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 a Yule 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, watchinghim 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
It was Christmas Eve and the coal was replaced in the hearths of the faithful with a Yule 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, watchinghim 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
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