Authors: Linda Howard
Duncan's Bride (27 page)
They were an hour and a half into the party when their circuitous routes around the room brought them together. He tilted his glass toward her in acknowledgment but didn't interrupt his current conversation with a senator's aide even though it was deadly boring and he'd have liked to cram a pair of dirty socks down the pompous jackass's throat. Let her come to him. He wasn't approaching anyone.
Finally the senator's aide paused when he stopped a passing waiter to deposit his empty glass on the man's tray. Congresswoman Kingsley smoothly slid in and said, “Hello, Karl, Axel.”
“Congresswoman,” Axel replied in acknowledgment, and watched in amusement as the senator's aide struggled with his ego and the pecking order on Capitol Hill. The congresswoman was an important personage, but Karl looked on the House as inferior to the Senate; therefore his position as chief aide to a senator
should
be superior to hers. Then his ego butted into the unfortunate fact that Congresswoman Kingsley had been electedâseveral times overâwhile he was a hired aide who hadn't been elected to anything..
“Congresswoman Kingsley,” Karl finally muttered, using her title while she'd used his first name. Oh, the slings and arrows, Axel mused.
She gave Karl one of those smiles and said, “Would you excuse us? I'd like to discuss a few details with Axel.”
There was nothing Karl could do except say, “Of course,” and take himself away.
Axel sipped his drinkâsparkling water on the rocks because when you were wading in a pool of sharks, you needed all your wits about youâand waited for her to steer the conversation in the direction she
wanted, though he did paste a faintly questioning expression on his face.
“I heard something disturbing,” she said, pitching her voice low so only he could hear her.
He gave a slight lift of his eyebrows that invited her to continue.
“I heard Morgan was killed.”
“Not so,” he promptly replied.
Relief flickered in her eyes. “Thank God. Butâwas he hurt? My source was very specific about the victim's name.”
He'd like to know exactly who her source was, but he didn't waste time trying to dig that info out of her. She was a seasoned veteran of the dance.
“He was shotâand I won't lie, it was serious. But I have him in a protected location while he recovers.”
“What happened?”
“Assassination attempt. The problem is he can't tell me why.”
“He doesn't
know
?”
Axel rocked his hand back and forth. “He thinks he does. He suffered a serious concussion and he's having a few memory problems, but he says he knows what's going on if he can just remember it. There isn't any permanent brain damage, and the doc says that he'll remember when all the swelling is gone.”
“For goodness' sake! When will that be?”
“No definite date, everyone heals differently. He has pneumonia now and that's a setback, but the docs say he's already getting better. I'm thinking a few months, most likely, before he's back to normal.”
“That must be difficult, being grounded until then. I don't know him as well as you do, but I suspect he isn't a good patient.”
“Understatement,” Axel said.
“I'm so glad he'll be all right. We'd all be devastated if anything happened to him. Give him our best when you see him.”
“I will,” he replied, holding back the information that he wouldn't be seeing Morgan at all until and if his trap was sprung. He'd spread these seeds of information in several venues around town; now he had to wait
and see if any of them sprouted. Morgan had been targeted for a reason; that reason
had
to be rooted in something he'd seen or done that day. Maybe the threat he was looking for was several layers deep, not Congresswoman Kingsley herself, or Brawley, or even Kodak, but someone who knew them. He wouldn't know until someone acted.
LINDA HOWARD
is the award-winning author of many
New York Times
bestsellers, including
Up Close and Dangerous
,
Drop Dead Gorgeous
,
Cover of Night
,
Killing Time
,
To Die For
,
Kiss Me While I Sleep
,
Cry No More
, and
Dying to Please
. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.
Shadow Woman
Prey
Veil of Night
Ice
Burn
Death Angel
Up Close and Dangerous
Cover of Night
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Killing Time
To Die For
Kiss Me While I Sleep
Cry No More
Dying to Please
Open Season
A Game of Chance
Mr. Perfect
All the Queen's Men
Kill and Tell
Now You See Her
Son of the Morning
Shades of Twilight
MacKenzie's Magic
MacKenzie's Pleasure
After the Night
Dream Man
Loving Evangeline
Heart of Fire
A Touch of Fire
Angel Creek
The Way Home
A Lady of the West
Bluebird Winter
Midnight Rainbow
Almost Forever
Sarah's Child
Cutting Edge
Tears of the Renegade
Come Lie With Me
Against the Rules
An Independent Woman
All That Glitters
By Linda Howard and Linda Jones
Blood Born
Running Wild
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book was originally published in 1990 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Excerpt from
Troublemaker
copyright © 2016 by Linda Howington.
DUNCAN'S BRIDE
. Copyright © 1990 by Linda Howington. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
EPub Edition APRIL 2016 ISBN: 9780062422408
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