These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story by Anna Campbell

Author:Anna Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: regency ghost romance, historical romance, anna campbell, regency romance, romance, novella

Chapter Five

CALISTA OPENED HER eyes. She lay naked atop the lavishly embroidered counterpane of the Chinese bed. The room was still dark. If she’d slept after discovering such astonishing pleasure in Miles’s arms, it hadn’t been for long.

Wincing, she shifted carefully. Her body ached with unfamiliar twinges. But what did fleeting discomfort matter now that Miles had opened a blissful new world to her?

Miles slept at her side, curled around her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go, even in sleep. Inside this closed room, she was overwhelmingly conscious of the pervasive scents of sex and sated male.

As she stared up into the darkness, she wondered if she could endure such happiness. If she could endure the possibility of losing such happiness.

Better to die now…

Puzzled, she frowned. What had prompted that bleak thought?

Reaching her peak in Miles’s embrace, she’d finally accepted that she’d been wrong to give her fears such a hold over her. She and Miles were meant to be together. When his body had thundered into hers, she’d believed that she’d never doubt his love again.

Except that those words that dragged her back toward the quicksand of doubt weren’t just in her mind. Someone had spoken to her. In a low, insinuating tone that made her skin prickle. She wasn’t sure whether it was man or woman. The unidentified voice was low and infinitely noxious.

No. No, this couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. Calista Aston was a devotee of scientific process. She didn’t believe in disembodied voices or curses or spirits.

Except that she’d heard that horrible voice most distinctly.

When she stared up at the tester, she saw two tiny pinpoints of bright red above her. Two tiny pinpoints of red that focused on her in a way that both frightened and fascinated her.

With a shiver, Calista realized that the lights emanated from that same malevolent face she’d noticed this afternoon. The wrinkled, gleeful face that had mocked her fragile hopes of finding happiness in marriage.

The red eyes glared back at her, filled with fiendish intelligence.

Perhaps she was dreaming. Dreams could seem so real, couldn’t they? And even after such rapture, the pressures of the last days might add a grim tenor to her fantasies.

Everything in the room remained black and silent. She told herself this must be a dream. But she was too aware of Miles beside her, the possessive weight of his arm across her breasts, the soft sigh of his breathing, the heat of his body pressed to her side.

Fear tightened her belly and tasted sour on her lips. She was undoubtedly awake.

And unable to break the hold those two burning red eyes exerted. Transfixed, she stared upward. The eyes pierced her to the soul. Her weak, frightened, imperfect soul. The eyes saw all her faults and inadequacies. All her unrequited longing for Miles to love her forever.

Just as they had earlier, the eyes derided her futile yearning. They knew her wishes would never come true.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” she whispered into the night.

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