Sinner's Heart

Restless energy still tightened his muscles, so he strode to the logs. Raised up the tomahawk. Then brought it down, hacking into the wood. Over and over, using the tomahawk like the vicious weapon it was. He chopped away at the fury and despair within him, not stopping even when sweat slicked his body and his arm ached.

His own face stared back at him from the log. He redoubled his efforts—hacking himself down, the tomahawk’s blade sinking into his flesh as he destroyed himself.

“Bastard,” he snarled. “Deceiver. Betrayer. Villain.”

He lifted his arm, preparing to strike again. Then froze.

Hovering between him and the log was the ghost.

“I made myself abundantly clear,” he said through clenched teeth. “Hie yourself off to Tartarus, or wherever you dead Romans go.”

The ghost glared at him. “I don’t take commands. Certainly not from you.”

He swung the tomahawk. She actually flinched as the blade passed through her torso and into the log.

After giving her a cold, contemptuous stare, he stalked away, leaving the tomahawk lodged in the wood. He took another drink as he strode into the corridor. The brandy was doing nothing.

The specter hovered in front of him, her expression murderous.

“Would’ve thought an axe to the chest sent a clear enough message.” He narrowed his gaze. “Get out of my house. Leave me.”

“There are many other places I’d rather be. Many other men with whom I’d rather keep company.”

“Then go to them, and with my blessing. Spread your ghostly thighs for as many bucks as you like.”

Her mouth flattened. She seemed unaccustomed to having anyone tell her what to do. In her life, she must have been a woman of status. He’d seen the same upright posture in aristocratic women, the elegant hauteur that came from generations of selective marriage. Yet this ghost held more confidence in the set of her shoulders than any living female, a confidence born from innate power.

He frowned as desire flared through him. He couldn’t desire a ghost, and certainly not this ghost.

Needing to be away from her, he walked on, until he found himself in the library.

Neither the fire nor the candles were lit. The only source of illumination came from the sickle of a moon throwing weak gray light upon the patterned rug and calf leather–bound books. Their impassive spines offered no comfort—but he’d never turned to books for solace.

As he stared at the shelves, the ghost took shape beside a heavy cabinet. She threw off her own light, a pearlescent gleam that softly touched the wooden carvings in a way that was almost beautiful.

He took another drink. “How impossibly dull you are.”

Lifting her chin, she was haughty as an empress. “I’m not here by choice.” She eyed him, her gaze lingering on his partially unlaced shirt, and how the fabric clung to his damp skin. Alive or dead, he understood women. And he was not mistaken in the flare of carnal interest in her eyes.

Objectively, he recognized that she was wondrous to look upon, possessing a regal, dark beauty, even in this non-corporeal state. In the bold angles of her face, her full mouth and proud nose, there could be no mistaking her Roman origin. Knowledge and experience shone in her eyes, far more than possessed by even the mostly worldly English lady. Her thick dark hair was piled in artful arrangement and held back with a fillet. The pinned, draped tunic she wore revealed a lushly curved body. He was a man who knew the feel of many women’s bodies, yet hers he would savor. Were she mortal.

But she was not mortal. He wanted no dealings with her. “You’re dead. You have choice in abundance.”

“Not in this I don’t,” she snapped. “Dragged around like a mule, tethered to an even bigger ass. A dissolute second son.” She threw a dismissive glance toward the books. “Nothing has changed in here, not in decades. It’s derelict.”

He wheeled away, then strode up the stairs, until he found himself in the master’s bedchamber. His room. In deference to current fashion, the walls were covered in silver paper imported from France, and silver tasseled silk hung from the canopy of the large bed. A gentleman’s chamber, in which he had conducted himself in a most ungentlemanly manner. The servants knew better than to make remarks or even acknowledge the behavior of their master.

Restless, angry, he walked the length of the chamber. The clock on the mantel showed the time, so distressingly early he felt almost embarrassed. He could not recall the last time he was in this room, alone, at this hour.

Something gleamed beside the fireplace. A glowing shape that took the form of a woman.

Her.

“Hecate curse it.” She said something else, something that might have been Latin, but he’d retained nothing of his brief Classical education. He could infer her meaning, though.

“Most women are pleased to find themselves in this chamber,” he felt compelled to say.

She eyed him, unamused. “I am not most women. And none of your trollops ever found themselves in my plight.”

The firelight shone through her as she drifted closer. He saw the set of her mouth. Nights at the gaming hells with Whit had taught Bram something of how to read a face. This ghost held a bad hand of cards.

“You and I,” she said, “we are now bound together.”

She did not anticipate that he would greet this news with enthusiasm, and she was right. He looked appalled.

“More of your madness.” He scowled, a look so fierce that, were she a living woman, she might be afraid.

“My mind is clear.” Though it had been a struggle. Even now, she twisted between his memories, her own, and their shared present. “Unlike yours, addled by drink.”

He threw the decanter. It smashed against a wall, spraying glass and amber liquid in glittering arcs. She threw up her arm to protect herself unnecessarily, then cursed her habits when he sneered at her.

“There. I’m sober as a Quaker. Yet you’re still here.”

“Against my will. Where you go, I’m forced to follow.”

“Not because I’ve wished it.”

“I’m well aware how little you desire my company.” None of the Hellraisers had ever been pleased to see her. Neither had the two mortal women. Even in life, she would enter a chamber, and faces would shift into wariness.

Bram was a fortress walled with ice as he gazed at her. “This is one of your damned tricks.”

“I don’t play tricks. That’s for the weak-willed.” She had no feeling of the fire’s warmth, and noted the chill black sky outside the windows yet possessed no sense of time. She knew only that the Dark One gained greater strength with every descent of the sun.

“And your character has been most admirable.” Sarcasm all but dripped from his words to stain the carpet.

She had no blood to heat her cheeks. “This chamber holds two sinners. But I work to undo the wrongs I’ve caused.”

“I am all esteem.” He bowed, lean and elegant and venomous. “And you are as trustworthy as a spider. Catching Whit and Leo in your web was very clever, but I’m no foolish moth you can ensnare through deception.”

“There is no deceit.” She wished she had a physical body so she might strike him. “As you move from place to place, I’m dragged along with you. You and I are manacled together.” It galled that she didn’t know the how or why of it.

“And I’m to believe this passel of lies, with no proof.” He crossed his arms over his chest, feet braced wide as if facing down a storm.

Frustration welled—curse him for having a will as strong as hers. “Do you think my knowing you were a second son was a fortunate guess? I was there. I saw it, in your memories. When your father bought you a commission. You and he stood in a room like the one downstairs, and you complained because it was not the rank you wanted.”

His frown deepened. “There’s no way you could know that.”