The Wedding Night by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

the mountains.
    The water was an unusual shade of jade green that darkened with the setting sun into a black,
    bottomless moat around the Sutherland fortress.
    Fortress was the only word Angie could think of that suited the heavy, brooding old house. It had windows on all three levels, but no light seemed to enter through them. Everything inside the heavily paneled interior was dark, from the old Oriental carpets on the aging wooden floors to the heavy furniture in the rooms. The depressing avocado walls in the hallways made Angie long for a bucket of white paint and a large brush.
    The moment Angie had stepped reluctantly through the front door shortly before sunset, she had known the next three weeks of her life were going to be extremely unpleasant.
    On the other hand, as she sat down to the evening meal, she realized she could take cold comfort in the knowledge that Owen was not going to have a terrific time of it, either. He certainly did not seem to be enjoying the prospect of dinner in the bosom of his family any more than she was.
    Angie toyed with her salad as she risked a speculative glance down the length of the polished dark oak table. The members of the Sutherland clan were a grim, depressing bunch–completely opposite in
    nature to her loud, cheerful, redheaded relatives.
    "I must say, it was certainly a surprise having you show up on our doorstep this evening, Owen. Not that we aren’t pleased to have an opportunity to meet your new bride, of course." Celia Sutherland gave Angie a wintry smile.
    Owen’s stepmother was a handsome, rather intimidating woman in her early fifties. She reigned at the far end of the dining table, a natural aristocrat with her patrician features and her beautifully tailored, tastefully restrained black dinner dress. Her hair, cut into a fashionable bob, was far too perfectly laced with silver to be natural in color; the artful shade was obviously maintained by an excellent stylist.
    "Thanks, Celia." Owen gave his stepmother a laconic glance. "Knew you’d be delighted to meet Angie."
    "I must admit we are all wondering why you’re here, however," Celia continued coolly.
    "We certainly are," Helen Fulton murmured from midway down the table. "Do we assume this has something to do with the merger?"
    Owen’s Aunt Helen was about the same age as Celia but she had allowed her hair to go elegantly white.
    Her pale gray eyes and high cheekbones testified to her Sutherland genes. The gray dress and pearls she wore gave her the look of a demure dove, but the icy glitter in her eyes indicated a more predatory sort of bird. That expression marked her as pure Sutherland, in Angie’s estimation.
    "You can assume whatever you want," Owen said. "Just so long as you bear in mind that this house is mine and I’ve got a right to bring my bride here."
    "Hell, that’s true enough, isn’t it, Owen?" Derwin Fulton, Helen’s husband, gave his nephew a grim look from beneath bushy white brows. "Your father left it to you along with everything else, including the business, didn’t he? Wonder what he’d say if he knew you’d gone and married a Townsend."
    White haired and broad-shouldered in spite of his years, Derwin appeared quite imposing in his dinner jacket. And he did not look the least bit senile, she thought in annoyance.
    "I don’t see that it matters much what Dad would have said," Owen replied with a bored, icy calm.
    "The only instructions he gave me were to take care of the business and make sure nobody in the family wound up on welfare. So far I’ve managed to do that."
    Celia frowned. "Speaking of business, don’t you think you owe us all an explanation, Owen? This news of the merger has been a great shock to everyone. You must have been plotting it for months."
    "Mergers take planning. And that planning is best carried out in secret." Owen picked up his wineglass and took a sip. His eyes met Angie’s in a warning glance.
    "Well, I must say, your decision to rush ahead with the