These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story (9 page)

“Madam, are you injured?” Kinvarra asked as he
climbed the ditch. He stuck his riding crop under his arm and
brushed his gloved hands together to knock the clinging snow from
them. It was a hellishly cold night. Christmas tomorrow would be a
chilly affair. But then of course his Christmases had been chilly
for years, no matter the weather.

The woman kept her head down. With shock? With
shyness? For the sake of propriety? Perhaps he’d stumbled on some
elopement or clandestine meeting.

“Madam?” he asked again, more sharply. Whatever her
fear of scandal, he needed to know if she required medical
assistance.

“Sweeting?” The yellow-haired fop bent to peer into
the shadows cast by her hood. “Are you sure you’re unharmed? Speak,
my dove. Your silence troubles my soul.”

While Kinvarra digested the man’s outlandish
phrasing, the woman stiffened and drew away. “For heaven’s sake,
Harold, you’re not giving a recitation at a musicale.” With an
impatient gesture, she flung back her hood and glared straight at
Kinvarra.

Even though he’d identified her the moment she spoke,
he found himself staring dumbstruck into her face. A piquant,
vivid, pointed face under an untidy tumble of luxuriant gold
hair.

Furious and incredulous, he wheeled on the milksop.
“What the devil are you doing with my wife?”

***

Alicia Sinclair, Countess of Kinvarra, was
bruised, angry, uncomfortable, and agonizingly embarrassed. Not to
mention suffering the aftereffects of her choking terror when the
toppling carriage had tossed her around like a pebble in a
torrent.

Even so, her heart lurched into the wayward dance it
always performed at the merest sight of Sebastian.

She’d been married for eleven miserable years. Their
short interval living as man and wife had been wretched. She
disliked her husband more than any other man in the world. But
nothing prevented her gaze from clinging to every line of that
narrow, intense face with its high cheekbones, long, arrogant nose
and sharply angled jaw. He looked older than the last time she’d
seen him, more cynical if that was possible. But still handsome,
still compelling, still vital in a way nobody else she knew could
match.

Damn him to Hades, he remained the most magnificent
creature she’d ever seen.

Such a pity his soul was as black as his glittering
eyes.

“After all this time, I’m flattered you recognize me,
my lord,” she said silkily.

“Lord Kinvarra, this is a surprise,” Harold
stammered, faltering back as if anticipating violence. “You must
wonder why I accompany the lady—”

Oh, Harold, act the man, even if the hero is beyond
your reach. You’re safe. Kinvarra doesn’t care enough about me to
kill you.

Although even the most indifferent husband took it
ill when his wife chose a lover. And Kinvarra had always suffered
an overabundance of pride. There wasn’t the slightest hope that
he’d mistake Alicia’s reasons for traveling on this isolated road
in the middle of the night. She stifled a rogue pang of guilt.

Curse Kinvarra, she had absolutely nothing to feel
guilty about.

“I’ve recalled your existence every quarter these
past ten years, my love,” her husband said equally smoothly,
ignoring Harold’s dismayed interjection. Although the faint trace
of Scottish brogue in Kinvarra’s deep voice indicated that he
reined in his temper. His breath formed white clouds on the frigid
air. “I’m perforce reminded when I pay your allowance. A
substantial investment upon which I receive woefully little
return.”

“It warms the cockles of my heart to know that I
linger in your thoughts,” she sniped. She refused to cower like a
wet hen before his banked anger. He sounded reasonable, calm,
controlled, but she had no trouble reading the tension in his broad
shoulders or in the way his powerful hands opened and closed at his
sides as if he’d dearly like to hit something.

“In faith, my lady, you speak false. Creatures of ice
have no use for a heart.” A faint, malicious smile lifted the
corners of his mouth. “Should I warn this paltry fellow that he
risks frostbite in your company?”

She steeled herself against Kinvarra’s taunting. He
couldn’t hurt her now. He hadn’t been able to hurt her since she’d
left him. Any twinge was merely the result of temporary shakiness
after the accident. That was all. It couldn’t be because this man
retained the power to stick needles into her feelings.

“My lord, egad, I protest.” Fortunately, shock made
Harold sound less like a frightened sheep. “The lady is your wife.
Surely she merits your chivalry at the very least.”

Harold had never seen her in her husband’s company,
and some reluctant and completely misplaced loyalty to Kinvarra
meant she hadn’t explained why the Sinclairs lived apart. The
accepted fiction was that the earl and his countess were polite
strangers who by mutual design rarely met.

Poor Harold, he was about to discover the nasty truth
that the earl and his countess loathed each other.

“Like hell she does,” Kinvarra muttered, casting her
an incendiary glance under long dark eyelashes.

Alicia was human enough to wish the bright moonlight
didn’t reveal quite so much of her husband’s seething rage. But the
fate that proved capricious enough to fling them together tonight
of all nights wasn’t likely to heed her pleas.

“Do you intend to present your cicisbeo?” Kinvarra’s
voice remained quiet. She’d long ago learned that was when he was
most lethal.

Dear God, did he plan to shoot Harold after all?

Her hands clenched in her skirts as fear tightened
her throat. Lacerating as Kinvarra’s tongue could be, he’d never
shown her a moment’s violence. But did that extend to the man she
planned to take into her bed? Kinvarra was a crack shot and a
famous swordsman. If it came to a duel, Harold wouldn’t stand a
chance.

“My lord, I protest the description,” Harold bleated,
sidling further away. He’d clearly also heard the unspoken threat
in Kinvarra’s question.

Oh, for pity’s sake. Was it too much to wish that her
suitor would stand up to the scoundrel she’d married as a silly
chit of seventeen? Alicia drew a deep breath of freezing air and
reminded herself that she favored Lord Harold Fenton precisely
because he wasn’t an overbearing brute like her husband. Harold was
a scholar and a poet, a man of the mind. She should consider it a
mark of Harold’s superior intelligence that he was wary of
Kinvarra.

But her insistence didn’t convince her traitorous
heart.

How she wished she really was the callous witch
Kinvarra called her. Then she’d be immune both to his insults and
to this insidious attraction that she’d never conquered, no matter
how she tried.

“My lady?” Kinvarra asked, still in that even voice
that struck a chill into her soul sharper than the winter wind.
“Who is this…gentleman?”

She stiffened her backbone and leveled her shoulders.
She was made of stronger stuff than this. Never would she let her
husband guess that he still had power over her. Her response was
steady. “Lord Kinvarra, allow me to present Lord Harold
Fenton.”

Harold performed an uncertain bow without stepping
any nearer. “My lord.”

As he straightened, tense silence descended. Alicia
shifted to try and warm up her icy feet, fulminating against the
bad luck that threw her in Kinvarra’s way tonight.

“Well, this is awkward,” Kinvarra said flatly,
although she saw in his taut, dark face that his anger hadn’t
abated one whit.

“I don’t see why,” Alicia snapped.

It wasn’t just her husband who tried her patience.
There was her lily-livered lover and the perishing cold. The
temperature must have dropped ten degrees in the last five minutes.
She shivered, then silently cursed that Kinvarra noticed and Harold
didn’t. Harold was too busy staring at her husband the way a mouse
stared at an adder.

“Do you imagine I’m so sophisticated that I’ll ignore
discovering you in the arms of another man? My dear, you do me too
much credit.”

She stifled the urge to consign Kinvarra to
perdition. Just as she stifled the poignant memory that once he’d
called her his dear and his love and he’d meant it. Once, briefly,
long ago. “If you’ll set aside your bruised vanity for the moment,
you’ll understand that we merely require you to ride to the nearest
habitation and request help. Then you and I can return to acting
like mere acquaintances, my lord.”

He laughed and she struggled to suppress the sensual
awareness that rippled down her spine at that soft, deep sound.
“Some things haven’t changed, I see. You’re still dishing out
orders. And I’m still damned if I’ll play your lapdog.”

“Can you see another solution?” she asked
sweetly.

“Yes,” he said with a snap of his straight white
teeth. “I can leave you to freeze. Not that you’d notice. Your
blood has always been colder than Satan’s icehouse.”

Her pride insisted that she send him on his way with
a flea in his ear. The weather—and what common sense remained under
the urge to wound that always flared in Kinvarra’s
vicinity—prompted her to sound more conciliatory.

It was late. She and Harold hadn’t passed anyone on
this country road. Bleak, snowy moors extended for miles around
them. The grim truth was that if Kinvarra didn’t help, they were
stranded until morning. And while she was dressed in good thick
wool, she wasn’t prepared to endure a night in the open. The chill
of the ground seeped through her fur-lined boots and she shifted
again, trying to revive feeling in her frozen feet.

“My lord…” During the year they’d lived together,
she’d called him Sebastian. During their few meetings since, she’d
clung to formality to keep him at a distance. “My lord, there’s no
point in quarreling. Basic charity compels your assistance. I would
consider myself in your debt if you fetch aid as quickly as
possible.”

He arched one black eyebrow in an imperious fashion
that made her want to clout him. Not a new sensation. “Now that’s
something I’d like to see.”

“What?”

“Gratitude.”

He knew he had her at a disadvantage and he wasn’t
likely to rise above that fact. She ground her teeth and battled to
retain her manners. “It’s all I can offer.”

The smile that curved his lips was pure devilry. A
shiver with no connection to the cold ran through her.

“Your imagination fails you, my dear countess.”

Her throat closed with nerves—and that reluctant
physical reaction she couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t shifted, yet
suddenly she felt threatened. Which was ludicrous. During all their
years apart, he’d given no indication he wanted anything from her
except her absence. One chance meeting wasn’t likely to turn him
into a robber baron ready to spirit her away to his lonely tower
where he could have his way with her.

Having his way with her was the last thing Kinvarra
wanted, as she was humiliatingly aware.

Nonetheless, she had to fight the urge to retreat.
She knew from dispiriting experience that her only chance of
handling Kinvarra was to feign control. “What do you want?”

This time he did lean closer, until his great height
overshadowed her. Close enough for her to think that if she
stretched out one hand, she’d touch that powerful chest, those wide
shoulders. “I want—”

There was a piercing whinny and a sudden pounding of
hooves on the snow. Appalled, disbelieving, Alicia turned to see
Harold galloping off on one of the carriage horses, legs flailing
as he struggled for purchase without stirrups.

“Harold?”

Her voice faded to nothing in the night. Her beau
didn’t slow down. In fact, he kicked his mount’s sides to encourage
greater speed. She’d been so engrossed in her battle with Kinvarra,
she hadn’t even noticed that Harold had caught one of the stray
horses.

Kinvarra’s low laugh mocked her. “Oh, my dear.
Commiserations. Your swain proves a sad disappointment. I wonder if
he’s fleeing my temper or yours. You really have no luck in love,
have you?”

She was too astonished to be upset at Harold’s
departure. Instead she focused on Kinvarra. Her voice turned hard.
“No luck in husbands, at any rate.”

***

Kinvarra suffered Alicia’s hate-filled regard
and wondered what the hell he was going to do with his troublesome
wife out in this frigid wilderness. The insolent baggage deserved
to be left where she stood, but even he, who owed her repayment for
countless slights over the years, wouldn’t do that to her.

It seemed he had no choice but to help.

Not that she’d thank him. He had no illusions that
after she’d got what she wanted—a warm bed, a roof over her head
and a decent meal—she’d forget any promises of gratitude.

In spite of the punishing cold, heat flooded him as
he briefly let himself imagine Alicia’s gratitude. She’d shed that
heavy red cloak. She’d let down that mass of gold hair until it
tumbled around her shoulders. Then she’d kiss him as if she didn’t
hate him and she’d—

From long habit, he stopped before the flaring images
became too interesting. A thousand fantasies had sustained him the
first year of their separation, but he’d learned for sanity’s sake
to control them since. Now they only troubled him after his rare
meetings with his wife.

This was the longest time he and Alicia had spent
together in years. It should remind him why he eschewed her
company. Instead, it reminded him that she was the only woman who
had ever challenged him, the only woman who had ever matched him in
strength, the only woman he couldn’t forget, desperately as he’d
tried.

He smiled into her sulky, beautiful face. “Poor
Alicia. It seems you’re stuck with me.”

How that must smart. The long ride to his Yorkshire
manor on this desolate night suddenly offered a myriad of
pleasures, not least of which was the chance to knock a few chips
off his wife’s monumental pride.