These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story

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

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.