Resurgence Read Online Free Page A

more than I know how to say.”

THREE
    Morning, April 13, 1987
    Total contentment may be a ways off, but on this bright new day intermediate gratification is everywhere Laurel looks. The en suite bathroom surpasses in scope and amenities the extravagant facilities at Nate Isaacs’s Manhattan apartment; the dressing room with built-in wardrobes and dresser drawers is half again larger than her New Jersey bedroom; the lavish bedchamber, as Colin calls it, contains features right out of Architectural Digest including an exquisite oriel window overlooking the terrace and gardens beyond. And for a bonus, a small tabby cat appears to have claimed her for its own.
    She breaks the houseguest rules and makes the immense four-poster bed, her body remembering better than her mind their coming together in the night and again at dawn. Desperate, frantic couplings, as though each time was the first time.
    She finds her way down the grand central staircase to the ground floor and the kitchen, where Anthony tolerated her cautious embrace before his father drove him to school a short time ago. Simon wouldn’t tolerate any form of embrace when he left with his grandmother soon after for an appointment with the pediatrician. She can either feel left out and left behind for not being invited to go on either errand, or remember that they regard her as a guest.
    As a guest, unsure to what extent she’s alone, she helps herself to a fresh cup of coffee and enters an enclosed veranda only glimpsed yesterday. Here, she confronts several suits of armor and a glass display case of ancient weaponry. Her jeans and sweatshirt are as out of place as Simon’s Big Wheel in this environment. And even more at odds with the setting when she returns to the first floor to contemplate the great hall with its walk-in fireplace, minstrel’s gallery, soaring cathedral ceiling, and towering window wall.
    Shouldn’t she be wearing one of those high-bodiced bosom-busting gowns of the Tudor era or perhaps a brocaded straightjacket and pleated lace choker of the Elizabethan period? And what of her feet? Are running shoes in any way acceptable in an environment that harkens to a time when no true chatelaine would be shod in anything clumsier than re-embroidered silk and kid leather?
    She sits down on one of the enormous sofas that could be dollhouse furniture given the sheer scope of this room. Even the concert grand piano positioned in front of the window wall is dwarfed by the surroundings. The tabby cat suddenly appears out of nowhere, as cats do, springs onto the sofa, and gives her a lesson in adaptability by kneading a velvet toss pillow into submission and settling down to bathe itself as though to the manner born.
    “Thank you,” Laurel says, ruffling its fur before leaving her coffee cup on a side table for staff to clear away.
    Struck with the need to communicate to other than a cat, she goes in search of the room housing the fax machine. Someone—preferably an outsider—must be told of her utter awe and amazement even though she was never so ill-informed as to think British rock stars didn’t live well, and were not the rescuers of many a great stately home fallen on hard times.
    The nearby chiming of a clock makes her wonder what’s taking Colin so long. Nine distinct strikes indicate he’s been gone three-quarters of an hour and he said he’d be right back. And she may be dependent on his imminent return if she expects to find anything resembling a home office. With the little cat running interference and rubbing her ankles whenever she stops to reorient herself, she continues to get nowhere until she thinks to retrace her steps on the floor above—the bedroom floor—where she finds the room she’s looking for in a matter of seconds. Something else to make Amanda laugh.
    As hesitant and surreptitious as Anthony must have been when he stole in here to send the bogus fax, she approaches a large well-equipped desk. She feels a little more relaxed