Borrowed Wife Read Free

mother!’
    ‘It’s not
true!’ Abigail whispered, looking at him in horror. ‘You’re saying it to
justify everything you’ve done. You would have told me before; when we were
married you would have—!’
    ‘You were
never involved,’ he assured her calmly. His eyes never leaving her desperate
face, It was a battle that did not concern you. It is -and always was—a battle
with your father. I wanted you. I took you away from a villain. And as to ‘when
we were married’ we’re still married. You announced that as you arrived here’’
    ‘My
father is not a villain,’ Abigail managed in an almost pleading voice, but his
face did not soften.
    ‘Oh, the
law will never catch him.’ Logan said harshly. ‘He was too clever for that.’ He
lowered his voice to a softly menacing murmur. ‘But I didn’t need the law to
caught him. He was never meant to escape. It’s taken me five years. Promises to
keep, Abigail. I’m glad you didn’t come to plead, because it would have been
useless. I have him right where I want him—my hands around his throat.’
    Abigail
got slowly to her feet, her eyes not leaving him. She didn’t know him. She had
never known him.  
    And this was the man she
had loved deeply, helplessly. His voice was alarming, so quietly threatening
that she had a rush of fear for her father. It was not the end. Logan had planned something else. She stated at him with frightened eyes and then she fell
to the carpet in a dead faint.
    When she came round she was
in Logan’s arms and the receptionist was just hurrying in through the door.
    ‘She fainted,’ Logan said sharply. ‘I’ll bring her to the first aid room.’
    ‘I am all right’ Abigail
managed to whisper, ‘You can just put me down now, thank you.’
    ‘Such gentle manners,’ Logan muttered disparagingly. But then, you always did have that sweet nature. You’re not
all right, Abigail Contrary to popular fiction, people do not faint with either
horror or disgust. You will lie down in the first-aid room.’
    It was useless to argue.
She knew him too well for that but she shivered at the realisation that she was
in his arms after so long. Once it had been where she’d always wanted to be.
Now the feel of his arms frightened her.  I can walk,’ she insisted, but he
simply ignored her, and after a few seconds he was walking through a door and
    Placing
her on a small, white sheeted bed as the woman bended over her and took off her
shoes.
    Ensure
that she stays there,’ Logan ordered, and the receptionist nodded her agreement
as he turned and walked out of the room.
    A little
sleep,’ she murmured in a pacifying voice. Trying to remove Abigail’s jacket
‘He won’t contemplate killing you yet,’ she added as Abigail protested and
tried to get up. ‘Just rest, please, Mrs. Steele. It will solve a lot of
trouble and you do look very pale.’
     
     Abigail subsided,
wondering how much the people in these offices knew about her, about Logan’s private life, about his deadly attack on her father. Did they know that she was
Kent Madden’s daughter? Did they know that he was being slowly crushed by Logan? Already her name had filtered round the building, it seemed. What else were they
talking about?
    She was
soon just in her white slip, the sheets drawn over her, and the woman sighed
thankfully.
    ‘Just
rest,’ she said in a pleading voice. ‘If you’re asleep when he comes back in
he’ll be satisfied.’
    Abigail
closed her eyes to escape from further conversation—and Logan would not come
back in, she thought. He would now be entirely occupied with something else,
his memory of her small fainting spell merely an irritated edge to his hard
mouth. She felt light-headed almost afraid to keep her eyes closed, and she
knew that Logan was right. It had not been horror or anything that had made her
faint. She hadn’t eaten properly far days. She was light-headed from hunger and
tension.
    She
slept, in spite of her determination to