Honestly. Sometimes I wished my ghost-like state allowed me to develop a headache. Or at least imbibe a solid five fingers of excellent scotch.
“Why do you continue to step out with ill-bred rake shames?” I asked.
“Jack.” A warning. “This sort of question is exactly what I’m talking about.”
I grumbled. “Evenyouadmit that the men you associate with are, by and large, failures of the male species. There is something wrong with this.”
“You’ve been watching too much Dr. Phil.”
“That is beside the point.”
Ihadbeen watching an absurd amount of television. It was instructional and, at times, entertaining. It was also the only mind-numbing activity currently available, as brandy, sleep and beating my head against a stone wall were all denied me.
She shook her head, lips frozen into a tight line.
She had a glorious smile, Chiara did. I devoted absurd amounts of time to trying to coax one out of her.
I also spent hours wondering if her skin was as petal-soft as it looked. If her petite body would fit against mine as perfectly as it seemed. If she would smell like springtime and fresh air. If her heartbeat would synchronize with mine into one.
Have I neglected to mention that I was madly in love with Chiara, neurotic issues and all?
Calf-eyed. Moonstruck. Head-over-heels.
And clearly a bit of an ass when it came to showing it. But I would sooner cut off an arm than let her know how I felt.
IfI could cut off an arm. Ghost problems.
“My questions aren’t the problem. You just don’t like that I call you out for your neurotic behavior,” I said.
“Myneurotic behavior? Says the man who can’t stop staring at me because I look like Grauntie Sofia.”
A jolt shook me at the mention of Sofia’s name.
Sofia D’Angelo.
Chiara’s great-great-whatever aunt—Grauntie Sofia, for short.
For the record, Chiara didn’t just resemble Sofia. She was Sofia’s twin. A frighteningly uncanny physical similarity. And, to be honest, a similar propensity toward somewhat irrational conduct.
But beyond that, the women diverged. Chiara was warm and sunny to Sofia’s cool and aloof. Chiara laughed and teased and loved indiscriminately. Sofia had not.
Sofia abandoned me at the altar on our wedding day in 1818. Technically, that day was nearly two hundred years in the past. However, to me, Sofia’s cruel behavior had happened mere months ago.
Sofia’s words that morning rang in my memory—You are not the man of my heart.
The restlessness in my chest increased. Was this jittery sensation the only physical way my phantom body could feel loss and grief and pain?
As one might expect, I had reacted . . . badly . . . to Sofia’s rejection at the time. I thoroughly lost my temper, wrecking first the chapel where our nuptials were to be held and later my townhouse. In the process, I attempted to destroy an ancient artifact I considered the source of my unlucky sorrows.
Thatunfortunate choice caused me to be sucked into a shadow world. A place of in-between. I had not really been fully conscious for most of my sojourn in the shadow world, time skimming past me in largely ignored chunks.
Chiara’s older brothers—the D’Angelo triplets, Dante, Branwell and Tennyson—had been my saviors, particularly Branwell. Their gifts of Second Sight plucked me from the shadow world and gave me my current existence, half-formed as it was.
“I think you’re still trying to deal with Sofia’s betrayal,” Chiara began.
I snorted and looked away. That was an understatement of Herculean proportions.
“I don’t know that being around me is helping you,” she continued. “It most certainly is distracting me from researching your situation, which I think we all agree is important. I wonder if it wouldn’t be good for you to spend some time elsewhere for a while.”
