Read Online The Perfect Bride by Kerry Connor - Free Book Online Page B

should have been in the car with her.”
    “Did he think he could have done a better job driving in the storm?”
    “Or he thought he could have died with her. It often seemed like he wished he had. The way he lived the rest of his life, I’m not sure he didn’t.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He never really left Sutton Hall after that. He sold off most of his business interests. As far as I know, he didn’t work. He didn’t have to, of course. Between his investments and the family fortune, I’m sure he hadmore than enough to live on for far longer than he did.”
    Jillian had already thought Jacob Sutton’s story was sad, but the more she heard about him the more tragic it seemed. “Rosie mentioned that he seldom had guests. I guess I didn’t realize just how reclusive he’d become.”
    “He hadn’t been seen in town in more than twenty years, though a few people who went up to the house for variousreasons saw him. They said he was practically wasting away, a shadow of the man he’d once been. I don’t think anyone was surprised to hear he’d died.”
    “I heard he might have gone a little...crazy in his last few years?”
    The woman’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I’m guessing you heard that from Zack.”
    “How’d you know?”
    Emma grimaced. “If anyone was liable to tell you that, it’s him.The rest of them up there are all too loyal, and Zack likes to talk. Most of what I’ve heard about Jacob in the last years of his life started with Zack talking here in town and word getting around. But, yes, from what I hear Jacob spent most of his days sitting on the balcony of one of the tower rooms, the one that looks out over the road leading up the mountain. He’d just sit there and stare,as if he was still watching for her, waiting for her to come back.”
    The balcony of the tower room that looks out over the road leading up the mountain. Jillian didn’t need her to tell her which one that was, as a prickle of unease raised goose bumps on her arms. It was the one with the best view in the house.
    The one that Courtney had fallen from...
    No wonder Zack hadn’t wantedto tell her about it.
    “He must have really loved her,” Jillian managed to say.
    Emma smiled sadly. “I’d say so. A few years after Kathleen died, someone in town asked him if he’d considered finding a new wife. He said, ‘A Sutton man loves forever.’ I guess that’s true. All the Sutton men going back to old Hugh were only married once and stayed married to their wives until one of thempassed away.”
    A Sutton man loves forever. Jillian wondered idly if that was really true for all Sutton men, including the one currently living there....
    As soon as she realized where her thoughts were going, she put a quick end to them. Adam Sutton’s romantic loyalty hardly mattered, and certainly wasn’t something she had any reason to be interested in.
    “Did you know her?” Jillianasked, more curious than ever about the woman she knew only as the bride in the portrait at Sutton Hall, a woman capable of inspiring such devotion. “Kathleen Sutton?”
    “Not personally. I saw her in town a few times. I remember she was very beautiful. And everyone seemed to think well of her. Practically the whole town mourned when she died.”
    All of this was interesting, but it wasn’tgetting Jillian to what she really needed to know: what had happened to Courtney, and who might be responsible.
    “What about the staff?” Jillian asked. “Meredith said she and her brother kept on all of the people who’d been working there when Jacob Sutton died. I guess it was just the four of them—Grace, Rosie, Ed and Ray?”
    “That’s true. That was nice of them to do that. They didn’t haveto, and I’m sure they could have found younger people to handle the more strenuous jobs, especially Ed and Ray’s. But those four have been there so long, I’m not sure where any of them would have gone.”
    Jillian could sense the woman being diplomatic,