These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story (7 page)

Even as what remained of her real self insisted that
she still possessed an independent will, she tugged her nightdress
over her head. It was almost a relief to give in to the voice’s
power. She’d fought her doubts for so long. She found strange but
powerful consolation in finally surrendering to them.

Come. Come with me. You’ll never be sad again. You’ll
never have to see love grow old and hopes fade to nothing.

Now that she cooperated with its demands, the voice
was no longer evil. Instead it was sweet. The sweetest sound
Calista had ever heard, apart from Miles telling her he loved
her.

Would she ever hear him say those words again?

Come with me, Calista. Come to a wonderful realm
where you’ll never be sad again.

She could no more ignore the voice’s commands than
she could make herself stop loving Miles.

As she rose from the bed, she heard Miles mutter
something, but the ruby eyes prevented her from speaking to him or
looking back. Instead she drifted toward the door, already open,
although she knew it had been firmly shut when she and Miles lay
together.

The moon floated behind the huge mullioned windows,
showing her the way. Brighter than the moon, those two red lights
lured her further along the hallway.

“Calista?” Miles voice behind her was thick with
sleep.

She struggled to answer, but her trance-like state
robbed her of speech. She faced toward the door, toward the freedom
the voice offered her if only she obeyed.

“Calista, where are you going?” Through her daze, she
registered that he sounded worried, loving. She heard the bed creak
as he shifted.

He doesn’t really love you. You know that.

The voice no longer taunted. The words only pierced
so deeply because they were true. Miles might believe that he loved
her now. After what they’d just shared, even she believed that he
loved her now.

But she was too awkward, too plain, too adoring, too
clever. Too…Calista Aston for him to love her forever.

That’s right. That’s right. Better to save yourself a
lifetime of pain. You know it’s what you want.

The voice promised tranquility, an end to the
spiteful chatter that tormented her mind. She thought she’d found
rest in Miles’s arms, but she’d been deceived. Only the ruby eyes
could give her rest. She turned toward the twin red lights almost
in relief, ignoring Miles calling after her. His voice seemed to
come from far away, although he was mere feet behind her in the
bed.

Purpose gripped her as she headed for the staircase.
Her mind kept enough hold on reality to recognize that it was still
dark, the middle of the night. But as she followed the dancing
lights in front of her, she could see as clearly as at midday.

Down one flight of stairs. A turn. Across the broad
landing with its blue and red Turkey carpet.

Ahead loomed the polished oak of the grand staircase,
winding steeply to the black and white tiles in the hall below.

The same black and white tiles where seventy years
ago they’d found Isabella Verney with her neck broken. A woman
betrayed by her lover. That lover had paid with a humiliating
execution and an unmarked grave.

Miles will betray you, too. You know that.

“He hasn’t betrayed me yet,” she whispered, taking
another reluctant step closer to the top of the stairs. Even that
much resistance required all her strength. Her feet felt weighted
with bricks, but still she couldn’t cease her forward momentum.

He will. He will.

“Calista? Calista, what is it? Did I hurt you?”

As if through a mist, she heard the slap of running
feet down the stairs from the upper floor, then rushing toward the
landing where she stood. Miles grabbed her arm. After what they’d
just done, his touch was heartbreakingly familiar. Something
stirred inside her, something beyond the reach of the voice’s
allure.

“Calista, speak to me.” Miles’s bewildered concern
penetrated her daze. “Are you sleepwalking?”

Feeling the Chinese mandarin’s displeasure, she faced
Miles, blinking slowly. It was odd. A strong light shone on him,
although she couldn’t discern its source. It was a thousand times
brighter than the moonlight.

He looked handsome, ruffled, worried. He’d tugged his
breeches on before he chased after her. Her wondering gaze traced
his body, as though she saw him for the first time. The powerful,
lean torso; the long legs; the elegant bare feet planted on the
polished boards of the floor. Even his feet were beautiful.

All of him was beautiful. Too beautiful for her.

Yes, too beautiful for you. You’ve always known that,
haven’t you?

Her rational mind shrieked at her that she must
question what was happening, assert her will against the forces
that ensnared her. But it was easier, almost pleasant to accept the
voice’s dictates.

Without responding to Miles’s questions, she faced
the stairs, venturing nearer to the void. The eyes hovered ahead of
her now. Chips of burning red, glowing hotter and hotter.

“Calista!” She heard the genuine panic in Miles’s
voice. What on earth had him so worked up? “You’re too close to the
edge. Be careful, darling, it’s dangerous.” His hand tightened on
her arm and he wrenched her back.

“No…” she moaned, straining toward the stairs. The
one word shattered whatever spell held her mute. She turned to
stare at him and said what she’d always believed but never been
brave enough to say aloud. “You will stop loving me.”

Astonishment made him drop his hand and falter back
toward the wall. “What bloody nonsense is this?”

“It’s true.” She spoke almost indifferently. With
every inch closer to the stairs, the pain of endless longing
receded.

“After what just happened between us, how dare you
say that?” Temper darkened his eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s because
you don’t love me. The woman who lay in my arms tonight was aflame
with love.”

An eerie calm had descended upon her soul. She loved
that calm almost as much as she loved Miles. She summoned a
regretful smile. Didn’t he understand this was for the best?
Eventually he’d be grateful that she’d taken this action, the only
possible action.

“Of course I was. I love you. And I know you believe
you love me. But it won’t last.”

“Like hell it won’t.” He sounded angry and confused.
“We’re getting married tomorrow. I’ll swear my life to you.”

“And you’ll regret it.”

“Rot.”

He was so brave and honorable. Her heart overflowed
with love, love without the bitter tinge that had so often
accompanied her recognition of how vulnerable he made her. In a few
moments, she’d never be vulnerable again.

She stared at him steadily. “Goodbye, Miles. I have
loved you so dearly.”

“Damn it, Calista, answer me. Answer me, for God’s
sake. What’s happening?” He dashed forward and his grip closed hard
and strong around her arm as if confirming he’d never betray her.
“This isn’t you. Whatever this is about, we can solve it. Don’t
give up on me. You’re a fighter. It’s one of the things I love
about you.”

He kept insisting he loved her. And she knew he
wasn’t a liar. A flash of doubt pierced her certainty that no good
could come of their marriage.

The red eyes ahead of her glittered with anger.

He’s lying. You know what you have to do.

Of course Miles was lying. She listened to the voice
as though to an old friend. The voice knew she couldn’t survive
losing Miles’s love.

“Let me go, Miles,” she said evenly.

“Never,” he insisted. “I’ll never let you go.”

For all his determination, he sounded in such
despair. Regret lurked beneath her serenity, but not strongly
enough to make her pause. If only he understood that she did this
for him. “You have to.”

With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she
managed to tug free of him. She made no conscious effort to move,
but suddenly she was several paces away from him, standing beside
the carved post at the far corner of the staircase. In the bright,
eerie light, she read the denial, the disbelief, the confusion in
Miles’s beautiful eyes.

“Farewell, my beloved,” she whispered and turned
inexorably toward the grand staircase.

JOSIAH LURCHED FORWARD to wrench Calista to
safety but his grip slid uselessly away. His dead man’s hands could
gain no purchase on living flesh.

Her eyes were dazed as she stared ahead, listening to
voices he couldn’t hear. A fusillade of sparking red lights circled
angrily around her like darting ruby swallows.

Some disturbance in the air had drawn Josiah to the
landing above the great hall, as though the encroaching evil
demanded that he witnessed its latest triumph. He glanced up in
despairing frustration and met Isabella’s anguished gaze. She stood
just behind Miles and the furious sorrow in her expression scored
Josiah’s heart.

Miles hadn’t moved since Calista had struggled free
and teetered toward the lip of the stair. “Calista, look at
me.”

When something in his commanding tone compelled the
girl’s attention, the lights burst into a storm of flying
vermillion. Jerkily, as though some force resisted her action, she
turned to face him. In her loose white nightgown, she looked like
she already hovered on the edge of the spirit world.

“This is for the best. You know it is.” She didn’t
sound nearly as tranquil as she had and Josiah read something in
her blank blue eyes that looked like terror.

Miles was pale and a muscle jerked in his lean cheek,
but he didn’t shift toward her. Josiah guessed the man recognized
that any reckless move would prompt disaster. “Do you love me, my
darling?”

Her face was ashen with sorrow and regret. Her
slender throat moved as she swallowed. “I’m doing this because I
love you.”

The mortal participants in this drama were lit as
brightly as if they stood on stage at the Theatre Royal. Calista
looked torn and distraught. Miles’s jaw set with a stubbornness
that indicated he intended to fight whatever forces threatened his
beloved—and prevail. His eyes were dark with torment and his hands
opened and closed at his sides as though he struggled against
grabbing Calista and defying the powers that possessed her.

“No, you’re not,” Miles said with absolute
certainty.

The girl cast a longing glance down the stairs but,
thank God, didn’t move. “All right, I’m doing this because you
don’t love me.”

“You know that’s not true. You’re doing this because
you don’t trust me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you’re doing this because you don’t trust
yourself.”

“Why wouldn’t I trust myself?” she asked with a hint
of irritation.

“Because you never have. You don’t think you’re
worthy of my love.”

She licked lips reddened with kisses, or Josiah was
no judge of women. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving
how remarkable you are, if only you’ll give me the chance.” Miles
paused and Josiah could see that he frantically scrambled for words
to convince Calista to stay with him, to resist the baleful
presence that hunted her.

Miles stared straight at her and his voice rang out.
“Come to me, my darling. Break away from whatever holds you and
come to me.”

She faltered toward him before she stopped,
trembling. “I…I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I’m not free.”

“You’ll be free if you trust me.”

He sounded so sure. Josiah wondered how he could be
so sure. For one piercing moment, he envied Miles. Much as he’d
adored Isabella, he’d never been so certain of her, even when she’d
pledged her life to him.

After a fraught instant of silence, Miles chanced a
step in Calista’s direction.

He was too eager. She jerked back. For one horrifying
moment, she teetered on the top of the stair. She cried out and
grabbed the banister, but it was a near thing.

Josiah released the breath he hadn’t realized he
held. Dear God, tonight mustn’t end in tragedy, as his own wedding
seventy years ago had ended in tragedy. Yet he could do nothing to
prevent calamity. He was cursed to be merely an observer.
Frustration was a rusty taste in his mouth. Glancing at Isabella’s
stricken expression, he could see that she too chafed under her
inability to intervene.

“Trust yourself. Trust me. Trust our love.” Miles’s
voice cracked with emotion. “For God’s sake, Calista, don’t throw
away what we have because you’re frightened.”

“Trust myself—”

The girl hovered on the step. Josiah poised in sick
dread for her to lean a few inches backward and topple to her
death. The red lights performed a stately minuet around her, as
though celebrating a victory already won.

“Yes, trust yourself.” Miles’s voice lowered to
vibrating intensity and his gaze burned into Calista’s as if sheer
force of will could convince her to return to him. “I love you. If
you destroy yourself, you destroy me too.”