreed to share with Marjorie on the recommendation of a mutual friend—a friend who had been firmly struck from her Christmas card list after the first fortnight of living with Marjorie. Evie had been cheerfully optimistic about her ability to live with a flatmate. She had been bounced around enough of her relatives’ homes to have honed her skills at accommodation. She had lived with adenoidal spinster aunts and religiously fanatical cousins and uncles who gambled. There had been a great-aunt who drank the cooking sherry and even a sort of second cousin who collected hair as a hobby, but nothing had prepared her for the sheer grimness of living with someone wholly lacking in humour.

“I can bear anything as long as I can have a bit of a laugh,” she told herself as she hurried down the street. She walked on, drawing in great deep breaths of the crisp, damp air. She walked all the way to Kensington Gardens and turned in to walk beside the Long Water. She hadn’t intended to go there, but whenever she needed to think, she found herself on the west side of the Serpentine in the leafy glade that sheltered the statue of Peter Pan.

It had appeared overnight on May Day morning of 1912. No warning, no fanfare, just a notice in the Times.

There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the southwestern side of the tail of the Serpentine, they will find a Mayday gift by Mr. J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived.

Evie had hurried along to the park that May Day morning, as delighted as any child. Peter Pan was her dearest childhood friend, and watching him fly from the stage of the Duke of York’s theatre was her last truly happy memory, the only one unencumbered by the loss of her parents, the endless moving from place to place, from relation to relation as she was passed around like a hand-me-down garment that was nice enough but didn’t quite fit. Peter Pan was the last time she had fit, and whenever she felt low, her steps always carried her back to the little glade in Kensington Gardens where the boy who wouldn’t grow up waited.

He was alone now. The weather had driven everyone else away from the park, but Evie settled at his feet next to a particularly winsome rabbit. She was sheltered from the worst of the sleet, and the wind had died down a little. If anything, the brisk air invigorated her, and she pulled out Delilah’s invitation to read it over again.

It was written in a firm, dramatic hand. Delilah did everything with flair. The daughter of a divorcée, Delilah had been a glamourous debutante, the most sophisticated of their Season. Evie had been presented by an ancient aunt and had only agreed to go when the aunt had unearthed her own court presentation gown from sixty years before and promised it wouldn’t cost Evie a penny of her meagre earnings. It had kept the peace for a while, which was the only reason Evie let herself be trussed up like a Christmas turkey and thrust into the row of debutantes, plumes nodding gently overhead as they made their way down the queue. She had been placed next to Delilah and had stared openmouthed at the glorious creature with the curious accent and spectacular eyes. Everyone else looked nervous as cats, but Delilah merely glided along, a small smile on her lips as if it were all simply too amusing, and most amusing of all was the girl with the hideously unfashionable dress who made her laugh. Delilah loved nothing better than a good laugh, and by the time they were finished, she had looped her arm through Evie’s and towed her away to lunch at the Savoy. They exchanged pleasantries over the starters, but by the time the entrée was served, Evie had told Delilah her entire life story and when pudding came, she had the uncomfortable feeling she had shared too much.

“Nonsense,” Delilah told her briskly. “If there’s one complaint I have about the English, it’s their coolness. They’re remote as the moon, most of them, and it’s refreshing to find one of you who will actually talk.”

Evie had been reassured and Delilah had promised to take her to all the best parties of the Season. The plan was short-lived. Evie had twisted her ankle in her high-heeled court shoes and had to beg off the first ball, sitting at home with a cold compress on her ankle while everyone else danced the night away. That was the night Delilah met Johnny, and before anyone could blink they had eloped amid a flurry of deliciously scandalised gossip. The Season was over for its most glorious debutante before it had even begun, and Evie put aside her grand hopes and went back to work, chiding herself a little for getting caught up in Delilah’s glamour. They had exchanged letters several times since, but never managed to meet in person. Delilah had been too enthralled with her new husband to spare much time for anything else, and Evie didn’t pursue it. It was simply too lowering to sit with someone who had it all—beauty, style, a sinfully handsome husband who adored her—and have to admit what a bore life had become. For her part, Evie had a series of jobs that didn’t last, and each was more degrading than the last. She had firmly resisted taking on domestic work, but after a disastrous stint as a shopgirl working for Belgravia’s most exclusive florist—one that ended with her breaking the most expensive vase in the shop over the florist’s head—she had taken a post as a governess. She hadn’t lasted until luncheon, and she trudged home in vile weather, saving the bus fare, to find a letter in Delilah’s elegant hand, demanding her attendance at a New Year’s Eve party.

“I’ve nothing to wear,” Evie said mournfully. She knew Delilah’s people had been difficult about the elopement. They had restricted her allowance, and Johnny had little of his own, but even without much money, Delilah would look like a queen. She was one of those tiresome girls who could put on a bedsheet and make it look like—

Evie sat up straight, her mind working furiously. She had five days to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and she knew just where to go. She patted the little bronze rabbit goodbye and sped off down the path.

* * *

In his moderately comfortable flat in the worst street in the worst square in the best neighbourhood in London, Gabriel Starke smiled at the handwriting on the envelope. Delilah Drummond. Now that was a name to conjure with. He had had a single dance with her at her first debutante ball before he’d made the mistake of introducing her to Johnny. He’d only been dancing with her to kill time until he could hunt down their host and discuss his upcoming expedition to the Himalayas. Expeditions were costly, and the more patrons Gabriel found, the more comfortable his trips. He’d abandoned Delilah for the chance to land a sponsor and by the time he’d come back, she and Johnny were making a scandal of themselves by slipping into the garden for a little tête-à-tête. They’d come back with Johnny still buttoning his shirt and Delilah’s lipstick smudged under his ear, but the disgrace had been blunted when they’d eloped two days later. Gabriel found he hadn’t minded one bit; a benefactor was far more important than a girl, and he had secured all the funds he needed for his attempt to summit Masherbrum. Four months later, he was back in England, unsuccessful but more famous than when he had left, and he hadn’t yet seen the newlyweds. He wasn’t sure why Delilah had invited him, but it occurred to him he hadn’t anyplace better to go on New Year’s Eve. His family were in the country, thank God, and an evening of bachelor delights at his club sounded distinctly unappetising. Delilah would have good food and pretty girls, and enough liquor to take his mind off his troubles.

Just as he made up his mind to go, his telephone rang. He answered it, knowing before he spoke who would be on the line. “I just received an invitation to Delilah’s New Year’s Eve party. Going, old man?”

Gabriel suppressed a smile. Tarquin was almost two decades his senior. “Yes, old man. You?”

“I think so,” Tarquin said slowly. “It might be a very good idea to make an appearance.”

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.”

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