Page 19 of Scars of a Passionate Revenge
As Alice began to write, she imagined what it must be like, far away in America. There was so much to explore, in this world, and she had seen so little. She resolved to ask Benedict to tell her more about his travels when they walked together tomorrow.
And with Aunt Felicity, at least, she could be honest. Although her aunt had never met Benedict, she had listened to Alice talking endlessly about him when she returned home after that summer they had spent together, so she knew all about him, and Alice decided, in that moment, to pour all of her thoughts and hopes and dreams about Benedict into that letter to Aunt Felicity.
Her secret would be safe with her aunt, as it made its way across the ocean, to a faraway land.
Chapter 8
Benedict watched as Alice’s carriage moved off down the road, then began his own walk home. What good fortune to have bumped into her! He had been planning to call on her that afternoon anyway, but the coincidence of their meeting like that by accident convinced him even more that his plan was solid. Perhaps it was meant to be.
As he made his way through the streets of the city towards his lodgings, his mind was whirring. Could he really do it? Could he really make her fall in love with him?
He was not a proud man, but he was not overly modest either, and he could tell from the way that Alice looked at him that it would not be too hard to make her fall for him. She clearly enjoyed his company and had been pleased to see him when they had met outside the bookshop just now. He smiled inwardly as he remembered the moment when she had first recognized him, and her whole face had lit up with happiness at seeing him.
That part of the plan, then, would be easy. It was the next part that might be a little harder, he thought. He would spend a few weeks making her fall head over heels in love with him, then he would break her heart, humiliate her in public somehow, and cause a great scandal.
And that was the way that he would avenge himself against the baron. His only daughter, shamed and ruined. Benedict could not think of anything that would cause more damage to the baron. It was the perfect plan.
And yet, as he returned to his lodgings and climbed the stairs to his room, he felt a growing sense of unease. He had planned to spend the evening alone, but he found that he did not want to be by himself. The four walls of his chamber seemed to be closing in on him, and he was back out of the door almost as soon as he had arrived, walking towards his friend Cecil’s lodgings.
He only hoped that Cecil was at home, and at liberty to join him for dinner. He had not yet decided whether he was going to tell his friend everything about his encounter with Alice and his plans for the future, his plans for revenge against the baron, but he knew that he could not spend the evening alone.
He needed his friend to distract him from the turmoil in his mind, and the surge of relief he felt when he found his friend at home, and available to dine with, was significant indeed.
The two men headed out to their club together and it was not long before they were sitting opposite one another at a table at White’s, sipping glasses of wine and waiting for their dinner to arrive.
“You look a little distracted, Benedict, if you do not mind me saying so,” Cecil said, looking at his friend closely.
“I saw Miss Dunberry again this afternoon,” Benedict said, the admission falling out of his mouth almost before he had decided to tell Cecil anything.
“Ah, Miss Dunberry!” Cecil said with a smile. “Did you call on her?”
Benedict shook her head. “I had intended to, but then I bumped into her in town, outside a bookshop. Rather astonishingly, she had just bought a book about Plato, but was endearingly embarrassed to tell me about it.”
“What a coincidence that was!”
“Indeed,” Benedict said thoughtfully. He was on the verge of telling Cecil everything—that he had a plan, but that he was having doubts about it, in the depths of his heart—but he decided against it at the last moment. It was far safer if no one knew what he was planning.
Even his closest friend might let it slip to someone else by accident, and he could not risk that. No, it was safer to keep it all to himself and see how things played out. He decided to change this subject and move things into safer territory. “And tell me about Lady Clara,” he said, looking at Cecil a little slyly. “I trust you have called on her since the ball?”
Cecil nodded, and before Benedict could even draw breath, his friend began to talk about Clara and how much he was enjoying her company. Benedict let out a small sigh of satisfaction. He was out of danger; his secret was safe for now.
***
The air was fresh and crisp the following day when Benedict made his way to Alice’s house. The baron’s London home was centrally located, in a fashionable area of Mayfair, and Benedict could not help but bristle slightly at the opulent wealth he was surrounded by.
He remembered how things had been when he was growing up; his father working hard for the baron, his mother, before she died, trying her best to make ends meet in a household where there was never enough money. And then, after the fire, Benedict and his father on the run, struggling to survive.
And the baron lived in splendor, with a fine town house in London as well as his country estate. There was no justice in the way society worked. Nothing seemed fair.
He picked up his pace as he walked along the grand avenues, shaking his head to rid himself of such thoughts. He had dragged himself out of the gutter, working himself almost into the ground in the coal mines east of the city, then once he had saved some money, he had returned to the city to invest his earnings, and seek his fortune.
He had no reason to be bitter now that he was rich and well-established. But it had not come so easily for him as it had for the baron.
The baron who, he was sure, had somehow betrayed his father. He was determined, now, to find out what had happened and to avenge him. There was no way that his father was a thief, no matter what the baron had accused him of, but they had had to flee the estate anyway and plunge themselves into a life of uncertainty and poverty.
His father had had to live with the label of being a thief, for all the remaining years of his life, and Benedict wished now that he had done something while his father was still alive; when he had a chance of finding out the truth from the man who knew it best.
But it was not too late. And now that he had met Alice, there was a way into the baron’s family. He cast his doubts from the previous evening aside and decided to make the most of the opportunity that had presented itself to him.
