He didn’t let her finish. “I disagree. It was my warehouse, after all, and I should have had it protected better. I’m afraid I’m not used to owning it yet, and frankly, I wasn’t planning to keep it, just haven’t got around to disposing of it yet.”

“Then why did you buy it?”

He relaxed. Her expression was merely curious now, the horror gone from it. He’d managed to ease her mind and accomplish his goal, and all because she didn’t have a suspicious bone in her pretty little body.

“I didn’t buy it. It came into my possession a few months ago, was the last asset from my brother’s business that didn’t succumb to his creditors when he died.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

Bloody hell, there it was again, sympathy for him pouring out of her. She’d just been delivered a devastating blow, yet had room to feel compassion for him as she realized what he’d said meant his brother had only recently died.

He quickly made light of it in offering her a shrug and a slight change of subject. “Have you no other assets at all, aside from your jewels?”

“There is a piece of land in Kent that’s been in my family’s possession longer than anyone can remember. There is a ruined castle on it, believed to have belonged to one of our ancestors, an ancient one. But that rumor has never been confirmed. Unfortunately, it only takes one generation to go by, uninterested in preserving family history, for that history to be lost.”

“The land is valuable, though?”

“I suppose it is, but I can’t sell it. My father hasn’t been declared dead yet, for me to be able to. The same goes for his company, his ships, any stored cargoes or valuables he has locked in the small storeroom at the company, none of which I can dispose of yet. And his personal belongings, jewelry and the like, sailed with him.”

Vincent stiffened. Talk of ships in relation to her father brought a very unacceptable—to him—thought.

It hadn’t occurred to him, until that moment, that Larissa’s father fit the description of the current possessor of La Nymph, and that she had paintings she meant to sell . . . No, that would be too easy, too convenient—and make her family incredibly rich. But just in case it wasn’t a coincidence, he would visit the warehouse after luncheon to examine those paintings himself that had been moved to the secured storeroom in the back of the building. And he hoped, he really did, that he wouldn’t find La Nymph there.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17