Addicted (25 page)

“Your body is lush, full—ripe with womanhood,” he whispered as his gloved hand sought her waist once again. “I like you this way, Anais. You have a body made for making love to a man. I will be that man again, Anais.
I will.
”

14

Sultan pranced along the edge of the ridge, tossing his sleek head as he snorted. Below, in the snow-filled vale, the last wisps of smoke from the pile of rubble that was once her home curled up into the black night, fading once they reached the heavy snow clouds in the sky.

“Are you cold?” Lindsay asked. “I can feel you trembling.”

Anais tried to stem the flow of tears as she looked down at the destruction. “I do not know why I am tremulous, only that I cannot control it.”

He pulled her close, wrapping both arms tightly around her waist, warming her with the heat of his body. “I wasn’t thinking when I brought you here. My apologies.”

“No, I’m glad you did.” She turned slightly in the saddle and looked up at him. “I needed to see for myself—to know that there is truly nothing left. Everything we had—”

“The most important things are still here. Ann. Your mother and father. The servants and the horses—you.
God,
I could not have lived had you died in that fire, Anais.”

She shuddered, remembering what it was like to be holding on for dear life to the curtain. Things could have been so much more deadly than they had.

“Did Papa say what happened?” she asked, her gaze straying once more to the pile of blackened wood. “I thought perhaps he might have discussed it with you this afternoon.”

Lindsay shook his head and glanced away, but not before she saw the lie in his eyes. “You know as well as I that fires can start anytime, Anais.”

Anais knew both men so well, that it was impossible for them to keep anything from her. Something had passed between Lindsay and her father that afternoon, something her father did not want to share with his family. “Lindsay—”

“Shh, don’t ask me.” He pressed his face into her hair that was blowing in the wind. “Let it be, Anais. Nothing can be done to change it. Let it go.”

Just like their past.
For the first time in weeks, Anais allowed herself to think
what if.
What if she had not allowed Broughton to comfort her after Lindsay’s betrayal? What if she had never run from Lindsay in the first place?

But what-ifs had no place in real life. What-if was just a frustrating game that made one doubt everything they had ever believed in and every choice they had made. Even when, deep down, they knew the choice was the only one available to them.

“I have been wondering, Anais, you said you have forgiven me, but what of Rebecca?”

Stiffening in the saddle, Anais’s spine became as rigid as an iron rod. Her old friend’s name, spoken in Lindsay’s voice, had an odd effect on her, making her feel as though she was going to be ill.

Pinching her lips together in distaste, Anais replied, “She has gone to live in Town, if that is what you are asking. Word is rife that she is now the mistress of a rich gentleman who keeps her in a town house in Trevor Square.”

“I don’t give a damn where she has gone or what she has done with her life,” he growled. “What I want to know is if you have so easily forgiven her for her part in this sordid affair. After all, she was the one who disguised herself so that she could drug me and make me believe it was you I held in my arms.”

Anais closed her eyes against the remembered pain. “I have not forgiven her. I cannot be that kind. I hate her for what she did, but I understand why she did it. What other avenues are open to women of suspect birth and little money? They have their bodies and their allurements, that is all. If they are to succeed in this world they must be ruthless. I cannot condemn Rebecca for not wanting to spend her life as a governess. But what I can’t condone is that she ran roughshod over our friendship and my feelings in order to avoid such a life.”

“The Anais I knew would never have condoned such a mercenary thing as a woman resorting to seduction to trick a man into gaining her fortune.”

“The Anais you knew was nothing but an innocent, naive girl who had no real knowledge of the world or the hardships in life. I was always sheltered from those stark realities. I never knew what it was like to face an unknown future. Because of that, I thought only in absolutes—the fixed ideas that were taught to me by my father, my governess and by society’s dictates. But I have grown up, Lindsay, and that innocent girl has left me. I have had to make choices…difficult choices,” she whispered. “Those
decisions have shaped me into the person I am today. I have become wiser and perhaps more sympathetic than I was a year ago. I am no longer blind nor ignorant to the ways of survival.”

“Was giving me up one of those difficult choices, Anais?”

Sliding from Sultan’s saddle, Anais expected Lindsay to reach for her and stay her, but he let her go and she looked up at him through her curls that waved in the cold breeze. “Yes. Giving you up was one of those decisions.”

“What are we, Anais? Are we friends? Acquaintances? Or are we each other’s regret?”

“Each other’s past,” she said simply before walking away and reaching for Lady’s bridle. “One last ride, Lindsay,” she said, gaining the saddle and spurring Lady forward. “For tonight, let us be friends once again.”

Moonlight shone silver on the new-fallen snow and filtered between the leafless branches that were now shimmering in the glow of the moon and ice. The glistening above their heads and the iridescence at their feet illuminated the paths through the woods, providing enough light for them to safely maneuver their mounts in a canter along the path. Anais would have liked to break out in a liberating run, to feel the wind push back her hood as she allowed Lady to gallop. But she would settle for a quiet canter and the chance to enjoy the woods in their snowy slumber.

It would have been a forbidding place if not for the snow and the full moon that hung heavy in the black sky. But with the wilds of winter surrounding them and the sparkling branches, the Wyre Forest was transformed into some mystical realm where fairies lived and magic prevailed.

Lady whickered softly, the sound was followed by a heavy cloud of vapor. The air was crisp and clear and Anais’s lungs burned with heaviness as she breathed deep of the night. Sultan stomped, irritated by the slow pace Lindsay was setting. Effortlessly, he pulled Sultan in with the tightening of his thighs and a gentle tug of the reins. The Arabian was as antsy as she to break into a run—to taste freedom and the liberating rush of the wind.

“You may put that thought right out of your mind,” Lindsay grumbled as he pulled Sultan in alongside her.

Anais tilted her head back and looked up at the magnificent display of iced branches that creaked above their heads. “And what thoughts are those?”

“Of breaking stride and running.”

“How did you know?”

He chuckled. “I have seen that particular expression on your face many times. You get a certain look in your eye. I always thought of it as a craving to be free. To shun the world and run unbridled and do what you please.”

“Yes,” she said, laughing softly. “I did that enough, didn’t I? How many times did I force you to accompany me on my wild escapades?”

“As I recall, it wasn’t too terribly difficult to talk me into anything, especially when it provided me time alone with you.”

She glanced at him, watching the way his curling hair blew softly around his face. She studied his strong chin that was now devoid of the facial hair he had returned home with. He was simply Lindsay, looking as he now was—the man she had loved all her life.

“Tell me about Constantinople.”

“It was lovely. Rather warm at times, but beautiful. The nights there are particularly decadent. The breeze that blows in from the Bosphorus is balmy, making the night less sultry. From our rooms we could smell the scent of frankincense and myrrh from the spice bazaar as it wafted in through the windows.”

“Sounds lovely and exotic.”

“It was.”

“I’m certain the women were just as exotic.” She couldn’t help but say that and she saw how he grinned at her barb.

“I suppose they were. Wallingford certainly thought so.”

“Oh, you didn’t?” she asked archly.

“My penchant runs to blue-eyed blondes, and I may assure you, Turkey is grossly lacking in that.”

“I suppose it was all very decadent and opulent there.”

“It was. Much like something out of the Arabian Nights. I think you would have liked it.”

“And the opium?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, “there was opium there.”

“And you used it,” she finished for him.

His gaze flickered to hers. She saw nothing that told her he was lying to her. “Yes. I smoked wherever I could. I smoked so much that I could do nothing but sleep and dream. I did not dream of the women in Turkey, Anais. I dreamed of you.”

“But I was not enough, was I?”

“I have never chosen opium over you, Anais.”

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

He reached for Lady’s bridle, pulling her to a stop in the middle of the path. “Let us speak freely, Anais. I did not go to Constantinople because of the lure of opium. After that night
with Rebecca, I couldn’t find you. You’ll never know what an agony that was. The opium took that pain away, but it never took away my love for you, or my desire to find you and right the mistakes I had made. You may believe whatever you want, I have never preferred opium to you, nor would I allow it to come between us.”

“It already has, Lindsay. Don’t you see that?”

“There is more than opium between us, Anais. You are hiding something from me. What has made you so ill? Why are you so pale and fragile looking?”

“It is nothing.”

“Tell me,” he urged, pressing closer to her.

“Lindsay, some things are of a private nature.”

“Private? What is private between us? We’ve been naked with each other—we’ve made love. Anais, there is nothing you can’t tell me.”

“I…I don’t really know what it is,” she murmured, looking away from him.

“Consumption?” he asked.

“No.”

“Pleurisy?”

“Lindsay, please. It is nothing. As I’ve told you, I am on the mend.”

“You never used to hide anything from me. We shared everything, didn’t we? But now your confidences seem to be shared with Broughton. You’re settling, Anais. You don’t love Broughton. I’d bet my life on it that you feel nothing but friendship for him. So why now? Why after all these years would you settle for a man that does not make you feel passion?”

“You know nothing about Garrett and me.”

“I know he can’t make you happy. He can’t give you what you need. I don’t believe he even knows what you need. He doesn’t even know the real you. Not the person you show to the world, but the true you—the person you were with me. Does Broughton indulge you as I indulged you?”

Nudging Lady with her knees, Anais attempted to move Lady forward, but Lindsay reached for the reins and pulled them to a stop.

“Does he?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Does Broughton bring you riding? Does he encourage you to be free of all of society’s silly little rules that govern what a woman should be and how she should act? Do you wear his breeches like you used to wear mine?” He leaned forward and she felt his heat. “Do your breasts fill
his
shirts?”

She bit her lip, refusing to lose her composure. “Does he lay with you in the grass? Does he stare up at the stars, speaking of his dreams, wishing he could roll over and kiss you and run his fingers along the breasts that tease him beneath the shirt—the shirt he knows he will carry home with him and smell and, God help him, sleep in, just so he could be close to you?”

The barest hint of his lips brushed intimately against the corner of her mouth, and her lips instinctively parted. “The shirt he could not bear to have washed,” he whispered, “so he kept it hidden and brought it back to Cambridge with him, only to drag it out every night and smell it, fearing that one night he might not be able to smell you still clinging to the linen.”

He raised one hand from the reins and brought it to her hood, slowly pushing it back over her hair. Her eyelids fluttered
open and she found herself gazing into his searching eyes. “Does he wish it could have been his body your scent clung to instead of his shirt, because I vow to you, Anais, I would have given my soul to have you wrapped around me, covering my flesh with your scent. I dreamed of it every night. I still dream of it.”

The whinnying of approaching horses made her pull back from him. Her heart, she feared, had stopped pulsating altogether during his speech. Anais felt herself gasping, trying to break free of the gossamer threads he was weaving around her.

“I will do anything,
anything
to get you back. Tell me what I must do, who I must be—”

“Anais?”

Her gaze snapped from Lindsay to the clearing of trees where Garrett was steadying his mount. Seconds later, Wallingford emerged from the woods and reined in his horse alongside Garrett.

“Good evening,” Wallingford drawled. “Splendid night for a ride, don’t you think? Couldn’t resist the lure, myself. Had to drag old Broughton out here, didn’t I?”

Garrett was not listening to Wallingford. His attention was directed solely upon her and she felt as guilty as a child caught stealing a sweet by the governess. Should she feel guilty? She was only out riding. Yet she did feel shame.

“Should you be riding?” Garrett asked, his voice clipped. “Is it a tall safe? Has my brother given you leave to be doing such a thing?”

“I’m fine,” she said, feeling blood rush to her cheeks, especially when she saw how Lindsay’s gaze volleyed back and forth, studying both she and Garrett.

“You shouldn’t be riding in your condition.”

“Should I not?” she asked, bristling at the accusatory tone of his voice. He opened his mouth to say something and she feared that in his present state he would give far too much away. But then his mouth shut firmly and his eyes strayed from her to Lindsay, whose position so close to her left little to the imagination.