Chapter Text
Claire Beauchamp was sitting next to a large window of her living room, on a white sofa placed underneath its frame. Comfortably nestled among large soft pillows and covered with a fluffy blanket over her legs, she watched the rain fall heavily against the grey concrete of her street, washing orange-red leaves that had fallen off trees, towering over each side like tall tired soldiers guarding their land.
Tree trunks seemed dark brown, almost black, rain washing over them and giving them much needed moisture for their old and cracked barks. There were still leaves on their crown’s branches, the ones that were orange-red falling off from the wind that was blowing through them, and the green and yellow ones still holding on to its twigs, washed over by rain drops that, from the intensity of the shower, looked like melted icicles.
The skies where grey, dark big clouds glooming over Boston and she couldn't help but compare her own mood being as equally gloomy as the skies above her.
She looked at the message on her phone, reading five simple words again, every one of them clenching at her chest.
„I need time, space and quiet. “
I need.
The fact that Frank put himself first, again, made her angry and almost breathless with rage. Of course, it was always about what he had needed.
He needed her and pursued her until he got her.
He needed her to be always available, always happy and loving, no matter the fact that he was anything but that, and he still got from her what he wanted.
He needed her to fill every single of his strange sexual fantasies, some of them making her uneasy, and she had done that.
He needed to get away from her, without explaining the sudden break off communication and complete silence on his part, and she forgave – every single time.
And here they were again. After almost over 8 years into a relationship and 2 weeks of utter and complete silence, not a single call or text from him, this is what he offered. Another explanation of what he needs.
She tapped out off the message to calm her fury and typed a new one.
„Mary, do you have time for a quick coffee? I have an idea I would like to run by you.“
Mary Randall was Franks sister-in-law, married to his cousin Alexander Randall. Claire met them both almost two years into her relationship with Frank, when she needed some legal advice regarding her business.
Mary and Alexander had a very successful corporate law firm that quickly became well-known and respected in Boston, one that they founded together after meeting at Boston University, their joint internship and getting married.
Randall & Randall had few major high-profile corporate cases that were solved quickly in favour of their clients and without a large media outburst. That catapulted them to the very top of Boston’s law royalty, earning them more high-profile clients and a financial stability that allowed them to pick their clients very carefully.
Claire thought, when Frank mentioned them, that she was too small of a fish for their taste, given the fact that she just needed some legal advice on how to expand her business from London to Boston and pay out her Uncle Lamb as a primary investor. She never thought that would even pique their interest, but Mary and Alexander were very kind and down to earth, regardless of their over-night rise to success, eager to help her with everything she needed.
Soon after that, Mary and Claire became fast friends and Claire wondered if this new outburst of Frank’s would put Mary in an awkward position, since they were family after all. She wondered how to approach Mary with the idea which she had for a while, thinking of relocating and starting somewhere fresh, in a way finished with Boston and a life of classy dinners and empty conversations that made her grow restless.
For over a year she thought about changing something in her life, and until now only changing her hair colour or its length – something that Frank always objected and disapproved, explaining that he had loved long and straight hair on a woman.
He also loved blonde women and Claire was a total opposite. Her hair was dark brown, naturally curly and wild, much as her temperament was before she met Frank. But, in the 8 years she had spent with him, she learned to control her temperament, as well as her hair which she constantly had to flatten out, like a proper English lady that she was born to be, always demur and polished.
Claire often felt like Frank used her to enhance his image of a successful college professor, being British himself. It was expected of him to have someone by his side that was of the same breed. All those blonde, blue-eyed students of his, whose attention he enjoyed and fed his ego with, sometimes too much for Claire’s taste, weren’t exactly the types of women which he could drag to all those boring dinners and lunches Claire had to attend.
Claire was polite and well educated, although being a botanist seemed to be a duller topic for his historian colleagues than their own field of expertise. So, she often found herself talking to their wives, emerging herself into empty conversations about new shades of nail polishes and hairstyles of random women she never met, but seemed to be very important or important enough to be dissected and talked about by her present company.
One more thing that Frank seemed to dislike were her whisky coloured eyes that he thought were rather plain, commenting how she would look much more elegant if they were blue. That was the comment she received one day, coming from the hairdresser after she decided to shorten her hair to shoulder length. Of course, he also had a problem with the fact that she didn’t iron out her hair, leaving her natural curls at the suggestion of her stylist, given the fact that her ends became rather split and dry.
They were getting ready for yet another boring dinner and he was getting annoyed that she wanted to leave her hair down, his opinion being that it looked cheap and didn’t match her long silk black dress that hugged her slim body like second skin, following her hourglass figure.
“You would be more ladylike if you at least pull your hair up, Claire. If you had blue eyes, you would look more elegant, given that your dress of yours already looks plain enough.” He said, putting his glasses back on and leaving their bedroom with a whisky glass in his hand.
During the last year of their relationship, a glass of whisky was something that he held more often in his hands than her.
Of course, that night she obeyed and pulled her hair in a high bun, putting on diamond earrings that he had bought her as a Christmas gift. A few months later, when one of her earrings cracked, she realized that those weren’t real diamonds. Frank felt they were too expensive and he did go out his way to buy high quality zircons, bragging at his choice as if high quality zircons even existed.
Claire’s phone pinged and she looked at Mary’s reply.
“Of course, darling. Always have time for you. Tomorrow morning around 10 at our house? Alexander is taking the kids to the Zoo so we’ll have time to enjoy and have a cup in my wonderful garden that you’ve created.x”
She smiled at her friend’s praise and typed back.
“I’ll see you in the morning, sweety. Looking forward.x”
Thankful for the chance to escape her memories, Claire stood up and walked over to the kitchen, pouring another glass of white wine. She loved to have a glass or two in the afternoons, finding it relaxing after a day in the office or out in various gardens she landscaped for a living.
Claire Beauchamp has actually done very well herself and was quite known in Boston, as well, for her imaginative way of restructuring and designing old and neglected gardens into luscious oasis of flowers, plants or herbs, depending on her clients wishes. After finishing school in London and given the chance to work with several rich families, some of which were Uncle Lambs friends and colleagues, she gained a reputation very quickly of being imaginative and able to fulfil wishes of her clients even though they themselves may not have been aware of what those were exactly.
She moved to Boston about 6 years ago, of course at Franks insistence. She met Frank Randall while she had still lived in London, at a dinner party that one of clients organized basically to show off their new garden and to honour Claire’s work. Frank went to college with the husband and was invited as well.
At first, Claire hadn’t really given him much thought, didn’t quite see him as her type. Sure, he was very eloquent and a pleasant company, but that was about it. She didn’t feel a spark with him, there was no attraction on her part, at least not in the amount that she had expected.
But after meeting her that night, Frank was very persistent. He got her number from his colleague and started texting her. After a while, Claire agreed to meet him for coffee and that’s how it all started. Something shifted in her, whether it was her desire to be in a relationship with someone or the fact that Frank really pulled all the stops in the beginning, she slowly fell in love. He was 7 years her senior and for a while, reminded her of Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, a silent and serious type of a man that, in hear head, was able to give her the love she secretly dreamed of. And for the first couple of years, Frank was basically every woman’s dream as well as Claire’s.
He was a perfect gentleman by day and at night, a very generous lover. It felt like he would never get enough of Claire and, foolishly, she really felt like she couldn’t have found a better man. Everybody loved him, her parents adored the ground he walked on. Everybody but her Uncle Lamb who never missed the opportunity to show his dislike of Frank. God rest his soul; she should have listened.
A year into their relationship Frank got offered a position as a full-time professor at Boston University and wanted Claire to move there with him. Claire couldn’t imagine leaving London, not after she had done so well with her business and gotten more offers than ever before. It felt like she was giving up on her dream, on everything she worked really hard for.
Frank left for Boston and for about 6 months they had a long-distance relationship, which was harder for Claire, mostly because Frank wouldn’t stop pushing her to move to Boston. He even went out of his way to find clients who were eager to hire her, based on his recommendations and pictures of her previous work that he showed them.
Uncle Lamb wasn’t too keen on her leaving everything for a man that often stated that marriage was out of the question. Lamb didn’t have a problem with that because he was old-fashioned. On the contrary, he himself never married and wanted that Claire has the same freedom as he had. His thoughts of Frank were simply that he didn’t want to be married because he didn’t want to be, or even worse, wasn’t able to commit. But Claire was headstrong and gullible, in love and believed that Frank did all that because he loved her and in time, he would marry her.
She went to Boston and took the job that Frank found for her. She stayed there for three months and, in retrospect, those were the best three months of their entire relationship. Frank was wonderful, supportive and did everything to make her stay in Boston as attractive as possible. She fell in love with the city, the people, she fell in love with Frank all over again.
When she came back to London, her parents had gotten a divorce, the situation at home was unbearable and Uncle Lamb was gone on one of his many trips. He was an archaeologist and most of his life he lived everywhere and anywhere. Claire missed his support at home, her mother was having yet another nervous breakdown and all Claire wanted was to leave.
Frank offered to help her, to introduce her with Mary and Alexander and the rest was history regarding Mary and Alex. Not long after that she moved to Boston. At first, they lived in Frank’s rather small apartment but Claire was happy there. When she wasn’t working, she cooked, worked on her own herbarium and read books while Frank had more and more obligations at the university.
He hopped to be offered a tenure and he began to spend most of the time in the office. Claire didn’t have a problem with that in the beginning, she supported him and didn’t really take to heart his frequent mood swings. She just associated them with enormous stress that Frank claimed he was under. As soon as he received his tenure, things went back to normal and they even bought a bigger apartment. Well, actually Frank did, but his “All that I have is yours” calmed her down.
Soon after they moved in, Uncle Lamb called and wanted to meet with her. She was so excited about their new place, she asked him to come and visit and after much talking into, Lamb agreed. His initial idea was to spend the afternoon with Claire somewhere else, given the fact that he had to switch planes and had time to kill. There wasn’t a direct flight from wherever he was to London so he had to switch in Boston. Claire insisted that he stay overnight and takes the morning flight. After telling him that they will have the flat to themselves because Frank had a dinner party to go to, Lamb was less adamant to leave for London on the same day and finally agreed to come.
He saw Frank briefly on his way out, Frank being his usual charming self and soon they were left alone. He briefly updated Claire on his recent discoveries, told her about a new dynasty he was on the verge of discovering and Claire remembered that Frank also said something about doing research about it. She suggested to Uncle Lamb that he talks to Frank about it, assuring him that he could help and Lamb promised to think about it.
They talked about her parents, he wanted to know how she was coping with all that was happening at home and Claire assured him she was fine. She was much too happy with her current life to go down memory lane of other women that her father never seemed to get enough off, or her mother’s attempts of proving that said women existed. Claire’s father never admitted any of the affairs he was accused off, making her mother look insanely jealous and mentally ill.
For a long period of her childhood, Claire took her father’s side because he always seemed to be doing everything wrong, her mother never being pleased with anything he or even she had done. So, she easily believed at her father’s sob stories of being in a marriage with a woman who basically sees ghosts and conspiracies wherever she goes and all he ever did or was doing was trying to make her happy.
And now, when she was miles away from home and building a new, amazing life for herself, Claire didn’t want to be a part of their story any more.
“Has he asked you to marry him?” Uncle Lamb asked about Frank, while she was making him a cup of Earl Grey.
Claire sighed quietly, her back turned to him, trying to fake a smile before she turned to face him and answered.
“Not yet but we talked about it.” She lied.
She knew that Uncle Lamb was worried and had only the best of intentions for her, but she had no strength to spend the one night they had together in months, explaining how much Frank loves her and how a ring on her finger wouldn’t prove it any more than what she already knew and felt.
“Well, that’s a change.” Lamb replied dryly, scanning her face with the same whisky-coloured eyes that she had. “If it’s the truth.”
Claire smiled reassuringly, adamant to continue this little white lie she had created in her mind to defend her perfect relationship. She endured his curious stare and ultimately Uncle Lamb smiled lovingly to his niece and changed the subject.
For the rest of the evening, they reminisced about shared memories, summers Claire spent with him on his travels, learning about archaeology, history and land. Everything Lamb ever did and all his travels had a veil of secrecy about them, something that Claire found very exciting and was very curious about as a child.
When she turned 12, her parents finally allowed her to spend her summer vacations with Uncle Lamb. He would teach her everything there was to know about the land, the excavations and how to find them, how to spend the night out in the open and feed off the land if you were suddenly left without food and water. Of course, that would never happen in modern times, but once every summer when he would throw away their provisions on purpose.
“It’s all for your own learning experience, my dear.” He would say when Claire would start panicking that they will starve to death. “You need to be able to take care of yourself should you ever be stranded or lost.”
The thought of that was terrifying to a twelve-year old girl but sure enough, after a few times, throwing her into the fire like that, Uncle Lamb taught her everything she needed to know about surviving in nature and helped her discover her love for herbs and plants, eventually resulting in her studying botany and agriculture.
That didn’t exactly sit well with her parents, them wanting her to be a doctor or a lawyer, something they wished for themselves but never accomplished. But, having her out of the house, every summer for two months, was more than acceptable to her mother. Claire, for some reason, or none other than the fact that she physically resembled her father, became a burden to her own mother, a trigger of some sort that would set her off in one of her furious outbursts.
In one of those outbursts, when Claire was 21, and after a brief argument she got herself into with her mother, Julia raised her hand at Claire for the first time in her life. As Claire wanted to walk away from the argument, her mother hit her over the back of her head with a clenched fist that made Claire stagger.
That night, Claire packed all of her most essential things and left home. She stayed with her best friend, Geillis Duncan, whom she met at university and studied botany and agriculture with.
Geillis was every bit of a Scottish lass as they come, with fiery red hair and equally fiery temper. She had beautiful porcelain skin and light blue eyes that pierced through a man’s soul, as Uncle Lamb once said after he briefly met her, visiting Claire at the university. He approved of Geillis, saying that she had a smart head on her shoulders and a sharp tongue, something he was very much impressed with. He thought of Claire in a same way and felt that Geillis would be a good influence on his beloved niece.
With Uncle Lamb’s full support, Claire graduated shortly after started her own little business of landscaping gardens, slowly making a name for herself. Geillis returned to Scotland and Claire felt her heart broke the day they said goodbye. Of course, they stayed in touch and skyped as often as they could, but Claire missed her friend every day.
Next time they saw each other was, couple of years later, when Geillis called her to attend her first wedding. She was marrying William Grant, a young artist who barely scrapped by, but his family was off old Scottish descent and were pretty wealthy. Claire feared her friend was maybe rushing into the marriage, but Geillis was in love and there was nothing anyone could have said or done.
Two years later, she was divorced and sworn off men for all eternity. All in all, getting married was a rather splendid idea.
When Claire called her and told her about Frank and how smitten she was, Geillis murmured that she’s better off alone and that men were just penises on legs and should be treated as such. Claire laughed then, but now, after 8 years with Frank and a message that explained nothing or ended nothing, it made her think her friend was right.