The Scent of Jasmine Read Online Free PDF Page B

slippers, she shouted “money.” She reeked of wealth and class, education and refinement. He wondered if she’d ever drunk tea from a homemade mug. Or did she only use porcelain?
    As for him, he was the opposite. His clothes were torn and filthy, his body emaciated from the weeks he’d spent in prison. When T.C. came to visit he brought a box of food every time, but the guards had so delighted in “searching” the contents that by the time it reached Alex, the food was almost inedible.
    He’d been allowed no shaving materials, no washing water. The people of Charleston hated him for what they thought he’d done and had responded accordingly. He’d been treated worse than any animal.
    So now Alex had the care of this innocent young girl, and he had no idea what to do with her. Should he coach her in a lie that she could tell her family? She could say that she’d been kidnapped by an accused murderer and he wouldn’t let her go. But he doubted if she could carry that story off. If T.C. had somehow tricked her into going to meet an escaped prisoner, that meant she had a good heart but no sense of self-preservation.
    Besides, how was she to get back to her family on her own? How could he release a girl like her to her own protection? One glimpse of her fancy dress under that huge cloak and every thief from here to Charleston would be after her.
    No, he liked T.C.’s plan, where he was to join an exploration group and travel down into the wilds of Florida. The plan had been for T.C. to draw what they saw, while Alex was to be a wrangler. He was to handle the horses, to bring in game, and to help in any way he was needed.
    Today, on the way south, when he’d asked the girl why T.C. hadn’t shown up, she’d told Alex that T.C. had broken his leg. Just that morning, T.C. had climbed a ladder to the roof and fallen backward. Alex had muttered to himself about the stupidity of doing that on the day he was to help an escaped prisoner—but he’d kept his voice low. That the girl could understand him even in his heaviest accent had shocked him. When Alex first arrived in America, no one could comprehend a word he said. For the first six months, he’d had to pantomime everything. But he’d begun to learn the American way of speech and how every word was pronounced exactly as it was written. Personally, Alex thought that was boring and totally uncreative, but he managed it.
    By the time he met Lilith, the woman he was to marry, he spoke as clearly as most Americans. It was only in times of great stress, like when he escaped from prison and found a wee girl waiting for him, that his heaviest accent returned.
    It took just minutes to reach the dilapidated barn of the man Yates, and when Alex saw the old man’s face peering out of a dirty window, he placed his body in front of the girl’s and was glad he’d thought to cover all her hair with the hood. From this angle, no one would be able to tell if she was a girl or a boy—which he wanted, as Alex had said he was traveling with his young brother.
    Alex led the horses into the barn and dropped the crossbar over the door behind him. The old man had a cow and an ancient horse in there, and a few chickens roosting in the rafters. It was a dirty old building and Alex hoped it didn’t rain or they’d be soaked, for he could see the fading daylight through the holes in the roof. They’d been riding hard for nearly twenty-four hours.
    He left the girl, still asleep, on the horse as he checked that all he’d paid for was there. A bale of straw was in the corner, there were some oats for the horses, and a bowl of thin, watery soup and a hard hunk of bread was on an old table. Meager as it was, Alex felt that the old man had given as much as he could spare.
    After spreading the straw in an empty stall, Alex went for the girl. She was falling into a deeper sleep and beginning to weave about on the horse. He put his hand up to her waist to steady her and carefully pulled her