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    A Shadow Romance
    A Shadow Romance
    A Shadow Romance
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    A Shadow Romance

    By Elizabeth Cooke

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    About this ebook

    The French have a saying that goes something like this:

    "The most exciting part of a sexual liaison is walking up the stairs"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMar 11, 2014
    ISBN9781614682189
    A Shadow Romance
    Author

    Elizabeth Cooke

    Elizabeth Cooke lives in Dorset in southern England and is the author of fifteen novels, many of which she wrote under the pseudonym Elizabeth McGregor, as well as a work of nonfiction, The Damnation of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case of Death and Scandal in Georgian England. Acclaimed for her vivid, emotionally powerful storytelling and rigorous historical accuracy, Cooke has developed an international reputation. She is best known for her novels Rutherford Park and The Ice Child. Her work has been translated into numerous languages.

    Read more from Elizabeth Cooke

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      Book preview

      A Shadow Romance - Elizabeth Cooke

      you.

      Prologue

      walking up the stairs

      The French have a saying that goes something like this: the most exciting part of a sexual liaison is walking up the stairs.

      I guess it means anticipation outstrips (excuse the pun) the act. Once orgasm is done, the conquest made, desire takes a back seat. An additional mantra of the French: the first orgasm is the beginning of the end of a love affair.

      Oh, woe.

      How sad for the lady. In the afterglow of love, she is indolent, replete.

      But really worse for the man, although he doesn’t realize it. He turns for a cigarette. The smoke tastes delicious. He’s spent, done, fatigué.

      Enough already.

      Soon, he is on to the next chase and it ends the same and then on to the next. This is one of the definitions of a man about town.

      I had such a man about town without his ever reaching the top of the stairs. It was all about flirtatious – no, seductive – no, erotic talk, innuendo upon innuendo, signifying nothing in the long run. But I, as a woman of a certain age, fell like a ton of bricks and suffered the consequence.

      I wouldn’t have missed it.

      The endless possibility. The endless prettying up. The endless dream of fruition. The solemn realization – over a period of a number of years – that for my man about town, it was all a superficial game, a shadow romance that was truly a puff of smoke I inhaled and on which I lived and cried and hoped for a meaningful, serious affair.

      He was the romance, and I? I was the shadow.

      Meaningful is what I wanted. I wanted him to really love me back. Not marriage! Oh no. For what? Babies?

      I was well over the age of that possibility. But I felt still viable, a widow of over five years and still young enough for love. Not marriage. Love.

      Besides, he was already married, had three children, and a wife who had returned to live in her family enclave in Savannah, Georgia. He visited occasionally, to keep up appearances, than returned happily to his little penthouse in the sky, a recent purchase, to pursue the pleasures of New York City and his magnificent view of the East River from his terrace. It was beautiful in snow, mysterious in a rainstorm, and exquisite when the moon was full.

      Best of all he could enjoy his constant, restless pursuit of beautiful women, young, older, but intelligent. He did have certain standards and admired women of achievement, admired women of class, elegance and style. His standards, in fact, were high. He once remarked to me, that a young couple had moved into the adjacent penthouse and when he was in the elevator with the model/bride, descending to floor level, he looked into her beautiful eyes.

      I was shocked, he said with chagrin. There was nothing there.

      His tone was one of real disappointment. I wondered what he was looking for, what he expected to find.

      Someone to love?

      Part 1

      at the bottom of the staircase

      I met Stephen at a meeting of the board of directors of the charity, PAW PRINTS, of which I was Chairman.

      He came into the room with confidence, an engaging smile upon his face, to present to us – the board – his proposal for defending against a lawsuit my charity was presently undergoing.

      His was a prestigious firm and his presentation impressive – if expensive, - but we needed top-level help to protect us against a vindictive woman, the previous Chairman of PAW PRINTS, the animal orphanage of which I was so proud. She had embezzled funds and donations from our cause and left in disgrace. But, because of her aggressive personality and inability to accept blame, she decided to try to ruin our whole concern and prove she had done no wrong. In the end, she did not succeed.

      Mostly because of Stephen’s excellent intervention.

      A woman scorned and bitter.

      I found Stephen instantly attractive: tall, witty, sophisticated, and surprising, a man in his early sixties, a New Yorker born and bred, of the upper echelons of society. He was sought after to fill out a dinner table, cherished for his wit and erudition, admired for his wide reading list, and enjoyed by those who loved the sound of his laughter. A real, dedicated man about town, that he was.

      With all the attendant perks! Beautiful women. Hmm, I wondered. What would he feel about a lady slightly older?

      I discovered he relished ‘MOSTLY MOZART’ at Lincoln Center in the month of August, the vacancy of the city streets of a New York summer, the breeze on his terrace when he gave small dinner parties for a variety of friends, mostly younger than he, the occasional sail on the East River in the early dusk on a chartered boat. This was the stuff of his life. It was immensely satisfying to him, this man about town manner of living. Apparently it was enough to keep him a happy man.

      And it was at this juncture in time that we met, the happy man and the lonely widow.

      And my ecstatic/melancholic romantic life began for the next nine years.

      first step on the stair

      After Stephen had been working behind the scenes on the lawsuit against PAW PRINTS for about four months, with several meetings during that time at our office on 60h Street and the East River, he invited me to lunch. It was kind of a formal invitation, something I understood he did with clients, to create a better understanding between colleagues.

      I must say, I was truly excited – wasn’t quite sure why.

      We met at a small Italian restaurant on a chilly November day where we enjoyed an hilarious meal over crisp, fried calamari and Chianti, Stephen describing one of his rich clients who had a couple of small Maltese dogs, one of which almost bit off her elderly finger. I don’t know why this seemed so funny, but we laughed to the point of hysteria at the thought of that visual moment and the astonishment of that older lady.

      Of course, there was a great deal going on beneath the laughter – a kind of chemistry had been tapped into, a chemistry that deepened as we came to know each other.

      I was quite enchanted. He seemed to be too, as he put me into a cab with the

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