She’d sit on the bed and wait a few minutes—at least that proved her courage, the bed was said to guarantee a violent death to any bride who lay in it. Easy to scoff at ridiculous superstitions in the light of day. Less easy when she stood in a closed room, straining to hear another person breathing.
A month ago, opening this beautiful, neglected house for her wedding had seemed a brave, positive act. Now, Calista reclassified the whim as rash and stupid. She counted herself the most rational of creatures, but something in this room wasn’t right. Even someone as insensitive to the occult as she sensed the deep sadness surrounding her. The atmosphere’s heaviness was more obvious now that she couldn’t see. Air that should be still moved on her bare arms, making the hairs stand up on her skin. Since Isabella Verney’s grisly death last century, there had been numerous accounts of specters at Marston Hall. That disciple of scientific method, Calista Aston, had always dismissed these reports as the victory of imagination over reason.
At this moment, she wasn’t quite so sure.
Calista ventured another step and slammed into something big and warm.
Like a ninny, she screamed.
***
“Calista, you goose, hush now. You’ll have a crowd in here. And if we’re going to face down a scandal, I damn well want the pleasure first.”
It was Miles. Living, breathing, provoking Miles. Nothing unearthly visiting from the other side of the grave.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” Temper sent her nonsensical fears scampering into the shadows.
He laughed softly and put his arms around her. Until the first time Miles held her, she’d never felt she had a place in the world. He anchored her every time he touched her. She closed her eyes and relished his heat, even as her heart kicked into a gallop at the prospect of that strong, male body naked against hers.
“I wanted to tease you.”
“By scaring me silly and risking discovery,” she said crossly, although held so close, it was difficult to maintain her annoyance.
As if by common con
sent, they stood a few seconds without speaking, waiting to hear if anyone climbed the stairs to investigate the cry in the night.
The house around them remained silent.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” Miles drew away and led her toward the bed. Or at least she assumed he led her toward the bed. The darkness disoriented her. The darkness and the dizzy pleasure of being alone with Miles.
“I nearly didn’t,” she admitted in a low voice, following without resistance.
“Let me open the curtains.”
She shivered with the trepidation that his embrace had briefly vanquished. Any nervousness about ghosts receded under a more immediate fear of what was about to happen. “I’d rather do this in the dark.”
He laughed again. “How do you know?”
Miles seemed to take this encounter so lightly. One of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him was the way he responded to life with a smile. But something in her resented his failure to recognize her surrender as the huge concession it was.
“I don’t.”
“Then trust me. I’d prefer to do this in a blaze of light so I see every expression on your lovely face. In the absence of a hundred chandeliers, moonlight must suffice.”
She stumbled to a halt. He frequently called her pretty and his darling and other such flummery. The problem was that just now he’d sounded so genuine, if she wasn’t careful, she might start to believe him, in spite of the damning evidence of her looking glass. His casual reference to her beauty cut straight to her yearning heart. She wanted to be beautiful for him. As he was beautiful for her.
“Miles…” she said helplessly.
He raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on her palm. The caress tingled to the soles of her feet and she began to tremble, this time not with fear.
“Stay there,” he murmured.
Her skin tightening with wanton anticipation, she listened to him prowl around the room. He seemed to have an unerring instinct for where he went. With a swish of the curtains, moonlight flooded the chamber, turning black to molten silver.
She poised uncertainly, trapped between the craven urge to flee and a powerful hunger for this ultimate closeness.
She watched Miles at the window. The light limned him, turned him into a being from another world. The magnificent sight made the breath catch in her throat. He wore a loose white shirt and breeches. She’d never been so aware of his height or the lean strength of his body.