Love for Lady Winter - Christy Carlyle

1

Bocka Morrow, Cornwall, December 1811

Ghosts didn’t frighten Lady Winifred Gissing, though they seemed to disturb her aunt, Miss Elinor Renshawe, a great deal.

“Let us agree, my dear, that we shall not be unsettled by this talk of haunted castles. We are reasonable ladies, neither of us given to fairytale nonsense.” Rearranging the knitted shawl she’d been using to warm her lap, Aunt Elinor pulled the sage green square tight around her shoulders. “Fairies and ghosts and ghouls. Utter fiddle-faddle.”

It was the fifth such denunciation she’d offered during their journey from London to Cornwall. Win might have believed her, if not for the shudder that rippled through the older woman’s plump frame each time she mentioned specters.

After more than a day of travel, they were finally approaching the village of Bocka Morrow. The road had turned rutted and rough, slick in some spots due to the weather. When their hired coach careened around a bend, Win tipped forward and clasped her aunt’s hand. “Not to worry. Perhaps the rumors about Castle Keyvnor have been exaggerated.”

They were certainly plentiful. The family seat of the Earls of Banfield was notoriously haunted by an assortment of ghosts, while the nearby woods were said to host pixies and witches.

“Yes.” Elinor patted Win’s hand. “Just so. Exaggeration. Tittle-tattle, no doubt. A tale to frighten children.”

Win couldn’t resist asking, “While growing up near the castle, did you ever see a ghost, Aunt Elinor?” Hope fizzed in Win’s chest. She held her breath and squeezed her aunt’s hand.

“I don’t remember.” Aunt Elinor squirmed on the coach’s squabs and shook her head until a few ruddy curls slipped from her bonnet. “I’m certain I didn’t. How could I? There’s no such thing.”

Win settled back and let out a sigh. For moment, she’d considering confessing the secret she’d never confided to a single soul.

Aunt Elinor was wrong. Ghosts did exist. Win knew because she’d been encountering the unearthly creatures all her life.

From earliest childhood, she’d sensed figures hovering at the edges of her vision. Glimpsed their misty shapes flickering at the far end of hallways. Too curious to ignore the strange manifestations, she’d sought them, desperate to solve the mystery of her visions. The closer she got to the apparitions, the more she felt their anguished yearning to be remembered by those they’d left behind.

Their pain disturbed her so much, she’d pleaded with the specters to fade from her view. Once, she’d lost all patience and confronted one with the blunt edge of her father’s old regimental sword. But swords didn’t frighten the dead, and the restless departed proved tenacious. Despite her pleas, they’d remained. Lingering. Watching. Yearning, she sensed, to take part in the ordinary matters of the living.

Eventually, their constancy became a strange kind of consolation. An unexpected cure to the loneliness she often felt, even as one of four siblings. During her failed Season, she’d begun to understand the wraiths who clung to the shadows. With her pale skin and colorless hair and eyes, she’d lingered ghostlike at the edge of ballrooms too, wishing some gentleman would ask her to dance. None ever did, though she’d heard a few laughing over the nickname they’d bestowed on her.

No doubt little Lady Winter is as cold and bloodless as she looks, the season’s handsomest rake had once declared.

That’s when she decided she didn’t want to be odd anymore. To be strangely pale. To see spirits inhabiting every space she entered. That night, with the pain of a rogue’s words cutting into her heart, she’d longed to be like every other young lady.

But her longing changed nothing, and Win never told anyone of the spirits she saw. Mama sometimes scolded her for disregarding her decorum lessons, but she’d learned enough to know that ladies did not speak of specters. Especially if they were ladies of Gissing Hall.

There was a great deal no one spoke about in that great rambling estate tucked among the green fields of Buckinghamshire. And there was much for its old Tudor frame to hide. Mama’s secrets. Papa’s rages. The peculiar ability Win had been cursed with.

Lately, since moving to London to live with Aunt Elinor, she’d seen fewer spirits. For months, she’d encountered none at all. Perhaps seeing them was an ability that waned as one aged. She prayed it was true.

Above all else, Win wished to be normal.

Whatever that meant.

“What are you pondering, my dear? All the light has faded from your pretty eyes.” Aunt Elinor studied her with a warm, searching gaze. A look of