Student of letters, Micah Yardley wants one thing: to meet the poet Jefferson Dering. After hearing his idol speak at Harvard, Micah travels to Jefferson’s home in nearby Wroxham, entertaining visions of discussing poetry over dinner and drinks. What he experiences exceeds anything he ever anticipated.<br><br>Jefferson finds Micah mesmerizing and passionate, everything he has ever wanted. But after getting caught in a compromising position with another young man a decade earlier, he exiled himself from Boston and from affairs of the heart. Jefferson represses his longing for Micah, but his tumultuous emotions cannot be contained.<br><br>Micah denies the truth of his desire for Jefferson. Jefferson refuses to act on his passion for Micah. But all it takes is a single kiss in Wroxham's haunted church to change the course of their lives ... and ignite the flame that could fulfill a generations-old promise.

A Hidden Beauty

I have had much opportunity to contemplate the events that drove me away from Wroxham. I said as much to you that night, but I had never been kissed prior to knowing the taste of your lips. I had never imagined that it was possible for one man to feel such a way about another, nor that it was possible for the other to desire it as much as I did. Everything I have been taught from the cradle has dictated my passions should be directed elsewhere, and though I could never reconcile how my poetry fit into such a niche, I found myself floundering when I was forced to place you into that niche as well. Thus, I fled. Because I was terrified, and hurt, and completely incapable of thinking rationally


Chapter 33