Body and Soul by Susan Krinard

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

"David!"

The cry echoed in his mind as he crossed through the portals between life and death and found himself in the World again. Even before he became aware of the faint shape of his own body, of the unfamiliar room around him, he knew he was Back.

Back from the limbo where he'd heard that desperate appeal. The limbo that had been his home for uncounted years, where he knew the passage of time only from those souls who journeyed through his private perdition on their way to the next existence.

He knew it wasn't 1815, nor even the century into which he'd been born. He'd known it before his own name had summoned him to the earthly plane. But not one of his temporary visitors had made him feel how long he'd been gone, or how much he'd lost.

She did.

She no longer cried out but tossed on her narrow bed, throwing the sheets from her body. Her back was turned to him, sweetly curved, the bedclothes just brushing the swell of her hips. In the morning light he could see that her hair was nearly straight, falling a few inches below her shoulders, cut simply and left uncovered to tangle about her head as she slept. It was golden in color; guinea-gold, begging a man to touch the thick strands.

Her body, petite and compact, was clothed in something like a man's nightshirt. Fine-boned hands clutched at her pillow as if it were a lifeline.

Recklessly he sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling it give under his weight. "Well, my lady?" he whispered, his voice hoarse with long disuse. "We gamble for high stakes, you and I, and I don't know all the rules of the game." She'd called him; he knew she'd be able to seehim, that he could speak to her and be heard. But how would she react to the presence of a ghost?

He skimmed his hand a hairsbreadth above her hip. "Who are you?" he asked. "Will you remember?"

But he willed her not to. Not until he found the way to make her believe in him, accept him, trust him as a benevolent visitor. A spirit, perhaps, come to help her in her earthly tribulations. He would learn what she most wanted to believe and use it to his advantage.

And then, when the time was right, he would tell her the truth--just enough to fulfill the conditions of his unearthly bargain. Enough to get what he wanted.

He smiled bitterly. "I give you fair warning, my lady," he said. "I haven't changed. I never change."

He hadn't meant her to hear him, but she did. And this time when she opened her eyes they centered directly on him.

He acted on instinct, willing himself to insubstantiality. He snapped to his feet and retreated across the room.

The woman blinked and sat up, body rigid with shock. Her gaze swept back and forth across the place where he stood, searching for what she could no longer see.

"Oh my God," she said. She put shaking hands to her mouth, then to her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples fiercely.

"Dreams," she muttered. "That's all it is."

But her skin was very pale, and her fingers trembled as she fumbled for a smooth, narrow object on the table beside her bed.

David knew she'd seen him. She'd seen him and was afraid, as anyone would be afraid to find a ghost at her bedside.