These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story
These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter One
Published by Anna Campbell
Copyright 2012, 2013 Anna Campbell
Smashwords Edition
Cover design and eBook design by Karrie Mathews
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews - without permission in writing from the author, Anna Campbell. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
On one fateful wedding day at Marston Hall in 1818, four linked destinies hover in the balance.
Josiah Aston, Earl of Stansfield, wakes to discover he’s seventy years dead and he alone can free his beloved wife Isabella’s tormented soul. But first he must convince her to trust him against all the evidence…
Lady Isabella Verney, beautiful and tempestuous, married the man of her dreams, only to die violently on her wedding day. Every clue points to Josiah as the murderer…
Is true love strong enough to defeat ancient malevolence forever?
Miles Hartley, Viscount Kendall, is society’s ideal catch, but what does that matter if he can’t convince Calista Aston that he loves her? When an age-old curse strikes, only by proving himself worthy of her faith can he save their happiness…
Lady Calista Aston, noted bluestocking, fears she loves Miles Hartley not wisely, but too well. On her wedding day, her doubts place her at evil’s mercy. When death and disaster loom, is it courage or mad folly to believe that Miles loves her in spite of all her faults?
On one fateful wedding day at Marston Hall in 1818, will the lovers emerge triumphant or will darkness conquer all?
To my dear Readers,
I’ve always loved romantic stories with a touch of the mystical (a mild case of the woo-woos, shall we say?). Movies like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir or A Portrait of Jennie have always been among my favorites.
So when the people at Mammoth Books asked me to contribute a story to The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance, I said yes immediately. So far, my published stories, for all their gothic influences, hadn’t verged on the paranormal and I looked forward to the challenge of incorporating some gentle supernatural influences into my work.
The result was “The Chinese Bed” which appeared in the ghost romance anthology in June 2012. Since then, I’ve had a nagging desire to go back and do a ‘director’s cut’. “The Chinese Bed” wasn’t just my first attempt at writing the magical and the mystical, it was also my first try at a secondary romance. Although in this case, ghostly Josiah Aston and Isabella Verney are at least as important as the Regency (and living) couple Miles Hartley and Calista Aston.
“The Chinese Bed” has now been extended to become These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Romance. I hope you enjoy this story of a cursed Chinese bed that works its evil magic on two wedding days. Only if our heroes and heroines trust in true love will they prevail against ancient evil.
Thanks to the people at Mammoth who invited me to stretch my wings into fresh territory. Thanks also to Kim Castillo, Annie West, Sharon Archer, Christina Brooke and Vanessa Barneveld for helping me to bring this story to publication. And thanks to Karrie Mathews who designed the beautiful cover.
Watch out for steep staircases and may Chinese princesses never curse your beds!
Best wishes.
Anna Campbell
March 2013
Chapter One
Marston Hall, Norfolk, May 1818
JOSIAH WOKE TO thick darkness.
He knew immediately where he was. Sprawled across the great Chinese bed at Marston Hall. His glorious, extravagant marriage bed. The king’s gift to his dear friend, Lord Stansfield, upon the earl’s nuptials. Josiah had expressed suitable gratitude for the royal generosity, but he couldn’t avoid thinking a second-hand bed was a rum sort of present for a man supposedly in the regal favor.
Thick green hangings enclosed him, hangings cut from robes sewn for a Chinese princess’s wedding. A wedding that had never taken place. The elaborate scroll accompanying His Majesty’s gift had laid out the legend as a quaint piece of history. The princess’s lowborn lover had betrayed her instead of stealing her away. Cursing all marriages, she’d poisoned herself on the day she was to marry a powerful warlord.
Or so the story went.
In search of warm, sleepy Isabella, Josiah’s hand slid across the silk counterpane, feeling the raised patterns of embroidery under his palm. But he already knew his beloved wasn’t lying beside him.
By God, he must have been half-seas over before he tumbled onto the cream cover with its thickly twining peonies and fragile pagodas. He was still wearing his wedding clothes. He hadn’t been sober enough to undress. No wonder Isabella had left him to sleep it off. His darling had a temper. He’d hear about his excesses soon enough. He deserved to.
He didn’t even remember crawling into bed.
Which, now he thought about it, struck him as rather odd.
This couldn’t be right. On his wedding day, he’d been drunk on love, not liquor. And he certainly didn’t recall imbibing so deep that he’d collapsed insensible.
If only he could remember.
He frowned into the heavy stillness, struggling to bring events into focus. Most of the day was clear in his mind. But some…was not.
He’d spent all morning in a lather of wanting Isabella. He’d been so hungry to have his bride to himself, he’d dragged her away from the wedding breakfast with scandalous impetuosity. Lord Fenburgh, her drier-than-dust father, had frowned disapproval, but Isabella’s black eyes had flared with excitement. Josiah had won a lusty wife, thank the angels. After weeks of curtailed encounters, she’d been as eager as he to consummate their chaste wooing.
He remembered her delicious, husky little moan as he’d kissed her ravenously, passionately behind one of the man-size Japanese jars in the hall, barely out of sight of the guests. He remembered fondling the sweet curve of her breast before towing her willy-nilly toward the carved oak staircase. She’d scurried to keep up, running with a rustle of silk skirts and a patter of delicate heels across tiled flooring. He’d swept his laughing bride into his arms and carried her up the stairs, golden light spilling over them from the high mullioned windows.
And then…
Something was badly amiss. He hadn’t been drunk on his wedding day. His head remained clear and his mouth wasn’t stale with alcohol. When he married Isabella, he hadn’t needed intoxicants. He’d been delirious with happiness and itching to possess his bride. A glass of champagne to toast her bright eyes and a lifetime of joy to come. That was all.
So why was he lying all alone? And why couldn’t he remember?
Where the hell was Isabella? She should be here. With him.
The darkness crushed him. Confusion ebbed and the truth slammed down like an ax.
Isabella was dead.
Crippling grief thickened his blood like gray sea ice. His memory remained disturbingly blank about details, but he knew without question that she was dead.
Of course he knew. They’d been so close in life, they’d shared a heartbeat.
Isabella was dead.
And so was he.
***
“Kiss me, Calista.”
Austerely intellectual Lady Calista Aston giggled with an extremely unintellectual giddiness and allowed the handsome young man to tug her from the empty hallway into the shadowy bedroom. “Miles, I haven’t got time,” she said without sounding in the least convincing.
“I’ll be quick.”
Through dimness created by drawn curtains, she shot him a disbelieving look. “That’s what you always say.”
As ever when she regarded the man she was to marry, her heart twisted in an agony of love. Tall, golden-haired, charming, Viscount Kendall was like a magical prince out of a fairy tale.
A tide of self-doubt threatened to drown her, in spite of her appearance of light-heartedness. She still couldn’t believe that this superb creature had chosen her from all the women in the world to become his wife.
She was a devotee of logic, of scientific process. Miles Hartley’s partiality for a bluestocking Long Meg like her seemed completely nonsensical. She’d imagine he was mad if she wasn’t herself victim to a madness impervious to research or reason or cold, hard reality. But while she recognized her affliction as permanent, how long would his madness last? Until tomorrow? Next year?
From the moment she’d seen him across her father’s drawing room, she’d fallen under Miles’s spell. She still recalled her incredulity when he’d proposed six weeks later. Desperately she’d hoped to become more secure in his love as time passed, but with every day of the last three months, her uncertainties had burgeoned. Now, on the afternoon before her wedding, they gnawed at her like starving rats on a loaf of stale bread.
She told herself a thousand times she was a silly goose. Miles said he loved her. He said it over and over. But at her deepest level, nothing convinced her that she was worthy of his regard. He was elegant and brilliant and gifted with a vivid masculine beauty. He should choose a wife who was equally beautiful, a toast of society, instead of a drab wallflower like her. Calista was bitterly aware that with her straight brown hair and long, thin body, and strong Aston features, she was no beauty.
With his usual careless grace, Miles kicked the door shut behind him and drew her inexorably into his arms. Another shudder of love ran through her. It was dangerous to love a man as much as she loved Miles.
“It’s your fault.” He smiled at her as though she was as bright and lovely as a rainbow. “If you weren’t so delicious, I’d be happy with a mere peck on the cheek.”
“You’re a sweet-tongued devil.” The grim tenor of her thoughts lent the remark a sharp edge.
His smile turned wicked. “Let me show you.”
He kissed her and she melted into his arms. His mouth opened over hers and his tongue slipped between her lips to tease her into a fever. She was helpless against this passion. It terrified her even as she flung herself into the blaze. From the first, he’d made her feel almost painfully alive. If he ever left her, she had a bleak premonition that she’d never feel alive again.
Reluctantly she drew away. Tomorrow… Tomorrow when he kissed her, they wouldn’t need to worry about proprieties. Fear that wasn’t quite so delicious shivered through her. She wanted to lie with Miles more than she’d ever wanted anything, but she couldn’t help but worry that she’d disappoint him.
Tomorrow they’d share the carved bed that loomed behind her. The bed that was much closer than it had been. While kissing her, Miles had nudged her backward.
He caught her face between his hands. “Calista, darling Calista, if only you could see yourself how I see you. You wouldn’t torture me this way.”
“We shouldn’t be here alone,” she whispered, resting her hands on his shoulders.
She didn’t know why she lowered her voice. Something in this hushed, close room always made her want to tiptoe. Nobody else loitered on the upper floor of her father’s hitherto neglected mansion on the Norfolk Broads. The servants were too busy preparing for the festivities and readying a long-empty house to welcome the onslaught of visitors. The guestrooms on the level below were bustling centers of activity, as was the ground floor where the wedding celebrations would take place. But here, high above the bleak but beautiful countryside, she and her betrothed were isolated.
Miles stroked his hand down her cheek with a tenderness that she felt to her toes. Clawing doubt receded on a tide of need. “Of course we should.”
“Tomorrow—” she said on a fading protest as he gently pushed her back onto the mattress. When Miles kneeled above her, it sagged under their weight.
For all her pleasure in his touch, something in her didn’t want to be on this bed—and not just because Miles tempted her to impropriety. She’d believed herself immune to the house’s dark legends, but she discovered that she wasn’t quite as level-headed as she thought. A Chinese princess had cursed this bed. In the full light of day, Calista treated such superstition with contempt. Here, in this shadowy room, malevolence whispered from the very wainscoting.
“I’m not sure I can wait until then.” He rose above her, supporting himself on his arms.
She struggled to shore up the crumbling remnants of common sense. “It’s only one more day.”
“How cruelly you say that, as if my torment doesn’t signify.”
“Of course it matters,” she said unsteadily, panting with forbidden excitement.
The amusement ebbed from his face and she couldn’t quite interpret his assessing look. “I wish I believed that.”
She frowned. The gravity in his voice seemed out of kilter with their flirting. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that sometimes I feel…my passion for you outweighs your passion for me.” His voice was deeper than usual, his words more hesitant.
“No…” Shocked she stared up into the perfect planes of his face. Her eyes had adjusted to the dull light so that she saw the uncertainty that flickered in his hazel eyes. Miles Hartley, Viscount Kendall, wasn’t by nature an uncertain man. “No, Miles. You know I love you.”
“Then prove it.” His voice was harder than she’d ever heard it and his jaw set in an unfamiliar stubborn line.
Surprise held her briefly silent. She was used to his easy manner. But this man looked ready to take on the world and seize what he wanted from it.
“This time tomorrow, we’ll be married,” she said shakily. “You can’t tumble me here with the house full of people.”
“So you say.” Still he looked as if he conceded nothing.
Calista grabbed his arms, feeling the tensile strength under the dark blue riding jacket. Right now, he seemed like a stranger. “Miles, what is it?”
He shook his head and his gaze slid away from hers. Disquiet filled her. She hadn’t been sure if he was joking when he’d started this game. Now she knew something was wrong. Something more than male frustration that she didn’t succumb without demur to his lures.
“Miles?”
He stared directly at her, his hazel eyes dark and somber as she’d never seen them. “It’s just—”
He paused, searching for words, he who never lacked a ready quip or a witty riposte. Her disquiet transformed into a coiling mass of adders hissing and squirming in her belly. She’d known this day would come. She’d known that he’d recover from whatever whim had made him want her. She braced for him to reject her, to send her back to the lonely prison her life had been until he’d miraculously fallen in love with her.
Miles spoke in a rush. “I feel you’re holding yourself back from me.”
He hadn’t said what she expected. She could only stare at him with a frown. “I don’t understand.”
But she did, oh, dear Lord, she did.
She’d never trusted this happiness. Self-preservation insisted she reserved a fraction of her soul from him. So that when the inevitable happened and he decided he didn’t love her after all, she’d survive. What astonished her was that Miles had sensed the barriers she raised between them. She’d tried so hard to keep her doubts hidden and pl
ay the carefree bride.
He kissed her again, but the entrancing sweetness had leached away. Sorrow squeezed her heart even as she kissed him back. This was how it would be in years to come, she knew. Little by little, he’d realize what a poor bargain he made in marrying the Earl of Stansfield’s awkward daughter. With every day, the glow that lit his eyes when he looked at her would dwindle until nothing remained.
They were so different. Why didn’t he see that? He was famous for his graceful manners, admired wherever he went. She was ill at ease in company and likely to say the wrong thing. He was sophisticated and no stranger to sensual pleasure. She’d spent most of her life with her nose buried in a book. He was breathtakingly handsome. The best anyone had ever said about her was that her looks were unusual. She was well aware that “unusual” was a word that carried a thousand spiteful synonyms in its wake.
If she was brave, she’d end the engagement now and face down the scandal. She should make a clean break before Miles hurt her as he would undoubtedly hurt her. But she was too weak. She wanted all she could get of him. She wanted to hold on to the sweet knowledge that at least for a short while, he’d loved her. Even if only a little.
Her mouth clung to his with a passion that made him regard her with a puzzled frown when he finally raised his head.
“Calista?”
Her eagerness would surprise him. To protect herself, she’d fought to pretend coolness in response to his passion. But fear made her desperate to snatch what pleasure she could while he still thought he wanted her. Fighting the tears that would betray her misery, she stared up past Miles toward the tester above her head.