Lavender Morning (19 page)

She was watching him intently. If he’d read letters written by Miss Edi, then he must know a lot about her,

Jocelyn. That he knew so much about her was a shock. She tried to quieten her pounding heart. Did he have

something truly awful to tell her? “I had to be nearly clairvoyant to survive the Steps.”

Ramsey smiled. “My dad and I followed their career,” he said. “From their first catalog work all the way to

Milan. Are they as horrible as Miss Edi said they were?”

“Much worse,” Jocelyn said impatiently. “Is what you have to tell me so bad that you can’t get the words

out?”

“There is no money,” he said quickly.

“No money?”

“Last night my father told me that you get the house, but there is no money with it. None at all.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I mean, I wasn’t really expecting millions, but Miss Edi lived quite well. I

can support myself, but that house will need maintenance.”

“I know,” Ramsey said softly, “and I—my family, that is—will help you with that. But there isn’t any

money. As for Miss Edi’s expenses…” He shrugged.

“How long was she without funds?”

“She was self-supporting until she moved to Florida. After that, the house in Edilean and all the work she

did for the town were paid for. And Bertrand’s expenses.”

“Who paid for her house in Florida and her charity work there?”

“My grandfather.”

“And he would be…?”

“Alexander McDowell.”

Jocelyn looked at the stream for a while and thought about all she’d heard in the last few days. “Lissie’s

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

72/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

husband?” she asked softly.

“Did Miss Edi tell you about him?”

“Not a word. She didn’t tell me about Edilean, much less anyone who lived here. I didn’t know she owned

a huge old house, didn’t know—” She had to take a few breaths to calm herself. “Miss Edi mentioned Alex and

Lissie McDowell in the letter she left me with her will, and Sara mentioned a Lissie who married the ‘richest man

in town’ so I put it together.”

“Her great-aunt,” Ramsey said under his breath.

“What?”

“Lissie was Sara’s great-aunt. She married my grandfather at the beginning of World War II, and from

what I can piece together it all started just before then.”

“What started?” Joce asked, looking at him, and she could see the strain on his face. He hated telling her all

this. She smiled at him. “Come on, lighten up! I was poor yesterday and I’m still poor. So what? I never

expected any financial reward from Miss Edi, so there’s no disappointment.”

When he turned to her, he looked so relieved that she poured him a cup of juice and handed it to him. “I

wish it were wine.”

“Me too.”

He lifted his cup to her. “To you, Miss Jocelyn, as much a lady as ever lived.”

Jocelyn laughed. “What did you expect me to do? Throw a fit? Rage at a woman who left me no money in

her will?”

“What would the Steps have done?”

“Did,” Jocelyn said, then she told him about the pieces of coal that Miss Edi had cut into jewel shapes and

left for them. “I was back at work when they found out and I wouldn’t pick up the phone for their calls, but they

left some blistering messages on my machine. I played them over and over. I don’t think I’ve ever had such

pleasure.”

When Ramsey looked at her, she could see that he was still burdened by what he saw as terrible news.

“So tell me the whole story,” Joce said. “Why did your grandfather support a woman he wasn’t related to?

”

“I don’t know, and neither does my dad. All we know is that Miss Edi’s family was the most prestigious in

town, but Alex McDowell’s family was the wealthiest. We know that something bad…awful happened in 1941,

and Miss Edi helped my grandfather Alex, but we don’t know the details. For most of her life, Miss Edi worked

—”

“With burn patients all over the world,” Jocelyn said.

“Right, and she supported her brother and paid for the upkeep of Edilean Manor. When she retired, she

moved to Boca Raton.”

“In a house near us.” Jocelyn had her knees drawn up, her arms around them, and she was listening to him

intently. “Owned by your grandfather.”

“Yes. Between supporting her brother and keeping up the Manor, plus all she gave to people in need along

the way, Miss Edi had nothing. My grandfather bought that house, and she lived in it rent free.”

“Why didn’t she go back to Edilean?” Joce asked.

“That’s part of the Great Mystery,” Rams said. “Dad said that Bertrand wanted to go to Florida to live with

her, but Miss Edi said he had to stay in Edilean and look after the house. He had to keep it intact for the future.

But neither of them married, and they left no heirs.”

“So he didn’t gamble the family fortune away?” Joce asked.

“No,” Ramsey said. “My dad said that Bertrand liked that people thought he was a compulsive gambler

who spent everything on the ponies. Bertrand said it was much better than being known to be just plain broke.”

“So Miss Edi left me a white elephant.”

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

73/176

“S

3/16/2010 o Miss Edi left me a white elephant.”

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

“Pretty much, yes. But the good news is that the house is yours, free and clear, so you can sell it if you

want. It would probably bring in a million or so.”

“A million or so?” She sat still, hugging her knees to her chin, and looking at the water. “What about Luke?

You said you pay his check. Weren’t you to be reimbursed when I inherited the money?”

Ramsey shrugged. “He doesn’t earn much, so I pay it out of…”

“Your own money,” Joce said flatly.

“Look, don’t worry about Luke. He’s not poor by any means. He has…other income.”

“What does that mean?”

“Telling you my cousin’s business is not something I’ll do. Let’s just say that Luke hasn’t had an easy life,

but money isn’t his problem.”

She could tell that Ramsey wasn’t going to say any more about that. “What I don’t understand is how Miss

Edi lived as she did if she had no money of her own. We went to the opera. She attended charity meetings, and I

know she contributed. We did all this
together.
How could she do that if she had no money?”

“That was her job,” Ramsey said. “My grandfather set up a trust, and Miss Edi administered it. He knew

his son, my father, would hate having to deal with all those meetings, so he left it to Miss Edi to do.”

“From a house in Boca?” Joce said. “Does that sound odd to you?”

“Yes and no. I think my grandfather trusted Miss Edi more than anyone else, and since she didn’t want to

return to Edilean, where people still talked about the fact that she was an ‘old maid,’ it worked out well. And

Dad said he thought she didn’t want to live with her brother.”

“And the cold hurt her legs.”

“I’m sure there were a thousand reasons for it all. I think my grandfather and Miss Edi worked it out so

they were both happy with everything. My dad said she did a great job at administering the trust.”

“She spent a lot of money on me,” Joce said softly.

“Last night Dad told me that my grandfather and your grandparents were friends. I think that’s why he

bought that house, so she could be near them.”

Jocelyn gave a sigh. “Yet another lie. Or something that was hidden. Miss Edi never told me that my

grandparents were friends of her friend.” She took a breath. “So many secrets.” She looked at him. “Does the

whole town know that the Harcourt family was destitute?”

“No.” Ramsey grimaced. “It was such a secret that until last night, even I didn’t know. My dad said he

used to go to Bertrand twice a year, and they’d drink fifty-year-old brandy and laugh about the poverty of the

Harcourt family. Jocelyn, you have to understand that I knew nothing about this. I believed the papers I saw and

thought you were inheriting about three million dollars plus the house. Before you even came here, you asked me

on the phone about the money, and I told you the truth as I knew it. I would never have—”

She could hear the pleading in his voice, hear that he didn’t want her to think badly of him. She didn’t, but

she thought she’d save him from humiliation by saying nothing. “Whatever did she do to make your grandfather

take care of her and her brother for so many years?”

“I don’t know. And neither does Dad. Last night he told me that when his father turned the Harcourt

account over to him, he asked him that very question, but Gramps wouldn’t tell him. Dad said that over the years

he asked a hundred times, but Gramps refused to confide in him. All Gramps would say was that Edi believed in

him when no one else did, and if she hadn’t, his life would have been hell. He said he owed everything he had to

Miss Edi.”

“What does that mean?” Joce asked. “Did she advise him to buy U.S. Steel at ten cents a share? He

bought it, the stock went up, and voilà! He’s rich. Maybe it was something like that.”

“No, it couldn’t have been that simple. If it was something like that, Gramps could have set up a trust for

her in the open. It would have become a town legend, and everyone would have agreed that Gramps owed her.

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

74/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

But this was something that was done in secrecy. Whatever Miss Edi did for my grandfather, it was done without

the town knowing about it.”

“In this town?! Two men visited Tess on a Saturday night and the next morning everyone knew about it.”

“Exactly. But something happened, something big, and because of that, after Miss Edi retired, my

grandfather took care of her and her brother.”

“I’m beginning to think that everything she told me was a lie.”

“She didn’t lie when she said she loved you. She wrote Gramps that you were a gift from God, something

for her old age. Jocelyn,” Ramsey said as he reached out and put his hand on her arm. “I’ll help you. I really

will.”

“You mean that you’ll give me charity like your grandfather did? Your family are the true owners of Edilean

Manor.”

“Then Luke would work for
me
?” Ramsey said, and there was so much glee in his voice that Jocelyn

laughed.

“What would he say if he knew you were paying him?”

“Probably hit me in the face. He has the meanest left hook I’ve ever seen. I think my eyes were black half

my childhood.”

“And what wounds did he carry?”

“None,” Ramsey said. “I turned the other cheek.”

She laughed again, only this time it was genuine. She looked back at the water. “Okay, so I have to find a

job. Hey! I know. Why don’t you fire Tess and let
me
work for you?”

When Ramsey looked at her with eyes wide with horror, she grinned.

“Why not? I’ll wear dresses. They’ll have skirts down to my knees, and there won’t be any cowboy

boots.”

“If you don’t quit saying these things I’m going to tell Tess on you.”

Jocelyn put her hands up, as though to shield her face from blows. “Did I tell you what she said to me when

I first met her?”

“No,” he said, “but I heard what you said back to her. Something about honey catching more flies than a

beautiful face?”

“Good synopsis.” She began to pack up the basket, but Ramsey sat where he was.

“I have something else to tell you.”

Jocelyn sat back down on the quilt. “What else could you have to say to me? That I’m in debt? Please

don’t tell me there’s some debt I’ve inherited and I have to pay it or I’ll be dragged off to debtors’ prison.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “Do you read the same books that Sara does?”

“Pretty much. So what else do you have to tell me?”

“I planned to keep this a secret.” He took a breath. “The truth is that I arranged this, and I wasn’t going to

tell you, but last night when I found out the lies you’d been told…Well, I can’t bring myself to tell you even the

tiniest lie to add to all the others.”

“That could be useful,” she said, but he didn’t smile.

“Look,” Ramsey said, “there’s going to be a trick played on you this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You know?”

“Luke told me. He’s picking me up at two—or at least he’s supposed to pick me up then. He said you

always took women to The Trellis restaurant for the second date, so he said he’d pick me up there.”

Ramsey snorted. “He’s trying to make you think I’m a stick-in-the-mud and that I have a routine for ‘my

women.’ The truth is that I don’t have a set routine and I don’t have many dates. But Luke isn’t what I was

talking about. A cupcake trick is going to be played on you.”

D:/…/Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.…

75/176

3/16/2010

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html

“A cupcake trick? It that some Southern slang that I don’t know about?”

“No, it’s my big mouth. After I left you on Saturday evening I went next door to Tess’s apartment.”

“And talked about me,” Jocelyn said. “You told me.”

Ramsey gave her a quick look, as though trying to figure out her tone. “I told her that…” He waved his

hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter what and why, but I told her that you mentioned that you can make

cupcakes, and she said I should make a ‘cupcake crisis.’”

“A cupcake crisis? What is that?”

“She meant I should get someone to pretend that he or she needs cupcakes more than life itself and you are