Beloved (2 page)

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 man 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.”

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.

Without thinking Ella said, “Who is Countess Perruche?”
Oh, fie!

“Ella!”

“Mama?”

“I shall rouse your papa at once.”

“I shall cry if you do.”

“No you won’t. You never cry. Where have you been?” Ella pressed her hands to her cheeks and willed herself to be calm and
sensible. “To Sibley’s Club in St. James Street.”

Once more Mama’s voice failed. She backed to the little pink damask chair and sat again—with an audible
bump
.

“I had to—”

Mama held up a silencing hand. “That is a gentlemen’s club, Ella.”

“Yes.”

“You went
inside
this place?”

“Yes.”

“You… How did you get there?”

“Potts—”

“Potts!” Mama closed her eyes for an instant. “Naturally. How can I even think of chiding the poor man? He is butter in your
wheedling fingers.”

“I seem to recall that he is also butter in your fingers, Mama.” Potts had been a coachman in the employ of Mama’s family
for more years than he claimed to remember. After her marriage, Mama had persuaded him to work for the Ross-maras. “Papa has
told me how you made some risky journeys in Potts’s company.” Potts invariably did his best to dissuade his employers from
questionable excursions, but could always be relied upon to do as he was asked eventually—and to hold his tongue.

“We will not refer to those occasions. Why did you go to this club?”

“To make Saber see me.”

Silence followed. Mama sat further back in the chair. Saber was her cousin, and she loved him dearly. She plucked at the ribbons
on her robe and turned her face away.

“Saber belongs to Sibley’s Club. He goes there frequently. I found out a legend about a ghost that only madmen see, and I
pretended I was that ghost.”

“Oh, Ella, how could you?”

“You know how I could! I love him and he loves me, yet he will not even
see
me.”

“He will not see any of us. He has not seen any of us for years—not since, well, not for years.”

“I love him,” Ella repeated stubbornly. “You think you love him. You’re little more than a child.” Ella tossed the gray veil
on top of her pink counterpane. “I am twenty. And, in case you have forgotten, I am in London at the urging of you and Papa
because you want to get rid of me.”

“Ella!”

“Well, anyway.” Mama’s stricken expression chastened Ella. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to get rid of me, but you do want me
to find a husband and marry. Children don’t marry, or they shouldn’t. So you must consider me a woman, mustn’t you?”

The ribbons suffered considerable punishment. “You will always try to twist my words,” Mama said.

“No. For three years you have urged me to make a Season. Surely that means I am all but an old maid by now.”

Mama’s chin rose. “Since there was a certain Lady Justine Girvin who did not marry until she was an ancient of five and thirty,
I doubt if that same lady considers you an old maid.”

Mama referred to herself. Hoping only to be near him, she had followed the man she loved to Scotland and become not only his
good friend, but his wife. Struan, Viscount Hunsin-gore, had swept Justine away and refused to accept less than her hand in
marriage.

Orphaned Ella and her younger brother, Max, had already had the great fortune to be rescued from dire circumstances by the
viscount. After the marriage the couple had promptly adopted Ella and Max. That had been three years earlier and there were
now two more small Rossmaras at home in Scotland. Edward was two and his sister, Sarah, just a year old.

“I asked about Countess Perruche,” Ella persisted. A flush rose on Mama’s cheeks.

Ella tapped a toe impatiently. “What does it mean when a lady is referred to as
demanding
? And when a gentleman says he needs time away from her to regain his strength?”