“Perhaps you misinterpreted them.”
Her sister frowned. “I did not. And do not pretend to believe that you don’t think Lindsay’s sudden disappearance is not odd. I don’t believe that he just poof—” Ann puffed between her lips as she waved her hand as if she held a magic wand in her fingers “—he just disappeared into thin air without a word to anyone. Not even his mother, Lady Weatherby, knows precisely where he is. He has been gone over ten months, Anais, with no news of him. Are you not concerned?”
“I’m tired, Ann.” She was feeling weak and fatigued, but most of all she did not want to talk about Lindsay and what had happened between them the night of the masquerade ball. She had told no one, not her father, and most certainly not her mother. She had to divulge a few of the details to Aunt Millie. Aunt Millie’s companion, Jane, knew a bit more than her aunt, but Anais had convoluted the truth to suit her needs. The only person who knew the full truth was Garrett, and he had been remarkably supportive, not to mention silent.
“I’m very disappointed in Lord Raeburn,” Ann said, stroking Anais’s hand with her fingertips. “I thought for certain he would propose to you. How wrong I was.”
“It’s all right, dearest,” Anais said, trying to smile for her sister’s benefit. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“But you loved him, Anais.”
“In truth, it would not have been a sound alliance.”
Her sister shot her a dubious look. “And an alliance with Lord Broughton would be more sound, then?”
“Ann,” she warned. “I am not talking about such things with you.”
“I’m fifteen now,” she wailed, “and Squire Wilton’s son kissed me beneath the Maypole. I’m a woman, Anais. I know about such things as love and marriage.”
“Really? Then you are much more educated than I, for I understand none of it. Now, off to church you go. I think I hear Mama calling your name.”
“What of Lord Broughton, Anais, are you going to marry him?”
“Garrett is a friend, Ann. A very dear friend.”
“Just like Lindsay was your very dear friend?”
Anais looked toward the window, to the black night beyond and the white snow that fell in a straight, heavy line. “Lindsay was a dear friend. But that was before.”
“I’m sorry that Lindsay ran off instead of proposing to you. I would have liked to have him for a brother-in-law. He is much more sporting than Lord Broughton.”
“Lord Broughton is a very kind man. He is very loving, very forgiving.”
“And what has Lord Broughton to forgive you for?” Ann asked, immediately pouncing on the little slip.
“For not marrying him despite—” Anais looked away and brushed a small tear that escaped unchecked from her eye. She did not finish her thought. Could not finish it, despite the very great need she had to confide in someone. She felt so alone, so empty inside. But then, she had made her own choices and the consequences were hers alone to live with.
“I hope someday you shall be able to tell me the truth of what happened between you and Lord Broughton in Paris, Anais. Perhaps you have convinced Mama and Papa that this mysterious illness of yours is nothing but a trifling fever, but you have not fooled me. I would hate to think you could not share confidences with your own sister.”
“Confidences can be such burdens, Ann. I contracted my illness while traveling abroad. Lord Broughton returned me home to convalesce, there is nothing else to say.”
Ann’s blue eyes swept along the covers that shielded Anais’s form. Anais could not help but draw her knees up farther, hiding deeper beneath the blanket. “I suppose time will tell us, won’t it?” Ann said with a sad wistfulness. “Good night, Anais.”
“Good night, Ann.”
Her sister smiled and let herself out. Sighing heavily, Anais looked about her room, feeling tired and drained. Her body was tired, her mind and the worries that constantly plagued her further drained her of what little strength she still possessed. She wondered if she would ever be free of the worries she harbored. Perhaps it was her penance to live every day in fear that her secret would be found out and exposed to the world.
The clopping of horse hooves on the cobble lane outside broke through her thoughts and she slipped out of bed, watching as her sister and mother were handed into the carriage by a footman dressed in his blue-and-silver livery. Where was her papa? she wondered. Perhaps he was already in the carriage. But it was not like him to not wait for the ladies of the house to enter the carriage first.
The carriage door slammed shut and within seconds, the four white horses were in motion, carrying her family the short ride into the village and the Christmas Eve church service.
Reaching for the book that sat atop her bedside table, Anais reached for it only to have it slip from her fingers and land with a loud crack against the floor. She startled in surprise. It was a loud, ringing sound for so slim a volume, and the resonance echoed throughout her room. The echo, she noticed, was followed by a peculiar thudding on the stairs below.
Strange. Who could be running up the stairs in such an undignified manner? Shrugging, she bent at the waist to retrieve the book and straightened in horror. The almost overpowering scent of smoke wafted up between the floorboards and she ran to the door, breathless despite the minute exertion. Throwing open her chamber door, Anais saw that the hallway was engulfed in fire. The staircase, that only minutes before Ann had descended, was swallowed in black smoke and orange flames. Shutting the door as the wind came from below and licked the flames into a soaring giant tower, Anais scrambled to her dressing room, praying she could escape down the stairs before the fire consumed that portion of the staircase. But as she reached for the latch, she realized it was locked and the key missing. Squelching the panic that arose in her breast, Anais fought to clear her head of the dizziness and the burning sensation in her chest. She was trapped.
The house, nearly two centuries old and built entirely of wood and plaster, would be engulfed by fire in no time. She did not have minutes to waste in panic.
Anais looked to the window and ran to it, flinging open the sash and ignoring the bitterly cold air that rushed in. Tearing the velvet draperies from the wooden rods, she ignored the heaviness in her chest and went to work tying them together before she reached for her blankets and drew the coverlet from the bed.
There was no recourse left, the window was her only means of escape.
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