She was trembling. So was he. Her touch contained magic. It always had. Now she made him feel alive, as if he was once again that joyful bridegroom of so long ago. His fingers closed hard around hers in a silent assertion of union that he defied her to deny.
How fiercely he’d loved her, loved her still. And staring into her brilliant black eyes, he could almost imagine that she remembered just how she’d loved him in return.
He could never have killed her. Never. Whatever she’d done. Whatever she believed. He’d rip his beating heart from his chest before he’d hurt her.
She raised a finger to her lips and turned to watch as Miles and Calista drew apart. Calista stared across at Josiah and Isabella and one of her beautiful smiles lit her expression, almost as if…
“Do you see them?” she whispered to Miles.
The young man kept his arm around his bride’s shoulders. “I do.”
Astonished, Josiah realized that he and Isabella had become visible to the couple. He raised his hand in a heartfelt gesture of blessing and Miles bowed in acknowledgement. Isabella curtsied with flirtatious grace, her wide skirts swaying into a graceful bell.
“It must be Josiah Aston and Isabella Verney,” Calista said breathlessly. “You know, he doesn’t look…wicked.”
“No, he looks like a man besotted. Believe me, I know the signs.” Miles pressed his lips to Calista’s hair in a caress that expressed adoration and gratitude in equal measure.
“Calista and Miles, I wish you both—” Josiah began, but Isabella squeezed his hand and shook her head.
“They can’t hear us.”
“But they can see us.”
“No longer,” she said softly.
Calista turned to Miles. “They’re gone,” she said regretfully.
“Yes.” Miles drew her closer into his body. “Do you believe in ghosts now?”
The girl responded with a choked laugh. “I don’t know. I suppose I must.” She tilted her chin so that she could gaze into her lover’s eyes. “Whatever I believe, we’re going to burn that bed and throw the ashes into the sea.”
Miles smiled down at her as if he beheld a priceless treasure. “We are indeed, my love. Now kiss me before I go mad.”
“With pleasure,” she sighed and pressed her lips to Miles’s with a sensual confidence that gladdened Josiah’s heart.
Josiah blinked to clear his vision as a strange wall of gray descended. He blinked again, but still the fog enveloped the couple, made them seem strangely distant for all that they embraced only a few feet away. The gray encroached on everything around him except Isabella who still burned as brightly as a candle in his sight.
Isabella’s regard was open and trusting as he’d longed to see it. “Do you remember everything, Josiah?”
Just like that, he did.
Memory crashed through him with the force of a towering wave. Reeling under the onslaught of recollection, his clasp tightened on Isabella’s hand. “When you told me you weren’t a virgin, I acted like an ass and lost my temper. We were in the Chinese bedroom.”
“Standing near the bed.” She released his hand and turned to face him.
He’d acted like an ass but he hadn’t killed her. He’d known that he hadn’t, he’d known it to his bones, but it was a mighty relief to have the truth confirmed. “You remember too?”
“Yes. At last. I was so angry with you. Angry and guilty. I should have told you before we married, but I couldn’t bear to think you’d forsake me.”
“I’d never forsake you,” he said.
“I know that now.” Without giving him time to digest that extraordinary expression of trust, she went on. “Then a voice started to repeat every petty resentment I’d ever felt toward you and somehow made the resentments cause for hatred.”
“Whatever possessed Calista possessed you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Wicked red eyes and a snide whisper telling me I needed to escape you any way I could before you broke my heart.” Her voice cracked and her eyes glittered with tears. “Oh, my love, how could I have doubted you? Can you ever forgive me?”
Josiah smiled down into her lovely face and reached out to cup her cheek. He could still hardly believe that at last he was free to touch her. “I’m the one who should ask forgiveness.”