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I’d expected it to take us about ten or fifteen minutes to walk around the building, but Titus is so fascinated that it takes us nearly an hour. He’s awed by the nave, especially when I tell him it’s the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world. He loves the thirteenth-century misericords or wooden seats, the fourteenth-century minstrels’ gallery, and he spends ages looking at the famous Astronomical Clock that’s supposedly the source of the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock, which has a small door below the face for the resident cathedral cat to hunt mice.
By the time we come back out, we’re both hungry, so we cross the Green to a café that has seats outside overlooking the view. We go inside and order a cooked breakfast and coffee, then come back out and sit at a table with an umbrella.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think it’s amazing.” He studies the cathedral, then drags his gaze away and looks at me. “You’re amazing,” he says.
I laugh. “Well, thank you.”
“I mean it. You’re the perfect guide. You have fantastic knowledge of the area. I don’t mean this to sound patronizing, but I’m really impressed.”
I blush, because I can’t help it, glowing all the way through at his compliment. He notices, and I wonder whether he’s going to apologize for embarrassing me, but he just smiles. Encouraged, I lift my gaze to his and meet his eyes, and he doesn’t look away. There’s heat within them, and immediately I know he’s thinking about what I look like naked.
We’re attracted to one another. It’s not just because either of us is on the rebound. The connection began all those years ago, when I was sixteen, and it’s still there now, an invisible thread that’s drawn us together through the years, and that’s continuing to wind around us, slowly pulling tighter with each minute we spend together.
Chapter Eight
Titus
We eat breakfast while we watch visitors coming from and going to the cathedral, while the sun beams down out of a brilliant blue sky.
Heidi tells me more about the history of Exeter while we eat, and I’m content to sit and listen to her, occasionally asking questions. She uses her hands a lot as she talks, her pink nails flashing in the bright sunshine.
Last night, I was a fraction of an inch from kissing her while we sat on the sofa. I hadn’t planned to get close to her, but in the end it seemed harmless to cuddle up, as we’re good friends, and she’d had a tough encounter with her ex.
But I knew I was kidding myself. Be honest, Titus. I want to get up close and personal with her because I fancy the pants off her. I like her sunshine-colored hair, her slender figure, her girlish breasts, and her long, light-brown thighs in her criminally short shorts that show off her butt. I like her girlish giggle and the way she seems young on one hand, and yet she’s so knowledgeable and intelligent about her passions.
I know she likes me. She still looks at me the way she did all those years ago, when she asked me to kiss her, her big blue eyes filled with admiration and longing. I know she’s not after my money, or to make connections, or because she wants to be seen with me amongst her friends and business acquaintances. And when I’m quiet or lost in thought, she doesn’t get exasperated, or roll her eyes, she just smiles and waits for me to focus again before she continues.
Okay, I’ve only been here a couple of days. But right now, I feel nothing but attraction between us, and it’s like this perfect summer day—hot, sweet, and full of happiness and hope.
Listen to me. I’m turning into an old romantic. Everyone knows it’s easy to have a holiday fling. You leave all your cares and responsibilities behind, and nothing matters except pleasing the person in front of you. But they never last, especially when you live on the opposite side of the world.
I should pull back a bit, stop the flirting, and keep her at arm’s length, but it’s hard when she’s such fun to be with. And she’s intelligent, and she knows as well as I do that we can’t get involved. She’s just enjoying being with a friend from home, and I resolve to keep that in mind and not worry too much about it.
When we finish our breakfast, we walk through the city to the car, and then we head back past Briarton, taking the road to the moors. This time, we do a leisurely loop, driving up to Moretonhampstead, then take the road down to Two Bridges, where we get out and do a Pooh Bear and Piglet, and throw twigs in the river, then move to the opposite side of the bridge to see whose wins the race. After that, I drive to Dartmeet, which Heidi tells me is the center of a prehistoric landscape.
“There’s a Coffin Stone up Dartmeet Hill,” Heidi says. “Bearers placed their coffins on it while they took a rest on the way to burying them at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The rock’s split, and local legend says it happened when they laid the body of a wicked man there. God struck the stone with a thunderbolt, and He destroyed the coffin and cracked the stone in two.”
“What a great story.”
“I think so. Come on, Widecombe is next, and that’s a lovely village.”
It turns out to be a tourist destination, a little twee maybe, as if someone has designed their perfect view of an English country village, complete with pubs, village green, and its church, which is known as the Cathedral on the Moors because of its tall tower.
I’m surprised that Heidi seems so fond of it, but as we walk around and she tells me about its history, I begin to see why she loves this county so much. Maybe it’s because she’s a historian, but it’s like she’s an archaeologist of time, and is able to sift through the years and see all the different layers of occupation, all the people who have passed through this place. She talks about the prehistoric settlements, the field patterns and the stone circles, the Romans, the Saxons, and the deserted medieval villages. And she tells me about the spread of Christianity, which gives the country a sound faith that nevertheless has beneath it a deep-rooted pagan undertone.
“Look at that roof boss,” she says in the church, pointing up at a motif of what looks like three hares. “It’s called the Tinners Rabbits. They each share an ear so only three ears are shown. It’s a symbol of the Trinity, as well as fertility and the lunar cycle.”
She also shows me four more examples of the Green Man—male figures with hair and beard made from oak leaves, which she says is a symbol of rebirth. “This land is ancient,” she whispers, so as not to disturb the other visitors in the church. “I can feel all the people who’ve lived here, can’t you?”
Her mouth is near my ear, and her warm breath brushes across my neck, making me shiver. I look down at her, and inhale at the sight of her covered in jewel-like colors, formed from the sun shining through the stained-glass windows. She’s like England personified—a good person on the surface, kind, generous, and honest—but with an underlying sensuality that speaks of sun-kissed grain in the fields, ripening fruit, and sunlight on the rivers that tumble over the rocks.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me—maybe I’m still jet lagged—but I feel caught up in the magic of this place, as if I’m standing with one foot in the past.
“I wish you could have seen the May Day celebrations,” she says as we make our way outside, “what they used to call Beltane. Children danced around the maypole, braiding the ribbons, and they chose a May King and Queen. In medieval times, young people would sneak off at sunrise to make love in the fields.”
She meets my eyes. Her face is just inches from mine. Her lips are a rose-pink, and they looksoft as. Jesus, I want to kiss her so badly.
