‘And?’
Clare frowned. ‘I feel guilty.’
‘Guilty?’
‘Yes, guilty that I don’t feel more. I know panicking doesn’t help anybody, but it proves that I feel. Now nobody will know I have feelings.’
‘So panicking proves you feel love, happiness, sadness, concern, joy, empathy, anger?’
Clare looked at May as if she was mad. And then realised that was exactly what she’d thought. She had been afraid all her life to express her feelings; panic was her alternative. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said.
May smiled. ‘Indeed.’
As she walked back to the station to get the train home, she considered how she might do things differently. Her breath quickened and her heart flip-flopped in her chest. She clutched herself, waiting for the panic to start, but nothing more happened. Maybe, she realised, she wasn’t feeling anxious. Maybe this was what excitement felt like.
She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that all her troubles were behind her, but she vowed to herself she would enjoy this new-found feeling while it lasted, and do whatever she could to make it stay.
For the last few minutes of her session, Clare had explored how her panic was a way of not allowing her feelings. Of not engaging with people. She caught the eye of a woman walking towards her, and smiled.
Clare didn’t have to fantasise in the train on the way home. She had enough real-life excitement to keep her occupied. She did notice passing the field where the suicide had taken place earlier, however. Just another field full of cows again, but she’d always remember staring out at the cowshed and feeling for the poor person who’d died. And her panic attack. She wondered whether she should have asked for the name of the man who gave her his handkerchief; she could have laundered it and sent it back to him with a thank-you note. In fact, now she could send him a whole drawerful of new hankies!
Was it really only that morning, a mere ten hours ago? One life had been lost, but hers was about to begin.
She pulled out her notebook and started jotting down her wish list:
Pay off mortgage
Go on holiday – overseas somewhere –
She stopped. Where did she want to go? She’d said Prague and the Greek islands to May, but she’d just plucked them out of the air. Now she sat, tapping the end of her pen against her lips, thinking of all the places she could visit. Iceland to see the geysers, Australia to see a kangaroo bounding through the outback. Norway to see the aurora borealis. She’d written a book in which the protagonist, Lady Sybil Fraser, had an erotic fling with a reindeer herder in an igloo under the Northern Lights. She really should go and see them for herself. Who knew what might happen?
She looked at her list. Two items. How pathetic, but she couldn’t think of anything else she wanted. Not that money could buy, anyway.
No good going down that path, she said to herself, and did what she always did when she felt lonely. She started writing.
Mr Kenneth Gresham had eyes the colour of a thundercloud and a gaze that smouldered from beneath dark eyebrows. He wasn’t traditionally handsome; his nose was slightly too long, his cheekbones too wide. But those eyes, oh, those eyes. Arabella couldn’t resist them.
She crossed the room to get closer to him. He was talking to Lord Finlay – or rather, Lord Finlay was talking to him. Mr Gresham was listening politely, one elbow resting on the mantel. Arabella sat on the love seat and opened her book, but really she was watching his every move. She adored the way he stood so erect, the proud tilt of his head, the sound of his laughter when Lord Finlay uttered an amusing comment.
The room seemed too warm around her as she continued to gaze at him. She wanted to loosen her bodice which felt suddenly too tight.
‘Are you all right, Arabella?’ her mother asked, carefully lowering herself onto the seat beside her.
Arabella started. ‘Yes, Mother. Very well, thank you.’
‘You look a little flushed, my dear. I hope you are not coming down with a chill.’
‘No, Mother, I assure you, I am in the peak of health.’
Lady Donnington nodded. ‘If you say so, my dear. But perhaps you should not go on the hunt tomorrow, just in case.’
Arabella’s heart sank within her tightly bound chest. Not go on the hunt? That would be too cruel. She knew she held her seat well, and in her new riding habit, her figure was shown off to full advantage. If Kenneth Gresham didn’t notice her tonight, surely he would tomorrow.
‘I will be quite well enough, Mother. I am looking forward to it.’
‘There will be other hunts,’ said her mother, and rising again, she brushed an imaginary crease from her dress and swished away.
Arabella knew her mother would not change her mind. Instead, she must ensure that Mr Gresham noticed her this evening. She lifted her eyes to him and met the full force of his gaze.
She reddened, her hand going to her bosom. His eyes followed.
Clare put her pen down. Her heart was beating faster as it always did when she wrote. She got so carried away with the scenes she created, living the lives of her characters. Of course, the heroine always got her man, there was sex and lots of it, sometimes with a happily ever after, but often not. Her women didn’t need men to make them happy except in the bedroom – or the library, the forest, the yacht. Clare lured the reader in with lavish or exotic surroundings, handsome men, beautiful women – all the trappings of a romance. But she liked to think her plots were a little out of the
