Secrets by Brenda Joyce Page A

beautiful you are?”
    From behind them, Slade began heaving her trunks on the ground.
    She was not embarrassed and she laughed. “You, I think, are a rogue.”
    â€œA rogue?” His grin was devilish and handsome. “I’ve never been called a rogue before. I like it.”
    Regina laughed again. She had most definitely played this flirtation game many times before; not only was she well-schooled in it, she was comfortable in such an exchange. But then she wondered how it was possible if she had spent the past few years cloistered in a private school for young ladies. In such a setting she would not have had the opportunity to flirt with handsome young men; briefly, she was perplexed.
    â€œWell, you’ll certainly hear it from now on,” Edward said, grinning, “until you do get bored.”
    Regina flashed another smile, but it was only a facade. “I don’t think a young lady ever tires of flattery,” she said automatically. She was uneasy with her last thought. She did not have time to brood upon the contradiction, however, for Slade made a contemptuous noise, gaining both their attention.
    â€œYou think women really fall for that?” he said.
    Regina regarded Slade in surprise, wondering why he was angry when his brother’s words were merely a game.
    Edward smiled at her again. “He’s jealous. He’s jealous because he wouldn’t know how to sweet-talk a woman if his life depended on it.”
    Slade looked at Regina before answering his brother. “I have no use for ‘sweet-talking.’ But you seem more than adept at it.”
    â€œI’m wounded,” Edward said jokingly, but he seemed puzzled by Slade’s response.
    Slade threw another accusing glance at Regina. “You both seem more than adept at it.”
    Regina could not believe that he would attack her so. Beside her, Edward looked equally surprised. “Slade,” he protested.
    Slade ignored them both. He heaved the last of her trunks on the ground and disappeared into the house.
    Regina’s feelings were wounded but she was very careful to hide them. She turned toward the house so that Edward would not see her flushed face. “You have a beautiful home,” she said unevenly.
    â€œThe house was first built in ’38,” Edward said quickly. Then he touched her arm. “He didn’t mean it.”
    â€œYes, he did. And I seem to be very accomplished in the art of flirtation.”
    â€œSometimes even I can’t understand my brother,” Edward said grimly. “Most of the ladies I know flirt.”
    His words did not soothe her. In the past few hours she had pushed Slade away, when that had not been her intention at all. She owed him her life, she was sure of it, but all she had done was to anger him.
    â€œCome on, let’s go in, it’s much cooler inside,” Edward said, taking her arm.
    He was hoping to distract her, and Regina wanted to be distracted. She looked at the house and realized that it was indeed beautiful. Huge oleanders, red and pink and white, surged up against the sides of the sprawling, U-shaped adobe house. Through the arched entryway she could see that the house was built around a vast courtyard with apricot-hued stone floors, a limestone fountain, and a profusion of exotic blooming plants. There was an opening at the back of the courtyard, and it looked as if another courtyard was behind the first.
    â€œOf course, it’s been added onto quite a bit since ’38,” Edward said. “What you see now is actually only a part of the original structure. We are a real Californio family, one of the last ones. Most have sold out.”
    â€œI see,” Regina said, thankful that he was succeeding in his attempt to bring a degree of normalcy back into the moment.
    â€œYou’ll probably hear this over and over again, but the Mexican governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado, awarded this land to us in