The Perfect Bride - By Kerry Connor Page 0,35

are only found in fiction, or if not, the builders of Sutton Hall weren’t nearly so creative.”

She was lying. Even if Jillian wasn’t positive the passages had to exist, the woman’s body language gave her away. She was trying to remain casual, all while her neck and shoulders had tensed just enough to indicate she wasn’t.

“Secret passageways?” Adam asked.

Jillian slowly turned her head to look at him, trying to forget how he’d looked in her dream last night. He watched her through narrowed eyes, his skepticism clear.

She shrugged lightly. “You have to admit, it’s something most people would be curious about. Can’t blame me for asking.”

He raised a brow, as if to ask, Can’t I?

She simply smiled back at him, taking a perverse enjoyment from the way his expression darkened in response, as though he suspected she was up to something. No surprise there.

Then, as she stared at that coolly considering face, another thought occurred to her, killing that momentary pleasure.

Could he be the one who’d attacked her?

No, a voice in the back of her mind replied, rejecting the idea immediately. As soon as she did, she had to question her reaction. Did she really think it hadn’t been him, or did she just not want to believe it?

As she took in that dark steady gaze and felt a nervous flutter deep in her belly in response, she had to admit she didn’t know.

“You’re right, of course,” Meredith interjected into the silence, her voice tight. “It would be a great marketing gimmick if this place came complete with secret passages. Maybe we should look and see if we can find any.”

Me first. “Maybe,” Jillian agreed.

Even as she said it, she shot a glance at Grace. The woman’s head remained bowed, her attention on her plate, but Jillian didn’t miss the way her lips thinned into a tense, unhappy line, or how she seemed to have paled.

Grace didn’t like the idea at all.

Jillian’s certainty only grew, and she had to resist the urge to smile. She was right.

Now she just had to prove it.

* * *

CLAIMING SHE HAD an upset stomach, Jillian headed back to her room right after breakfast. As soon as she reached it, she began to consider where the hidden door could be. The attacker had managed to get out of the room between the time when she’d fought them off and when she’d turned on the lamp, so the entrance had to be relatively close to the bed, near enough that they could duck back through it and shut it again quickly. She eyed the wall next to the bed, figuring it had to be somewhere along there.

She didn’t immediately spot anything out of the ordinary. It appeared to be nothing more than a plain wall. But of course a secret passageway would hardly be secret if it was obvious where the entrance was.

Stepping forward, she pressed her ear to the wall and began tapping along it, listening carefully for an echoing sound that could indicate the presence of an empty space on the other side. She made it all the way from the corner nearest the door to the edge of the bed, but didn’t hear a thing. The wall sounded completely solid.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything, she thought resolutely. The wall still might be thick enough to muffle the sound.

If there was some kind of door in the wall, there had to be a way to open it, assuming it wasn’t only from the other side. Hoping that wasn’t the case, she reached forward and pressed her fingers along the wallpaper, searching for any kind of button or latch, or even an indentation in the wall that would indicate the outline of a door.

She slowly, painstakingly began to go over the wall, starting at the top and working her way all along it, then dropping a little lower and making her way back.

She’d done several passes and was in the middle of the wall, her fingers at about shoulder level, when she finally felt something. It was so faint her fingertips nearly passed over it. Some vague instinct made her stop and retrace it, to confirm she hadn’t imagined it.

It was a rectangular outline, roughly the size of an electrical outlet cover, though she didn’t think that was what it was. It didn’t protrude from the wall at all, but seemed to be part of the wall itself, as though carved into it. Touching the shape gingerly, she tried to figure out why it was