The Perfect Bride (3 page)

Ed Warren was a tall man with a stocky frame and gray hair that was balding on top. Appearing to be roughly the
same age as his wife, he had an open, welcoming face, which quickly eased into a smile. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“You, too,” Jillian said. “You take care of this whole house? That’s a big job for one man.”

His smile deepened. “It keeps me busy,” he acknowledged before turning to his wife. “Rosie? There any coffee?”

“There should be half a pot,” Rosie said with barely concealed
irritation.

“There’s not,” Ed said patiently.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Rosie said, shoving away from the table. “I know there was. And of course you can’t make any more yourself.”

“You know you don’t like anybody messing around in your kitchen.”

“That’s because I know where everything goes,” Rosie retorted. Without a glance back at Jillian and Meredith, she rounded the end of
the table and followed her husband, who ducked back through the doorway before her.

The room immediately felt quieter when they were gone. “I’m sorry about that,” Meredith said softly. “They can be a little...eccentric.”

“It’s fine,” Jillian assured her. “They’re part of the atmosphere of a place like this, an authentic staff of real people who are at home here, right?”

“I’m hoping
people think so,” Meredith admitted with a smile.

“So you kept on all the original staff?”

“We did. There were only four of them, though. Grace, Rosie, Ed and Ray, the groundskeeper. Zack, who brought up your bags, is Ray’s son. Jacob Sutton was apparently a recluse in his later years, and he pretty much kept a skeleton crew on staff. They’ve all been here for so long it didn’t seem
right to turn them out. Like you said, this is their home, and they’ve proven more than capable at their jobs. Of course we’ll hire as much staff as necessary to work the wedding. I already have a long list of people from town on call.”

“It sounds great. It’s amazing that you’re planning on doing so much with such a small regular staff, though.”

“This is only for the time being. We may
hire more people on a permanent basis. We’re still evaluating how much more additional staff we’ll need based on...how the future looks.”

She glanced away, and Jillian understood her meaning. After what had happened to Courtney, the new wedding business wasn’t on the strongest footing. The future would depend on what happened with the next wedding.

Which isn’t going to happen,
Jillian
acknowledged with a trace of guilt.

She reminded herself she had no reason to feel guilty. As one of the owners, this woman was part of the cover-up of whatever had happened to Courtney, and might even be involved herself. Jillian couldn’t forget that.

“So tell me about your fiancé,” Meredith said brightly in a clear effort to change the subject. “I’d love to hear all about him.”

It was a question Jillian was prepared for. “Ryan’s an architect who works on projects all over the world. It’s one reason he’s as excited as I am to be married here. He’s fascinated by Sutton Hall. He couldn’t be more jealous that I get to see it first.”

“Do you have a picture of him? I’d love to see what he looks like.”

“Of course,” Jillian said, reaching for her bag. She’d figured
she’d be expected to have pictures of her fiancé and the two of them together. It would only make sense that a prospective bride would have plenty of them and be eager to show off her groom. Pulling out her wallet, she withdrew the plastic photo holder and handed it to Meredith, who began flipping through it.

“Oh, he’s very handsome,” Meredith said. Though it hardly mattered, Jillian knew
she was being honest. By any reasonable standards, Ryan was a very good-looking man. He was also conveniently out of the country at the moment, so if anyone tried reaching him to confirm her story, they’d have a hard time doing so. It was a good thing, too, since she didn’t want him finding out she was here any more than she wanted anyone here learning he wasn’t her fiancé. Ryan would kill her if
he knew she’d come here on her own and wouldn’t hesitate to blow her cover.

Of course the downside of that was that no one knew she was here. Just in case anything happened, she’d written an email to several people she trusted and set it to be sent on a time delay if she didn’t reschedule it, which she planned to do every twenty-four hours. She also intended to add to the message with her
thoughts and impressions of what she found here, letting them know about the investigation she was conducting and hopefully leaving relevant clues in case something did happen to her. With any luck, it wouldn’t come to that.

“Everything all right in here?”

The voice came from the main entrance to the room—loud, startling...and familiar.

Adam Sutton.

It was all she could do
not to tense as adrenaline suddenly ricocheted through her body. A strange reaction. She tried to tell herself it was because he’d startled her, even as part of her deep down recognized it was more than that.

He was behind her. It wasn’t just that his voice had come from that direction. No, she immediately sensed his location, exactly where he was standing, mere feet away.

She recognized
the feeling of that hard, steady gaze boring through her.

Then he was there, standing just behind them, positioned between her chair and Meredith’s. Keeping her expression carefully clear, she raised her head to look at him.

And met his eyes.

As she’d known he would, he was looking directly at her. A jolt went through her that she had to fight her hardest to keep from showing. It
was exactly the reaction she hadn’t had when she’d first seen Zack Hopkins.

It was also ridiculous. She didn’t know this man. Everything about him said she shouldn’t trust him, let alone feel...anything else toward him.

“Of course,” Meredith said, finally answering his question. Her voice was tight—with nervousness? Something else? “Jillian was just showing me pictures of her fiancé.”

“Really?” Adam said with a slight arch of his brow. “I’d love to see them.”

Some kind of look Jillian couldn’t read passed between brother and sister before Meredith thrust the photo holder at him.

Jillian watched as Adam slowly went through the photos, examining each one closely, eyes narrowed to slits. “What does your fiancé do?”

“He’s an architect.”

“Ah,” he said in
a tone that seemed to say he didn’t believe her. “How did the two of you meet?”

“At a party,” she said automatically. It was the truth. “I’m afraid I don’t have a more romantic story of our first meeting than that.”

“All that matters is that you did meet,” Meredith assured her.

When Adam reached the last photograph, he finally raised those dark eyes to her, an indecipherable look
in them.

“You make a very attractive couple,” he said blandly, reaching out to hand the photos back to her. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

He continued to stare at her for a long moment before finally nodding, giving the table a cursory glance, a tight, unconvincing smile on his lips. “I’ll let you ladies get back to business. Sorry to interrupt.”

“Not a problem,” Meredith
said breezily, though again Jillian caught the look she shot him.

Curious,
Jillian thought. There was so much going on beneath the surface she didn’t know about around here. She had to wonder how much of it was relevant to her purposes. She was going to have to figure it out—and soon.

“Now then,” Meredith said. “Why don’t we talk about flowers?”

Jillian couldn’t imagine anything
she wanted to do less at the moment. Pasting on a smile, she made herself nod.

Keeping her attention on Meredith, Jillian turned away from Adam.

It didn’t matter. She could still feel him there.

She sensed him begin to depart, relief piercing the tension gripping her insides.

Listening with half an ear to Meredith, she waited for the feeling to dissipate completely.

It
didn’t. Instead, fresh awareness prickled the back of her neck. And she knew.

He was watching her.

The tension holding her clenched tighter. A strange mix of emotions churned in her belly, twisting and changing into each other, making it hard to recognize them all. Wariness. Nervousness.

Excitement.

The last one made no sense, but she had no doubt it was the one that had her
heart beating the hardest.

Even after he’d finally left, it took a while for the feeling to fade completely.

He was suspicious of her. She was convinced of that now. It was the only thing that made sense, the only possible reason for his unrelenting focus. There was none of Zack Hopkins’s flirtatiousness in his intense scrutiny. Which was ironic considering the effect it seemed to be
having on her.

She was going to have to be careful around him. Or better yet, avoid him entirely. The man was a threat to her mission, and quite possibly, her life. She couldn’t forget that.

No matter how many times she had to remind herself.

* * *

T
HIS
ONE
WAS
different than the last. More reserved. Not as overly excited about the wedding plans and her upcoming nuptials.

Only time would tell just how different from the last one she truly was.

The last bride to come here, for all her excitement about the wedding preparations, hadn’t been serious about what the commitment of her impending nuptials truly meant. At a time when she should have been thinking about nothing but her wedding and getting ready for married life, she’d been looking at a man who wasn’t
her fiancé in a way she had no business doing so when she was engaged to be married.

She hadn’t been fit to be a bride, hadn’t deserved all those wonderful plans she’d made. Not at all.

This new one would have to be watched as well.

Chapter Three

Jillian waited until two in the morning before making her move.

She’d taken a nap after dinner, partly because the exhaustion of traveling here and pretending to be something she wasn’t, surrounded by people she didn’t trust, had gotten to her, partly because there was nothing else for her to do. She needed everyone else in Sutton Hall to be in bed and out of
her way, needed the place to herself so she could do what she had to.

She needed to see the tower bedroom, the one where Courtney had been staying.

The one with the balcony she’d fallen from.

The final few hours before Jillian thought it would be safe to proceed passed with agonizing slowness. She made notes of her first impressions of everyone she’d met since her arrival. She considered
who might have wanted to hurt Courtney, and why.

She thought about Adam Sutton, with his darkly handsome looks and solemn stares that seemed to see right through her, and pondered what exactly was lurking beneath that enigmatic face....

Finally it was time.

She hadn’t heard a sound in hours. Hopefully that meant the rest of the household was tucked tightly in their beds.

Expecting
to have to work in the dark of night, she’d packed a flashlight for this very moment. Moving to the door, she slowly eased it open and peered out into the darkness.

Silence lay heavily over Sutton Hall. At least over the part nearest to where she was. The place was so big a brass band could be playing in the other wing and she probably wouldn’t hear it from here.

She couldn’t see anything,
either, the darkness as thick as the quiet. Gripping the flashlight tightly, she slipped into the hallway, carefully closing the door behind her.

She stood there, her back to it, and stared into the blackness, willing her eyes to adjust. She didn’t want to turn on the flashlight just yet, in case anyone was nearby.

She knew where she was heading. She’d read the police report, studied
maps of Sutton Hall. She knew where the tower bedroom was. Now it was just a matter of getting there.

The stairs to the next floor weren’t far from her room. Finally, she was able to detect enough in the darkness to make her way there. She moved quickly on the balls of her feet, her steps silent on the plush carpet. Listening carefully for the slightest sound, she hurried up the stairs to
the third floor.

Another vast, empty corridor completely devoid of lights, exactly like the one she’d just left, faced her. She took a few steps into the hallway, enough to be out of view from the stairs, and finally turned on the flashlight.

The thin beam created by the tool did little to calm her nerves. Somehow the house was more unsettling when viewed through that pale light than
it had seemed in the dark. The beam didn’t reach far, seeming to fade out only a few feet in front of her. Everything beyond it was hazy and instinct. It was an eerie feeling, as though anything could be lurking just out of its reach, or at its edges, hidden just out of view.

She turned left, her tension building the closer she came to her destination. She kept her mouth closed and breathed
through her nose, trying to keep her breathing steady when her heart seemed to be pounding out of control. Every few steps, she glanced back, sending the beam of the flashlight shooting behind her, just in case anyone was there, sneaking up on her....

Then there it was. The corridor came to an abrupt end. Just before it was a final door on the right.

The door to the tower bedroom.

Focusing her light on the doorknob, she eased her way toward it.

When she was finally there, she reached a trembling hand out to grasp the knob. Taking a deep breath, she turned it.

It twisted easily, the latch giving way and releasing the door with a barely audible click.

Jillian froze, her body tensing in surprise. Frankly, she’d half expected it to be locked and thought she’d
have to try to pick it. It would have made sense that they’d want to keep people from going into this room. Or maybe the Suttons had trusted that no one would come here.

Foolish of them.

Good for her.

Not about to waste any more time, she gently pushed the knob inward, moving slowly in case the hinges made any noise. She needn’t have worried. The door swung open silently, gradually
revealing the space within.

The room wasn’t completely dark. Faint moonlight poured in from a long window on the far side of the space.

No, she realized, going still. Not a window. A door. Maybe a door to a balcony?

Swallowing hard, she stepped inside, easing the door shut behind her. Only when she heard the latch fasten did she reach over and fumble for the light switch on the
wall. Her skin crawling at being in this room, with its long shadows and dark spaces, she struggled to find the switch, her heart beating faster each moment her fingers came away empty.

Her fingertips finally made contact. She instantly flipped the switch, flooding the room with blessed light.

Maybe too much? she wondered, imagining the light pouring out through the windows and into
the night. Would it be visible from any of the other windows on one of the sides of the mansion that came together to form this tower?

Trying to visualize the layout of the house, she decided it was unlikely. Not to mention that, now that she was here, she didn’t really feel like wandering around in the dark with only her flashlight to guide her. Not here. Not in this room.

Stepping
forward, she surveyed the space. When she’d heard the room had had a balcony, she’d wondered why Courtney hadn’t asked for another one given her fear of heights. Now that she was here, she could understand why. Jillian had thought the room she’d been put in had been impressive, but this one was magnificent, bigger and more extravagant, from the massive bed that could easily fit a half-dozen people
to the stone fireplace on one wall that was practically the size of a full room itself. The space was warm and comfortable despite its size. The exit to the balcony was such a minor part of the room it would be easy enough to forget it was there at all.

Inevitably, though, Jillian’s eyes found the doors, closed tightly against the night. She studied them from across the room, suddenly wary.
This was it. A month ago Courtney had stood in this room, and then she’d found herself out there, and then—

“Looking for something?”

The voice came out of nowhere, shocking in the silence. Her heart leaping into her throat, she whirled around, automatically raising the flashlight to defend herself—

Adam Sutton stood just inside the door, arms folded over his chest, his expression
as dark as the blackness that yawned beyond the open doorway.

She hadn’t even heard the door open. The fact that he was standing there in that pose, obviously having been there for at least a few moments, told her he’d been watching her. And she wondered if he’d waited to speak until a moment that would startle her most.

That didn’t mean she was going to be meek and defensive, even if
she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Slowly lowering the flashlight, she met his gaze head-on. “This is the room, isn’t it? The one where the last bride stayed?”

“The one she fell to her death from?” he said, arching a brow. “I think you know full well that it is. The only real question is what you’re doing here.”

“You can’t blame me for being curious.”

“Can’t I?” He stepped
forward, arms dropping to his sides, moving toward her one slow step at a time, with the leonine grace of a predator gradually approaching its prey.

She didn’t allow herself to take a step back, to retreat, to move at all. Even as her skin began to tingle the closer he came, with wariness, with unease...with something else that made her heart beat faster most of all.

He finally stopped
a few feet away, not enough that he was really invading her space, but enough that he might as well have been. He towered over her, peering down into her eyes, the lines of his handsome face hard and cold. His presence was overwhelming, a palpable thing she felt too strongly. Her whole body seemed to buzz with awareness of it, of him. It was all she could do not to swallow hard.

Unsettled
by the strange emotions churning inside her, she managed to hold her ground and found her voice. “If you wanted to keep people out, you should have locked the door.”

“I did,” he said, surprising her. “Right after the police were done with the room.”

Jillian frowned, not understanding. “But it was unlocked.”

He smiled, the slow curving of his lips sending a shiver of warning up her
spine. “I unlocked it this evening and set a sensor to inform me if anyone opened the door. Just in case
someone
decided to come up here.”

It couldn’t have been clearer who that “someone” was.
A trap,
she thought. He’d set it specifically for her and she’d walked right into it. The only question was—

“Why? Why go to all that trouble?”

“Because I wanted to know just how much trouble
you are.”

“Indulging a little basic human curiosity is hardly causing trouble.”

“If that’s all you were doing,” he said pointedly. “What are you really doing here, Ms. Jones?”

“I’m here to get married,” she answered automatically.

“Are you?”

“If not, I’ve paid a very large deposit for no reason.”

“Or for a different reason than the one you’re claiming.”

“And
what would that be?”

He simply looked at her for a long moment, his eyes peering, unblinking, into hers. “You tell me.”

“I have no idea. You seem to be the one with the active imagination. Maybe you should tell me what you want me to say.”

He continued studying her with that cold, unwavering stare. With some effort, she managed to hold his gaze, refusing to back down or let the
slightest weakness show.

His unyielding gaze slowly shifted, stroking over her face. Her skin burned wherever his eyes touched her, as they trailed over her nose, her cheeks, finally reaching her lips. She waited for them to move away. They didn’t, lingering on her mouth, with an intensity of focus that sent a sudden rush of heat flooding through her.

Without warning, he abruptly turned
away and stalked across the room.

Straight to the doors to the balcony.

Unease shooting through her, she watched as he grabbed the handles and pushed the doors open. Night wind blasted through the fresh gap between them, blowing through his hair and molding his clothes tightly against the hard lines of his body.

It took only seconds for the cold air to reach her. She barely noticed
it, her attention fixed on the balcony. She couldn’t really see it. The light flooding the room somehow didn’t manage to reach far past the doors.

Staring at the endless emptiness beyond the open doors, she shivered, the reaction having nothing to do with the wind.

One thing she knew for sure, there was no way Courtney would have been out on that balcony at night.

Turning back to
her, he gestured to the doors as though presenting the opening to her. “All right, Ms. Jones. You wanted to see it. Come take a look.”

She remained where she was. He was right—it was what she’d come here for. But alone with this man, she suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near that balcony.

She turned her focus to him. He watched her through hooded eyes, the challenge clear in them.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to scare me.”

“I’m only giving you what you said you wanted. Or were you lying about that?”

“You know, for someone who’s supposedly running a business here, you’re not exactly welcoming to paying customers. Aren’t you worried I’ll decide to leave?”

“No,” he said flatly. “Because I don’t think you will. I don’t think there’s
anything I can say that could get you to leave.”

“You’re right, of course. If the idea of having my wedding in a place where another bride recently died doesn’t scare me, I’m certainly not going to be scared off by you. But that’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to leave?”

“If you’re lying about why you’re here, then yes.”

“Which you think I am. This is your property. If you want
me to leave so badly, why don’t you just kick me out?”

“Meredith wants you here. She believes you.”

“It’s nice to know paranoid fantasies don’t run in the family.”

Jillian wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his expression actually darkened further. “This business means a great deal to my sister. I have no intention of letting her be hurt by someone who’s here under false pretenses
and wasting her time.”

“Wouldn’t it hurt her if I left? Another canceled wedding wouldn’t be a good thing, even if the end result is less disturbing.”

“It would be better than having her hurt by you turning out to be something you’re not. So let’s have it, Ms. Jones. Who are you?”

A pang of guilt welled inside her, just for a moment, before she ruthlessly pushed it back down. Because
while Meredith Sutton
might
be hurt, Courtney definitely had been, and she’d lost a great deal more than a business.

“Just a woman who wants to get married in a beautiful castle,” she said simply, without blinking. “Isn’t that every little girl’s dream?”

A faint smile played across his lips. “So they say.”

Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to get away. From this room, with its
connection to Courtney’s death. From that balcony, which seemed infinitely dangerous.

From this man, with his cool stare that left her feeling anything but cold.

She’d had enough of this game, and wasn’t really up for fending off any more accusations—or dealing with the strange way he had of throwing her off-balance, in more ways than one.

Refusing to let him see her nerves, she
squared her shoulders and held his gaze steadily. “I think I should be getting back to bed.”

He simply stared at her with those bottomless, unreadable eyes. “Yes,” he said coolly. “You should.”

Raising her chin, she turned and headed for the exit.

She’d nearly reached the door and made her escape, relief beginning to swell in her chest, when he spoke again.