“Starving.”
He went down the hall to the front door and opened it for her, and when she was beside him, he said, “I apologize for my cousin. Luke is…” He gave a shrug, as though there were no words to describe the man.
“That’s all right,” Jocelyn said. “We all have relatives.”
“Unfortunately, I have more than most.”
As they stepped outside, she saw Luke speed away in a beat-up old truck that reminded her of the vehicles she’d seen around her father’s house when she was growing up. As far as she could tell, Luke Connor was the kind of man Miss Edi had warned her against. Worse, he was the kind of man Jocelyn’s sweet, elegant, educated mother had fallen so hard for. After they were married, Gary Minton had done what he could to be what his refined little wife’s family wanted him to be, but a month after she died, he was back in leathers, whiskers on his face, and straddling a Harley.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ramsey asked. “Did Luke upset you that bad?”
“Of course not,” Jocelyn said, smiling as she came back to the present. “Let me change my clothes and I’ll be fine.”
“Tonight your smallest wish is my command,” Ramsey said and gave her a half bow.
“Then, kind sir, lead me to yon castle that I might prepare myself for thee.”
Ramsey grinned, held out his arm to her, and they walked together to the front door of Edilean Manor.
4
THIS IS TRULY beautiful,” Jocelyn said and meant it. Ramsey had gone to a lot of trouble with the dinner, and she appreciated it. There was an old, white, trapuntoed quilt on the floor of the hallway and two huge pillows on each side. The meal was angel hair pasta in a light sauce of sautéed tomatoes and basil, with bread and salad.
“Did you get the vegetables from Sara’s mother?” she asked.
“Of course. If I bought tomatoes that didn’t come from her I think she might picket my office.”
The dishes were Limoges in one of her favorite patterns, and the wineglasses had to have come from Colonial Williamsburg. They were handblown in an eighteenth-century design.
Ramsey was stretched out on the pillow opposite her, and in the candlelight he looked even more handsome than he did when she first met him. The truth was that he made her a bit nervous. There was something about the absolute perfection of him that made her wish she were more perfect.
“Why is there so little furniture in the house?” Joce asked. She was sitting upright on the opposite side of the quilt. “I don’t mean to sound greedy, but it seems strange that a house that’s been lived in for so many generations would have so little in it. If I’d guessed, I would have said it was packed to the gills with at least a lot of Victorian ornaments.”
“In a word, Bertrand,” Ramsey said. He’d finished his pasta and was sipping the white wine. “I don’t really know too much about it, as my father personally handled Miss Edi, but Dad always muttered things under his breath whenever ol’ Bertrand’s name was mentioned. I think he had a problem with the horses.”
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“Your father gambled?” Joce asked.
Ramsey looked at her to see if she was kidding.
“Sorry. My sense of humor,” she said. “So Bertrand had a gambling problem.”
Ramsey looked at her over the wineglass. “He had some kind of problem. At least I think he did. I never really knew Miss Edi, but from what I heard of her, it always struck me as odd that she let him sell off most everything that was in this house. I remember when I was a kid and a huge truck pulled up in front of the house.”
“It got through those narrow gates?”
“Good eye!” he said. “No, no truck can get through those pillars. Luke’s pickup has been scraped on them more than once.”
Ramsey took a drink of wine, then got up to begin clearing away the remnants of the pasta and salad. When Joce started to help him, he told her to sit still. She waited while he carried the plates into the kitchen, and when he returned, he had a little machine that looked like a fondue pot. “My sister assures me that this thing is perfect for melting chocolate. She says her second child was conceived the night they bought it.” He looked at her. “Sorry. Bad story for a first date.”
“You’re forgiven, but only if you tell me about the moving van.”
“Oh, yes. They had to park it in the road, and a smaller truck carried furniture out to it. It was a Saturday and all of us kids nearly drove the movers crazy. We were in the truck, in the house, even hiding inside cabinets that they had to carry. They were ready to throw us all into the pond.”
“What did your parents say? Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“They were right there, watching everything, and the adults who couldn’t be there to watch paid us to run to their house every hour and tell them what was going on. Sara was the fastest on her bike, so she delivered the messages. You know, I still think she didn’t split the money fairly. I think she kept most of it for herself.”