Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss. ANNIE BURROWS
he’d backed lumbered wearily along the track. Dammit if he hadn’t wagered on the very horse she would have chosen again! This time, he had felt there was a certain inevitability about the outcome of the race. Two furlongs from the finish, a riderless horse ran across the field, causing the leaders to stumble, and creating a few moments of mayhem, during which Cora’s favourite wheezed up on the outside, crossing the finishing line while the rest were still disentangling themselves from the pile-up.
Cora had cheered. He’d heard her. No question.
The noisy crowds of race-goers faded from his consciousness as his mind had gone back to the day he had finally managed to place his ring on her finger.
‘Nothing will be able to part us now,’ he had said with grim satisfaction. And then, anticipating their wedding vows, he’d added, ‘Except death.’
‘Not even that,’ she had breathed, gazing up at him with naked adoration in her eyes.
And that was the moment he’d realised that no matter what Robbie might think, Cora was still his. He had felt her lay her hand on his sleeve, and hold him back when he would have tossed even those winnings away on the favourite in the next race. ‘Enough now,’ she had cautioned him. And tears had sprung to his eyes, because he had known, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she loved him far too much to want to watch him blight his future with reckless gambling. And he had walked away.
From that day forward, he had done nothing without considering what she would have made of it. And the more he asked her opinion, the more often he had felt her hovering close by.
Robbie had stormed off back to Scotland, his parents had washed their hands of him, neighbours regarded him with suspicion, and former acquaintances shunned him.
But Cora had stood by him.
There had been times when he had sunk into such despair that he considered following her into the after-life.
But he could see her shaking her head in reproof, and hear her declaring that suicide was a mortal sin. He did not care if it was a sin, if it could bring them together. But something told him that whatever part of the after-world she inhabited would exclude sinners of that sort.
And so, since he knew she did not want him to take that course, he’d just had to go on existing. He could not call it living. Cut off from his family and friends, he had begun to haunt the lowest gaming hells in London. They were the only places whose doors were still open to him.
But even there, she watched over him, giggling at the stunned faces of the men from whom he’d won cash, deeds to mines, and shares in canal companies.
And it was she who urged him, when he had just donned the first set of good quality, brand-new clothes he had ever owned, to walk into White’s and face them all down. She had crowed with laughter when he had walked out, £20,000 the richer.
It had brought him a measure of satisfaction to pay off the mortgage on Kingsmede, when his father had died. And to pay off his inherited debts out of winnings he’d gleaned from the very men who had fleeced his shiftless parent. Since then, he had gradually been able to make all the improvements to his estate Cora had talked about when she had been there. His tenants might whisper about him, and the way he came by his money, but it did not stop them from being glad he was re-thatching their cottages, or draining low-lying fields to improve their harvests.
Not that he cared what they thought of him. He was not doing it for them, but to please her. Her opinion was the only one that mattered to him.
She was the only person he felt any connection with any more.
Even though she was dead.
If that made him crazy, then so be it.
If it was madness that drove him back to the card tables, so that he could hear her muttering about the drunkenness of his opponents as he ruthlessly stripped them of their money, or feel her breath fan his cheek as she blew on his dice for luck, then it beat the alternative! He had not cared that her unseen presence, walking at his side, acted like a barrier between him and the rest of the world.
She was still there.
Until Miss Winters had kissed him.
‘Cora,’ he moaned again, sagging against the railings in defeat.
A seller of kindling, pushing his cart before him, shot him a piercing look, before shaking his head and hurrying on.
He knew what he must look like. He was standing here, in the first light of day, crying out for a woman who had been dead for seven dark, hellishly lonely years. And he didn’t care what anyone might think. If he only had the supernatural powers that people attributed to him, by Lucifer and all that was unholy, he would use them now! If he really knew of some incantation…
A line from somewhere sprang to mind. Something about three times three times three…
And even as he muttered what he could remember of what he dimly suspected was something from Shakespeare, a movement from the area steps of a house further down the street caught his eye. A short young woman, modishly yet soberly dressed, in a dark blue coat and poke bonnet, was climbing up on to the pavement. At first, he did not know why, out of all the people bustling about their business, this one insignificant female had attracted his attention. But then she turned to scan the traffic before venturing out into the road, and he caught a glimpse of her face.
And it felt as though something had sucked all the air from his lungs.
It was Cora.
‘Bloody hell!’ he swore, clutching the railings even harder as his knees threatened to give way beneath him. Somehow, with all that three-times-three business, and invoking unholy powers, he had managed to conjure up her shade! For the last seven years, he had heard her, caught her scent on the breeze, felt her presence, but never, ever had she allowed him so much as one brief glimpse of her…
‘Bloody hell!’ he swore again. While he had been standing there, completely stunned at having called up her spirit, or whatever the hell it was had just happened, she had disappeared round the corner. She had walked away from him as though he was of no account. As though she had somewhere far more important to be.
Uttering another curse, he set off in pursuit. It should have been easy to catch up with her. She did not have that much of a head start. But as he attempted to break into a run, the pavement undulated beneath his feet as though it had a life of its own, throwing him into the path of a furniture mender carrying a bunch of rushes. Lord Matthison had to grab on to the man’s shoulders to steady himself before he could lurch off in the direction Cora had gone.
For a few terrible minutes, he thought he would never see her again. The streets were full of tradesmen making early deliveries to the houses of the wealthy now, and it was as if the crowds had swallowed her up. Panic brought him out in a cold sweat, until he caught a glimpse of that dark blue coat on the far side of Berkeley Square, and he plunged into the gardens after her.
She was half-way up Bruton Street before he sighted her again, gliding effortlessly through the throng. He bit back a curse as a rabbit, dangling from the pole of its vendor, struck him full in the face.
‘Cora!’ he yelled in desperation as the rabbit seller laid hands on him, angrily demanding something…recompense for the damage to his wares probably, but he paid no heed. ‘Wait!’he cried, thrusting the man rudely aside. He could not let anything prevent him from discovering where Cora was going!
He saw her half-turn. Felt the moment she recognised him with the force of a punch to the gut. For there was no tenderness, no understanding in her eyes. On the contrary, she recoiled from him, and with a look of horror hitched up her skirts and began to run.
He tried to run too, but she just kept on getting further and further away from him. She could melt through the throng, because she was a wraith. But his own body was all too solid, so that he was obliged to swerve around, or shove people aside. But he kept his eyes fixed on her. Until the very moment she darted into one of the shops on Conduit Street, and slammed the door behind her.