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embarrassed. He said he only needed a loan." She gave her head a shake and swallowed another draft of the ale. She gasped again, but not as loudly. "Did Mr. Villette take money from you, too?" Her gaze pleaded with Clara to say yes.
    Reluctantly, she nodded and explained about giving Jean Jacques her nest egg to buy a boardinghouse in Seattle, and how she had sold the inn to follow him. Then Miss March told her about giving Jean Jacques money to buy them a home in Oregon.
    Finally they discussed dates and established the order of events.
    Clara lowered her head. "So he married you first." Her mind felt numb, insulated from the pain that would knock her down later.
    "I just can't believe this is happening." Unshed tears glistened in Juliette's eyes, and she bent her head over the ale stein. "I thought he loved me."
    "I thought he loved me, too. I never doubted for a minute that every word my Jean Jacques uttered was true and sincere." Clara frowned down at her wedding ring. Jean Jacques had claimed it was an heirloom. One of a kind. And she had swallowed every word like a lump of sugar, had never dreamed that he could be lying. The bastard.
    "He told me he was in the import-export business. His money was tied up in inventory."
    "He told me he was in the hotel business," she said. "His money was invested in an inn in California that he was trying to sell."
    "All lies. But… I keep remembering…" Scarlet flooded Juliette's cheeks. She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know how he could have been so convincing if it was all a lie. I keep thinking I would have known. I would have sensed something.
Something
. Maybe I'm deceiving myself, trying to find one small thing to cling to. But I can't believe that he didn't love me. At least a little. It couldn't have been entirely the money."
    The same argument unwound in Clara's thoughts. Jean Jacques couldn't have married her just for the money. He hadn't known that she had a nest egg tucked away for her old age. And he hadn't married her to get the inn. He'd specifically told her not to sell until he wrote. Now she knew he would never summon her, had never intended to contact her again. He was gone.
    The anguish of knowing she would never see him again sliced through her heart like a blade, made worse by the shock of discovering she'd been taken in by a handsome and charming womanizer.
    When Clara looked up, she saw that Miss March had covered her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. "I can't possibly address you as Mrs. Villette," she stated abruptly. For the first time in her life, Clara experienced a deep bite of jealousy. Sharp fangs poisoned her mind when she imagined her Jean Jacques making love to Juliette. And she couldn't push the hateful images away.
    Juliette shuddered behind the handkerchief covering her expression. "And I can't possibly call
you
Mrs. Villette!"
    "Call me Clara, and I'll call you Juliette. Or we can call each other Miss Klaus and Miss March."
    Juliette automatically extended her little finger as if she drank from a teacup instead of a stein. Clara had never seen that done before. How on earth could Jean Jacques have married this prissy woman? He couldn't have loved her. He simply couldn't have.
    "Mr. Villette married me first," Juliette said after a period of silence. Her chin came up. "I'm glad you concede that point."
    Her tone surprised Clara. Perhaps a real woman existed beneath the brittle veneer of ladylike reserve. "My marriage is as authentic and as legal as yours," Clara answered sharply.
    "I don't see how it could be since he was married to me when you seduced him."
    "When I seduced him? I'll have you know that my Jean Jacques took one look at me and fell deeply in love! From that moment on, he pursued me relentlessly until I agreed to marry him! He was the seducer, not me."
    "He called me his angel; he said I made him happy! I don't know what wiles you used to snare my husband, but when he rode out of Linda Vista, he was a happily