Page 1 of This Haunted Heart

Chapter 1

Lochlan Finley

Salt Rock, Pennsylvania 1893

Aheart shouldn’t be able to shatter more than once. Certainly not over the same woman. If only the organ could be reasoned with, I could have spared myself the anguish. No ghost would ever haunt me as much as Rynn’s betrayal did.

After years apart I’d finally found her.

Rubbing at my chest where the phantom ache still smarted something dreadful, I waited outside on the front porch of the brothel house for the doors to open to me. The plaque by the entrance labeled it as The Night Lark. A local man in line behind me called it the “Soiled Songbird” then laughedat his own quip.

No one else tried to make conversation with me, which I appreciated. I didn’t like a crowd. The queue inside moved efficiently. I removed my felt hat out of habit before crossing the threshold. My common clothing didn’t fit my status and was selected to help me blend in here.

A madam wearing a silver evening gown, pearls in her pinned up autumn hair, had me sign my name inside a book—a big book that she had to heft to open. The pages smelled like coffee grounds. I wroteMr. Dante Malacoda, a pseudonym, onto the thick paper and paid the entry fee rather than detailing what items I planned to offer in trade. I slipped through a hall adorned in fresco paintings and into an expansive parlor, blending in with the newest group of anxious patrons eager to blow off the week’s steam.

I’d never visited a cathouse before. Never had reason to until now. The orderliness and the clean, elegant furnishings took me by surprise, but perhaps that was my fault for gaining my knowledge on city life exclusively from the dramatic fiction penned inThe Visionary Collective.

I was unaccustomed to buildings being so tall or so close together, unfamiliar with the press of too many bodies squeezed into one room. I felt swallowed up by it all. The ghosts were plenty here, but they were not spirits tethered to me in any fashion and they paid me no notice. A prickle trailed down my neck as they passed around the room, flitting between the heavy brocade drapery and polished wood furniture.

The evening carried on and the “Soiled Songbird” grew busier. I nursed the same beer, waiting impatiently for the nightingale who had crushed my heart twice to show herself.

I wasn’t worried that she’d recognize me. We were onlyeighteen the last time we’d laid eyes on each other. That was twenty years ago, and I was no longer a gawky youth. A shadow of a beard hid most of my face. I had the thick build of a man who spent a great many hours outdoors. The fair complexion of a boy who loved to hide and read had burned away to a ruddy gold, and time had darkened my hair to a shade of walnut she wouldn’t know.

A pianist played a cheerful spring tune to fit the season. The scent of barley, tobacco, and lacquer competed in my nose, not unpleasantly. Patrons paired off with companions. Some lingered. Others went upstairs. A few didn’t come back down, but most returned within the hour. After which the courtesan would find a different lap to sit upon.

It wasn’t looking like my target for the night would show herself at all. Twenty years later, Rynn was still letting me down.

I’d invested a great deal in finding her, and I wouldn’t be thwarted easily. I waved over the barkeep. The barrel-chested man with salt and pepper hair scowled at me, irritated that I drank little and occupied one of his stools so long. With some reluctance he came over.

“I’m looking for a beautiful woman who goes by Vieve,” I said. It was not her true name, of course, but that was fine. She could keep her fiction.

He sniffed at me. His gaze jumped to the thin scars that cut down my brow and webbed across my left cheek before taking in the rest of my face. Scars “Vieve” had caused but hadn’t waited around long enough to witness the making of. They disguised me further.

I unrolled a leather wallet, removing a cigarette and a single bill. The cigarette I tucked behind my ear. The banknote Ipinned to the bar under my finger.

“Vieve?” I asked again, tapping on the note until it crinkled.

His grizzled brows lifted.

Money talked.The Visionary Collectivegot that part right about dens of iniquity. Granted, money talked everywhere, and I had plenty to burn.

He kept his shoulder to me, but his gaze remained locked on the note like he feared it might vanish. His voice dropped to a more conspiratorial volume. “What’s it you want with Vieve?”

Vengeance, I thought, but was smart enough not to say. Devotion. Retribution. Heartfelt apologies made on her knees that would do her no good at all.

An obsession to match my own.

Rather than answer him, I fished a larger note out of my wallet, bringing the total closer to a week’s wages for someone like him.

His bulky hand came down over mine greedily, but I kept both banknotes trapped there under my finger. “Tell me what I want to know.”

“Vieve won’t be singing tonight,” he said.

“I can see that.” With effort I kept the grumble out of my tone, rolling up my wallet and returning it to my pocket one-handed. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs.” He jutted his round chin in the direction of the stairwell. “You won’t find her down here. She hasn’t worked the parlor for several months now. She’s got herself a man, and her mister pays handsomely not to share her.”

My fingers flexed around the edge of the bar. It took a full minute for me to compose myself enough that I could speak in a manner that wouldn’t draw unwanted eyes. “She stays inher room during open hours, then?”

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