These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story Read Free Page A

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 and 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