Page 8 of Scars of a Passionate Revenge
A few feet away from her, under another tree, there stood a man, well-built and strong looking. She could see that he had dark hair, but it was too dark outside now for her to make out much more detail of his appearance.
“Please forgive me for startling you, Madam,” the man said softly, moving a step closer to her. “I simply could not resist finishing the line, when I heard one of my favorite quotations.”
Alice smiled; the sense of alarm she had felt only a few seconds ago had disappeared almost immediately. “You know your Shakespeare well, My Lord.”
The man chuckled and shook his head. “I am not a Lord.”
“Well then. You know your Shakespeare, Sir.”
“Indeed,” he said. “And so do you, I see. IsJulius Caesara favorite of yours?”
Alice paused for a moment to consider her response. “I confess that as a play, it is not one of my favorites. I find some of the scenes rather dry. But that moment, that line, that concept about destiny… well, it makes me think so many things about what it means to be alive!”
She looked at the man and wondered if he would now turn away from her, thinking her strange for saying such things out loud, but he did not turn away. Instead, he was gazing at her through the gloom. She felt something inside her body contract as she felt his eyes on her.
“You have considered it deeply, then,” he said softly.
She nodded. “I love the way that Shakespeare’s work shows us so much about the human condition.”
Again she wondered if he would change the subject and move onto more usual topics of conversation for a ball, but then she remembered that they were not in the ballroom, not on the dance floor. She knew that they should not be out here alone, but she felt a thrill of excitement at breaking the rules. If they were not found out, then there was no problem.
He stepped a little closer to her, into a shaft of moonlight, and she saw that his eyes were grey, the color of smoke. The intensity of his gaze made her catch her breath.
“You are right, of course, Madam,” he said. “And that is one of my favorite things about his work too. I have been reading all the sonnets again lately, and I must confess that there is something new in each one, every time I read it.”
She smiled. “That is exactly how I feel too!” How refreshing it was to speak to someone about things that really mattered, she thought, as she looked at him. After the past hour spent dancing with various gentlemen and talking of nothing but the weather and the state of the roads, it was a great relief to be able to speak of more significant things.
More interesting things too. It baffled her why people in polite society only wanted to have such vapid conversations. And yet here was a man who was willing to talk of much more meaningful things, with a complete stranger in the darkness.
***
Benedict knew that he should not be out here alone with this young lady, whoever she was, and yet he found that he could not tear himself away. She was not like any young lady he had ever spoken to before.
She was beautiful, of course, with her long blonde hair swept up in an elaborate arrangement on top of her head, although he could not help but notice that a couple of tendrils had fallen out and were now grazing her shoulder. He found himself longing to reach out and push them back.
But it was not just because she was beautiful that he was enjoying their conversation so much. When he had first heard that soft voice reciting the line fromJulius Caesar, he had known that she could not be any normal young lady of theton, out here alone in the garden looking at the sky and reciting Shakespeare.
And the more he talked with her, the more he realized that his first instincts had been true. She was quite extraordinary.
“And which is your favorite play?” he asked her now.
He watched as she pondered the question, chewing her bottom lip as she thought about it.
“It is a difficult question, Sir, because there are so many, and they are all so different,” she said, looking up at him.
He looked into her clear blue eyes and felt something shift inside him. He looked away for a moment, but when his gaze returned to her, the feeling was still there.
“If you had to choose, though…” he said, pressing her for an answer. He was expecting her to choose one of the more romantic plays,Romeo and Juliet, perhaps, orA Midsummer Night’s Dream. But what she said next surprised him more than anything that had been spoken between them up to that point.
“If I had to choose, then I would chooseHamlet,” she replied.
His eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Indeed!”
“Indeed,” she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. “I can tell that you are surprised. Perhaps you expected me to choose something less tragic, or with a happier ending. But I love the way the play shows us the great struggles of life, of humanity. It tells you everything there is to know about the human condition.”
Benedict moved closer. He found that he did not want this conversation to end. Even among his friends at the gentlemen’s club, it was rare to have such a conversation.
“But the play is about despair, is it not?”
