Addicted (41 page)

“Good day to you all,” he called, his melodic voice echoed from the plaster ceiling. “Today we welcome a new member to our church family.”

As if on cue, little Mina squirmed in Margaret’s arms and let out a lusty, and a not at all dignified yawn. Anais’s gaze darted to Mina, who was stretching, then up to Lindsay, who was watching the babe. His mouth quirked in a lopsided grin when Wallingford pressed beside him and whispered in his ear. Looking away, she was not quick enough to escape detection
from Lindsay’s knowing eyes. His gaze found hers and rested upon her until she could not bear the intensity a moment longer.

Jane, her aunt’s companion, pressed against her and took her arm in hers. “Never mind him,” she whispered. “Pretend he doesn’t exist.”

How in the world was such a thing to be achieved when her whole being was infused with the awareness of him? Her body was alive with memories of his heat against hers, his lips pressed to hers…pretend he didn’t exist? It was an utterly futile task when she could feel him in every corner of her soul.

“Mr. Pratt is motioning for me to come up to the front,” Garrett murmured in her ear. “You will be all right, won’t you?”

“Of course.” She attempted a smile. A smile she knew was sad and almost pathetic-looking.

Mr. Pratt motioned Robert and Margaret to the front, and her heart squeezed painfully in her chest as she watched Margaret pass the squirming bundle in her arms to Robert. She noticed how Lindsay went rigid as Robert pressed a kiss to Mina’s plump cheek. She also saw how Wallingford placed a comforting hand on Lindsay’s shoulder and she knew then, that Wallingford was Lindsay’s confidant.

And then, as if he could feel the weight of her stare, Lindsay looked at her—those green eyes pierced her to her very soul and she saw the hurt and pain in them.

“Who gives this child to God?”

“We do, her parents,” Margaret and Robert replied in unison, and Anais could not conceal the gasp of pain that escaped through her pursed lips as scalding tears dropped from her eyes to roll along her cheeks.

“Shh, dearest,” Jane purred softly. “It will soon be over. Put on your brave face, my dear. That’s it,” she whispered. “You are a very strong woman, Anais. You can do this. Show him he hasn’t broken you. Show him that you are not doubting your decision.”

Ann, who was seated beside Jane, leaned forward and placed a protective hand on Anais’s knee, but kept quiet, as if her innate intuition told her the secret Anais was trying valiantly to hide.

“Heavens!” her mother chastised in a low hiss. “What are you carrying on for? You’ll only make your eyes puffy and your complexion blotched.”

“Be quiet, Mother,” Ann snapped while Mr. Pratt continued with his baptismal blessing. Ann sent her a look that spoke of her sadness and worry, and Anais gripped her sister’s hand and hoped that one day Ann would find it in her to understand the reasons Anais was unable to confide her secret to her.

“I baptise you, Mina Gabriella Middleton—”

Anais’s head came up. She saw Lindsay’s eyes narrow and Wallingford’s hand press into his shoulder at the same time Jane gripped her arm. It was the first time Anais had ever heard her child’s full name spoken aloud—a name that was foreign to her ears. A name that should have been Mina Gabriella Markam, daughter of the Viscount and Viscountess Raeburn. The enormity—the
finality
of it all hit her and she let out a broken sob that she attempted to cover with her trembling fingers.

It was like giving her up all over again. Anais bit her lip, trying to prevent herself from breaking out in uncontrollable sobs. She wanted to run up to the front of the church and proclaim that she was not Mina Middleton, but the daughter of the Viscount
Raeburn. That she had been conceived during a night of incredible passion and love, that it was not a night of regret, but of rejoicing.

No, Mina’s conception had been out of beauty and passion.

Blinking back her rapidly falling tears, Anais suddenly found herself back in the cottage, standing over Mina’s bassinet, watching her sleep, allowing her tears to fall down her cheeks and land atop the lace blankets that covered her daughter. She had not allowed herself to hold Mina. She had not permitted herself to touch her or whisper to her for fear that she would never be able to let go of the child she loved so desperately—the piece of Lindsay that was so very dear to her. She had only allowed herself to look at her innocent daughter and weep for what she was about to do and for what might have been.

Her arms had ached to hold her, her heart had throbbed with the desire to tell her child how much she was loved and adored. Only she knew how she had lain awake at nights crying as she smoothed her hand down her empty belly, trying to relive the time when Mina had been a part of her. How she ached with the memories, how her body was shaking with the desire to run up and take Mina out of Mr. Pratt’s hands and run with her, stealing her away from everyone.

“Oh, dearest,” Jane murmured, rifling through her reticule for a kerchief. “Please don’t cry, please don’t—”

“Allow me,” a deep voice murmured ahead of them and she saw that Lord Weatherby, Lindsay’s father, was reaching out to her, his handkerchief in his hand.

“Thank you,” Jane whispered before pressing the white linen into Anais’s hand. “These ceremonies tend to make the fairer sex
quite emotional, I fear. Why, I think even I might be succumbing to tears,” Jane mumbled as she waved a hand before her face.

“I understand,” Weatherby said as he looked at Anais. His yellow eyes were watery, but not from drink. “They can be quite emotional for what some might term the stronger sex, as well.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Anais mumbled before a fresh crop of tears sprung to her eyes.

“You are welcome. I pray you will find relief for your tears quite soon.”

Lindsay caught her gaze and she looked away, ashamed of how she was acting, afraid that her behavior was going to cause unnecessary speculation upon her. She could not bear to look at Lindsay and know that it was over between them, to know that she, and she alone, was responsible for killing the love he once had for her. She could not stand the torture of seeing her daughter lowered to Margaret’s arms and Robert placing a protective arm around his wife’s waist as the three of them—a family—huddled lovingly together.

Mr. Pratt smiled widely and addressed the congregation with his arms spread wide. “From a letter to the Corinthians. ‘If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.’”

The ripple of movement and sound from the congregation quieted—an unnatural calm that unnerved Anais settled over the church. It was so eerily peaceful and quiet that she feared
her rampant thoughts and dark secret that shouted in her brain may be discovered at any second by the entire church.

“‘Love is patient, love is kind,’” Mr. Pratt continued and she saw his gaze stray to her, then to the pew before her where it rested upon Lindsay. “‘It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated. It is not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury. It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things.’”

And then she felt Lindsay’s burning green gaze upon her and she lifted her face to meet his.

“‘Love believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things—’”

Anais smothered a gasp as Lindsay’s eyes darkened and she felt him reach out to her with a penetrating look that had consumed her so many times before.

“‘Love never dies,’” Mr. Pratt said emphatically as he looked out upon his congregation.

Love never dies…
but it does, Anais wanted to cry. It does die. It withers and dies on the stalk of betrayal.

“In Psalms we are told, ‘When the just cry out, the Lord hears them, and from all their distress he rescues them.’”

She wanted to be rescued from this pain, from this heartbreak that made her unable to sleep or eat or to think of anything other than the man she had loved so desperately and had betrayed so abominably. She wanted to be saved from the hell she had been living in these past weeks, knowing that Lindsay hated her and knowing that she deserved nothing less from him. She wanted to be absolved from this unbearable state of loving and never
having, of dreaming and praying that a miracle—however small—might happen and bring Lindsay back to her life.

“Let us proclaim peace unto our neighbors,” Mr. Pratt announced. “Let us shake the hands of the people around us.”

“I can’t do this,” she all but cried as she shook off Jane’s hold.

“What are you doing, child?” her mother snarled, reaching for her skirt to prevent her from going anywhere. “Stop it at once, you’re making a spectacle of yourself and your family.”

Ann pried her mother’s fingers from Anais’s dress. “For heaven’s sake, Mother, let her go. For once in your life care about something—
someone
—other than your own consequence.”

Reaching for her reticule, Anais stood, her prayer book falling from her lap to the floor as everyone around her was standing and smiling and offering hands to be shook along with murmurings of “peace be with you.”

Thank you,
she mouthed to her sister and turned to file out of the pew before running down the aisle, knowing she was making a scene and not caring, because she could not sit there a second longer and feel like a fraud—like a failure as a woman, a lover.

As Anais’s half boots carried her down the long aisle, she was aware that the sunlight was shining through the glass windows and that it had been weeks that it had shone so brilliantly. She was aware of the stares and the hushed whispers and the sound of feet behind and her name being called in Lindsay’s baritone voice. And still she ran, trying to outrun her demons.

Flinging open the church doors, her bonnet askew and her skirts raised well above her ankles, she ran down the steps onto the empty sidewalk. Stopping, she gasped for breath as the tears
streamed down her cheeks, the pain making it almost impossible to breathe.

“Anais, wait,” Lindsay cried, following her down the stairs.

Shielding her face with her hands, she gave him her back.

“Don’t run, not again,” he said, his voice full of raw emotion. Then she saw him extend his hand, his fingers trembling. “Peace, Anais.”

“There is no peace!” she cried, slapping his hand away and wrapping her arms around her waist, hugging herself. “I wish I had died after giving birth to her,” she spat, giving vent to every thought and feeling she had ever had. “I wish I would never have awakened to see her clutched in Margaret’s arms. You think that it was easy for me to give her up?” she spat angrily. “That I just tossed her aside without a thought or care as if she were as insignificant as a peach pit. But you know nothing,” she spewed, heedless that someone passing by might hear her. “You don’t know the pain I have.
I didn’t even get to hold her!
”

His mouth opened then closed and she jumped in before he could say anything. “That’s right, I lied to you that night on the terrace. I did not clasp her to my breast. I said that because I knew you wanted to hear those things and somehow I thought if I said the words aloud that maybe—
just maybe—
the memory might be created. I
wanted
to believe those things. But the truth is I slipped into unconsciousness before I could even touch her. And I could not bring myself to hold her when I left the cottage because I knew that if I did I would never be able to go through with my plans. I hadn’t even
seen
her till the night I found you clutching her. I had not even permitted myself that small luxury.”

She glared at him through tear-filled eyes. “You talk of your pain? You cannot even begin to understand the sacrifice I have made. I gave away a piece of myself, my soul! But I did it out of love, never think otherwise. I made the choice to live my life without her because I knew in my heart she would be better off without me and I could not bear to know that a life created out of such perfect love would be forced to live with the ugly truth of her birth. I thought,” she sobbed, breaking down before him. “I thought…I did the right thing.”

“Oh, God, Anais,” he groaned stepping toward her.

“Don’t,” she begged through a choking gasp. “Please don’t say anything. Just…go away.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave you, Anais.”

Her heart squeezed as she listened to the hope, the longing in his words. Her own hope flared, thinking of what-if. Could it be? Then she looked at him, a shell of the man he once was, an empty husk that had once held so much potential. “You’ve already left, Lindsay. You just don’t realize it yet.”

26

The early spring wind had turned cold. Dampness settled around him, but Lindsay felt none of it. As he watched Anais walk away toward the waiting carriages her words rang loud in his ears.

Was it true? Was he already dead to her? Had he lost himself so quickly?

He knew the answer to that when he felt his body begin a series of fine shivers, felt his head begin to throb with the need to be filled with smoke.

Opium had been a means to resist drink and women, a way to prevent becoming his father. What a treacherous demon it was, for it had turned him into something worse than the person he feared most. He had destroyed the woman he loved, ruined her life, and his own. He had even altered the future of a child. And all for the sinister seductions of a drug he no longer even liked, but needed.

“Son,” he heard his father say in a voice that wavered with emotion.

He could not turn around, could not look away from the corner where Anais had disappeared.

“Lindsay, please, come into the carriage with us and we’ll go to the baptismal luncheon together.”

It was his mother’s voice, so kind and soft. Here membered that comforting voice from his childhood when she would tuck him into bed and tell him what a fine man he was growing up to be.