Read Online Lavender Morning by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online

she tried to put the real story together. “So Miss Edi came home from World War
    II, her legs a mass of burn scars, and she found out that the man she loved had married someone else?”
    “That’s right.”
    “So what did she do?” Joce asked.
    “The house and what money the family had left was in Miss Edi’s name, but she turned the house over to
    her younger brother. I don’t know about the money. My Great-aunt Lissie used to say that Bertrand wasn’t
    much of a man.”
    “What does that mean? That he didn’t ride horses up the staircase at midnight?”
    “Now, now, don’t let the Yankee in you come to the surface.”
    “Sorry,” Joce said, but she was smiling. “I’ve read too many romantic novels.”
    “Haven’t we all? As I was saying, Miss Edi came back, saw her man had been stolen from her, so she gave
    the house to her lazy brother and left town. But not before she had MAW draw up a forty-five-page contract for
    her brother to sign. She may have been hurt, but she wasn’t stupid.”
    “MAW?” Joce asked.
    “The local law firm. McDowell, Aldredge, and Welsch.”
    “Aldredge,” Jocelyn said under her breath, then louder, “always the same names. Tell me, do you people
    ever move away from your hometown like the rest of the U.S. does?”
    “ They do, but we stay.”
    Joce nodded. “Right. The tourists. The outsiders. They come and go, but yawl stay.”
    “You didn’t say it correctly, so you might as well quit trying. You have to be at least third-generation
    Southern to be able to say ‘you all’ correctly.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind. What happened to Miss Edi’s brother?”
    “Died in his sleep years ago. Aunt Lissie said he was a man who could do absolutely nothing and make
    himself believe it was work.”
    “I think I may have met him,” Joce said. “I might even have dated him.”
    “I knew the moment we met that you and I had a lot in common.”
    They smiled at each other, two women in mutual understanding, then they sat in silence for a while and Joce
    looked out over the grounds. She still wasn’t used to the idea that she was now a property owner. She glanced
    back at the house, at the sheer, perfect beauty of it, and felt cold chills come over her arms.
    Nor had she reconciled herself to the fact that the woman who’d practically been her mother had either left
    out a lot about her life, or had outright lied to her. Jocelyn had lived with the idea of the “perfect love” Miss Edi’d
    had for a fallen soldier since she first heard it when she was a child. In fact, the image of that love had been her
    guide, her yardstick that she’d measured her every relationship against. When a man got serious, Jocelyn asked
    herself if this was a man she loved with the passion that Miss Edi had felt for her David. No man, no feelings Joce
    had ever had, had come close to the picture of “true love” that Miss Edi planted there.
    But now Jocelyn was finding out that Miss Edi’s great love was just a tawdry affair. The man had jilted her
    for another woman.
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    “So what are you going to do with the house?” Sara asked, bringing Joce out of reverie. “Sell it? Make it
    into apartments?”
    Joce wasn’t fooled by her tone of not caring, of seeming to just be asking a question. So this is why the
    welcome carpet was rolled out so lavishly, she thought. Had someone told Sara to do whatever she needed to to
    find out what Miss Edi’s heir was planning to do with the old house? “How much do you think I could get for all
    those old bricks?”
    She waited for Sara to laugh, but she didn’t. She kept her head down as she sewed on the beads.
    “Sara,” Joce said, “I’m a lover of history. Since I got out of school I’ve made my living by helping people
    research the past.”
    Sara looked at her with cool eyes. “It would make a wonderful B and B.”
    Joce groaned.