Read Online Shadows At Sunset by Anne Stuart - Free Book Online

his gaze away from the house to find her staring at him, a curious expression on her face.
    â€œNot what you were expecting?” she said. “There’s been barely enough money to keep it from falling to pieces entirely. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it together.”
    â€œYou don’t strike me as someone who admits defeat.” He was amazed at how calm his voice sounded.
    â€œI’m a realist, Mr. Coltrane. Not a fool.”
    â€œJust Coltrane.” And if she was a realist then he was an altar boy. She was as idealistic and starry-eyed as anyone he’d ever met, at least when it came to what she loved. Which was old houses in general, and this old house in particular. “Let’s go inside.”
    He was half expecting her to refuse, but after a moment she nodded, leading the way in. It was just as well—he wasn’t about to leave without finally going through the place. Not since that cold wave of shock had washed over him when he first looked up at the house.
    He’d lived here. No one had ever told him—as far as he’d known he’d spent the first thirteen years of his life in Indiana. He’d simply assumed that picture had been taken before he was born, before she’d met his father.
    Wrong. He’d lived here, and he had no conscious memory of it. Just a weird, certain knowledge that this place had once, long, long ago, been his home.
    The smell of the place was so damned familiar, another blow. He was glad Jilly’s back was to him—he wasn’t certain he could manage to keep his expression imperturbable. He knew the hallway, knew the long, curving staircase, and he followed her wordlessly as she cataloged the details of the house in a rapid, bored voice that slowly, reluctantly turned to warmth and fascination. She loved this house, he thought, loved it with a lover’s passion. She would be an easy woman to use—her heart was on her sleeve. She loved the house, her brother and her sister, and all he’d have to do would be to apply a little pressure on one of those three things to get her to do what he wanted.
    They wandered through drawing rooms, dining rooms, salons and breakfast nooks. Whoever had built this place had spared no expense, and the thing rambled for what seemed like acres. It was sparsely furnished, the few shabby pieces looking like lost remnants of a once grander time. “Brenda de Lorillard hired a set designer to decorate this place,” Jilly was saying, “and unfortunately she picked someone who’d done a lot of work for Cecil B. DeMille. Some of it looks more like an opera set than a house.”
    She was right—it was gloriously tawdry, from the Italianate wallpaper to the gilt-covered furniture. The huge kitchen was a monument to impracticability, with not even a dishwasher in sight. There seemed to be no air-conditioning in the house, but the place was comfortably cool, anyway. He wondered if that was because of the supposed ghosts.
    â€œWhat about upstairs?” he said, when her chatter had finally wound down.
    â€œBedrooms,” she said.
    â€œThat’s logical. Is that where it happened?”
    She looked startled. “Where what happened?”
    â€œThe murder-suicide? Or does this place hold other scandals, as well?” He knew the answer to that, but he wasn’t sure whether she did.
    â€œThe master bedroom. Trust me, there’s nothing to see. All the blood was cleaned up.”
    â€œShow me, anyway.”
    â€œNo. It’s my bedroom now and I don’t like strange men traipsing through it.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI like my privacy.”
    â€œAnd you don’t have any problem sleeping in a murder scene? A haunted one?”
    â€œI told you, I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said.
    â€œDon’t believe in them? Or just don’t see them?”
    She glowered at him. She had a very impressive glower. “I’m