The Lovers: A Ghost Story
Julia London
York, 1898
Agnes Whitstone admired herself from all angles in the mirror. She was wearing a gown her father had commissioned for her to wear to the York Spring Cotillion Ball, and she’d never seen a more beautiful garment. It was gold, with dark green trim. The décolletage was enticingly low, which had alarmed her mother, but thrilled Agnes.
Her father was determined that his daughters would be the most fashionably turned out at the Cotillion Ball. It was his belief that in addition to a young lady’s usual accomplishments and impeccable manners, if she looked to come from means, her prospects for marriage were that much improved.
But Agnes had already accepted an offer of marriage. And this was the gown that she would wear to her wedding. Which would occur sometime tomorrow. And for the next eight hours, she had only to pretend that all was quite ordinary.
But she was busting with excitement.
John Parker, her beloved, had said she must not confess to anyone what they intended to do. John said that if she told as much as one sister, her father would hear of it and find a way to keep them from their heart’s desires. “Be patient, my love,” he’d said this afternoon, when they’d met secretly in the potter’s shed behind the apple orchard, “do as I ask and we shall be man and wife by this time tomorrow.”
At seventeen, it was very difficult for Agnes to be patient. She and John Parker had been in love for what seemed ages. They’d been introduced to one another after church services one day. She’d felt an instant attraction sweep her up and wrap its arms tightly around her. John had sent her a letter very soon afterward in which he’d proclaimed his esteem, as well, and now, they stood on the cusp of a lifelong conjugal happiness.
“I can scarcely look at my sisters, for I fear I will burst with the news!” Agnes had moaned when John had warned her to keep their secret.
“Not a word, Agnes,” John had said, and he’d kissed her silent, his mouth on her bosom, his hand beneath her skirts, roaming to spots that had never been touched by another person, places that made her swell and stir and yearn desperately for more.
“Make love to me,” she whispered into his neck.
“Hush,” he said, his voice drifting over her like a silken drape as he pressed the palm of his hand against her breast. “I can scarcely contain my desire for you as it is without such enticements from you.” He kissed her lips.
“We are leaving today. Why must we wait?” Agnes complained, and caught a breath in her throat as his hand drifted up her ankle, to the inside of her thigh.
“We have survived this long.” He kissed her cheek. “The anticipation will make our coupling that much sweeter.”
Agnes shivered and closed her eyes, lifting her face to him. His lips singed her, made her roast with desire. She had heard tales of the marriage bed, of the duty of a woman to her husband, as if it were something to be feared. But if it were anything like this, she thought, as John’s hand cupped her breast, she would as soon live in her marriage bed as in the world. There was no feeling quite like it, nothing that made her heart fill to bursting as her love for him made her feel—dizzy, weightless. Adored.
“Agnes,” he whispered against the hollow of her throat, then down further still, to the mound of her breast.
Agnes let her head fall back, relishing the thrill of his hands and mouth on her body. He freed her breast, taking it into his mouth.
Agnes gasped wildly and pressed against him as he drove her to madness. She was wet with desire, aroused like a sleeping dragon. Her hands flit across his temples, his shoulders, his neck. She thrust her fingers in his hair, squeezed her legs around him and fought the abandon inside her.
John responded with desire as hard and heavy as her own. He ravaged her, teething the rigid nipple while his hand danced around to the apex of her legs, then slid into the damp folds. Agnes though she might expire from pleasure when John, dear John, suddenly stopped.
“God help me, but I cannot resist you,” he said roughly. He rose up, caressed her hair, and looked into her eyes before kissing her once more. “But resist you I must, for a few hours more. Then, you will be my wife, Agnes, and I will have you as a husband ought to have his wife.” With that, he sat up, pulling her up with him. “Go,” he said. “Go and ready for tonight.”
Agnes reluctantly did as he asked. Her body was still burning, her heart still throbbing. She saw such desire in his eyes that she could not suppress a shiver. But he smiled, kissed her knuckles, and smoothed her hair. “I love you, lass,” he said. “I love you more than I can possibly express.”