Nights In White Satin

She ran then, nearly tripping on the hem of the dress, her heart lurching as she reached the back door. Howling wind caught the edge of the door, nearly tearing it from its hinges. Her finger felt bare now, bereft of the symbol of Forrest’s love, but there was no time to think about it because the door slammed against the house, and Lavinia’s taper flickered out.

Thunderclouds raced across the moon as Lavinia pocketed the candle and whispered, “This night’s the devil’s handiwork, missy.”

Shuddering, Marissa took in the shadowy shapes riding like phantom demons across the sky. There were skulls and crossbones. Angry steeds. Lavinia wasn’t lying. She dealt in herbs and voodoo and was known to have premonitions. Marissa grasped her hand and stepped onto the lawn, her head bent against the onslaught of wind and rain. The temperature had dropped, the heat of the day giving way to cooling northern winds blowing in from the sea. It was hard to run in the gown, but Marissa dodged trees in the yard, the soupy mud sucking at her slippers. Stumbling, she could barely make out the ancient moss-hung cypress trees at the edge of the swamp.

Something snagged her dress and a cry tore from her throat as satin ripped away. Her sisters—all accomplished seamstresses—had insisted on making the gown, and now it was going to be ruined. They’d made so many plans that seemed silly now, never imagining war could touch their lives.

A jagged finger of lightning illuminated the swamp, and Marissa saw Lavinia once more, a tiny firecracker of a woman with skin the shiny red color of glazed clay pottery. Beyond was the Benchley plantation, not that the Benchleys had offered assistance, even though their land was on higher, dryer ground. Men were on the shell road now, and soon they’d be in the house. Once there, they’d see remnants of dinner, and know people were hiding somewhere. Armoires would disclose the inhabitants had been women and, soon, hungry men would be in the yard, hunting for her and Lavinia.

“Get in the water, Miss Marissa!”

“Grab these roots, Lavinia,” Marissa returned as a torch flared, the fingers of pale, delicate hands gripping the mangled claws of cypress roots, just as a gust lifted her skirt and her feet, which almost left the ground. Lavinia snatch the skirt, to steady them both, right before Marissa plunged into the pulsing swirl of black waters. Madness, she thought as Lavinia followed into the icy water. Another torch flared, then Marissa heard a male voice from far off, the words unclear, but gruff, making her swoon because she’d heard what vagabond soldiers did to women. Downwind, the waters fed salt marshes, then tidewaters that met the Atlantic, and now, as she sank into the pull of currents, spiders seemed to climb the ladder of her spine; her body shook as she imagined gators circling beneath her, and she wished her gown wasn’t ballooning and deflating as the white skirts became soaked.

“Who’s out there?” came a Yankee shout, traveling on the wind. “I saw you run! Show yourselves!”

Lavinia grasped Marissa’s shoulder in assurance, but when the sky lit up again, men on horses fanned across the yard…men whose faces were no longer shadows, but rather, clearly defined, made hard by a war in which they’d seen too much killing.

The heavy winds whipped up, lifting twigs and sending them spinning, and suddenly, the hand on her shoulder was gone—simply gone! Marissa’s own hand was almost ripped from the cypress root. She gasped, and when lightning cracked again, she realized the other woman really was gone! Lavinia! Had she really lost her hold, been swept away? Was that her head bobbing in the water? A hand waving? Or just tricks of Marissa’s imagination? Marissa wrenched once more, and in another lightning flash saw…Forrest?

She felt faint. Her wet corset clung to her ribs, stealing her breath. Surely, it was her imagination, but now she saw Forrest running along the shell drive, coming toward the Yankees in the yard. Had he lost his mind? No…like her, he was in love. He was searching for her, but if she called out, they’d both be killed.

Yankees were in the house now. A taper flared in a window. Oh, how she hated those men who were defiling the home of her beloved, where she was meant to experience the passion that women only spoke about in hushed tones, behind closed doors, and usually only long after they were married. Her body ached to experience sensual pleasure with Forrest, her eyes hungered to see his body, to drink in his maleness. In this very yard, she was to have raised beautiful babies from their union.

She gritted her teeth against the chill of the water and the rawness of her hands, chapped by wind. Gasping, crying in the rain, Marissa’s heart lurched when the sky lit up once more. He was still on the road! He was alive! Gallant, wearing the uniform she’d mended. Suddenly, a fireball whistled through the storm. Something splashed. A bullet? A cannonball?

She had to tell him she was safe. Their love was strong enough to conquer everything, even this war, but she watched in horror as the Yankee reined in his horse and turned, trotting the way he’d come, his eyes scanning the trees as if he’d heard Forrest in the brush. It was the wrong moment for her beloved to emerge in plain sight. The enemy leaned down, the night air rent by the sound of a sword drawn from his sheath. It rose high, glinting under the moon, arching as it bore down.

“Forrest!” she shrieked as the blade swung, the soldier bending. And then silence. Lightning and bullets ceased fire, plunging everything into darkness. He was dead. She knew that much. I curse this ground, she thought, rage swelling like the tides. Damn women who’ve lived and loved on this bloodstained ground without paying this price. I hope they never find you, love. Never! Never!

Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked.

And vaguely, Marissa realized she’d uttered the wrong curse—that the Yankees were to blame, and greedy people who would rather work the land with slaves than make do with less, but months of mere survival and feeling her heart shatter was too much! No one should enjoy Hartley House, or love, or the life Marissa was to have lived here, not until she and Forrest were reunited.

Envy—a kind of hate she’d never known—bubbled inside, so she barely noticed the next burst of fire. She felt as if she was floating above the water, no longer in her own body. She was aware of smoke, but she was numb, her skin frigid, then she realized warmth gushed from somewhere. From her shoulder, maybe? Was it blood? She wasn’t sure. All she knew for certain was that Lavinia was gone. Her mama and papa, the sisters she loved. And now Forrest.

Her mind stuttered with grief. Her fingers slipped, but she kept hold of the root. If she let go, she’d never make it, and she was going to stand and fight. Oh, damn it, she would stand! For Forrest! Her hand weakened. Wind whipped her hair, and she realized a bullet had found her. She was losing blood to a salty swamp where gators circled, drawn by the scissoring movements of her legs. Suddenly, she was pummeled by wind.

And then the swirling dark waters took her.

1

New York City,

a dark, stormy February night in the present…

“DON’T RUN OFF and get yourself into trouble, Mug,” Bridget Benning said, releasing her tawny, miniature pug to run on the floor of the hallway before using the point of a blue-painted fingernail to stab the doorbell of her best friend Dermott’s high-rise apartment in Battery Park City. “C’mon, Dermott,” she muttered, wondering why he’d been unavailable for weeks, and at a time when so much was happening!

Bridget wanted his input on family matters, as well as on which futon to buy, and she was hoping he’d take walks with her, since March was around the corner and without losing ten pounds, she’d never fit into spring clothes. Now she needed him to take a trip South with her to do some ghost-busting, something she hoped he’d take seriously, since she couldn’t go on this trip without his support. Her parents had been living in Hartley House when she was born, but since she’d been a baby, Bridget had never been south of Newark, and besides, only Dermott truly understood what Miss Marissa’s curse had done to Bridget’s love life.

When Mug yipped, Bridget leaned and petted his head, cooing, “As soon as we’re inside, I’ll get you a doggie treat.” Dermott kept a box handy for Mug. Bridget suddenly muttered, “Or not.” Why wasn’t her best buddy answering? “Hurry up,” she whispered.

Just this week, Bridget’s Granny Ginny, who lived in Florida, in Hartley House, had come to visit, reminding Bridget of Marissa’s curse and how it affected women connected to Hartley House. Bridget and her sisters had never known Granny Ginny’s son, who’d died young, but he was their biological father, even if Joe Benning had raised them. Because they were Hartleys by blood, the Benning girls hadn’t escaped being victims of the curse. Just like her sisters, Bridget had placed the blame for her romantic failures squarely on Miss Marissa, but now, during Granny Ginny’s visit, matters had taken a startling new twist.

As it turned out, this past month, Bridget had agreed to help her older sister, Edie, who owned a wedding planning business, Big Apple Brides, and who had luckily landed a celebrity client, hotel heiress, Julia Darden. Bridget, an aspiring jewelry designer who worked by day as a clerk at Tiffany’s, had agreed to fashion an engagement ring, which she and Edie had hoped Julia and her fiancé would like. When Julia rejected Bridget’s first design, Bridget had placed the sample ring, made with cubic zirconias, on her own finger.

When Granny Ginny arrived from Florida and saw the ring, she’d nearly swooned. According to Granny, the ring Bridget had designed was an exact replica of the Hartley diamond, the ring Forrest Hartley had given to Miss Marissa Jennings during the Civil War, a ring supposedly still hidden in Granny’s plantation house, which Granny claimed was haunted. And maybe it was. After all, without cosmic intervention, how could Bridget have designed a ring that was an exact replica of an already existing ring she’d never seen before?

Obviously, Bridget had some sort of deep psychic connection to Hartley House and the lost Hartley engagement diamond. That meant that maybe Bridget would have luck finding the original ring that was still hidden. She sucked in a sharp breath, barely able to believe any of this was happening. Just yesterday, she’d pulled Granny Ginny aside and questioned her at length. Oh, everybody in the family suspected Granny embellished the family legend; still, Bridget, Edie and Marley had suffered setbacks in love, and now Bridget wondered if something couldn’t be done to reverse the curse.

“I hadn’t thought so,” Granny had begun. “But now that you’ve produced the exact replica of the Hartley diamond, everything’s changed.” Granny conjectured that, once the original ring was found, the ghost of Forrest Hartley could slip it onto the finger of his ghost-bride, Marissa, and then Marissa’s curse on the Benning girls might be lifted. Bridget supposed that made sense, since Marissa’s dream to be reunited with her fiancé would be achieved. After all, how could a woman get married without a diamond? The way Granny figured it, Bridget would be the Benning most likely to find the ring, since she’d designed one like it, and thereby seemed to have a psychic connection to it.

“C’mon, Dermott,” Bridget whispered. Surely he’d help her. She didn’t want to go to her own grave without marrying at least once, and for the first time, it seemed as if it was in her power to do something to reverse her bad luck with men. While all the Benning sisters were no strangers to failed romance, Dermott understood that Bridget was the sister most affected. Edie ran a close second. Despite starting her own wedding planning business, Edie rarely dated. And Marley had gotten married, but then her husband had cleaned out their joint bank account, and she’d divorced him. Now, she was dating a man named Cash Champagne who’d previously been involved with Edie, but who knew how long that would last?

Bridget just hoped she could straighten out this mess and get her own love life on track. And who could be better than Dermott? Last year, he’d even helped her apply to the Guinness Book of World Records, since she was convinced she’d survived more bad dates than any other single woman in America; unfortunately, Guinness had no bad dates category and didn’t want to create one just for Bridget.

“Are you in the shower?” she whispered. From the street, she’d seen lights, and that meant Dermott was home. She sighed, thinking of the strange mojo in her life. This thing with the ring was odd. Bridget had shown no evidence of possessing paranormal talents before now. “Unless it counts that I knew my cabin share with the girls at the ski lodge this week was just too good to be true.” She was supposed to have been there tonight with some friends, sharing Valentine champagne with dreamy men at the bar. “Yeah, right.”

Stabbing the doorbell again, she tried to ignore her hurt feelings. Granted, she’d forgotten to send in her check for the share, but her girlfriends hadn’t reminded her, either, and the person who’d replaced Bridget hadn’t interested them before she’d gotten a part in a TV commercial. It wasn’t the first time Bridget had felt she was outgrowing more superficial friends who were left over from college. Silently, she kept thinking it was time to move on to something more significant. But usually, in a girl’s life, that meant marriage. And, well, Bridget, unlike most women, had a century-and-a-half-old curse in her way.

At least she could repair her self-esteem and repay her fair-weather friends by having an interesting vacation ghost-busting in Florida. Success was the best revenge, after all. Besides, she’d already arranged to take a week off from Tiffany’s and she wasn’t about to waste it. Probably, she wouldn’t have met a cute guy at the lodge, and even if she had, that only meant something awful was destined to happen. He’d turn out to have a girlfriend, or worse, a wife…

Abruptly shaking rain from her umbrella, Bridget leaned it against the wall in the hallway, then unbelted a bright yellow raincoat she wore over a miniskirt, fishnets and snow boots. She wished Dermott would hurry! She had so much to tell him! She’d talked to him on the phone a couple of weeks ago—around the time that her sister Marley had appeared on a reality show called Rate the Dates with Cash Champagne, impersonating her twin, Edie. Bridget had told him Granny Ginny was visiting, but he hadn’t called since then, and in twenty years she and Dermott had never gone this long without speaking. It felt like torture. Smoothing her straight, shoulder-length blond hair, Bridget wracked her brain. Was Dermott angry? She couldn’t think of a thing she’d done wrong. If she’d offended him, he’d have mentioned it. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Withholding. She inhaled sharply. Had he gotten hurt? Or into trouble?

But no. Dermott was a straight arrow. As steady as a rock. And he never got sick. Deciding the bell was broken, she rapped her knuckles on the door. A second later, it swung open, and as the chain caught, pulling taut, she heard a soft curse and saw the flash of a male hand.

“Who is it?” he muttered, reshutting the door long enough to slip back the chain before opening the door wide enough to see her.

“Me. Sorry.” Bridget parted her pink-lipsticked lips in mild offense as her hands settled on her hips. “I’ve been trying to call you for weeks.”

“Bridge,” he said simply.

Her slackened lips parted another fraction as she registered a number of unusual things simultaneously. A half-buttoned shirt barely covered his chest, his shoes were off and he was hopping on one foot. Right before he finished pulling on a pair of fancy dress pants, she glimpsed muscular legs flashing between the shirttails and slacks.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

He shook his head. “Uh…no.”

He was lying. Her eyes scanned over his shoulder, taking a cursory view of the familiar modern loft; open living, dining and kitchen areas were encircled by floor-to-ceiling windows. Then she registered a chocolate box on the counter of the kitchen island, a bowl of fresh strawberries and a vase of flowers.

She should have known! Dermott was as lonely as she. Had he gone so far as to get himself Valentine gifts? Once, on her birthday, when none of her friends were available, Bridget had taken herself to dinner, then ordered her own birthday cake before stopping by Dermott’s to find he was throwing her a surprise party.

“I should have called,” she murmured in apology, but she’d waited until the last moment, feeling sure that an attorney she’d met at an art opening in Chelsea might phone with an alternative Valentine offer. A smile played on her lips as she watched her best bud button his shirt. He’d gotten a tan on a recent trip to L.A., his dark hair was sticking straight up as if he had a Mohawk, and his five-o’clock stubble was shadowy enough that she decided the growth was probably intentional, which meant a lot had happened for him in the past weeks, also. “Are you growing a beard?”

“A little Fu Manchu thing,” he admitted.

She’d seen the look in a lot of magazines, and it made sense, since he’d just spent time in L.A. “I like it. Very Ethan Hawke.”

“Thanks.”