England

1814

The late Benedic Farningham, Viscount Strathmere, was returning to life in a sea of women's underwear. From ear to ankle he fought a sensual undertow of lacy shifts and white silk stockings, his muscular arms tangled in the ties and tapes of lavender-scented buckram stays, his heavy thighs wrapped in a pair of dainty French percale pantalettes. Like a wounded beast of the night, he had eluded capture and taken refuge in the last place his pursuer would think to look.

Summoning a primitive instinct for survival, he had climbed the sturdy oak tree outside the manor house and hauled his bruised and bleeding six-foot frame over the windowsill. Hopeful he had outwitted the man who chased him, he had then collapsed—into an open trunk stuffed with personal female attire and frivolous accessories.

He was not too exhausted to appreciate the irony of the situation.

For now at least he had managed to escape the man who was hunting for him. Yet moment by moment his life's blood was saturating an unknown woman's muslin petticoats and blush—pink stockings. Pain seared his upper body. Gritting his teeth, he unraveled from his elbow a flimsy lawn chemise embroidered with blue silk forget-me-nots. His gaze unfocused and brimming with devil-try, he examined it in the moonlight.

If he was going to die, for the second time in a month, he might as well go out on arousing sexual fantasy. "Well," he murmured, "what sort of woman are you anyway? Fast or merely fashionable? Do I have a choice? Then give me fast."

Unfortunately the maidenly garment failed to inspire a potent sexual image in his mind. The owner did appear to possess a decent pair of breasts, although Benedic was admittedly not capable of objective appraisal in his current condition.

God help them both—the poor woman would suffer a heart seizure when she found his carcass buried in her drawers. It seemed to him that he had once owned this creaky old manor, at some time in the murky past, and he tried to remember who had bought it from him. To his frustration his brain refused to focus, images flitting elusively behind his eyes like moths in the shadows.

A retired sea captain, wasn't? Sir Hickory or Humpty. Something, his wife and daughter. Their names escaped Benedic at the moment. Bleeding to death, he hoped he would be forgiven the lapse in manners.

“Humpty Dumpty had a great fall," he muttered. "But who the devil was his wife?" If he was wallowing in the women's underclothes, he ought at least to know her name.

Many would remark that Benedic being found dead in a trunk of petticoats was not surprising for a former English scoundrel who had thumbed his nose at society. His closest friends might even have chosen to bury him in a shroud of female underclothing as a loving tribute to his past sins.

Except that Benedic had been officially "buried" a month ago, mourned by a few, cursed by many. Aside from the persistent rumors of his ghost popping up in the oddest places and doing the naughtiest things, no one really expected to see him again.

Not his servants or scattered acquaintances.

He trusted only one person. The man who had helped him arrange his own funeral.

The late-evening silence of the country estate was marred by thumping footsteps, a bottle being kicked over, an irate male voice coming from the front of the house.

“Somebody open the bloody gate!" the gardener shouted from the driveway below. "The carriage is coming over the bridge!"

“The bloody gate has been open for an hour!" the groom shouted back.

“Company," Benedic said with a mordant sigh, tossing the embroidered chemise over his shoulder. "I suppose I ought to tidy myself up—if I'm expected to entertain."

He looked like a nightmare cast up from hell, and he knew it. His lanky frame had lost flesh. The hollows below his cheekbones gave his masculine face a dangerous gauntness. The lugubrious pattern of surgeon's stitches that crisscrossed his chest and left shoulder had been torn during his tree-climbing escapade. Taking a breath that burrowed into his lungs like talons, he felt with his uninjured arm for the windowsill and hoisted himself upright for a few moments of enlightening agony.

His gray eyes widened in approval as he took stock of his surroundings.

“Well, isn't this convenient?" he said, clenching his teeth against a wave of pain. "A room with a view."

His own estate lay across the swathe of moonlit road on a wooded rise. Warm beams of candlelight glowed from the bedroom window where he had been brutally stabbed "to death" three weeks ago. His uncle, Colonel Sir Edward Winslow, had already taken possession of the house, and if Benedic had access to a spyglass, he could have identified the shadowy figure standing behind the curtains.

The taunting silhoutte belonged to a woman, he thought in cynical detachment. Of that he had no doubt. But whether she was the same lady who had shared his bed while he was callously being stabbed, he could not say. Nor did it mattered now. That love affair belonged to a past life and had died along with his previous identity. His feelings for his former mistress were as dead as she believed him to be.

The clip-clop of approaching horses, the churning of carriage wheels on the road, interrupted his troubled reflections. Pray God whoever owned this trunk would not decide to explore her dressing closet tonight. For if he was any judge of women's underwear, and it so happened that he was, then the delicately proportioned owner of these garments would quite indelicately scream her head off when she discovered a ghost in her intimate garments.

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From the stuffy depths of the lumbering carriage, Lady Charlotte Brumidge could discern one of her undergarments dangling like a banner of indecency from her bedroom window. She leaned forward, her body frozen in disbelief, her face turning pale. The bulk of her personal belongings had arrived from London just that morning. She and the maid had barely started to unpack them, let alone put them on display from her window.

She attempted to close the carriage curtains in a casual manner, hoping the other passengers would not notice this disconcerting sight. Not that anyone would be surprised by such a faux pas from Charlotte at this point. She had brought the inglorious label of troublemaker with from London and was almost expected to continue her worrying ways. Far be it from her to disappoint her growing critics.

The errant undergarment—heavens above, it rather looked like her favorite chemise—could only mean that her scapegrace brother Damon had come and gone while she had been carted off to a country ball in a cavernous cobwebby hall.

And what had the rascal pilfered from her room this time? she wondered in alarm. He had already pawned off a good deal of her jewelry to pay off his debts. But surely he had not stooped to stealing her underthings...

A more amusing thought jolted her upright. Could Damon be walking about the countryside disguised as a woman? Or had he found a female companion to give him shelter? He was supposed to be lying low with an elderly relative in the next village. Charlotte realized her brother, a nobleman who had overnight become a sort of heroic outlaw due to a stupid prank, felt a little desperate. Being a Brumidge, she was a very liberal person herself, but even so, there were limits to descent behavior. Damon seemed to be dangerously testing those limits beyond what a wicked Brumidge would usually dare.

She turned away from the window as the ancient carriage labored between the rusty iron gates of the modest estate, making enough noise to raise the dead. A furtive glance at the endearingly blank faces of her aunt and uncle, also ancient in her eyes, reassured her they had not niticed the wayward article in the window of their wayward niece's bedroom.

“As I was saying, " Uncle Humphrey continued to his wife, "the cat was only being a cat, Pennie. He did not drag the dead mouse to the person's chair deliberately to embarass you. It was an offering of the hunt."

Aunt Penelope gave a delicate shudder, her bosom lifting and falling like a wave. "I was mortified beyond words. It happened right when the poor parson was recounting the latest antics of the poor parson was recounting the latest antics of the Strathmere Ghost.”

“Not that deuced ghost again, Pennie. Not in front of Charlotte."

Charlotte was half listening anyway, more intent on her own impending doom

than a dead man's imaginary exploits. She released a sigh of relief as the carriage rounded the drive and came to a jolting stop. No one would believe that she had hung her chemise from the window to dry—her improper conduct was a source of both prurient interest and kindly concern in this dull backwater parish. Even worse than being shunned, Charlotte’s country relatives had engaged the entire village to reform her. She was surrounded by moral zealots on every side, well-intentioned people who knew of her past sin.

Caught kissing a young baron in a park, she had been promptly banished from London by her brother, the Marquess of Creswell, to the home of her retired uncle Sir Humphrey Crowbridge. It was the worst punishment imaginable for a social-minded young woman. Charlotte might have already considered the rest of the year doomed had met the most charming man in Chistlebury at the ball earlier tonight. Her waist still felt warm where he had held her—far too long to be proper, not long enough to be considered an advance by those observing them. It seemed there might be hope for her, after all. Her exile might even provide a little excitement. The village matchmakers had watched in encouragement as she and Lord Sinclair had flirted across the dance floor.

Practically bouncing out of the carriage, she ignored her aunt's tsk of annoyance and made a beeline for the house. She slipped off her high-heeled tapestry dancing pumps at the linen-coated front steps. It wasn't a proper manor house at all, more of a glorified stone farmhouse with a pond of noisy ducks beneath her window. She missed the smelly bustle and dangers of London, the gossip and daily social rounds. She missed her friends, although most had already forgotten her by now, their lives full of gaiety, parties, and glittering social affairs.

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“Charlotte!" Her tiny aunt came bearing down upon her like Attila the Hun, her horsehair petticoats bristling against the door. "I noticed that your bedroom window was open before we left tonight," she said, holding her blue-veined hand to her heart as she caught her breath.

Charlotte turned, catching the eye of the curly red-haired young woman standing inside the hall. It was her cousin Paulina, who had missed the ball due to a wrenched ankle and who was making strange, undecipherable hand signals behind Aunt Penelope’s back.

“It wasn't the bedroom window," Charlotte said slowly. She was struggling to interpret Paulina’s gesticulations. "It was the dressing closet, and—”

“I opened it to give the closet a good airing," Paulina inserted, motioning for Charlotte to be quiet. "The smell of powder and perfume was a bit powerful."

Aunt Penelope was too busy unbundling her petite frame from a fox-trimmed pelisse to take much notice of this secret pantomime. Well, make sure it is securely closed before we retire. Everyone at the ball tonight was discussing the latest antics of the Strathmere Ghost."

Paulina’s eyes grew round, her attempt to help Charlotte apparently forgotten. "Ooh, and what has our wicked ghostie done now?"

Aunt Penelope paused for effect, one hand pressed to the onyx buttons at her throat. There was not a woman in the parish, with the possible exception of newcomer Charlotte, who had not avidly followed the life and death of the terribly wicked Viscount Strathmere.

From his war heroics to his brutal murder in bed almost a month ago, there was little the viscount had done that did not titillate the villagers. His killer had not been caught, but bets were still being laid in the local pub that an irate husband had taken revenge.

Naturally, a woman had been at his side at the time of his death. In fact, according to rumor, she had not only been at his side but had lain ***** beneath him as he was stabbed. And it was her hysterical recounting of the crime, committed by a masked intruder, that had rocked this sleepy village to its soul.

Aunt Penelope lowered her voice to a rather lurid tone as her husband entered the house. "The handsome devil seduced Miss Carol Rotherbridge as she knelt at her evening prayers last night."

Uncle Humphrey came to a full stop in the crowded hallway, his brown eyes twinkling in amusement at Charlotte. "I did nothing of the sort. I was here in this house all last night playing cards with my dear niece. Isn't that right, Charlotte? Will you provide my alibi?"

Charlotte peeled off her lightweight rose wool mantle: she wondered absently when she would see the handsome James Preston, Lord Sinclair again. As they had parted, he'd vowed he couldn't live without her. Chloe had laughed at his romantic nonsense. "I can vouch for you, Uncle Humphrey," she said stoutly, sharing a grin with him over her shoulder. "You did not seduce a single person that I noticed."

She caught her reflection in the hall-stand looking glass and tried to see herself as James would have done tonight. True, he had danced with her twice, but she couldn't help feeling that his attention might have strayed to another young woman whose hair was lighter than Charlotte’s, whose voice was a little sweeter, whose manner was more demure.

She frowned at herself. Could that be her fatal flaw? Her inability to be...demure like other young ladies? Sadly enough, this seemed to be a family trait, and Charlotte wasn't sure she would change it even if she could. She supposed she ought to pretend to be demure to seem more appealing, her sister Lizzie had always advised this, but deep in her heart she really wished to be loved at her absolute worst.

“And her screams summoned her poor father, who broke a toe trying to rescue her," Aunt Penelope finished, pausing to take a breath from her recitation. "Carol fainted seven times before she could admit what the ghost had done to her."

Charlotte spun from the mirror, her attention captured. "How do you know the woman wasn't dreaming? And did her father actually see the ghost?"

Aunt Penelope stared at her with gentle scorn. "Her lips were tingling, Charlotte, from the phantasmal kisses. And no, of course Carol’s father didn't see the ghost. I imagine he was in too much pain from his toe to care if he had."

“Well, what did the ghost do to her?"

“A decent woman could not repeat his wickedness, Charlotte."

Charlotte smiled as she handed her scented gloves to the maid. "That's the trouble with this village. Your lives are so lacking in true drama that you make up ghosts seducing women in their sleep. If any of you had any courage, the tiniest bit of daring in you at all, you would have a genuine affair, and—”

“That will be quite enough of that, Charlotte," her aunt said, her kindly face gone quite pink. "I believe it was your daring nature that got you into trouble in the first place and is exactly why your understandably beleaguered brothers have sent you here to—”

“Perish of boredom, all my mental faculties shriveled up from lack of stimulation," Charlotte said with a good natured sigh. "Well, it appears to be working. Yesterday I caught myself talking to the ducks in the pond. My only hope for salvation is to be found dead in bed myself, ravished, if I have any luck, by the Strathmere Ghost."

Her aunt gave a loud groan of chagrin, which prompted Uncle Humphrey to absentmindedly pat her hand while pretending to frown in disapproval at Charlotte. The truth, as her uncle had admitted in private to Chloe, was that he adored her outspoken views and had not enjoyed anyone's company so much in ages. He claimed that Charlotte had done wonders to draw his daughter Paulina out of her lonely shell. He appreciated, or so he said, the unpredictability Charlotte had brought to their home. And Charlotte actually laughed at his jokes, Lord bless her. Her dear uncle was a staunch ally.

“Perhaps you ought to go to bed, Charlotte," Aunt Penelope said in a tremulous voice. "Fiona can bring up a pot of chocolate if you wish."

Charlotte headed for the stairs, bearing herself like a heroine in a Greek tragedy. "I don't suppose I could have a pot of sherry instead?"

Paulina hobbed after her, speaking in an excited whisper. "I'm dying to have another peek inside the two trunks that came for you today. I've never seen so much silk and lace in all my life."

“Oh." Charlotte paused to glance up the stairwell. "Not that I'm liable to need them in Chistlebury, but I'm glad that my undergarments bring you some measure of enjoyment. Between my drawers and your ghost, this should be year of scandals for your village."

They continued up the creaking oak stairs in companionable silence until Paulina, apparently inspired to wickedness by her cousin's influence, said, "Plenty of women are praying for that ghost, I reckon. Praying that they're the one he visits tonight and has his otherwordly way with."

“His otherwordly way?" Charlotte burst into deep laughter at that and veered down the narrow hall to her room. "Heavens, what a thought."

For Charlotte’s part she did not believe in ghosts. At least she hadn't until last week when, from her bedroom window, she had spotted a lone masculine figure standing on the outskirts of the empty Strathmere mansion in the dead of night.

Was it Strathmere’s restless spirit or his human male cousin who had inherited the estate? Strangely the apparition had made her feel more sad than frightened. He had melancholy air, this spirit, if that's what he was. The viscount had been dead just over a fortnight. Charlotte’s only experiencec with the man, unsettling enough, had been during her first days here in Sussex.

*A/N: Please be my patron in Patren and read chapters in advance. My other works are also available there. Or if you just want to support me. Please look for creator Zetar086.**

Love lots ***♥️