The Butler's Daughter. Joyce Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ chest tightened with the dull ache of his own heavy heart. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” Somehow the words seemed inadequate.

      He hung up the phone, promising himself that he’d find out who had done this. Make them pay for destroying a family. And he’d do his best to be the kind of father Ross had wanted for his son.

      Hunter made a couple more quick phone calls, checking on the increased security measures he’d put in place on the Collingwood estate. Apparently, the press was already gathering at the gates. One of the operatives he’d dispatched to the hospital called with Goodhew’s doctor on the line. Hunter convinced the doctor he was Goodhew’s son-in-law and listened grimly to the doctor’s report on the extent of the elderly man’s injuries. At least he was expected to recover.

      Feeling much older than his thirty-three years, Hunter made his way down the hall to Juliana’s room.

      If she was sleeping, he’d let her rest.

      His knock went unanswered, but the sound of the shower running in the bathroom told him she wasn’t sleeping. He entered the room. The bed hadn’t been touched.

      The door to the ensuite bathroom was closed, steam escaping the crack at the bottom of the door. Hunter frowned. How long had she been in there? Concerned, he rapped briskly on the door. “Juliana?”

      There was no answer. Beneath the rhythmic drum of the water, he thought he heard a sob. Was she crying?

      He knocked once more on the door. “I’m coming in.”

      Mist surrounded him, ghostly fingers of it swirled around him as he stepped into the bathroom. He couldn’t make out Juliana’s shape through the mist-cloaked glass doors of the shower, but the water was running.

      What on earth? Where was she?

      “Juliana? Are you here? Are you all right?”

      A muted sound like an animal in pain echoed from out of the shower stall. Hunter opened the door to the stall and saw her huddled on the marble floor, a sodden trembling ball of white flesh. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her knees and damp ribbons of hair were plastered to her shoulders and back.

      Sympathy pierced his body like a sword from his groin to his heart. Hunter quickly shut the water off and reached for the thick white towels she’d set out.

      He snapped one open and stepped into the shower, crouching down to gingerly wrap it around her. Somehow he hadn’t associated a marriage of convenience with the inconvenience of having a sodden naked young woman in his life.

      “Juliana, we have to get you out of here,” he said gently, worried she was in shock.

      She lifted her head, looking at him with red-rimmed eyes. Fear, dark and turgid, shadowed her gaze. Hunter fervently wished that he were anywhere else in the world but here. Her eyes were a mirror into his own soul. “My father?”

      “I just spoke to his doctor.” Fighting a reluctance to touch her in this vulnerable state, he massaged her back through the thickness of the towel, careful to keep his gaze from drifting onto the gleaming damp softness of her limbs or the delicate shape of her feet peeking out beneath the towel. She looked like a frightened swan, ready to take flight. “It’s good news. Your father’s made it through surgery—he’d been struck by some flying debris. He broke a few ribs and shattered his shoulder blade, but the surgeon has repaired the damage. Apparently your father’s suffered some burns on his face and hands, but the doctor expects him to make a full recovery. They’re moving him into ICU to keep a careful eye on him. He’s heavily sedated.”

      Her eyes shuttered closed. “Thank God. I should be there with him, but if I went he’d only be angry. He told me to stay with Cort.”

      Hunter didn’t contradict her. A tremor was shuddering through her body. He wasn’t letting her or Cort anywhere near that hospital. If the killer was intent on finding Juliana, that would be the first spot the killer would look. “You’re exhausted,” he said. “And you’re shivering. You need to be in bed.” He lifted her effortlessly against his chest, his senses reacting simultaneously to the feel of her buttocks molding sweetly to his abs and the scent of apple blossoms clinging to her damp hair.

      She didn’t protest.

      The shock of what had happened was setting in.

      Carrying her into the bedroom, he yanked the covers back from the bed and laid her gently on the crisply ironed powder-blue sheets. Stopping long enough to extinguish the bedside lamp and curse his predicament under his breath, he removed his shoes and climbed in bed beside her.

      Every self-protective instinct in his body rebelled, his legs and arms moving as if hindered by rusting armor as he wrapped his arms around Juliana, awkwardly spooning his body to hers. Despite the steaming heat of the shower, her limbs were ice cold.

      “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.

      Hunter closed his eyes, not caring that the dampness from her hair seeped into his pillow. He grudgingly allowed the exquisite softness of this woman he’d committed himself to marrying to register on his senses, to distract him from the headache grinding at his temples.

      The faint shallow sound of her breathing gradually deepened and became regular.

      She’d fallen asleep.

      Hunter told himself he could leave her now, strip himself away from the forced intimacy of their joined bodies. Take some pain reliever for his headache. It would be light soon. There were numerous tasks still requiring his attention. But he didn’t move. Ross and Lexi were dead, their lives extinguished far too soon. Though Hunter never would have thought it possible, somehow, holding Juliana close to him like this made his own grief more bearable.

      A MONTAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHS of Ross and Lexi Collingwood flashed on the TV screen, each looking as if it had been lifted straight out of the pages of a storybook fairy-tale romance—white teeth, stylish clothes, not a pimple to be seen or a hair out of place. There was no mention of the butler’s daughter or the baby.

      A curled fist hit the desktop. Damn!

      After all that careful planning, the baby had escaped his fate.

      Not for long, though. Not for long.

      Ross and Lexi’s killer smiled smugly and rose to thumb through the clothes hanging precisely one inch apart on the row of expensive wooden hangers. The specially chosen attire purchased for the funeral waited expectantly at the back of the closet like a gift to be unwrapped and savored on Christmas morning. The brand-new black leather shoes lined up beneath it, toes and heels aligned as if at attention. Half of the plan had been achieved. The baron of Wall Street and his oh-so-perfect wife were dead. How hard could it be to find the butler’s daughter?

      The baby would be with her.

      Soon, very soon, all the Collingwoods would be dead.

      Chapter Three

      Cort’s cries tore Juliana from sleep, uprooting her from what felt like a tangle of heavy branches until she realized that the branches flung over her torso were long and muscled—and belonged to a man.

      Sunlight peeped through the partially closed drapes allowing her a glimpse of the slumbering man beside СКАЧАТЬ