Excerpt from FOLLOW ME
“Wait until you see the room,” Ian whispered, kissing Claire’s neck.
His breath warmed her ear, which was still stinging from the cold, November night, and a buzz of something near to pleasure spread through her like an opening hand. She leaned back onto Ian’s narrow, strong chest. He smelled like soap and leather. Claire closed her eyes and silently repeated the mantra she’d chanted to herself on the drive from Boston to Dorset, Vermont.
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I’m not the same person I was then. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t real.
Ian reached around Claire’s waist and opened the door. The brush of oak against carpet purred a throaty welcome. Claire stood passively, her arms limp at her sides, her hands flaccid against the hard muscles of her thighs. Ian pushed her out of the way and walked into the dark room. He switched on a desk lamp: a tiffany style dragon fly pattern in predictably enchanting blues and greens.
I’m not the same person, Claire
repeated to herself in the doorway.
"Come on in,” he said, pulling her inside. “Isn’t it great? I requested a room with a fireplace.” He kissed her nose. "It's supposed to snow."
Claire half-smiled at him and glanced around the country life fantasy décor: cozy fabrics, fluffy pillows, antique furniture; a veritable gingerbread house. What could be more enticing?
“It’s amazing,” she said breathlessly.
Claire’s heart pounded in her throat. She tried to remember the breathing exercises she’d read about in the waiting room of Ian’s office before they left today.
He opened the suitcase on the bed and started unpacking. "Call the front desk and ask about our dinner reservations, will you, honey?"
Claire stood motionless, staring fixedly at the fireplace and the narrow roll top desk.
"Are you okay?" Ian asked. "You look pale."
"I'm fine," Claire said brightly. She slid her bag off her shoulder.
She was being stupid. It was all in her head, all of it. She had to let it go, to stay with what was real, and to believe in what was true. Thank God Ian didn’t know anything. He was devoted to her but he was exceedingly leery of anything unconventional. Claire wondered sometimes if that was why Toby had fixed them up. Ian Gilbertson, the noble guardian saving fragile Claire from the strange and
inexplicable. She smiled to herself.
"Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m fine. What's the restaurant called?"
"I don’t know,” Ian said. “You picked it out, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Um, Beckwith Tavern," she said. "They're supposed to have the best crab cakes in New England."
"Are you sure you're okay?” he asked. “You sound weird."
"Yeah. Yes," Claire repeated emphatically. She kissed him on the mouth.
Ian was adorable, with kisses that tasted like milk and wiry stamina beneath his cashmere sweater. She was crazy. This was what she’d always wanted, a committed, loving relationship with no games or unpredictability. "I love you," she said.
He beamed back, kissed her softly on the forehead and went into the bathroom.
"I'm gonna take a quick shower," he said and closed the door. The faucet screeched like an old brake before Claire heard the water come on. "Don't forget to call the restaurant," Ian called out over the rushing sound.
"Okay," she shouted back.
Claire sat on the four poster bed and kicked off her shoes. They landed on the carpet with a thud like windfall apples. The room was quiet. Thick plaster walls kept out noise from the hall and other rooms. Claire wished Ian sang in the shower or talked to himself. She drew her legs up and tucked her feet under her skirt. As reliable as breath, the memory of that night seven years earlier lingered outside Claire's consciousness. The crack of an eggshell could bring it all back. She never told anyone, not even Toby, how present it still was, how real he still seemed.
Claire concentrated on the hush of running water. Ian was a lather-rinse-repeat kind of guy and he washed every inch of himself twice. She slid off the mattress and shoved the suitcase into an armoire carved with cherubs. She could do this. She wasn't a baby and it was a long time ago. But he grabbed her stomach like a hand made out of butter and climbed inside her, up to her mouth where she could taste him like sugared air.
Forget it. She wasn't ready.
She cursed and shook him off.
"Hey!" Claire called out. "Can I come in?"
"What time is the reservation?" Ian asked.
"Damn," she muttered.
"Did you call?" Ian asked when she didn't say anything.
"Yes," she said, dialing the front desk.
"Well? What time is it?"
"Thanks," Claire murmured to the innkeeper. "Seven-thirty. We have an hour and a half."
"Then come on in, baby."
Claire took off her clothes, threw them on the bed and opened the bathroom door. Even thick steam in a cold bathroom couldn't hide Ian's lusciously formed body, his long, lean muscles, slim hips, and beautiful chest. She could hardly see the white scar on his butt, the result of a battle with a younger sister over bathroom privileges and a forgotten, still hot curling iron. He'd hated his scar until Claire told him it kept him from being too unattainably perfect.
"Hey, hottie," she said.
"Come here you." Ian folded her into his warm, wet arms and kissed her. Milk and summer and sweetness.
"Mmmmm," he murmured and kissed her neck.
She felt him rise against her and suddenly wanted to swallow him whole. He lifted her up and pressed her into the cool, slick tile. Good, she thought as she felt him grow harder inside her. Good, she thought, breathing heavily, his mouth at her breast. She turned her head in relief as he climaxed, always on the same sweet, low, almost tuneful moan.
He nuzzled his face to her neck. "Let's skip dinner."
She smiled and kissed him. "You say that now but in a few hours, when every restaurant is closed, you'll be starving and you'll want those crab cakes."
He ran his hands down her waist. "You're right."
Claire washed her hair, calling to him while he dried off, "This is New England, baby, not New York. We go to bed early here."
After her shower Claire sat on the toilet to brush her hair, and to watch Ian shave. She loved the glide of the razor and the sexy, man-in-the-morning scent of the shaving cream.
"Are you staying in here to watch me shave?" he asked.
"No you egomaniac,” she teased. “You're not that cute. I'm waiting for the mirror."
"There are two mirrors in the bedroom, miss. And no steam to fog them up.” He kissed her nose then rinsed his face.
A wave of melancholy caught Claire off guard. She brushed it away.
"Don't look so grim,” Ian said patting her head. “The mirror is yours."
He left to get dressed.
I'll be fine, she told herself, massaging lavender scented moisturizer into her arms and legs. I won't be alone, that's all. I'll fall asleep before he does. I won't be alone.
She put on her makeup and opened the bathroom door.
"Do you want to take a walk before dinner?" Ian asked. The town is lit up for Christmas."
"Sure," she said. "I'll be ready in a minute."
He checked his appearance in the oval mirror above the washstand. "I'm gonna go downstairs and ask the innkeeper about cross country skiing tomorrow.”
"Um…" Claire tried to keep an edge of sudden panic from her voice. "Wait for me."
"Claire, I'm hot. I want to go outside for a minute."
"Okay," she said quickly, embarrassed to be so needy. "I'll be down in a second."
He kissed her softly on the mouth. "Thanks for keeping me company in the shower."
"You're welcome." She squeezed Ian’s hand and didn't even think about how he was almost never hot.
"I'll meet you downstairs," he said, and left.
Claire sunk into the pink love seat in the bay window. She wouldn't think about it. A long time, seven years, had passed; she was a different person now, in a different place. Claire ran her tongue over the back of her teeth and breathed slowly. She’d sworn she'd never return to Vermont.
She didn't want to think about why she had come back. It was smarter to avoid that kind of self examination, no matter how insistently it shrieked to be heard. You didn't have to scream back. You simply had to ignore it or shove it down.
The six-over-six glass panes on the other side of the storm window rattled in the cold air. Claire shivered and got up to dress into what Ian called her
dress-up uniform: big black boots, black tights, a short black skirt and a sweater as green as the lady's lake. She checked her reflection in the window. A few tentative snowflakes had begun to increase their number.
They should have taken her car. But Ian had insisted four wheel drive was unnecessary. He'd recently gotten a silver sports car that suggested local highlights and recognized your voice, and he’d wanted to test it out. Ian had grown up in Florida. He’d moved to Boston from New York City a year and a half ago.
Toby Cavanaugh, Claire’s best friend since college, had introduced her to Ian last Christmas. At school she and Toby were inseparable and even now Claire felt more comfortable with him than with almost anyone else. He was a successful photographer who’d made a name for himself with a controversial, outrageously sexy, fragrance ad that catapulted a tiny cosmetics company, Nymphidia, into the big leagues. Toby had plucked Ian from the shoot of “Eminently Eligible in Boston,” a popular annual cover article in
Back Bay magazine and set him up with Claire.
It was snowing harder, thick enough to catch handfuls in the air. The squall shifted direction, then apparently deciding it liked where it was, shifted back. Claire leaned closer to the window. She let the cool air stream into her skin then pressed her forehead hard onto the window, as if she could drink in clarity from the circle of wet cold on the glass.
Seven years and it still seemed like yesterday. What the hell was wrong with her? Why didn’t she have any resistance? She never should have come here. It was a huge mistake. If she couldn’t get away from the sense of him in Boston where she had work to distract her and Toby to stop her, how the hell did she think she could escape the thundering heat of his presence here? At the Black Hound Inn, not ten miles outside Dorset, she had seen him, smelled him,
slept with him for god’s sake?
Claire heard distant screaming. Not now in this hotel room, but then. A sharp wave of panic spun in her chest. She turned around to see the doorknob twist.
"Hey," Ian said opening the door, "What's taking you so long? I've been downstairs for fifteen minutes."
"Sorry," Claire said jumping away from the window, "I couldn't decide what to wear."
Ian shook his head. His sleek brown hair swayed so rhythmically in response it might have chimed. "You only brought three outfits. And they're all the same."
"I know." Claire grabbed her coat and purse and smiled apologetically. "Let's go."
"I have a surprise for you," Ian whispered as they walked down the curved, carpeted staircase.
Claire laced her fingers through his, and squeezed his hand. "What?"
"We're not going for a walk,” he said. “I changed the reservation." Ian grinned broadly in an apparent anticipation of Claire’s reaction. "I called Toby," he announced as if this would explain everything.
Ian stopped in the middle of the stairs. "Did you know there's no coverage in Dorset? I had to use a credit card on the front desk phone."
"I know,” Claire said. “They like it that way. Why did you call Toby?"
"For you.” A mischievous grin sat strangely on Ian’s flawless face.
He led Claire down to the lobby.
“I wanted to know what your favorite place was when you lived up here.” He leaned in and kissed Claire’s forehead. “I’m proud of your taste.
Yankee Magazine raved about it.”
Claire stepped away from him. She rubbed the back of her neck underneath her merino wool sweater and tried to dispel a creeping sensation of unraveling order. “Since when do you read Yankee Magazine?” she asked. “And New Englanders don’t rave, or have you never noticed our legendary reserve?”
“You’re not reserved with me,” Ian said, kissing her neck and curling his tongue softly around her earlobe. “But when you are, it’s sexy.”
Her heart pounded.
Thinking the fierce increase in her pulse rate was his doing; Ian hummed and opened his mouth on her throat.
Claire concentrated on steadying her breath. She rested her hand on the curve of his hip.
He pulled her closer. “We're eating in a private suite at the Black Hound Inn,” he whispered, “If we ever get around to dinner.”
In an emotional echo of the shock that sits between the instant you see a terrible cut and the moment the pain hits you, Claire felt nothing.
Ian finished kissing her then grabbed her waist and leaned back to assess her response.
"Come on,” he said. “They're expecting us in twenty minutes." He glanced at his watch.
Claire still couldn’t feel anything. But the connection between the imagined blood on her hand and the real, approaching pain in her heart was rapidly knitting together.
"Come on," Ian purred soothingly like he had a secret they both knew but never talked about. "It'll be fun."
Claire swayed a where she stood. A tendril of heat danced inside her. The familiar brush of warmth swept away the panic squeezing her chest, making her feel solid and real. Ian looked strangely far away, as though she was seeing him through hundreds of glass doors, some thick and mottled. Claire breathed slowly and deeply, tasting the smoke in the air filling her mouth. She allowed the sense of
him to wash through her like a drug.
How bad would it be to let go?
The heat spread rapidly to her fingers and settled in her mouth like a slow kiss. She welcomed the enveloping sensation of his mouth: his lips swelling inside her lips, his tongue whispering to hers, simultaneously inside her and separate from her. A pleasurable sensation so seductive Claire ignored the danger of losing the understanding of what was real.
Ian stepped closer and stroked Claire’s cheek. "It will be fun.” He voice was gentle and careful. “You trust me to know what's best for you, don't you?"
A piecing awareness Ian knew something he couldn’t have known sounded a severing alarm in Claire’s heart.
She couldn’t go back.
Memories to burn drifted threateningly to the surface. Half in this moment with Ian in the vestibule of an old hotel, half in another moment long ago but ever present, Claire straddled the narrow, ornate, carpet runner and chose.
Ian’s eyes were kind and his arms were strong as he circled her slender shoulders. She had to feel safe. She had to choose refuge.
"Okay," she consented.
The kiss in Claire’s mouth melted away. She didn’t try to retrieve it.
Outside, the snow couldn't fall fast enough.
A steady rain fell outside the window of the alcove, which served as Harcourt Abernathy’s study. His wife Kate's wedding ring lay on top of his desk. He turned the small silver band over in his broad palm then flipped it onto the tip of his index finger. It was an old fashioned poesy ring popular during the fifteenth century. He’d had it made by a silversmith in London. An orpine he'd sketched for
Larkey’s British Botany had been expertly carved around the ring and the words, “Love is enough,” engraved inside.
Kate had adored it. The memory of her face when he proposed made it hard for him to breathe. How was it possible he should never see her face again? How was it possible Kate would never again whisper his name? Five months had passed since his wife’s death and Harcourt still could not believe it to be real. The moment of Kate’s death replayed itself endlessly in his mind, each repetition wet and fresh, as if her death was only just occurring. And he relived the horror as if it was newborn.
The light scent from the open inkwell reached his nostrils. He squeezed the ring then placed it back on the desk and began a letter to his sister Anna who lived with her husband and three children some fifty miles outside Ledwyche in Warwickshire.
Ledwyche, 14, April 1824
Dearest Anna,
I hope this letter finds you and your family happy and in health. I miss your presence more than I can say. I do not think I shall ever regard landscapes, or English painters, quite the same way now that Julia has shown me the terrible errors of all painters before our age. I am sure Mr. Constable would be gratified to know he has so devoted an admirer.
Having you - and Elizabeth too – in Ledwyche last autumn helped to make a trying time pass more easily than it might have. A renewed awareness of how much our small family means to me makes what I have to ask all the more difficult.
I have received a third correspondence from Mr. Nathaniel Pickney. He has once again entreated me to journey to America and to join him in the planning of a public garden in the city of Boston. I have decided to accept if you will consider taking Celia for the duration of my stay. Mr. Pickney assures me I shall not need to remain in America past the summer’s end. He plans to continue his studies in Paris in September. I regret having to ask you or Lynmouth for any favor that may prove to be inconvenient even to the smallest degree.
Hopefully the weather shall be pleasanter in May than it has been this April. I cannot recall a season as hot and dry as this, save the strange summer of your fifteenth year when several trees in Nottingham Park lost all their leaves until the rains came. Do you remember? As for Ledwyche, we have rain today for the first time since the beginning of March.
I trust you and Lynmouth and the girls are well. How does Julia progress on the pianoforte? Has she mastered the Beethoven sonata? Is Rebecca still convinced a pirate’s treasure lies buried near the well? Kiss them both and baby Mary for me.
You will be happy to learn Celia is much improved. On Kate’s suggestion she’s begun drawing a book of alphabet letters for Mrs. Miller, who is teaching her son William to read.
Harcourt sucked repeatedly at insufficient air and clenched his jaw. The scream, which had reverberated in his head since the moment of Kate’s death, strained like a demon to escape his mouth. The effortless tone he had affected for Anna’s sake, clawed at his insides. An impulse to destroy something shot up inside him. He dug his fingers into the seat of his chair until it subsided and he could breathe again.
He felt himself at the mercy of a wild, possessive grief. Any thing, an innocent remark, the scent of wine, a thread of music, enraged him irrationally and instantaneously as if he’d been struck in the face by an invisible fist.
Nausea undulated in his throat. He pressed the heel of his hand to his brow, closed his eyes and forced himself to exorcise Kate from his memory. She would not leave him. He stood up and began searching the book shelf for the copy of John Lindley’s
Rosarum Monographia she had given him before they were married.
“Do you like it?” Kate asked. “It is Mr. Lindley’s.”
Harcourt made no reply.
“He was employed by Sir Joseph Banks,” Kate said. “He worked in his library.”
Harcourt kept his fingers pressed lightly to the book’s marbled boards.
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
“I've written a verse from Milton's Arcades on the title page,” she said. “I hope you do not mind. My family has a habit of inscribing any book which is to be a gift."
It seemed she was attempting to hide her fondness for him in an increasing rapidity of speech. Harcourt smiled to himself and kept his eyes on the inscription.
“The lines reminded me of the morning we spent together in the fritillary meadow,” she said.
She directed her attention to the pattern of dappled sunlight on Dr. Cowpe’s desk. “I hope I am not too bold to have given you a gift. You have been very kind to me.”
Harcourt read the verse.
“O’er the smooth enameled green,
Where no print of step hath been,
Follow me as I sing,
And touch the warbled string.
Under the shady roof
Of branching elm star proof,
Follow me;”
The scene drifted from his memory.
Later, after they were wed, Kate had confided that his voice was poetry itself to her.
Warm, low and endlessly varied as an unexpected brook in a dark forest, she’d murmured in his ear before kissing him and sliding under his body in their bed.
Follow me, the poem begged. Follow me.
Harcourt closed his eyes. The rain slowed, changing the tenor of the air. He went back to the letter.
Celia has grown considerably more thoughtful and modest. She shall give you no trouble, at least not the sort we might have expected in years past. She has been a greater comfort to me than I could have imagined, though she still lights up impossibly at the first measure of Sir Roger de Coverley.
Write me with your answer as soon as it is convenient. Remember me to Lynmouth and my darling nieces.
Yours affectionately,
Harcourt
Harcourt picked up Kate's silver ring once more. For a mad moment he thought of swallowing it like a mythic creature who swallows a loved one to protect himself from harm.
The wind rattled the casement. He shut it tight.
It wasn't a matter of moving forward. It was a matter of not standing still, not rotting in place like a Narcissus transfixed by memory. Harcourt had entered a new world unwillingly five months ago but there was no turning back. He had to learn how to walk and think and breathe again. He tucked the memory of Kate into himself like a promise or a secret, and if she breathed somewhere, somehow again, he'd breathe forever inside her.
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