Читать книгу Addicted - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 10

5

The wind howled through the forest and down the mountains, only to whirl around the lumbering conveyance. The chill air somehow found a way through the tight seams of the carriage frame, plummeting the temperature inside so that the interior felt like an icebox. Burying his chin into the folded depths of his greatcoat, Lindsay felt another chill race down his spine.

“Damn cold,” he grunted, burrowing deeper into the warm Yorkshire wool of his coat. What bloody timing to arrive back in England during a snowstorm.

As the rhythmic rocking of the carriage continued, Lindsay fought to stay awake, but soon his eyes grew heavy until it was impossible to hold them open. Within minutes he was dreaming. Dreaming of dry, arid heat and the scent of Arabian spices that sifted through the waving branches of cypress trees.

In his dream he was back in Constantinople, where the saffron-colored sun hung heavy on the azure horizon, illuminating the cobalt and gilt tiles of the Islamic columns of the Kapali Çarsi. The sun burned hot on his cheeks. The scarf he used to protect his head from the heat rippled in the breeze as the salt-scented air rolled in from the Sea of Marmara. That salty, spicy breeze was the only reprieve from the scorching heat of the midday sun and the sea of humanity that swarmed inside the covered bazaar.

Inside the Kapali Çarsi, viziers and pashas smoked their hookahs while their slaves and attendants bartered for goods for their richly furnished homes. It had been there, in Constantinople’s covered bazaar, that Lindsay and his traveling companion, Lord Wallingford, found themselves meandering through the hundreds of stalls that sold everything from spices and nuts to hashish and beautiful women who were bought by rich men as new acquisitions for their harems.

Constantinople’s voluptuous exoticness was so different from his genteel England. He was so very far removed from the glittering ton and the fancy town houses in Mayfair. Far away from his responsibilities to his family and the estates in Worcestershire. Yet Constantinople had not been far enough away from the reaches of his past. He still remembered how Anais had fled from him the night she’d discovered him in the hall with her best friend. No physical distance could make him forget that strangled cry of shock and hurt, nor the distraught look in her eyes.

Now semiawake, he struggled to find his way back to his dream—to a time where nothing had mattered but the warm, lazy days spent in decadence. To the days when the hookah and a beautiful concubine had been all he needed to wile away the hours and deaden the pain of his failure.

But damn him, the dream would not return. It remained elusive and he was faced once more with remembering how Anais had seemed to vanish into thin air after she left the Torrington masquerade. He had looked everywhere for her, but she had evaded his pursuit, denying him the chance to explain that he had not set out to seduce her friend or to destroy her faith in him.

After searching throughout England he’d traveled across the channel to France. He had learned from Anais’s mother that she had gone abroad with her aunt—a trip, Lady Darnby had told him, that had been planned for some time. But he knew better. She’d gone to France in order to be free of him.

He had immediately set out for the continent, but hadn’t been able to locate her in Paris. It was then that Wallingford grew frustrated with him and his obsession with finding Anais. After weeks of fruitlessly searching Paris, Lindsay had allowed Wallingford to persuade him into accompanying him to Constantinople where Lindsay had been seduced, not by beautiful women, but by the allure of opium. Opium, that heavenly demon.

The carriage swayed sharply, pitching to the right. Lindsay found himself fully awakened, and he shook his head free of the memory of his time in Constantinople, as well as the bitter memories of Anais.

“You were dreaming,” Wallingford said, tossing him a fur for his lap.

The temperature had dropped again and the carriage, despite its cushioned silk and thick blinds, could not keep out the chill from the violent winds.

“I was remembering how warm the breeze was when it blew in from the Bosphorus. Perhaps we should not have left the warmth of Constantinople,” Lindsay muttered, lifting up the blind and seeing nothing but the blinding whirl of snow outside the window. “I had almost forgotten how damn cold England gets in December. Although, this amount of snow is quite rare so early in the season.”

Wallingford nodded as he puffed on his cheroot. “It is bloody cold. But three months ago we were not thinking of winter when we left Turkey. We were thinking of other things—like the beauty of the woods in the fall. The sound of the wind howling through the forest as it blows from atop the Malvern Hills. We had had enough of traveling, had we not? We were anxious to see England again.”

“Indeed.” But had he not experienced that dream of Anais all those months ago, he might still be in Constantinople, wasting away his days in lavish Eastern decadence. He had been lost for days at a time, the opium his only companion in a world of silk veils and velvet pillows. Where he had only had a taste for opium before, he now had a consuming hunger.

“Sir,” one of the footmen called, rapping his fist against the back of the carriage. “We need to stop, milord.”

With a tap of his walking stick against the trap door, Lindsay signaled for the coachman to bring the team to a stop. As the six grays came to a prancing halt, Lindsay threw open the door and covered his face with his arm as snow, wild and angry, gusted inside the carriage.

Lindsay could not help but notice how red-cheeked and shivering the footman was, despite the beaver hat and numerous layers of thick woolen capes. “The stallion is rearing in the box carriage, milord. Jenkins says that the animal has begun to suffer from the cold.”

“Not acclimated yet,” Lindsay called over his shoulder to Wallingford. “I’ll ride him the rest of the way. That should warm him up.”

“Bloody fool,” Wallingford yelled after him after Lindsay disembarked from the carriage. “You’ll get yourself killed riding that animal in this weather.”

“I spent a fortune on him. I’ll be damned if I allow him to die from the cold. He’s going to stud my stables and he can’t very well perform when he’s frozen, can he?”

“Damn it, Raeburn,” Wallingford grunted as he tossed his cheroot into a drift of snow. “You know I won’t let you go alone. Not in this weather. Bloody hell, man.”

Lindsay tossed his friend a smile. “Come, it will be like old times, when we were neck-or-nothing youths galloping at breakneck speeds down the mountainside.”

“Our bones were not so easily broken in our youth,” Wallingford grumbled as he raised the collar of his greatcoat to protect his face from the biting wind. “Nor were our heads, for that matter.”

“You sound like Broughton when he used to chastise us for our foolish recklessness.”

“I’m coming to believe that our dear friend was the more intelligent of the three.”

“Come,” Lindsay said, not wanting to think of how he had betrayed Broughton, as well as Anais. Instead, he stalked to the box carriage to where his prized Arabian stallion was snorting and stomping.

“Lead on, Raeburn,” Wallingford said, following in Lindsay’s wake. “And if we are so fortunate to make it home alive, the first to enter the stables may buy the other a warm pint of cider and a hot woman.”

Lindsay gained the stallion’s saddle and took up the reins, turning the Arabian in the other direction. Through the snow, he ran the animal as safely as he could while ignoring the biting wind. On instinct, Lindsay guided the horse down a path he had followed countless times in his lifetime.

As the familiar sites came into view, Lindsay slowed the stallion as it pranced along the icy path that overlooked the town of Bewdley nestled snugly in the vale below them. Ice pallets floated aimlessly atop the black waters of the Severn River, reminding Lindsay of the paintings he had once seen of the remnants of an iceberg after it had crumbled into the sea.

Tossing its sleek black head, the Arabian’s billowing breaths misted gray and evaporated amongst the snowflakes that were circling about them. Tightening the reins, Lindsay settled the rearing animal before casting his gaze to the roof of St. Ann’s Church that dominated the view of the town.

Below the ridge lay the sleepy village he had called home since birth. But tonight, the quiet little village of Bewdley was coming alive. Its residents were strolling down the cobbled streets, candles in hand as they made their pilgrimage to church. To the west of the town center, huddled in the valley where a small tributary broke away from the Severn and formed a creek, lay the first of four prominent estates that anchored Bewdley’s aristocratic society. Wallingford’s family estate bordered the forest. Broughton’s was to the east and only minutes down the ridge. His own home, Eden Park, rested on the other side of the bridge. And directly below him lay Anais’s home, which he had not seen in nearly a year.

Scouring the Jacobean-style mansion from high above the valley, Lindsay blinked back the snowflakes that landed on his eyelashes. The earthy, acrid smell of wood burning in the cold air drifted up to meet him and he inhaled the scent, so familiar to him, yet so long since he’d been home to smell its aroma.

It was Christmas Eve and the coal was replaced in the hearths of the faithful with aYule log that would burn throughout the holiday. Lindsay watched the smoke billow out of the three large chimneys that loomed above the peaked roof. The calming scent took him back to the time when he was young and carefree. A time when he once sat beside the hearth and ate plum pudding and custard with Anais after the Christmas Eve service.

His gaze immediately focused on the last window on the right side of the house. A gentle glow from a lone candle flickered lazily. He could almost imagine Anais sitting on her window bench staring out at the sky with her chin propped in her hand. She adored winter. They had sat side by side so many times watching the snow falling gently to the ground. No, that wasn’t entirely the truth. She had watched the snow, he had watched her; and he had fallen more in love with her than he had ever thought possible.

He slid his gaze from her window and allowed it to roam over the land where the verdant green fields were now covered in a thick white blanket that shimmered like crystals in the silver moonlight; where the hawthorn and holly hedgerows that marked each farm were weighted with snow. Only the occasional red bunch of holly berries could be seen peeking out beneath its white winter blanket.

Again the wind began its low moan through the branches of the forest behind them, and Lindsay brought the collar of his greatcoat around his chin, staving off the cold and the chilling wail of the wind. It was a melancholy sound that somehow resonated deep within him.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Wallingford asked, reigning in his mount to stand beside his. “The wilds of nature are unparalleled here, are they not? Nowhere can you appreciate her more than in the Wyre Forest. I shall have to paint this view when I get home,” he said, scanning the grounds below them. “I’ve never seen the vale looking so desolate and untamed, yet so hauntingly beautiful.”

“Spoken like a true artist,” Lindsay drawled, unable to keep his eye on the hedgerows. Unfortunately, he kept stealing glances at the lone candle in the window, wishing Anais would appear; hoping the dreams he had of her were not the omen his soul believed them to be.

“When shall you call upon her?” Wallingford asked quietly after noting the direction of Lindsay’s gaze.

“I don’t know.”

“When we left Constantinople you were hell-bent on finding her. For the three months it’s taken us to arrive in England you’ve been having nightmares about her. You’ve feared the worst. Now you lack the conviction to see for yourself if your vision was real or merely a deception of the sultan’s hookah?”

Lindsay recalled the crippling fear that had lanced through him as he awoke from his startling dream. “It was real.”

“The hookah is a magical thing,” Wallingford said, watching him curiously. “It makes us see ghosts in the vapors. It makes us feel things that are not there and the things that are there no longer matter. It is so easy to run from our ghosts with the hookah as I think you discovered.”

“It is never easy to run. I shall never outrun this ghost.”

Wallingford pursed his lips tightly together and studied him, his expression growing somber. “This particular ghost has an otherworldly hold on you, Raeburn. I’m afraid she always will. She is going to destroy you.”

“I already am. I brought about my own demise when I foolishly allowed myself to be weak. I should have resisted the lure that bitch Rebecca offered me. Had I resisted temptation instead of pursuing it, Anais would have been my wife by now. I would not be standing here on Christmas Eve, longing for her, wishing I could find a way to magically erase the past.”

“What did you see?” Wallingford asked. “What was so terrible that you had to race back here to the woman who would not even allow you to defend yourself? A woman whose love is so fleeting that she cannot allow you an ounce of forgiveness?”

In the vision, Anais arose amidst a veil of gossamer smoke, her beauty unveiled amidst curling tendrils that cloaked the air. Her softly rounded body and her rose, taut nipples were clearly visible beneath the pale pink gown that hugged her body. Her long blond curls were unbound and her arms outstretched, beckoning him to come to her, and like a slavish disciple he had gone to her. In that moment, she had taken him in her arms, whispering absolution.

He had lowered her onto the silk pillows that were scattered about the floor of his room. He could smell her—the scent of her petal-soft skin—despite the heavy and sensual cloud of incense that hung like a haze above the divan.

She had felt warm and alive in his arms until suddenly she grew stiff and cold. Her beautiful, sparkling, cornflower-blue eyes grew dim and distant as she stared unseeing at him. And then he saw the crimson liquid that slowly began to engulf them. It glistened in the candlelight from the lanterns that hung above them as it began to cover her pale skin. And she kept looking at him with those cold, lifeless eyes. He could not bear it, could not stand to watch her taken from him. As he pushed himself away from her, her lips parted and she softly said the words that haunted him for months. “You did this to me, Lindsay, you have killed me.”

He had awakened, shaken by the vision, terrified that it had been a sign that something was wrong—a sign that he had to come back to her and make amends. A sign he could not ignore.

“Raeburn, look,” Wallingford commanded, drawing him from the horror of his mind. “There are flames coming from the side of the house.”

Snapping to attention, Lindsay focused his gaze on the level below Anais’s window. From his position above the house he saw the brilliant orange flicker that was reflected by the glass.

“That is Darnby’s study,” he said, setting the stallion into motion. “And the hearth is next to that window. Come, Wallingford,” he yelled, racing down the path that led to the vale.

Lindsay wondered, as he blinked back the snow from his eyes, if this was not the reason he had felt compelled to come back home.

Jumping off his horse, Lindsay ran up the manor stairs and threw open the doors. The house was in a state of chaos with servants rushing here and there, screaming and running wild and frightened with buckets of water. He watched as two burly footmen emerged from a thick cloud of smoke, dragging a coughing and sputtering Lord Darnby from his study.

“Oh, Lord Raeburn,” Anais’s lady’s maid gasped when she saw him through the smoke. “You’ve come back.”

“Where is your mistress, Louisa?”

“Trapped upstairs. Roger and William have gone to fetch her, but they canna see or breathe for the smoke.”

“See to Darnby,” Lindsay ordered Wallingford who had followed him inside. “Bring him to Eden Park. I shall meet back up with you there.”

Lindsay could see the blood running in rivulets down Darnby’s balding head. “He’s injured,” Wallingford called. “He’ll need a physician.”

“Then do it, man,” he barked, shrugging out of his greatcoat. “I shall find Anais.”

“What the bloody hell is going on?”

Lindsay whirled around and came face-to-face with Broughton. The last time he had looked into his friend’s face, he had been standing before him with a brace of dueling pistols in his hands.

Broughton had called him out the next day, after the debacle with Rebecca. The duel had not been about avenging Rebecca’s honor, or Garrett’s. No, Broughton had called him out to defend Anais, and Lindsay had agreed to it, hoping to gain some measure of his own honor back. Only they had not been able to go through with it. Putting a bullet in each other would never satisfy, could never wash away the pain that Lindsay had brought to everyone he had ever cared about.

They had both fired their shots in the air, then turned their backs on each other.

“What the devil are you doing in here?”

Lindsay did not miss how Broughton’s face went white as his gaze furiously raced back and forth between the burning staircase and him.

“Anais is trapped up there. I’m going to get her.”

Garrett glared at him, “You cannot possibly manage the task on those stairs, Raeburn. It’s unsafe. If you don’t get yourself killed first, then you’ll hurt her on the way down. No, the only way is from outside.”

“No,” Lindsay barked, already racing for the stairs. “It’s thirty feet at least to the ground. She cannot possibly lower herself out the window from that height.”

“The stairs will be gone by the time you find her. It will be the only way down.”

Ignoring Broughton, he rushed up the stairs and saw that the flames were already licking their way up the door of Anais’s chamber. “Anais,” he shouted through cupped hands. But there was no sound save for the cracking and splintering of wood and the roar of the flames.

Shouldering through the door, he saw that he was in Anais’s dressing room. Running over to the door that connected to her bedroom, he prayed he would find it unlocked. He was not so fortunate. By the time he was able to thrust it open with his shoulder, she was dangling outside the window, the gigot sleeve of her muslin wrapper caught on a wire hook in the curtain she had used to make her escape.

“It’s all right, angel,” he said, fear eating at him as he saw the delicate fabric begin to give way beneath her weight. Her fingers, blue and trembling, would not be able to sustain their hold on the curtain rope much longer. Her eyes were round as saucers as she slipped farther. There was no recognition in those familiar blue eyes, just terror, he realized as she looked blankly up at him.

“My wrapper…I’m pinned,” she gasped, choking as the smoke filled the chamber.

“Don’t look down, Anais. Here, reach for my hand. Trust me, love. I’ll save you, Anais. Have faith in me.”

She looked down at Garrett who was standing below, his arms outstretched. Lindsay knew what thoughts were running through her mind. Garrett could be trusted to catch her. Lindsay feared that he was just a specter she saw through the growing smoke. The distrust he saw in her eyes, the hurt and pain made him realize the depth of the destruction he had caused. Never before had she chosen Garrett over him, but it was clear to Lindsay that Anais was going to put her trust—and her life— in Garrett’s waiting arms.

“Damn you, reach for my hand,” he ordered, leaning out of the window as his shirtsleeves billowed in the wind. Terror was ruling him now. There was no way that Broughton could catch her from this height. His arms would not bear the weight or the force of her fall. She would be crushed and broken, and Lindsay could not stand to think that he would bear witness to it.

“Anais, reach for my hand. Do it,” he commanded. “Do it now!”

And then he saw the delicate muslin cuff give way. Saw her eyes go round and her pale mouth part on a silent sound. “No!” he roared, heaving himself forward in a desperate bid to reach her, but she slipped through his fingers, and he was forced to watch her fall backward, her arms stretched out to him. Her hair, loose from its pins, floated about her. Her name was ripped from his soul as he saw his vision being born before his eyes.

He watched her, helpless, frozen in time as his gaze stayed locked on her wide, frightened eyes, and he swore he could almost hear her say, “You’ve done this to me, Lindsay. You’ve killed me.”