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“He’s nice. He’s kind,” she said cautiously.

“So why hasn’t he asked you to marry him?”

Jean narrowed her eyes. His lower status of living could be something he was using as a disguise or it could mean he was broke. When he needed money, he went for it anywhere. “Why do you want to know? If you think I know Colin’s bank code and that you can wheedle it out of me, I don’t and you can’t.”

“Bitterness never becomes a lady,” Adrian said. “And at your age—” He broke off when he saw that he’d overstepped himself. “Dear Jean, I apologize for all I’ve done to you and your mother. Both times I was in a situation where I had no other source of income. I did my best to make it up to you, both financially and personally.”

That remark hurt. Was he saying that all the time he’d spent with Jean while she was in law school was merely a repayment of a debt? Maybe that was true, because what they’d shared had clearly meant nothing to him. Later he’d still robbed her mother a second time.

When she looked at him, she realized that he knew exactly how he’d made her feel. She’d once heard someone say that when a person says something that hurts you, you better believe that it was intentional.

She stood up. “You’re after something, and if you don’t tell me what it is, I’m going to Colin right now and tell him everything.”

He didn’t get in the least upset, just smiled at her in a way that she used to find charming but now saw as devious. “Is it impossible for you to believe that I came here for the sole and only purpose of seeing you?”

“Yes, it is.”

He smiled in what seemed to be approval. “Well, perhaps I wasn’t telling the entire truth. I am a bit interested in what I read about this town.”

“About Edilean? Oh yes, of course. You’re after the paintings they found here last year. I should have known that all those millions would attract you. I’ll tell you now that those paintings have nothing to do with me.”

“I know,” he said softly, “but reading those stories did remind me of something I’d lost.”

“The Crown Jewels?” One time in Budapest a man had told her that the only thing Adrian had not stolen were the English Crown Jewels.

“Yes,” he said, “and by that I mean my dear niece. Jean, you are the only person who means anything to me and I came to see you, to get to know you again. I apologize for the disguise but . . .”

“Your face is on too many wanted posters?”

He gave a smile that she well remembered; it used to make her feel that they were in a conspiracy together.

She sat back down at the table. Anger was only going to make him tell more lies.

“More bread, dear? I bought it at Armstrong’s. It’s a small town, but the grocery is excellent. And such an interesting woman runs it. She is a veritable fountain of information. A few groans of pain and she tells me everything about everyone.”

Jean took a roll from the basket. “What do you want information about?”

“Nothing in particular. Just something to pass the time while you’re in Richmond.”

“Why don’t you stay there instead of here?” She looked around the ugly interior of the little house.

“No one talks to one another in a city,” he said. “Is that why you dislike little Edilean so much? You don’t want people talking about you and what you do when you’re not working?”

She started to protest, but he put his

hand up.

“My dear niece, remember that I know you very well. You barely tolerate the rural nature of Richmond. How often do you go to New York and the pied-à-terre you keep there? Tell me, does that big, hulking boyfriend of yours know of that place?”

When Jean didn’t answer, Adrian smiled. “I thought not. Did you know that your young man has some secrets of his own? He bought a house here in this little town. Has he shown it to you?”

“Not yet,” she said.

“That’s interesting. Did you know that he took that adorable little Gemma there on the day she arrived in town?”

Jean’s involuntary intake of breath was his answer.

Again, he smiled. “Would you like to hear more of what I heard?”


Tags: Jude Deveraux Edilean Romance