Free These Haunted Hearts: A Regency Ghost Story by Anna Campbell Page A

Kinvarra asked, still in that even voice
that struck a chill into her soul sharper than the winter wind.
“Who is this…gentleman?”
    She stiffened her backbone and leveled her shoulders.
She was made of stronger stuff than this. Never would she let her
husband guess that he still had power over her. Her response was
steady. “Lord Kinvarra, allow me to present Lord Harold
Fenton.”
    Harold performed an uncertain bow without stepping
any nearer. “My lord.”
    As he straightened, tense silence descended. Alicia
shifted to try and warm up her icy feet, fulminating against the
bad luck that threw her in Kinvarra’s way tonight.
    “Well, this is awkward,” Kinvarra said flatly,
although she saw in his taut, dark face that his anger hadn’t
abated one whit.
    “I don’t see why,” Alicia snapped.
    It wasn’t just her husband who tried her patience.
There was her lily-livered lover and the perishing cold. The
temperature must have dropped ten degrees in the last five minutes.
She shivered, then silently cursed that Kinvarra noticed and Harold
didn’t. Harold was too busy staring at her husband the way a mouse
stared at an adder.
    “Do you imagine I’m so sophisticated that I’ll ignore
discovering you in the arms of another man? My dear, you do me too
much credit.”
    She stifled the urge to consign Kinvarra to
perdition. Just as she stifled the poignant memory that once he’d
called her his dear and his love and he’d meant it. Once, briefly,
long ago. “If you’ll set aside your bruised vanity for the moment,
you’ll understand that we merely require you to ride to the nearest
habitation and request help. Then you and I can return to acting
like mere acquaintances, my lord.”
    He laughed and she struggled to suppress the sensual
awareness that rippled down her spine at that soft, deep sound.
“Some things haven’t changed, I see. You’re still dishing out
orders. And I’m still damned if I’ll play your lapdog.”
    “Can you see another solution?” she asked
sweetly.
    “Yes,” he said with a snap of his straight white
teeth. “I can leave you to freeze. Not that you’d notice. Your
blood has always been colder than Satan’s icehouse.”
    Her pride insisted that she send him on his way with
a flea in his ear. The weather—and what common sense remained under
the urge to wound that always flared in Kinvarra’s
vicinity—prompted her to sound more conciliatory.
    It was late. She and Harold hadn’t passed anyone on
this country road. Bleak, snowy moors extended for miles around
them. The grim truth was that if Kinvarra didn’t help, they were
stranded until morning. And while she was dressed in good thick
wool, she wasn’t prepared to endure a night in the open. The chill
of the ground seeped through her fur-lined boots and she shifted
again, trying to revive feeling in her frozen feet.
    “My lord…” During the year they’d lived together,
she’d called him Sebastian. During their few meetings since, she’d
clung to formality to keep him at a distance. “My lord, there’s no
point in quarreling. Basic charity compels your assistance. I would
consider myself in your debt if you fetch aid as quickly as
possible.”
    He arched one black eyebrow in an imperious fashion
that made her want to clout him. Not a new sensation. “Now that’s
something I’d like to see.”
    “What?”
    “Gratitude.”
    He knew he had her at a disadvantage and he wasn’t
likely to rise above that fact. She ground her teeth and battled to
retain her manners. “It’s all I can offer.”
    The smile that curved his lips was pure devilry. A
shiver with no connection to the cold ran through her.
    “Your imagination fails you, my dear countess.”
    Her throat closed with nerves—and that reluctant
physical reaction she couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t shifted, yet
suddenly she felt threatened. Which was ludicrous. During all their
years apart, he’d given no indication he wanted anything from her
except her