Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss. ANNIE BURROWS

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СКАЧАТЬ had flung increasingly harsh words at each other, which had culminated in Robbie yelling, ‘Curse you and your title! May you rot in hell with it!’

      Hell, he’d mused. Yes, he had felt as though he was in hell. And like so many of the damned, he had set out on a path of deliberate self-destruction, staking all that was left of Cora’s wedding fund on a horse that was certain to lose.

      He’d eyed up the runners, and been drawn to one that was being soundly whipped by its infuriated jockey. It was frothing at the mouth, its eyes rolling as it went round and round in circles. The jockey had lashed at it some more. He still couldn’t get it to the starting line.

      That horse doesn’t want to be here any more than you do, he could imagine his tender-hearted Cora saying. Poor creature.

      And that was when he knew he had to lay her blood money on the horse she would have felt sorry for.

      When had it romped home a length ahead of its nearest rival, he heard her delighted laughter. He would swear to it. And pictured her clapping her hands in glee.

      In a daze, he’d gone back to the betting post, feeling like Judas at the thought of the cascade of silver that would soon be poured into his hands. In the next race, he’d backed the most broken-down nag he could see in a last-ditch attempt to purge away his overriding sense of guilt. He had to get rid of that money. Robbie had cursed it!

      As the pack set off, he thought he felt Cora sigh as the sorry specimen 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 СКАЧАТЬ