Haunting Secrets

Prologue / One

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A place between heaven and hell really did exist.

Justin Maitland knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hidden amongst the trees outside Maitland Manor—a place no longer his home but his prison—he gazed upon the smiling, carefree visage of his brother, Jonathan. No doubt courting yet another comely lass. A stab of longing sliced through Justin, and wistfully he stared down at his hands. Five fingers, five fingernails, all very human in appearance . . . but he knew better.

Was he in Purgatory?

Perhaps. But this Purgatory was not so much a place as an altered state of being . . . a curse with no hope of redemption.

Justin's thoughts often drifted to the moment he'd been cast into this Devil's existence—lost his humanity and become a beast to be loathed—a moment he simply called the lighting. It was a space in time when all of life's purposes and regrets swirled to a single point of clarity. All that could have been no longer wavering in indecision, but perfectly clear, like the sky after a blistering rainstorm. To suddenly realize all that he wanted from life, and know it would never again be within his grasp was a fate worse than death. In truth, death would be a blessing.

Instead, his destiny was to wander the earth not quite a man, nor amongst the living. Trapped for eternity as an entity to be feared.

Reviled.

And hunted.

****

North Devon, England 1890

No turning back now.

Victoria Fawson gripped the plush edge of the coach seat and stared anxiously through the window as the landscape whisked past her. The village of Exmoor brought shivers to her as it was, but when she spotted Maitland Manor looming ominously ahead, chills rushed up her spine as the whispered secrets of this place whirled through her mind.

Victoria's every instinct screamed to turn tail and run, but her heart told her the answers to her father's murder lay here.

She glanced across the coach at her French maid, Francine. The younger woman sat ramrod straight with her lips pulled tight, her gaze aimed out the window. As Maitland Manor came more fully into view the color slowly drained from the maid's face.

"We are almost there." Victoria managed a tight smile, twisting her hands in her lap, a nervous habit she'd never managed to break.

Francine took an unsteady breath. "Are you certain this is what you want, Mademoiselle?" A slight tremor shook her. "After all, Maitland Manor is haunted."

Nervously Victoria laughed. "Don't tell me you believe all those silly ghost stories."

"Oui. They are true."

Victoria arched an eyebrow, suppressing her own trepidations, and taking hold of logic. "Do you have firsthand knowledge?"

"No, but—"

With a flick of the wrist, Victoria brushed the maid's concerns away. "I think the stories are told to keep people away."

Francine nodded. "It's working rather well if you ask me. There aren't many women who volunteer to stay there."