by Evie North
She gasped, moving with him, and just as desperate.
He withdrew and thrust again, feeling the muscles inside her begin to spasm and clench around his shaft. He nipped at her mouth, then her throat as she arched her neck, delirious with ecstasy. Her thighs gripped him, her nails dug into his muscled flesh and she cried out. Sebastian thrust deeply again, and let go. He felt his seed spill inside her. Her body bowed, every inch of her pressed against him, his skin sticking to hers, his breath mingling with her breath. A moment later she collapsed back onto the mattress.
Pleasure was interlaced with a pain so acute Sebastian felt tears sting his eyes. His heart was pounding in his chest as he laid his face upon her shoulder and tried not to weep.
He must be insane. That must be it. Either that or he must be caught in a dream so cruelly convincing that he was fooled into believing himself awake. Was that it?
Because if he was awake and in full possession of his senses, then there was only one explanation for the woman he had just made love to.
She was a ghost. He had just made love to a ghost.
Hannah felt herself begin to sink back to reality. Her body had been suspended in the ecstasy of the moment and she didn’t want it to end. She wanted to stay right here, in Sebastian’s arms, and never have to think again of tomorrow and the day after that, or how she could continue on with the drab thing that was her life.
But of course it had to end. Everything came to an end. Soon he would send her away and she would tell him what she had come to say. And then it truly would be the end.
She stretched her arms above her head with a sigh, feeling the ache of her body. But it was a pleasant ache. Whatever her intentions had been when she came here she was not sorry for how things had turned out. Her plans had diverged, yes. More than that, they had travelled in an entirely opposite direction from the one she’d expected. Perhaps that was how it was meant to be? Perhaps this was all part of her healing.
And forgiving, what of that? Could she forgive him?
Hannah’s thoughts shied away from the question. Her pain was still great, her grief still raw and she doubted she would ever think of the past with any sort of equilibrium. Perhaps forgiveness was too much to ask.
She turned her head toward Sebastian, expecting him to be asleep again, and instead found his face turned to hers. His eyes were wide. She knew he couldn’t see—he’d told her that himself—and yet it was disconcerting to be the subject of his scrutiny.
“What happened? To make you blind?”
This close she could see there was no scarring about his eyes, none at all, only the small indentation at his temple. So what sort of accident had caused such trauma?
Sebastian moved restlessly, turning his head to gaze up at the ceiling. If, she reminded herself, a blind man could gaze at anything. When he answered her his voice was gruff.
“An accident. I was hit on the temple.” He brushed the hollow with his fingertips.
“And that caused you to lose your sight?” she asked in surprise. She had never heard of such a thing. “Will you... Is it possible you might regain it?”
“Never.” He said it with such certainty that she believed him without question.
Outside the rain and wind continued their furious assault on the house but once again she knew that here, with him, she felt safe. A fantasy that was foolish at best and dangerous at worst. He had abandoned her to her fate once, why should he not do it again?
Hannah shifted on the bed, raising herself up so that she could scrutinize him, knowing he would not be aware of it. Two years had given his face a maturity it didn’t have before, and she’d noticed there was a crease between his brows and lines about his eyes. Perhaps he had suffered. Sebastian had always had everything he wanted—he’d lived a charmed life—so to be suddenly struck down, blinded... It must have been difficult. She almost felt sorry for him but she was not quite ready for that.
First he would have to apologize to her, grovel to her, and admit his wrongdoing.
“Where did this accident occur?” she asked, peering at him in the gloom. The light seemed to be fading fast.
“Abroad.” The word was clipped. Evidently it was something he preferred not to speak of. He probably wanted her to be quiet so he could sleep but she seemed unable to stop. The intimacy of their situation had made her talkative.
“I have never been abroad,” she said. “Not ever. There was a time when I longed to see France. Paris in particular. I wanted to capture the Seine and the Pont-nuef. In a watercolour, perhaps.”
“You paint?”
“I draw and paint. Landscapes mostly. I sell them in Matilda Street. I suppose you look down on trade, my lord, but I hope one day to escape the life I am currently living.”
He was silent. She thought he’d fallen asleep, and when he spoke his voice had a husky quality, as if sleep wasn’t far away. “Did none of your gentlemen offer to take you to Paris?”
Her smile was spontaneous and she was glad he couldn’t see her. Her “gentlemen”? He must think her a high-class type of whore. Perhaps one who’d risen far only to have now fallen on hard times. Then her smile died, because wasn’t that exactly what she was? She was Sebastian’s whore.
“No, they didn’t,” she replied, forcing a light note to her voice that she wasn’t feeling. “My gentlemen were all stingy in their habits, except for one. He...he was generous in all things. Until he left me.”
This time the silence went for so long that she really did think he’d fallen asleep. Hannah moved restlessly, suddenly cold. She’d made the decision to rise and dress when he reached out and caught her arm, making her jump. His voice was both quiet and intense, as if her answer was important to him.
“Why did this man leave you?”
“Why do you want to know?” She tugged at his grip but he would not let her go. There was something about his intensity that frightened her. Could he have guessed the truth? Because she did not believe for a moment that he remembered the foolish young girl he had seduced and then abandoned without a backward glance.
“Tell me,” he insisted. He was close in the shadows, his breath warm upon her face. She could see the shine of his eyes, almost as if he could see her, and her heart began to knock against her ribs.
“I don’t know why he left me,” she said at last. “I suppose he found someone else. That is usually the way these things end. Isn’t it, sir?”
He stared at her a moment longer, as though willing her to explain further, and then with a sigh he released her. He flopped back onto his pillow and rubbed his palms down over his face. She thought he was going to let the subject slip—at least that was what she hoped—but he was like a dog with a bone that wouldn’t let go.
“He didn’t love you, then?”
She choked on her laughter. “You are very romantic, sir. I would have thought a man without sight, living on the Yorkshire moors with two servants and the occasional visit from a whore, would have few reasons to feel romantic about his life.”
“I have my memories,” he said with a quiet dignity.
Hannah was impressed but she was not about to tell him that. Instead she slid from the bed, her legs shaky, and set about dressing in her discarded clothing. Her hands were clumsy and it took her longer than she would have liked to deal with buttons and hooks and laces. As she picked up the knife that had been fastened to her arm she wondered why she had bothered with it at all. She knew now she would never use it. She set it down quietly on the nightstand instead.
All the while she was aware of him, his head turned toward her as if he could see. But he can’t, she reminded herself. He doesn’t know me. I can walk out of here and not look back and he will neither know nor care.
But of course she wasn’t going to do that. She was going to confront him. She was going to make him sorry for what he had done, or if not sorry then at least force him to acknowledge his offence. To have him speak the words aloud would be enough—to have him concede that she ha
d once existed. Because there had been occasions during these long years when Hannah had felt as if her past were nothing but a dream.
“You cannot go,” he called to her as she opened the door. “The storm. Stay until the storm passes, Janet.” He sounded strangely desperate, not like the Sebastian she remembered at all. She hesitated, her fingers clenched on the latch, wondering if she could punish him now.
“Janet?”
But once again the timing was wrong. Not yet, she thought. “Very well. I will stay until the storm passes.”
And Hannah quietly closed the door.
9
Sebastian lay listening to the storm outside. His head throbbed once again and his eyes ached from straining to see. She would stay, he thought. She had no choice, with the storm so bad outside. Even if it had been clear and fine, he would not have let her go. Not now. He had to find out who she was. What she was. He had to!
Was she Hannah’s spirit come to haunt him? To punish him for the wrongs he had done her? And he had wronged her. He could see that she believed it. She had watched him ride off and leave her, never to return.
Except he’d believed her to be dead.
He groaned and turned his face into his arms. But she wasn’t dead. Hannah was alive. He had held and kissed a living, breathing woman. It was her. Wasn’t it? Perhaps he was going mad—his father, in his harsher moments, had said he would go mad up here on the moors—or perhaps this was just some woman who was similar to his Hannah.
Sebastian needed to discover the truth. If it wasn’t his beloved, merely someone who resembled her, that would be like losing her all over again.
He pressed his fingers hard against his eyes. Earlier today he had thought himself happy—now he was in torment. If only that bullet from Desmond’s pistol had not struck his temple, and if only his hand had not jerked as a result, so that his return fire found its mark in the other man’s heart.
He’d never meant to kill Hannah’s brother. He’d meant to wound him and then ride home to Hannah and explain. Instead it had all gone terribly wrong. His decision to leave her in ignorance of what he had to do meant she would never understand that his actions had been intended to protect her rather than cause her distress.
Rain battered the windows of the house. He rose unsteadily and went to look out. Sebastian squinted, his fingers gripping the sill. He could see the shimmer of the rain on the ground below and the dark mass of the rowan tree waving in the wind. Suddenly a flash of lightning came out of the sky. It pierced his brain like a dagger and he cried out in agony.
Fumbling on the chest he found his blindfold and hastily tied it about his head. The darkness was welcome and the throbbing ache began to ease a little. With it he was able to regain some of his common sense, which seemed to have gone missing ever since he’d clasped this woman in his arms.
It wasn’t Hannah. How could it be? Somehow this mad idea had slithered inside his head and he’d allowed it to run amok. He needed to think logically.
After the duel, when Sebastian had finally come to his senses, he’d sent his father to find Hannah. But it had been much too late, of course. The time he had spent unconscious, and afterwards lying in a sort of shadow world, as his memories gradually returned, had added up to months. By then his father had shunted him across the channel, safely away from the ire of the authorities. The Earl of Mortmain had enemies enough who would be glad to bring him down through the misbehaviour of his sons. Sebastian had came to senses in their chateau in France, and when he was told how long it had been since he left England, he’d been more than distraught.
His desperate pleading had sent the earl travelling home to England, where he finally tracked Hannah down to the house of her mother. It was she who had informed him of Hannah’s death. Seeing that there was nothing more to be done, the earl had returned to Sebastian with the bad news.
That had been a very dark time.
Slowly Sebastian had recovered his health, although not his sight. His father had hoped to bring his son back to London to re-establish him in society, but Sebastian had been in no mood to play the prodigal son returned. He’d taken himself off to Youlden Manor, and that was where he had stayed. Apart, that was, from one visit to London, to see his brother Gervais in Newgate Prison. But that was another story.
Hannah was dead. How could she not be? This woman could not be Hannah, not his love. She was dead and he’d best accept it before he made himself ill again.
He shifted in his chair. If he could see he would have strode out into the storm and let the elements lash him into exhaustion. Instead he was trapped in this house—trapped in the body of a man blinded by his own folly.
But what if she is Hannah? What if Hannah isn’t dead and your father was mistaken? What if her mother lied? The mother who’d lost a son to you...
The whispered questions and doubts mocked him, and he groaned.
“She isn’t,” he said. “Stop it. She can’t be.”
The words made his heart ache, and he understood then that he wanted more than anything for this woman to be Hannah. He longed with all his being for his ghost to come back to life.
Trudy was in the kitchen preparing the evening meal and Prentiss sat by the fire cleaning his pipe. They looked up, startled, as Hannah entered the room. A flash of lightning lit the shadows and Trudy placed a hand on her ample bosom as if to still her heart.
“Oh, I do hate storms.”
“It’ll blow itself out,” Prentiss soothed in his own gruff way. “More noise than substance.”
Hannah came closer. “Can I help? Shall I cut up these vegetables?”
Trudy eyed her suspiciously. “Why would you do that? The master don’t expect you to prepare the meals. Are you planning to take over my job, girly?”
Hannah lifted her chin. “I don’t want anybody’s job. I’m simply not used to being idle.”
It was partially true. She also wanted to occupy herself with something mundane so she could stop thinking of Sebastian.
Prentiss chuckled as if some coarse thoughts had entered his head, but a glance from Trudy stopped him from turning those thoughts into words.
The woman shrugged. “Do as you please,” she said. “We’re having stew tonight. Master doesn’t mind if he doesn’t eat fancy. That’s one thing about him—he’s not a fussy eater, not like some o’ them gentlemen with their Frenchified cooking.”
“I can see why he would be happy with your cooking,” Hannah replied. “I found your meals to be wholesome and tasty. Your master would be foolish to complain.”
Trudy looked pleased, although she tried not to show it. She cast Hannah a curious glance. “You’re a strange one,” she said. “Not like the usual women we get up from the inn. Is she, Prentiss?”
Prentiss grunted, preferring not to comment. Having packed his pipe to his satisfaction, he lit it and began to suck on the stem. A cloud of smoke drifted up.
Trudy went on. “The master, he’s taken with you. He’s never kept a woman this long. Although then again, the storm might be staying his hand. He can be kind enough when it suits him, and he’d not send a dog out into this.”
“That must be it,” Hannah agreed.
“Aye, must be.” But again Trudy’s glance was suspicious. “Are you from London, then?”
Hannah began to peel a parsnip. “I have lived there,” she allowed, “but I was not born there. I am not particularly fond of London. It can be a hard, cruel place when you’re alone.”
“You have no family then? You being alone?”
Hannah chopped the parsnip into pieces. “I had a family but they’re either dead or have disowned me. I haven’t seen her...them for two years.”
“Disowned you?” Trudy huffed. “What on earth did you do for them to disown you, girly?”
Hannah paused, her knife hovering over the pale flesh of the vegetable. Suddenly all she could see was the image of her mother’s distraught face and all she could hear were her hateful accusations. She shook her
head, freeing herself from the memory, and glanced up. Both Trudy and Prentiss were watching her, waiting for her answer.
“I acted unwisely.”
The other two shared a puzzled glance. “I expect you did,” Trudy said, though not unkindly. “Else why would you be in this situation? ’Tis not a choice most women make of their own free will, is it? Selling themselves to keep food in their bellies. Though I’d say it comes easier to some than others.”
Hannah smiled. For a moment she had forgotten she was supposed to be the sort of whore who frequented public places. When she’d set out on this journey she hadn’t known how she was going to find a way to stand before Sebastian. She’d thought she would just walk up to his door and demand entry, then she reached the inn and noted the bleakness of the countryside. It was as she was sitting inside the parlour, thawing out her feet and hands before the fire, that she’d heard the patrons talking.
They’d murmured about the lord of Youlden Manor, and how he was due to “Send old Prentiss down to fetch a likely sort.” They’d kept glancing in Hannah’s direction.
“And she looks like the type, don’t she?” one of them had declared. “Wonder if that’s why she’s here?”
That was where the idea had formed. She would wait at the inn and go with this Prentiss and pretend to be a willing whore. Once she was before Sebastian she would say the words she had locked away within her. It had seemed so easy when she was planning it, but once she’d found herself in his presence it had all gone awry.
He had the same effect on her now as he’d had two years ago, but at least now she was aware of it. She must not let him win her over again. She must speak the words she had come here to speak, then turn her back and walk away from him. Forever. It was time to put the past behind her and look to the future, and this was the only way Hannah could do it.