These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story Read Online Free

paid him no attention, confirming his suspicion that,
as with the couple upstairs, they couldn’t see him. In one bedroom,
he found a half-finished letter inscribed at the top with the date.
In horrified shock, he’d stared at the page.
    God’s teeth, it was 1818, nearly seventy years since
his wedding. Since presumably his…death.
    How could he have no recollection of anything between
that day and now? Where had he been for the space of two
generations? Was it something to do with the Chinese bed where he’d
woken? Was his spirit somehow attached to the bed? The young
man—Miles, the girl had called him—had said it was only recently
re-assembled. Did restoring the bed to use wake him from
oblivion?
    Only another question among so many.
    Bewildering afternoon faded into bewildering evening,
and still he searched. His eyes remained sharp as a cat’s, whether
the room was dark or lit with candles. Another strange result of
becoming a wraith.
    Finally as night deepened toward midnight, he opened
the door to the chamber in the east tower. The room Isabella had
chosen as hers for the night before their wedding. On the last
occasion he’d entered this room, stealing a few forbidden moments
to kiss his bride, it had been an untidy jumble of silks and
brocades and feminine gewgaws. Her jasmine perfume had scented the
air. Her two pugs had curled together on the red counterpane and
scowled at him as an unwelcome invader.
    Isabella had always had an uncanny ability to make
any space uniquely hers.
    A woman still slept here, he immediately realized.
But a woman very different from coquettish, worldly Isabella. Even
before he noticed the pink silk gown in the immodest new style
spread across the bed, he guessed this room, with its lovely
outlook over the gardens, now belonged to his descendant
Calista.
    No, if he’d died without issue—the idea still struck
a discordant note like a hammer hitting brass—his younger brother
George must have inherited. Most likely Calista was George’s
great-granddaughter.
    Calista wasn’t present. She must have accepted her
sweetheart’s entreaty to meet him. God grant her joy. He wished to
Hades that he and Isabella had done the same.
    He wandered across to lift a book from one of the
tottering piles that littered every flat surface. And only then
realized that while he was invisible to all living beings, he could
move physical objects.
    What a deuced fool he was. Of course he could, he’d
been opening doors throughout the house. In his lather to find
Isabella, he just hadn’t noticed.
    After combing the rest of the manor, he’d hoped to
find his wife in this room, but Isabella wasn’t here. Was she
anywhere? Or had her spirit ascended on high while his lingered to
atone for some unidentified but clearly dreadful misdeed?
    He glanced at the book. It was something serious and
botanical. Definitely nothing Isabella would read. Her preferences
had veered toward the sensational and romantic. And the room, apart
from the massed books and papers, was much more orderly than any
space Isabella ever inhabited. Even the set of scientific apparatus
with scales and vials and microscopes on the desk in the corner was
neat.
    Josiah heard the door open behind him. Odd how his
senses remained so attuned to the world when he no longer existed
as a physical entity. Then all thoughts but one fled.
    Isabella stared at him from the doorway.
     
    ***
     
    Joy exploded with painful force. Isabella was
here. She was here . Surely he could touch her. If he could
lift a book or open a door, surely he could touch this woman who
turned his world to sunlight.
    “My love…” he choked out, stepping forward on shaky
legs and reaching for her.
    During their courtship, he’d inundated her with a
thousand extravagant endearments. It had been a laughing game, what
flamboyant compliments he could invent to please this woman he
loved with such unfettered passion. He’d called her his treasure of
Trebizond, his