These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story Read online

  “It’s just wedding jitters.” The excuse was losing its efficacy. She’d repeated it so often to explain fears that stabbed much more deeply than a bride’s natural nervousness.

  Once or twice, she’d come close to confiding her doubts to Miles. Every time, she’d stopped herself from speaking. If he took her seriously, he’d think she was appallingly poor spirited. Most of the time, she thought she was appallingly poor spirited. If he didn’t take her seriously, he’d try and cajole her fears away as childish fancies. She couldn’t bear that.

  Unlike the counterpane, the tester was decorated not only with flowers and fanciful Chinese buildings, but also with faces. A wizened mandarin glowered down at her. His devilish black eyebrows tilted over eyes strangely stitched in vermillion. In her imagination, the face’s smile turned demonic, as if mocking her futile yen for Miles to love her as she loved him.

  “The best way to defeat your fears is to face them,” Miles said steadily.

  Calista’s eyes widened as she ripped her attention from the exotic embroidery. “You really want us to anticipate our vows?”

  He shrugged and pressed his hips into her belly. Innocent and clumsy, she might be. Brainless she wasn’t. Right now Miles wanted her, whatever the future held. His hard heat made her tremble with desire.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid anymore,” he said.

  Then love me forever.

  She stifled the plea. He’d think she was pathetic if she said such things. She needed to keep some pride to save her when he realized that marrying her was a mistake. “I’m not sure a scandal is a better choice.”

  “We wouldn’t be the first couple overcome by lust before we meet the parson.”

  “We can’t.” With a trembling hand, she reached up to brush the fall of soft dark hair back from Miles’s forehead. “You know we can’t. Someone would catch us and Papa would have an apoplexy.”

  Calista already suspected that the world laughed behind its hands at her. She’d laugh herself at the idea of such a plain woman thinking that she was a suitable match for society’s darling, Viscount Kendall. She’d laugh if she hadn’t been so near to crying.

  She stared up at his remarkable face and told herself that she wouldn’t cry. She’d marry Miles tomorrow and take what came. She’d need every ounce of bravery, but abandoning the game before it started was too lily-livered to contemplate.

  Something in her expression must have convinced him that her courage stirred. His smile became less strained. “They wouldn’t catch us tonight.”

  She caught her breath. “T-tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight.”

  He’d always been gentle with her. This hint of arrogance thrilled her. “Where?”

  He raised his head and cast a telling look around the room. “Why, here, of course.”

  Something other than excitement at the prospect of giving herself to Miles made her heart skip a beat. She’d stifled her fears of the future as she’d stifled them so often since her betrothal. But in this stuffy room, other fears stirred. “In the haunted bed?”

  “I thought you dismissed the legend. That’s why you had the bed brought up from the cellars and put back together. You said a woman who believed in science would never fall victim to ludicrous superstition.”

  Ordering the bed restored had been an act of defiance, not just against the tragic legend. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  His uncharacteristic ruthlessness faded into the affection that always warmed her. “In fact, you insisted this would be our marital bed, curse be damned. About the same stage you said you didn’t believe Marston Hall was haunted and the aspect was so pleasant, you wanted to live here instead of in one of my houses. You said that even if the doomed Chinese princess’s robes formed the bed’s hangings, her spirit was long gone. She had no further influence over the living.”

  “I didn’t say damn,” Calista prevaricated.

  Miles laughed softly. She loved his laugh. Just the sound of it made the world a better place. Oh, she was so overwhelmingly in love with him. He’d destroy her before he was done, however much she battled to protect herself, however often she exhorted herself to be daring and seize this chance.

  “Perhaps not. But you definitely said that even if wicked Josiah Aston was dragged from the Chinese bed on his fatal wedding day, the bed has no power to curse all newlyweds in this house.”

  “I know my qualms sound absurd.” She’d always dismissed the tale of the Chinese princess drinking hemlock after her paramour deserted her. Somehow, today, as she lay on the bed and contemplated her own wedding, the gruesome tale gained fresh sway. “But I’d like formalities out of the way before I test the legend.”

  “I’d like to banish any lingering specters with good earthy lust before I make an honest woman of you on the morrow, my love.” He paused, inadvertently giving her a chance to relish the endearment. “The specters in this room, who I don’t believe in at all. And the specters in your heart, who wield far too much power over you.”

  Her show of bravado hadn’t fooled him one whit. She hadn’t fallen in love with a stupid man. Which occasionally seemed like a pity.

  Miles rolled away and stretched out upon the heavy cream silk, his thoughtful gaze never shifting from her. Even recognizing the intelligence that lurked beneath his decorative exterior, she was surprised that he saw so much of her turmoil. Most people found her hard to read. Briefly the temptation to confide her fears hovered once more. Then like a coward, she avoided the questions in his eyes.

  “You’re a barbarian, Miles, putting your boots on that cover. The embroidery is priceless.”

  His lips curved in a lazy smile. “If you’re going to nag like a wife, beloved, at least offer me some husbandly privileges to sweeten the pill.”

  “Miles—”

  “Please.” He extended his hand toward her, palm upward.

  Heaven help her, she was a hopeless case. She couldn’t resist him. She could never resist him. Which of course was a large measure of the problem.

  Hesitantly she placed her hand in his and felt immediate warmth when his fingers closed hard and secure around hers. At moments like this, she could almost believe that the love in his eyes would endure through the years.

  “You’re as wicked as Josiah Aston.” She hoped he wouldn’t hear the revealing huskiness in her voice.

  His smile indicated that he recognized his triumph over his bride’s scruples. “Only with you, Calista.”

  “If we’re discovered, we’ll be the talk of the county.”

  “I’ll make it worthwhile.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself.”

  Actually she had no doubts he was a wonderful lover. His kisses set her ablaze. She’d spent the last months wandering in a daze of hunger for more than the circumspect encounters they’d sneaked under the watchful gaze of parents and society. Her doubts, as ever, centered on her ability to satisfy him.

  “And of you.” It was as if he read her mind. He sat up and pressed a fervent kiss to her palm. “Midnight.”

  “Midnight,” she echoed, wondering just what she promised.

  Chapter Two

  FROM THE SHADOWS, Josiah watched as the lovers kissed for a few minutes more before the young man swept the tall, slender girl from the chamber. Their games and quarrels and barely restrained passion inevitably proved a poignant reminder of his wife. It seemed a grotesque, malicious jest that he was dead. And alone.

  A poisonous brew of grief and frustrated anger swirled in his gut. He’d had a whole life ahead of him, a life of love and achievement and purpose. A life with Isabella at his side. A life with children and hope and happiness. A life he’d been denied.

  Who were these two people who embraced on his bed and kissed and bickered, just as he and Isabella had kissed and bickered? Although Isabella had been a queenly creature. The girl’s eyes betrayed a vulnerability that was foreign to his darling.

  Calista’s clothing was outlandish to his eyes. Too light a
nd simple to adorn a gentlewoman. Like a night rail rather than a garment any decent woman would wear in public. Where were her hoops? She wore no stomacher and her dress was belted high under her breasts. Nor was her chestnut hair dressed with proper care, just a simple knot half tumbled down her back after her tryst on the bed.

  Yet her voice, her manner, her sense of ownership of this house—his house—indicated she must belong here. More, the radiance that warmed that too serious face when she smiled reminded him of his mother.

  The man was a stranger. But Josiah was familiar enough with the demeanor of a fellow desperately in love to recognize his plight. He was a handsome devil of about thirty, the sort women made fools of themselves over. But the intensity in his eyes suggested intelligence and a discomfiting level of perception.

  The girl was something different. Plain and almost forbidding with her severe Aston bone structure, always more suited to masculine members of the family than females. Until she smiled, when she became almost as beautiful as Isabella Verney.

  He must say he admired the man’s spirit in luring his lady into sharing his bed before the wedding. Josiah had frequently tried to seduce Isabella, but for a girl famously indifferent to society’s strictures, she’d surprised him with her prudishness. Strange because when he met her, the tattle had been that Isabella Verney was no virgin.

  Josiah’s mind worked furiously. He could make little sense of what he’d heard the couple say. What the hell had happened here?

  He gathered that people had dragged him from the Chinese bed on his wedding day. Why? They hadn’t mentioned his wife. Had she been there?

  Wicked Josiah Aston?

  The description seemed far too damning. Like any sprig with gold in his pockets, he’d been wild in his youth. But from the moment he’d seen Isabella the day after his twenty-eighth birthday, he’d known what he wanted.

  The beautiful heiress Isabella Verney had been headstrong and at twenty-six, late to choose a husband. No matter. He’d recognized his destiny. A year of courting her had seen off a crowd of rivals, many of greater estate than he. Then, praise God, she’d admitted her love and consented to become his wife.

  Had he possessed Isabella before everything went wrong? They’d married at Marston parish church. He remembered that distinctly. Surely he wouldn’t take her to wife without seeking his sweet reward. Yet something about the straining, bristling energy in his body indicated he hadn’t had her. And he couldn’t imagine he’d forget holding her in his arms.

  The damnable thing was that his body continued to experience sensation, however false the perception. He recognized the day as warm for May. He was aware of the weight of his braided blue velvet coat, newly tailored for his great day. His non-existent blood still pulsed with desire for his absent bride.

  So, no, he doubted he’d tumbled her before he…died.

  Before he died.

  Time had passed since his wedding day in 1749.

  Years and years of it.

  Time seemed determined to play nasty tricks on him. The space between waking and now, late afternoon, had passed in moments. He felt like he’d only stirred within the last hour, yet the tiny ormolu clock on the carved chest indicated a whole day had gone by.

  What the devil had he done the day he married the love of his life? He urgently needed to find out. More than that, he needed to find Isabella. He couldn’t endure being here on his own. An eternity without her was too cruel a punishment for any crime, however heinous.

  He turned toward the door, left ajar after the lovers’ departure. Neither had had the slightest inkling that he observed them. Gradually he came to understand the rules of this bewildering new existence. He could see everything around him while it seemed that nobody could see him.

  Moving provided yet another uncanny experience. Although his mind recognized that he had no physical substance, he felt that he walked like a living man, covered distances like a living man. Yet he kept tumbling into gaps in time when he was…nowhere. Confusion, questions, contradictions battered him.

  Wicked Josiah Aston?

  The bedroom was full of unfamiliar furniture, apart from the ostentatious bed. Little in the corridor was familiar either, apart from the faded wallpaper and the tall window at the end of the hall. He drifted through a few rooms, noting the occasional ornament or table that remained from his time in the house. The decorations weren’t nearly so elaborate as they’d been in his day. Had the family come down in the world since his demise? Or was he just observing a change in fashion? The house was his house and yet it wasn’t. Another difficult concept to impress upon his reeling mind.

  Slowly, carefully, he made his way through the house, seeking Isabella and some clue to his fate. Nothing provided any indication, unless absence of evidence was indication enough. The double portrait he’d commissioned from Allan Ramsay for his wedding was nowhere to be seen. There were plenty of other family portraits hanging on the walls, most with the familiar Aston dark hair and blue eyes that he’d seen in his looking glass every day.

  Frequently, in spite of his driving urgency to see his wife, he’d find himself transfixed by something he knew from his life. A painting of Venice that he’d bought on his Grand Tour. The library. The view across the park to the lake, a scene which had changed remarkably little. He’d stir to continue his exploration, check one of the household clocks, and find that an hour, two hours had passed. And still he had no idea what had happened to him. Or his darling.

  All the bedrooms on the floor below the Chinese room were readied for wedding guests, but he didn’t miss the house’s barely concealed signs of neglect. Many of the rooms reeked of disuse, dust, stale air, in spite of windows flung wide to the late spring afternoon.

  Occasionally he encountered a servant or a wedding guest. They paid him no attention, confirming his suspicion that, as with the couple upstairs, they couldn’t see him. In one bedroom, he found a half-finished letter inscribed at the top with the date. In horrified shock, he’d stared at the page.

  God’s teeth, it was 1818, nearly seventy years since his wedding. Since presumably his…death.

  How could he have no recollection of anything between that day and now? Where had he been for the space of two generations? Was it something to do with the Chinese bed where he’d woken? Was his spirit somehow attached to the bed? The young man—Miles, the girl had called him—had said it was only recently re-assembled. Did restoring the bed to use wake him from oblivion?

  Only another question among so many.

  Bewildering afternoon faded into bewildering evening, and still he searched. His eyes remained sharp as a cat’s, whether the room was dark or lit with candles. Another strange result of becoming a wraith.

  Finally as night deepened toward midnight, he opened the door to the chamber in the east tower. The room Isabella had chosen as hers for the night before their wedding. On the last occasion he’d entered this room, stealing a few forbidden moments to kiss his bride, it had been an untidy jumble of silks and brocades and feminine gewgaws. Her jasmine perfume had scented the air. Her two pugs had curled together on the red counterpane and scowled at him as an unwelcome invader.

  Isabella had always had an uncanny ability to make any space uniquely hers.

  A woman still slept here, he immediately realized. But a woman very different from coquettish, worldly Isabella. Even before he noticed the pink silk gown in the immodest new style spread across the bed, he guessed this room, with its lovely outlook over the gardens, now belonged to his descendant Calista.

  No, if he’d died without issue—the idea still struck a discordant note like a hammer hitting brass—his younger brother George must have inherited. Most likely Calista was George’s great-granddaughter.

  Calista wasn’t present. She must have accepted her sweetheart’s entreaty to meet him. God grant her joy. He wished to Hades that he and Isabella had done the same.

  He wandered across to lift a book from one of the tottering piles that litt
ered every flat surface. And only then realized that while he was invisible to all living beings, he could move physical objects.

  What a deuced fool he was. Of course he could, he’d been opening doors throughout the house. In his lather to find Isabella, he just hadn’t noticed.

  After combing the rest of the manor, he’d hoped to find his wife in this room, but Isabella wasn’t here. Was she anywhere? Or had her spirit ascended on high while his lingered to atone for some unidentified but clearly dreadful misdeed?

  He glanced at the book. It was something serious and botanical. Definitely nothing Isabella would read. Her preferences had veered toward the sensational and romantic. And the room, apart from the massed books and papers, was much more orderly than any space Isabella ever inhabited. Even the set of scientific apparatus with scales and vials and microscopes on the desk in the corner was neat.

  Josiah heard the door open behind him. Odd how his senses remained so attuned to the world when he no longer existed as a physical entity. Then all thoughts but one fled.

  Isabella stared at him from the doorway.

  ***

  Joy exploded with painful force. Isabella was here. She was here. Surely he could touch her. If he could lift a book or open a door, surely he could touch this woman who turned his world to sunlight.

  “My love…” he choked out, stepping forward on shaky legs and reaching for her.

  During their courtship, he’d inundated her with a thousand extravagant endearments. It had been a laughing game, what flamboyant compliments he could invent to please this woman he loved with such unfettered passion. He’d called her his treasure of Trebizond, his glorious angel of heaven, his exquisite diamond of Ind, his shining pearl of the Orient.

  But all his playful praise had meant only one thing. Isabella was his love and he’d lay down his life for her.

  “I’ve scoured the house for you.” He stepped closer, wondering at her silence, at her lack of movement toward him. She’d so rarely been still. It was part of the quicksilver brilliance of her character. She’d been endlessly fascinating, flashing like a jewel, his darling Isabella.