Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  PRAISE FOR

  BELOVED

  AUTHOR STELLA COMERON

  AND HER NOVELS

  “A BEAUTIFUL, EMOTIONAL BOOK WITH A

  HAUNTINGLY LYRICAL QUALITY.”

  — Affaire de Coeur

  “A SENSUAL,ROLLICKING LOVE

  A STORY ABOUT THE MISCHIEVOUS MADCAPSIDE OF LOVE.”

  — A Little Romance on Bride

  “CAMERON LEAVES YOU BREATHLESS,

  SATISFIED … AND HUNGRY FOR MORE.”

  — Elizabeth Lowell

  “A MARVELOUSLY TALENTED HISTORICAL AUTHOR.”

  — Romantic Times

  Contents

  Also By Stella Cameron

  Copyright

  Authors Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Epilogue

  Stella Cameron

  ALSO BY STELLA CAMERON

  Bride*

  Breathless

  Charmed

  Fascination

  His Magic Touch

  Only by Your Touch

  Pure Delights

  Sheer Pleasures

  True Bliss

  COPYRIGHT

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright @ 1996 by Stella Cameron

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group,

  237 Park Avenue,

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2040-0

  First eBook Edition: January 2001

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Castle Kirkcaldy doesn’t exist, but the village of Dunkeld is very real, as is Charlotte’s Square in Edinburgh. The land of the Rossmaras is as beautiful in fact as it is in fiction, and I hope many of you will visit Scotland.

  The Franchots are Cornish. Not far west of the charming gray-stone town of Fowey are the wild hills where I imagined Franchot Castle.

  London was once my home. As with all other locations in FASCINATION, CHARMED, BRIDE, and BELOVED, I’ve walked every mile with the Rossmaras, the Franchots, and the Avenalls. London is an incredible city, unchanged in so many ways. If you stand on Bond Street today and pretend, you will swear you can see Ella, or Justine, or Pippa, or Grace, each carrying a hatbox, perhaps!

  If you’re ever in Maidenhead, in Berkshire, you may come upon a lovely tudor house called Beehive Manor was the Dog and Partridge Inn when Ella and Saber stayed there. You may stay at the Beehive Manor today, as I have.

  Travel to the north Costwolds, to Worcestershire, and the ancient village of Bretforten, and you’ll find The Fleece, a National Trust inn dating from the sixteenth century. Bretforten Manor, owned by Queen Elizabeth I in 1576 (and another lovely place to spend a night or so if you’re in the area), stills looks very much as I have described it.

  ––Stella Cameron

  Chapter One

  London, 1828

  Only madmen see Sibley’s ghost

  “Your call, I believe, Avenall.”

  Saber, Earl of Avenall, heard his name and remembered to breathe again. “Sorry, Langley. I’ll fold.”

  Mumbling into a glass of hock, Lord Langley squinted at his cards.

  Only madmen see Sibley’s ghost.

  Probably true, Saber decided. After all, he’d doubted his own sanity for four years—ever since the first endless days and nights of half-life after he’d been left for dead by a hill tribe in India.

  And now any doubt had been removed. He must be mad. Dressed in a flowing gray gown, its head and shoulders draped about with a drifting gray veil, the ghost of Sibley’s Club stood, quite still, upon a small raised platform at one end of the smoking room.

  “Things aren’t what they used to be, eh, Langley?” Sir Arthur Best remarked querulously. Ropes of twisted blue veins showed in his thin, ancient hands. “Time was when there were five or six full tables in this room every night. Deep play in those days, too. When there wasn’t a poetry reading or a damn good political wrangle in progress, eh?”

  Langley inclined his head. Meager light glimmered on his mane of white hair. Coals burned low in a smoke-stained marble fireplace, as low as the candles guttering in sconces around mahogany-paneled walls.

  Saber’s skin prickled. He was grateful that his overlong hair served to shadow the pallor he felt upon his face.

  “Thomas,” Colonel Fowles, the fourth at the table, summoned a hovering steward. “The fire, man! And two more bottles.”

  “Make it three,” Langley said.

  They didn’t see it.

  Of course not. They were old, but not mad. He was a young man in an old men’s club, and he was quite insane.

  Saber rested his jaw on a fist and contrived to look toward the velvet-curtained dais without entirely turning his head.

  The ghost revolved, its full silken robe billowing wide, only to wrap tightly about the form—or should that be lack of form?—as it reversed direction.

  A female form. Oh, certainly. Very female.

  Coals clattered in the grate.

  The colonel coughed, his lungs rattling as if in an empty cavern. He cleared his throat. “Fine weather for March, hmm?”

  “Should say so,” Sir Arthur agreed. Purplish hammocks of skin hung beneath his eyes. “The gay young things will be showin’ off their finery in the Park, no doubt.”

  “I’m feelin’ good enough to chase a gay young thing or two meself,” the colonel announced, guffawing, before another gale of coughing shook him.

  Sir Arthur’s pale eyes flickered to his companion. “I might just keep you company, sir,” he said, chuckling. “Never felt better meself, either.”

  The platform was intended for readings and the like. Heavy gold ropes looped back the deep-red, faintly dusty curtains at each side. The lady in gray hovered near one of those curtains.

  Lady?

  A ghost was a ghost. Plain and simple. A manifestation of who knew what?

  Saber looked from one of his companions to another. They studied their cards, clearly oblivious to any apparition.

  But they were not mad.

  Thomas returned, passing within feet of … She danced! Danced. Twirling, her feet barely touched the boards. Ghosts’ feet didn’t have to touch anything, did they? Saber glared at Thomas. The man proceeded serenely past the dancing spirit, his face in its customary impassive folds.

  Sibley’s ghost was a joke! Tales of sightings were without foundation. The names of those who had supposedly seen the thing, and been borne away in restraining jackets, were unknown.

  Saber closed his eyes tightly and opened them again.

  Her ankles were slim. As she turned, a suggestion of shapely calf showed.

  He became hot, then, just as quickly, deeply cold once more.

  “Fill Avenall’s glass,” Langley bellowed. “The ma
n looks positively peaked. The young aren’t what they used t’be. What d’you say, Best?”

  “Couldn’t agree with you more,” Sir Arthur said. “Fill ’em all around, Thomas.”

  Tall and slender. A slender waist and small but curvaceous hips.

  Sweat broke on Saber’s brow. He sat straighter, but bent his face over his drink and trained his eyes on his laced fingers.

  Surely there was the faintest shuffling of … slippers on wood?

  “Should think it’s about time to replace those curtains,” Langley announced loudly. “Old place is lookin’ a bit frayed around the edges, wouldn’t you say?”

  Muttered assent followed.

  The curtains?

  Saber raised his gaze to Langley, who stared directly at the red velvet curtains…flanking the platform… where…“I rather like a nice patina of age on things,” he ventured, all but swallowing his words. If he continued to sit mute someone might twig his discomfort.

  “Patina?” Sir Arthur Best filled his sunken jowls with air, then pouted before shaking his head. He regarded the curtains in question. “Might be a good thing on fine silver, I suppose. Hmm. Patina, eh? Hardly think it applies to threadbare velvet. A coat of polish wouldn’t hurt the floor, either. Now, that’d produce a little patina, what?” He laughed at his own weak humor.

  Langley and Colonel Fowles slapped their knees and rocked in their chairs. “Floor polish,” they sputtered in unison, pointing at each other. “Pa-patina!”

  Saber slid his eyes toward the stage.

  Long, elegant hands wove slowly upward to wrap at the wrist high above the veiled head. The body undulated.

  There was a sound. The slippers did make a soft scuffing. Silk clung to small, pointed breasts as if those breasts were concealed by nothing other than that silk, nothing other than thin, floating silk…

  He shifted in his seat.

  A spear of arousal hit with a force that was sweet agony. Aroused by a ghost! “I certainly do feel fit,” Langley said. “And I do believe my wits grow sharper as I grow older.”

  Sir Arthur downed the contents of his glass and smacked his lips. He leaned back in his chair. “I was about to say the same thing myself. A regular game of cards, gettin’ about a bit, and good company. That’s what I put it all down to.”

  “A three-bottle man always has the edge, I say,” Colonel Fowles roared, raising a glass in one hand, a bottle in the other. “When the wine’s in, the wit’s… the wit’s in too, I say.”

  Saber frowned. The rising babble raked his nerves. He came here to St. James’s Street from his rooms in Burlington Gardens to escape any possible visitors—and to find peace. He’d chosen membership in a club frequented by antiquarian gentlemen because no one from his former life would consider tolerating such dull company. No one except his determined friend, Devlin North, and even Devlin avoided the place unless he was too foxed to give a damn about his surroundings.

  Burlington Gardens would have been a better choice tonight. Even the disapproving comments of his gentleman’s gentleman, Bigun, would be preferable to this jabbering tribe—and the sensual ghost on the stage.

  “D’you remember the old story about the ghost, Thomas?” Langley asked suddenly.

  Saber jumped. “Y’know the one, man?”

  “My lord,” Thomas said, making a valiant effort to straighten his permanently stooped shoulders. “Certainly do, my lord.”

  “D’you recall the name of the madman who last saw her?” A crawling sensation attacked Saber’s insides. He raised his glass to eye level and swirled the contents rapidly. From the corner of his eye he noted a slowing of the apparition’s dance.

  How long could a ghost’s manifestation last?

  Thomas scratched his head and bunched up his face. “Can’t say as I do recall who it was, your lordship. Before my time. There was a mention of it in the book.”

  “Bring the book,” Saber demanded abruptly. He’d forgotten the bloody book.

  Sir Arthur poured more hock. “Good idea,” he said. “Bring the book, Thomas.”

  “Can’t do that, Sir Arthur,” Thomas muttered. “That would have been the one before the one before the present book. Never did know where that one went.”

  Saber pounded the gaming table. “Find the thing anyway!”

  “I say.” Langley tapped Saber’s arm. “Steady on, old chap.”

  If he didn’t control himself, they’d realize he was unbalanced. Saber shrugged. “Thought it might be entertaining. Forget it, Thomas.”

  “Good thing madness doesn’t run in families,” Colonel Fowles noted.

  Lord Langley arched his neck inside his stiff collar. “No madness in my family, I can tell you that.”

  “Nor mine,” Sir Arthur said.

  Shifting gray, with the floating quality of cobweb gossamer, wafted at the edge of Saber’s vision. “Where’s it written that madness doesn’t run in families?” he asked, aware of the truculence in his voice.

  Graceful hands lowered and rose again, taking the veil with them.

  Saber’s heart stopped beating.

  The veil swirled in circles above sleek black hair.

  He dared not look at her directly. Somehow he must get out of here, out and away before his condition was noted—before he said something that would brand him crazed.

  Colonel Fowles said, “It’s a scientific fact. About strong families having strong minds.”

  Saber’s hands shook. He set down his glass. “Never a whisper of that sort of thing in my bloodlines,” Sir Arthur said.

  Saber bowed his head and contrived to tilt his face just enough to see his ghostly nemesis more clearly. Straight and shimmering, the black hair fell well past her shoulders. Her brows winged gently upward over dark, almond-shaped eyes. Rather than waxen or transparent, her skin bore a golden sheen and a rosy tint colored a full mouth some might consider too large.

  Her mouth was not too large.

  Not too large for a ghost?

  He was completely mad!

  She smiled. She smiled and wiggled the fingers of her right hand enticingly. At him.

  Saber’s eyes swiveled to his companions. All three studied the yellowing molded ceiling.

  He returned his attention to the stage and barely grabbed his glass before he would have knocked it to the floor.

  “Probably time I got along home,” Colonel Fowles announced.

  “Probably,” Saber said evenly. He did not add that the colonel should leave before he admitted he’d seen a ghost. And the colonel had definitely seen her.

  Langley stirred and checked his fob watch. “Yes, indeed. Lady Langley worries if I’m too late.”

  Would that be the same Lady Langley who was supposedly in Northumberland to attend the birth of her daughter’s latest child? Langley, too, must get away. He had also encountered an “apparition” and feared—despite his marvelously stable family—that he’d be branded a lunatic.

  Damn, but she made a beautiful ghost. How long was it since he’d last seen her? Three years, of course. Three years

  while he’d ignored her letters, and refused to see her—as much as he’d longed to do so.

  “I’ll come out with you, then,” Sir Arthur said, pushing back his chair. “Call my carriage, will you, Thomas?”

  The steward retreated so quickly he all but fell into the echoing, stone-flagged vestibule.

  Another man fearful for his sanity.

  Saber rose with the others.

  She had grown still. He felt her stillness, her will demanding that he remain where they would be alone—and he would be forced to confront her.

  “You too, Avenall?” the colonel asked. “Calling it a night, are you?”

  “A lady awaits me, also,” he announced, loudly enough for anyone to hear.

  Sir Arthur chuckled and slapped Saber’s back. “The fair Countess Perruche? We’ve all heard about her, man. Exotic, eh? Demanding? From what they say, it’s a marvel you can tear yourself away at all.”
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  Saber looped an arm around Langley’s shoulders and ambled toward the door. “A man has to get his strength back now and again,” he told them.

  They all laughed. Men together, they strolled from the room.

  Saber knew that Best, Langley, and Fowles controlled their urges to run from the “ghost” each thought he, alone, saw.

  How had she learned the legend of Sibley’s Ghost?

  How had she gained entrance to so male a sanctum?

  How? Hah! By using the quicksilver mind that seemed to curl around his even now.

  Without another glance, Saber did what he had to do. He walked past the only woman he would ever love, the woman he could never bear to burden with the dark, damaged thing he had become.

  He walked past, and away, from the most beautiful, vibrant creature in the world—Ella Rossmara.

  “Ella Rossmara!” Dressed in a peach-colored satin night robe, Lady Justine, Viscountess Hunsingore, rose from a chair by the window in Ella’s bedchamber. “There you are at last. Close the door and present yourself at once. At once, do you hear? What have you done? Where have you been? Explain yourself. If your father awakens and misses me you will have more than my disapproval to deal with, miss. Out and about in the middle of the night wearing … wearing… Oh, sin’s ears, this is the veriest muddle. Tell me—”

  Ella interrupted her adoptive parent. “Please, Mama! How can I explain anything if you will not be quiet long enough for me to speak?” She closed the door and leaned against it.

  With one long forefinger jabbing the air, Mama approached, her limp more pronounced than usual. “Do not take that tone with me, young lady. You have quite frightened me out of my wits. What is that thing you’re wearing?”

  “A ghost costume.” Oh, perish a foolish girl’s careless mouth.

  Mama’s mouth formed soundless words. Her lovely amber eyes grew quite round.