Chapter One
Marston Hall, Norfolk, May 1818
JOSIAH WOKE TO thick darkness.
He knew immediately where he was. Sprawled across the great Chinese bed at Marston Hall. His glorious, extravagant marriage bed. The king’s gift to his dear friend, Lord Stansfield, upon the earl’s nuptials. Josiah had expressed suitable gratitude for the royal generosity, but he couldn’t avoid thinking a second-hand bed was a rum sort of present for a man supposedly in the regal favor.
Thick green hangings enclosed him, hangings cut from robes sewn for a Chinese princess’s wedding. A wedding that had never taken place. The elaborate scroll accompanying His Majesty’s gift had laid out the legend as a quaint piece of history. The princess’s lowborn lover had betrayed her instead of stealing her away. Cursing all marriages, she’d poisoned herself on the day she was to marry a powerful warlord.
Or so the story went.
In search of warm, sleepy Isabella, Josiah’s hand slid across the silk counterpane, feeling the raised patterns of embroidery under his palm. But he already knew his beloved wasn’t lying beside him.
By God, he must have been half-seas over before he tumbled onto the cream cover with its thickly twining peonies and fragile pagodas. He was still wearing his wedding clothes. He hadn’t been sober enough to undress. No wonder Isabella had left him to sleep it off. His darling had a temper. He’d hear about his excesses soon enough. He deserved to.
He didn’t even remember crawling into bed.
Which, now he thought about it, struck him as rather odd.
This couldn’t be right. On his wedding day, he’d been drunk on love, not liquor. And he certainly didn’t recall imbibing so deep that he’d collapsed insensible.
If only he could remember.
He frowned into the heavy stillness, struggling to bring events into focus. Most of the day was clear in his mind. But some…was not.
He’d spent all morning in a lather of wanting Isabella. He’d been so hungry to have his bride to himself, he’d dragged her away from the wedding breakfast with scandalous impetuosity. Lord Fenburgh, her drier-than-dust father, had frowned disapproval, but Isabella’s black eyes had flared with excitement. Josiah had won a lusty wife, thank the angels. After weeks of curtailed encounters, she’d been as eager as he to consummate their chaste wooing.
He remembered her delicious, husky little moan as he’d kissed her ravenously, passionately behind one of the man-size Japanese jars in the hall, barely out of sight of the guests. He remembered fondling the sweet curve of her breast before towing her willy-nilly toward the carved oak staircase. She’d scurried to keep up, running with a rustle of silk skirts and a patter of delicate heels across tiled flooring. He’d swept his laughing bride into his arms and carried her up the stairs, golden light spilling over them from the high mullioned windows.
And then…
Something was badly amiss. He hadn’t been drunk on his wedding day. His head remained clear and his mouth wasn’t stale with alcohol. When he married Isabella, he hadn’t needed intoxicants. He’d been delirious with happiness and itching to possess his bride. A glass of champagne to toast her bright eyes and a lifetime of joy to come. That was all.
So why was he lying all alone? And why couldn’t he remember?
Where the hell was Isabella? She should be here. With him.
The darkness crushed him. Confusion ebbed and the truth slammed down like an ax.
Isabella was dead.
Crippling grief thickened his blood like gray sea ice. His memory remained disturbingly blank about details, but he knew without question that she was dead.
Of course he knew. They’d been so close in life, they’d shared a heartbeat.
Isabella was dead.
And so was he.
***
“Kiss me, Calista.”
Austerely intellectual Lady Calista Aston giggled with an extremely unintellectual giddiness and allowed the handsome young man to tug her from the empty hallway into the shadowy bedroom. “Miles, I haven’t got time,” she said without sounding in the least convincing.
“I’ll be quick.”