Addicted. Charlotte Featherstone

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ