Just One Touch Read Online Free Page A

course. Come upstairs with me.”
    As Caroline followed Mrs. Raines, Rogan stepped out of the examining room, fastening his cloak. “I’ve got one of the highwaymen tied to my horse outside,” he said over his shoulder to the doctor. “I’ll take him to the magistrate. Will you see to it that Lady Caroline gets home safely?”
    A murmur of assent came from the examining room.
    He was leaving? Caroline halted with one foot on the first step. “Mr. Hunt.”
    Rogan looked up, clearly startled to see her there. “Yes, Lady Caroline?”
    She turned away from the stairs and walked over to him. He watched her warily, not moving a muscle as she stopped before him. She wanted to touch him again, to calm the tension she felt coming off him, but they weren’t alone now. “I would appreciate it if you would return,” Caroline said softly. “I would feel safer if you accompanied me home.”
    A muscle tightened in his jaw. “If you wish.”
    “I do wish it, and I’m certain my father will want to thank you.”
    He gave a jerky nod, then turned away with a swirl of his cloak and stalked from the house.
     
    The Duke of Belvingham was being murdered.
    Some would say he imagined it. Others might speculate that recent events had driven him to see enemies behind every bush and tree. But he knew it was the truth, even as his cold-blooded killer sat miles away in Somerset, smiling and drinking with his cronies, acting completely oblivious to the slow, inexorable demise of his victim.
    Alone in his private library, the duke shook off the lassitude brought on by the late-night darkness. He hefted himself out of the chair where he awaited his daughter’s return and shuffled to the window. His joints ached with the exertion, his heart screaming in protest as his lungs worked to suck in air. Clutching the window frame, he looked out at the night, at the fields and shadowsof his estate, and wondered how long he had left to live.
    “Bastard.” The word wheezed through parched lips, an epithet spat at his distant, clever killer. At Randall Althorpe, his own flesh and blood, whose greed for the Belvingham title had driven him to murder—now, and eight years before.
    His knees weakened at the memory, at the horror of discovering Randall’s perfidy only weeks ago in the deathbed confession of one of the villain’s former colleagues. Gripping the windowsill with shaking fingers, he somehow managed to remain on his feet, even as the face of his son flashed through his mind.
    Stephen, drowned eight years ago in the estate pond in what had seemed to be a tragic turn of youthful folly.
    But now he knew the truth, knew that Randall, a distant cousin who had stood second in the line of succession, had taken drastic measures to assure that he would move into position as Belvingham’s only heir.
    He shouldn’t have confronted him. The duke’s mouth twisted in a grimace at his own stupidity. Only sheer shock had driven him to visit Randall and challenge him with the truth. He’d seen the change in Randall’s demeanor, how the amiable light had faded from his eyes, to be replaced by a sinister gleam. The agreeable boy he had always known had disappeared, to be replaced by a sneering, cocky weasel of a man who not only admitted to Stephen’s murder but bragged aboutit as well. Because there was no evidence. There was nothing the duke could do to punish him. Heartsick, Belvingham had left in disgust.
    Not long afterward, he’d slowly started to sicken.
    He was being poisoned. He didn’t know how Randall accomplished this; the duke took food and drink only from the hands of his cook, who’d been employed by him for some twenty years. Still he grew weaker and weaker, and the only thing keeping him alive was the determination to not let Randall win.
    He gazed outside and shuddered to think what Randall would do to the estate if he inherited, to the tenants, to his stables.
    To Caroline.
    Beautiful, fragile Caroline. His daughter had been through