The Ghost Who Loved Me by Karolyn Cairns Read Free Book Online Page B

from her all of her life. The Surrey family would lose their home if she did not consent to wed the Duke of Westerleigh. Her mother finally told her the truth when she saw her daughter’s reluctance. Her father’s pride made him refuse to influence his daughter’s decision. The countess took matters into her own hands.
    Elizabeth married Edward in the end for the good of all, choking on every smile she gave to the hundreds of guests in the ballroom at Camden Downs, feigning a joy she didn’t feel inside.
    The night they arrived in Edinburg for a brief honeymoon, Edward came to her reeking of wine. She avoided looking at his slender, pale unremarkable body as he tossed the robe aside and joined her in the huge bed. She closed her eyes as he began to touch her, fighting the urge to be ill.
    What happened next made her let out a whimper of denial, horrified to recall what Edward did when he became frustrated by his inability to make love to his wife. To remember how he finally forced her to turn over in the bed made her cringe and squeeze her eyes shut, fighting the bile rising in the back of her throat. 
    The pain and degradation of what he did made her grow lightheaded, her fingers digging into the plush seat cushion. The humiliation of her wedding night made her weep long after Edward staggered from the bed to seek his own.
    The following morning Edward acted as if nothing untoward happened. She was traumatized in both body and spirit with bruised puffy eyes. He succinctly explained between bites of his breakfast what her role would be in his life. He would return to his current lover and companion in London, he informed her. She would have her own house, her own servants, and trouble him no more until it was time to have their heir.
    His current plaything was a man by the name of Wesley Renstadt.
    Wesley worked as Edward’s footman and had for years. He was just one of many men her husband was acquainted with. She was free to seek her own pleasures until he approved of a man to sire his heir, he told her without preamble.
    Elizabeth listened to all numbly, a sense of disbelief this was happening, feeling hollow and broken inside by what he had done to her the night before, her girlish dreams shattered in an instant.
    Seeing Wesley’s leering face as he came to their table to inform her husband his coach was waiting outside made her flinch. It reminded her of how little she mattered to her new husband. She watched Edward get up and leave without another word to her.
    Knowing her husband’s footman entertained him the rest of their wedding trip made her cringe in disbelief, seeing the many dirty trays of food and drink left outside his suite in the passing of the next few days.
    They spent three more days there, avoiding each other’s company until it was time to travel back to London. She took the train and he went by way of coach, the two separating without a word. She was relieved to see the back of him when her own footman accompanied her and her maid to the train station.
    Elizabeth never spoke of that night or told of its lasting impact upon her mind. And now, for the first time in years, she wanted a man to touch her again.
    Anthony was the first man she ever considered being intimate with. She had many flirtations over the years but that was all they were. She took none of them seriously until now.
    Until she met Anthony nearly six months before, she never believed being with a man would not make her feel anything but disgust. He showed her how wrong she was. For that alone she didn’t consider their time together a complete waste.
    The hesitant kisses they shared became more heated. She allowed him more liberties than she dared as his hands drifted under her gown, urging her silk drawers aside. She felt dismay to feel shame as she recalled his fingers touching her intimately, of her own wanton response.
    Elizabeth wanted him to take her there in an instant and be done with her chastity and her fears. Anthony