These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story (5 page)

She moved closer, pressing her hips into his. He was
hard and ready. He’d wanted her this afternoon. Now even the most
innocent woman would know that he wanted her to the point of
madness. She had the evidence of his erection against the softness
of her belly. There was his jagged, rasping breath and the shaking
need he betrayed as he fondled her through the nightgown. Soon even
that frail barrier became unbearable. Roughly he wrenched it over
her head and flung it away.

The daze of sensual pleasure receded. For the first
time, Calista was naked with a man. Self-consciousness rose like a
tide of icy water. The night wasn’t cold, but the air chilled her
skin.

Awkwardly she broke away, but Miles caught her hand
and stopped her retreat. Gently but inexorably, he turned her
toward the moonlight flooding through the window.

“Exquisite,” he breathed.

She wanted to argue. To insist that she was too tall,
too thin, that her breasts were too small. But the veneration in
his face held her quiet and, for once, she poised on the verge of
believing that a man could find her lovely.

He reached out to trace the outline of her body. The
subtle curves and planes. This time there was nothing between her
skin and his seeking, gliding fingers. This time when he kissed
her, she sensed a new wildness. As though now she’d revealed her
nakedness, the last wall between them crumbled.

Calista became lost in a dark forest of sensation. Of
soft sighs and stroking hands and pleasure she’d never imagined in
all her twenty-five years. When he touched her between the legs,
she jerked on a strangled moan of shocked delight. Desire became a
molten weight in the pit of her belly. She clung to his shoulders
and instinct made her lean forward and bite him on the chest. His
gasp conveyed astonished appreciation, then the world whirled as he
swung her up in his arms and carried her the few steps to the
Chinese bed.

For the first time in her life, she listened to a man
undressing. The whispering slide of fabric on skin was almost
unbearably erotic. She snatched at another breath. Henwit she was,
she kept forgetting to breathe.

This new universe of physical pleasure left her
floundering. How she wanted to be brave, spirited, reckless, but
shyness overcame her and she closed her eyes.

When she found the courage to look at him again,
Miles came down over her, blocking the moonlight. He supported
himself on his arms and he seemed large and powerful and resonating
with an alien masculinity. For the space of a second, arousal faded
and old fears stirred.

“You make me feel too much,” she whispered.

The fierceness faded from his eyes and his smile made
her feel cherished. “I love you,” he murmured.

Calista wanted to tell him that she loved him too,
but the declaration jammed unspoken in her throat. She was too
conscious of his nakedness, of his barely leashed passion. While
she reveled in his passion, it daunted her, too.

A low keening sound escaped her and she ran an
unsteady hand through the soft hair that flopped forward over his
high forehead. The overflowing tenderness in her heart made it
impossible to hide her quaking vulnerability.

The shadows and his position braced over her meant
she could no longer see his expression. But as her hand drifted
down his face, she felt him smile. He sucked in a deep, shuddering
breath and bent to kiss her, with a return of reverence.

“You drive me mad, Calista.”

Her nervousness leached away, leaving only love and
need. She arched toward him in unmistakable invitation. Fear found
no place in this incandescent moment. Her voice was firmer than it
had been since she’d entered the room. “Make me yours, Miles.”

“My darling.”

Carefully he parted her legs and slid between them
until she cradled him against her body. His hand found once again
that place that set her quivering with pleasure. By the time he
angled his hips forward, her breath emerged in ragged gasps and her
body tightened, striving to reach an unimagined destination.

“I’m afraid,” she admitted. Not just because of what
he was about to do, but because this joining would make her forever
his, whatever anguish lay ahead.

“Trust me, Calista,” he said again and pressed into
her body.

However much she wanted this, the experience was odd,
disagreeable. She tensed against the invasion. He felt impossibly
big, as though he’d tear her in two if he continued.

He kissed her deeply, hungrily. For a fleeting
moment, she forgot that seeking pressure between her legs in the
hot delight of his mouth exploring hers. She whimpered a protest
when he raised his head to stare down at her through the
shadows.

“I want you, Calista. I want you as I’ve never wanted
another woman.” His voice was raw with sincerity.

In this precise moment, she had no doubt that he was
hers completely, whatever challenges the world flung at them in the
future. That flash of perception gave her the courage to tilt up
toward him. “I want you, Miles. Don’t stop.”

He made a low sound of satisfaction, but still he was
gentle as he inched further inside her. Gradually she became
accustomed to his size and weight. Then just as she wondered if
perhaps there was hope of pleasure, he moved more purposefully.

The sharp, sudden pain made her cry out. She muffled
her distress against the damp skin of his shoulder. She dug her
fingernails deep into his back as her body tensed for more
discomfort.

For a long lightless interval, he remained
motionless, his body joined to hers. She felt him drag each breath
into his lungs. She felt each ripple of muscle as he adjusted
infinitesimally to fit himself to her.

Slowly the searing pain subsided, leaving in its
place a sense of unbreakable intimacy. Tonight she and Miles made
vows with their bodies that they would repeat much less powerfully
with words tomorrow before the vicar.

As if sensing her body’s acceptance of his
possession, he began to move with luxurious enjoyment. All her love
for him focused on this overtly physical act, this union, this gift
they both shared. The sweetness extended beyond anything she’d ever
imagined.

She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the rising
tide of joy. The rhythm built until it pounded at the doors of
heaven, carrying her toward paradise on a surge of unearthly
sensation. At the height of her pleasure, she broke through into a
place of dazzling brilliance. On a soft cry of rapture, she
clenched around him, claiming him as hers, come what may.

As she floated softly down from the golden realms,
held safe in Miles’s arms, Calista basked in a peace unlike
anything she’d ever known.

HE’D MURDERED ISABELLA?

Josiah staggered back to escape the preposterous
accusation. Appalled denial kept him silent as he stared aghast at
Isabella. But even while everything in him rejected what she’d
said, the day’s confusing hints about his wicked reputation and his
woeful fate slammed into him. Over and over. Until he wanted to
scream “enough!”

“No.” The word emerged as a croak.

The unwavering certainty in Isabella’s eyes. The
certainty combined with fear in a woman who would have faced down
the devil without flinching. These, these almost convinced him.

Almost…

He could never have killed her. Never. Never.
Never.

Nothing she did would stir him to violence. There
must be some mistake, some misunderstanding. He clung to that one
waning hope while all other hope drained away.

Like biting down on a cracked tooth, he tested the
truth of her assertion against what he knew of himself. If he’d
killed her, he’d feel it in his bones, in his blood.

No, on his honor, no.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, still in that
artificial voice that didn’t sound like the man who had sworn to
Isabella that he loved her and he’d devote the rest of his life to
her happiness.

“Don’t you remember?” She regarded him with horror,
as if the repudiation of his crime was worse than the act
itself.

“I don’t remember because there’s nothing to
remember.” In his desperation, he rushed toward her, but came up
short when she cringed against the railing.

“Don’t touch me.”

The loathing in her voice made him feel ill. He
spread his hands in a gesture of nonaggression and stepped back.
“As you pointed out, I can’t hurt you now,” he said with a hint of
snap. “You and I are beyond the reach of physical injury.”

Her delicate features were drawn and her great dark
eyes glittered with wariness. “I don’t…I don’t want to see you.
Can’t you go back to where you came from?”

“My love—”

“Don’t call me that,” she demanded with a trace of
her old imperiousness. He was mightily glad to see something
remained of his Isabella, apart from this timorous girl.

“Why not?” He drew himself to his full height and
matched her hauteur. “That’s what you are. Seventy years haven’t
changed how I love you. An eternity won’t change that.”

“You don’t love me,” she said sulkily, wrapping her
arms around herself in a protective gesture that made him want to
smash something. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t have killed
me.”

He stifled the urge to rage, to tell her that she
knew him better than this. Temper wouldn’t bring them through this
mess. Isabella still looked like she might flee at the slightest
sign of danger from him.

From him?
The thought beggared belief.

Josiah struggled to keep his voice steady. “Tell me
what you remember.”

She straightened and cast him a disdainful look
familiar from life. She’d always been haughty and headstrong.
“Surely you know.”

He’d always liked that his beloved was no pliable
reed, but a woman ready to battle him head-on for what she wanted.
Right now, damn it, her stubbornness operated against him and he
wasn’t nearly so pleased with her strength.

Josiah slumped against the wall, folding his arms to
stop himself reaching for her. It was torture to be so close
without touching. “Humor me.”

She cast him an unimpressed glance under her thick
sweep of black lashes. It was a look that had never failed to make
him want her. The effect remained as powerful on the other side of
the mortal divide.

“You act as if I owe you answers. I owe you
nothing.”

He stared into her beautiful face and knew in every
cell of his body that he couldn’t have killed her. There
had
to be some mistake. He sighed and chanced honesty. “All of this
just seems so absurd. That you could credit I’d do you harm, when
you know I’d give up the hope of heaven for your sake.”

The brief flicker of amusement, black as it was, was
the first sign of softening in her manner. “I’d suggest that our
presence here indicates we’ve both given up our hope of
heaven.”

“The last thing I remember is stealing you away from
the wedding breakfast,” he said evenly, not fool enough to find too
much encouragement in the faint thaw. At least with every second
that passed, she looked less likely to take to her heels.

“And then you murdered me.”

“Just like that?” He arched his eyebrows in
unconcealed skepticism. “I went straight from kissing you in the
hall to pricking you with my pocket knife? Or did I come into
possession of a loaded pistol somewhere between vowing a lifetime’s
devotion and getting you into bed?”

“You have no right to mock me.” Anger sparked in her
black eyes. The push and pull between them was familiar, no matter
how much time had passed. Although the ridiculous truth was that he
felt like he’d only seen Isabella yesterday, when they were both
alive and blissfully in love.

He shook his head in bewilderment. “It seems so
unreal, sweeting. That we’re dead and at Marston Hall and it’s
seventy years since I held you in my arms. And that you imagine I
killed you.”

“You did kill me,” she said sullenly, stepping back
into the room from the landing with a graceful sway of her wide
skirts. His heart lurched with dizzying relief that at least she
stayed. “Now you think it’s funny.”

“Anything but.” His tone was cool, and he didn’t make
the mistake of interpreting her approach as an invitation to touch
her.

What would it be like to touch her? Could he even
touch her? He could touch inanimate objects, but what about someone
formed from the same indefinable material that he now was?

“You pushed me down the stairs in a fit of jealous
rage.” She spoke as though her impossible statement ended all
argument between them.

Shock held him motionless. Could he have done that?
Could he have done that and forgotten?

Their courtship hadn’t been undiluted harmony. He’d
loved her to distraction and she, knowing that, hadn’t been above
teasing him. From the first, he’d been unsure of her chastity. Talk
had been rife about what liberties she’d permitted her previous
suitors. Even so, he couldn’t imagine killing her. Isabella could
lie under every man in the Royal Navy and Josiah would still want
her.