by Lauren Smith
“Us?”
“Richard and me. Both trapped, kept apart. Broken.”
“I’m sorry, Bastian, I’m so sorry.”
The wind was the only witness to Jane’s whispered apology as she let go.
…
Bastian reached the outcropping of rocks a few feet from Jane just in time to see her fall. The world slowed in that instant. The splatter of light rain plunked against the stones. A biting chill of wind burned his face, but all he saw was Jane.
Light bloomed at the cliff’s edge. A silvery figure in a flowing white gown appeared, and without looking at him, dropped off the edge after Jane.
“We can save them. Trust in me.” A deep voice jolted through him. He didn’t have to look away to know that Richard’s spectral form stood beside him.
“I trust you.”
In that second, Bastian felt something merge with him. A ramming of power deep into his soul, his heart, as Richard took over. He could feel the other’s presence in him, controlling every movement, every thought, but sharing it with him.
“Isabelle!” It was Bastian’s voice but Richard’s words.
Must save her. She must not die, not this time.
Bastian moved the last few feet to the edge where he’d seen Jane, guided by Richard’s willpower as he dove onto his stomach, hand flailing out as he caught Jane’s wrist.
…
Something hard latched around Jane’s left wrist. The joint nearly snapped as she jerked to a halt. She gasped for breath and opened her eyes, hesitant to find her fate only delayed.
Above her, Bastian strained to hold her and not fall over himself. A pearly light shined in the black dots of his pupils. An otherworldly presence.
Inside her, Isabelle’s spirit leaped for joy, and Jane’s heart responded, pounding wildly against her ribs. They were two spirits united in her body. She’d let Isabelle into her, just as it seemed Bastian had let Richard into him. The ghosts were coming together because she and Bastian were holding onto each other. After two centuries of being apart, the lovers were touching through their descendants’ hands.
So long, it’s been so long my love. Isabelle’s thoughts were heartbreaking and impossibly strong.
“Isabelle, reach for my other hand! Quick!” The veins in Bastian’s neck stood out against his skin as he reached for her. Jane swung her free arm upward, and Bastian caught it, grunting in relief as he dragged her up and over the cliff. The second she cleared the edge, he fell backward, and she landed on top of him, their bodies locked in a fierce embrace.
Jane knew what she had to do, as if something inside her whispered how to fix everything.
“You’re afraid, Bastian. You’re afraid, and you’re pushing me away, but I know you care for me.”
The wind whipped around them, lashing at them along with the sound of Cordelia’s shrieks. But a halo of brilliant light spread around them, keeping her at bay. She felt Isabelle leave her body, her presence instead enveloping Jane in a warm embrace.
He shook his head wildly. “You have to leave here. Tonight. Now!”
She took his face in her hands. “I love you, you arrogant jerk. You can’t change that; you can’t scare me off.” Her voice was calm. Soft. But he heard her.
He turned away, squeezing his eyes shut as a grimace of pain crossed his features. “Jane, no.”
She cupped his jaw, turned him toward her once more. She had to let go of her fear. To take a leap of faith and trust herself. “Bastian, I love you. And I know you’re afraid. But don’t be.” She traced her fingers across his forehead. Along his jaw. “Please, believe me. I. Love. You.” She emphasized those three words, refusing to let the howling winds drown them out.
She felt the tension rock his frame as myriad emotions warred on his beautiful face. “I can’t. You have to go.” The fear, so stark in his eyes stilled her heart. They were both so alike, so afraid to get hurt, but they had to be brave. It was the only way.
“Say it, say what you feel. The truth. That’s all we need between us. That’s all we ever needed.”
A hint of surrender shimmered in his eyes, and the tension in his body vanished.
“Do you always have to be so damned stubborn?” he growled and then leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you.” The press of his lips was soft but filled with fire.
The halo around them coalesced into two points of brilliant light, which grew brighter and brighter, until they shot forward, directly into the heart of the beast that was Cordelia.
“No!” Cordelia screeched.
Above him, the witch’s ghastly form burst into an inferno, a scream of rage tearing from her gaping mouth. A second later she disintegrated in a black sulfurous explosion, quickly blown away by wind from the sea.
“What happened?” Bastian gasped.
Jane panted and struggled to speak. “The curse…it wasn’t about the castle. What once was broken must be mended. It was Isabelle and Richard. They’d been kept apart all these years.” She wiped away the sea spray that mixed with tears on her cheeks. “We’re their descendants. Our love brought them back together.”
“Bloody hell, woman. Why didn’t we figure out it was just that easy?” he muttered somewhat sarcastically, his head dropping back to the ground. One of his arms settled on her back, his hand patting her once, before he left his palm to rest there.
Too exhausted to laugh, she put her cheek to his chest, her whole body limp with relief. She wasn’t sure how long they lay like that, but she couldn’t readily break the feeling of security in his arms. Isabelle’s spirit still pulsed inside her, and the ghost took control again, forcing her to sit up.
“Richard?” The name was rough on her lips, unexpected and raw.
He sat up, the blue light in his eyes still bright as he reached for her, enfolding her in his arms.
In that moment, four souls merged, connected and bathed in the light of each other. Jane couldn’t breathe, the feeling was exquisite, pure pleasure, joy, surging through her, with her, around her.
“I’ve been so lost,” Isabelle murmured. “I couldn’t come home to you.”
“Cordelia stole my dreams when she took you away.” Bastian’s arms banded tighter around Jane as Richard spoke through Bastian’s voice. “We’re lost no longer. My love…my heart.”
Bastian dipped his head, his lips breathing life into Jane as the ghosts within them demanded one last kiss, one last second of mortality together. The love between Isabelle and Richard, that pure, undying devotion, was not foreign to Jane. Something like it had been growing inside her ever since she’d come face-to-face with Bastian. She loved him, loved him with a power and strength she had been so terrified to believe in at first.
She wanted to weep from the loss when Isabelle slid free of her body. All of that love, that strength was gone in an instant, but just as quickly her own love for Bastian replaced it. She raised her head and met Bastian’s gaze. His eyes, no longer Richard’s, seared her with heat and something softer. She smiled through watery eyes.
“I thought I’d lost you, Jane. When you went over…God, I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t caught you.” His words were so rough he seemed barely able to get them out.
There simply weren’t words to express how she felt. The joy at being alive, the love for him burning hot as molten lava inside her.
It was madness. They were practically strangers. But she belonged to him, belonged with him.
“Are you all right?” His melodic voice with that sexy accent made her blood heat.
She nodded weakly. She cupped his face, relishing the way his stubble lightly scratched her palms. He was alive; she was alive. They were okay. “I’m fine. You?”
“I will be as soon as I can get you back into bed and inspect every inch of you myself.”
Damn. The man was sex on a stick. Especially when he flashed that boyish grin and his eyes turned all melty and bedroomy. She sighed. She had it bad.
He chuckled, the sound sof
t and decadent, a veritable orgasm for her ears. It soothed her frayed nerves and pounding heart.
“Do you think it’s over? No more ghosts?”
She kissed his cheek and hugged him, breathing in the scent of his skin mixed with the sea air. “Yeah, I do. The air feels different.”
All around them the breeze moved, the blades of grass rippled and the waves rolled in against the cliffs. The heavy pressure of doom didn’t layer the earth or burden the stones of the castle. Everything felt right.
“Let’s get you back to the Hall.” He helped her to rise.
She paused, looking back over the sea. Isabelle and Richard were back together, wherever they were, and Jane knew they were happy. How could they not be? All they’d ever wanted was to be together, in this life and the next. And they finally had that.
If only she knew what to expect of her own life. After everything they’d been through, did he love her enough to ask her stay with him? There was no more curse to keep them apart. Did she trust him with her heart? She wanted to with every fiber of her being.
He cupped her chin and turned her face to his. He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, the most tender expression softening his eyes.
“What are you thinking about?” He bent his head, feathering kisses along her jaw.
Her knees buckled, and she gripped his arms. She should say something hopelessly romantic. But she wouldn’t make it too easy for him to seduce her. The man needed to learn to work for it. She grinned.
“I’m wondering how on earth I’m supposed to write my dissertation. There’s no way I can explain anything that we’ve we learned or experienced. I guess I’ll go with my backup topic on Richard III.”
She relished the sound of his responding laugh.
“I can promise to take your mind off dissertation topics, at least for the next several hours.” He captured her mouth with a heady kiss, his tongue tangled with hers as he deepened it.
When he released her mouth and threaded his fingers through her hair, she grinned impishly at him. “Only hours? How about days?” She waited anxiously to see how he’d respond.
“Days? If we’re talking commitment, I’d like years.” He stole another searing kiss. “Or maybe a lifetime.”
Her heart thumbed at the base of her throat. “Is that your way of proposing?”
His lips curved in a slow seductive smile. “Perhaps I should write you a letter?”
“As long as I don’t have to wait several months to figure out whether you actually meant it.”
Her words had him dragging her into his arms, kissing her with all the fire and love she’d never thought she’d be lucky to have.
When they turned back toward Stormclyffe, Bastian slid his hand down her arm to take her own hand, lacing their fingers. As they approached Stormclyffe, she spoke.
“I suppose your gardener was wrong. He said that you coming here upset the balance between good and evil, but you fixed it.”
He stilled, one foot raised above the first step leading up to the main castle door.
“Gardener?”
“Yeah,” she gazed at him, worried by the confusion on his face, “a handsome man in his early thirties. He was really superstitious. He warned me away from the cliffs when I first saw Isabelle.”
“Jane, I never hired one. I only had a temporary groundskeeper who helped with the deer, and he was a very old man.”
“Then who…?” Jane glanced over at the rose covered archway. A shiver slunk up her back, raising the hairs on her neck as she focused on her memory of the man’s features. He’d looked exactly like the man in the photo in Bastian’s study. His father. Why hadn’t she recognized him at once? She didn’t know the answer.
Some things were best left alone.
Epilogue
“How do you feel…Dr. Seyton?” Bastian buried his face in Jane’s hair, kissing her.
She laughed and turned in his arms, planting a nibbling kiss on his lips. “I like it when you call me doctor.”
“Good, because I plan to call you that often. Earning your PhD is a big accomplishment. I’ve never been more proud of you.” He raised her left hand to his lips. The small, elegant sapphire surrounded by a ring of diamonds glittered on her ring finger.
“And I have never been more proud to be with you, my lord.” She winked at him, but the teasing was only a mask for the intense surge of love she had for him and knowing she would be soon be married to him.
“Can you believe in a month it will be official?” she asked.
He cupped her cheek, gazing down at her. “The day I call you mine cannot come soon enough.”
“I’m already yours in every way that matters,” she assured him.
The smile that curved his lips up made her heart skip a beat. “Come. I want to show you something.”
She followed him into the garden. Late spring had filled the castle grounds with an explosion of color and scents. Flowers bloomed, and birds chattered enthusiastically. Life was everywhere. She let her fingertips trail over the velvet petals of roses as they approached the old dovecote. He brought her to a stop and held her close from behind as he pointed to the top of the structure’s roof.
A pair of doves peeked out from one of the holes. Their little heads bobbed as they studied the humans below. Then they emerged from the hole and perched on the thatch roof. Their white bodies snuggled close, and the small female buried her face in her mate’s neck. He nipped her gently.
“How long have they been here?” she asked. Doves had returned to Stormclyffe Hall. Something inside her was both happy and yet sad at the same time.
“A few days. They appeared, just after we returned from your graduation ceremony.”
“Really?” She stared at the birds, her heart beating a little faster.
The way the birds returned her gaze gave her an oddly familiar feeling. Her throat tightened.
“I’m so glad Isabelle chose to bring me here…to you.” She covered his hands with hers where they rested on her shoulders.
“Then I owe her everything.” He placed a lingering kiss on her temple.
Love grew inside her like an oil lamp coming to life, burning steadily, shining through a storm of emotions.
“I wish they hadn’t died, Bastian. They were so in love, had so much life yet to live and they lost each other.” It was the one thing that still haunted her. Isabelle and Richard had been robbed of the joy they deserved. It wasn’t fair. She would have given almost anything for them to have the happing ending they deserved.
“I know, darling, I know,” he murmured. “I think,” he pointed to the doves, “that perhaps they have found a way to be happy.” He turned her to face him. All around them the sound of the sea and the birds calling out encompassed them. He watched her, his eyes rich with promises.
“A love like theirs outlasts everything. A love like that…” His voice grew hoarse. “A love like ours…cannot die.”
He bent his head, and she raised up on her toes to meet him in a kiss. Everything else faded away except that kiss, the love she felt, and the sweet coo of a pair of doves.
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Acknowledgments
As always, there are so many people I would like to thank. First, the lovely, inspiring and supportive ladies of my Regency Romance critique group who are amazingly sweet to read and critique my books even when they aren’t fully Regency. I’d also like to thank Berenda, Melissa, and Karen, who energize me with their love of reading and always ask when my next book is coming out. It makes me smile every time. I’d also like to thank my amazing editor Tracy, who loves haunted castles as much as I do and helped make this book the truly gripping, spooky, sensual story it should be.
About
the Author
Lauren Smith is an attorney by day, author by night, who pens adventurous and edgy romance stories by the light of her smartphone flashlight app. She’s a native Oklahoman who lives with her three pets: a feisty chinchilla, sophisticated cat, and dapper little schnauzer. She’s won multiple awards in several romance subgenres including being an Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinalist and a semifinalist for the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award.
Lauren is represented by the wonderful Pam van Hylckama Vlieg from Foreward Literary Agency.
Check her out at laurensmithbooks.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/LaurenDianaSmith, on her blog, theleagueofrogues.blogspot.com, or follow her on Twitter at @LSmithAuthor.
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