Dark Whispers: Love in a House of Ghosts

The iron gates of Ravenshollow Manor stood twisted and rusted, their once-elegant curves now resembling gnarled fingers reaching toward a storm-darkened sky. Isabella Blackthorne clutched the brass key in her trembling hand, its weight far heavier than any key had a right to be. The letter from the estate attorney crinkled in her other hand, the words still incomprehensible despite having read them a dozen times during the train journey from London.

You are the sole heir to the Ravenshollow estate, bequeathed to you by one Madame Evangeline Ravencroft, deceased.

Isabella had never heard the name before in her twenty-three years of life. Yet here she stood, orphaned and penniless, suddenly the owner of a manor that looked like it had crawled from the pages of a Gothic nightmare.

The October wind howled through the bare branches of ancient oaks, their limbs scraping against the manor's slate roof with sounds like fingernails on coffin wood. Isabella pushed through the gates, their hinges screaming in protest, and walked the cracked stone path toward the imposing front door. Candles flickered in several windows, though she was certain the manor had been empty for months.

The front door opened before she could raise her hand to knock.

"Miss Blackthorne, I presume." The man who greeted her was tall and lean, with angular features that seemed carved from marble. His dark hair was swept back from a high forehead, and his eyes were the color of winter storms. He wore a black suit that appeared expensive yet old-fashioned, as if he'd stepped from a photograph taken fifty years prior.