"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Beautiful Damned" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

Only the light in the ballroom remained on, casting a thin glow across the
yard.
The cars were gone as were their occupants. Discarded cigarette butts, broken
champagne glasses, and one woman's shoe with the heel missing were the only
evidence of the gaiety that had marked the evening. Inside, I heard Ari
sobbing
hysterically, and as I walked up the steps, a hand pushed against my chest.

I hadn't seen him in the dark. He had been sitting on the steps, staring at
the
detritus in the driveway, an unlit cigarette in his hands. "You can't help
her,"
he said, and in his voice, I heard the weariness 'of a man whose dreams were
lost.

Still, I pushed past him and went inside. Ari sat on the floor, her bare feet
splayed in front of her, her dress still the white of pure snow. When she saw
me, the crying stopped. "Nicky," she said in that raspy, not-her voice, and
then
the laughter started, as uncontrolled as the crying. I went to her, put my arm
around her shoulder and tried to lift her up. She shook her head and pulled
out
of my grasp. For a moment, the horrible laughter stopped and she gazed up at
me,
her eyes as clear as the sky on a summer morning. "You don't understand, do
you?" she asked. "When I'm here, this is where I belong."

Then the laughter began again, a harsh, almost childish sound too close to
tears. Fitz glided past me, still wearing the white suit he had worn earlier.
He
picked her up and shushed her, and she buried her face against his shoulder as
if he gave her strength.

Her thin, fragile neck was clear and unmarked. God help me, I checked. But he
had not touched her, at least in that way.

He carried her to the plush sofa pushed back to the wall beneath the windows.
Then he pushed the hair off her face, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and
whispered to her, hauntingly: sleep. Her eyes closed and her breathing evened,
and once again she was the Arielle I had always known, pink-cheeked and
delicate.

He looked at me, and said, "This is why Daisy had to leave Gatsby, because he
was wrong for her. The better part of me knew that being with me shattered her
spirit. But we are not Daisy and Gatsby, and I could not let her go. You knew
that, didn't you, old man? That I could not let her go?"

But I didn't know, and I didn't understand until much later. So I remained
quiet. Wisely, as it turned out.