Page 29 of Scars of a Passionate Revenge
She sighed. He was clearly not going to let it go. She was going to have to tell him the truth.
“We have met before, Benedict,” she whispered. “We were children together. I am the Alice who you spent that perfect summer with. Do you not remember me?”
He shook his head, his eyes wide. “I do not remember.”
“How can you have forgotten me?”
“It is strange. My memories are patchy. There are whole chunks of my life that I do not remember.” He paused and stared at her. “It is not that I am hiding anything from you. I simply cannot remember.”
“So you have forgotten the time we spent together.” She felt a wave of sadness as she said the words out loud. But was it better that he could not remember, than that he had chosen to ignore the memories? She was not sure.
“Alice, it is not that I have forgotten you. If what you are saying is true—and I have no doubt that you are telling me the truth—then that summer is part of the time of my life that I have no memory of.”
He paused and stared at her, his eyes searching her face as if he was trying to find something that might trigger his memories. “After the fire, I lost my memory. I forgot months of my life, nay, even years. So this time that you say we spent together as children, it is sadly lost from my mind forever.”
She smiled softly. “I am sorry that you cannot remember it. It was a wonderful summer.”
“I am sure it was,” he replied. “There are some things that I am glad that I cannot remember, but I confess that a summer spent with you sounds like a memory I would cherish.”
She felt herself blushing again and she looked away. Her feelings were almost too intense for her to bear. What would happen now that the truth was out? She hardly dared imagine where this revelation left them.
***
He watched as she tore away her gaze and looked at the ground. Could it really be true, what she was saying? It would explain why she felt so familiar to him, why he felt so comfortable with her, and of course it made sense. She was the baron’s daughter, after all.
And yet his mind was completely blank when he tried to search for the memory. Before the fire, there was nothing but blackness.
She looked up at him again, her blue eyes curious.
“Can you remember what happened after the fire?”
He swallowed. He knew what she meant. She was referring to his father being dismissed from his job due to the allegation of theft. But he could not speak of it yet. He was not ready to share the horrors of what he and his father had suffered as a result of that injustice. Instead, he shook his head.
“I cannot remember anything of what happened immediately after the fire either.” He did not like lying to her, but he could not face talking about this next part of the story.
He looked closely at her face again, trying to remember. But there was nothing. And yet, she had known all along. And she had been so familiar to him, as if he had known her for his whole life. He felt dizzy, disorientated; she had known who he was since they first met, while he had had no idea of their shared history. He wondered for a moment why she had not spoken sooner.
He turned away from her for a moment, to hide his confusion. He did not want her to see that his mind was in turmoil, and he did not want her to suspect that he was not being truly honest with her.
But he felt her hand on his arm, and he turned back to look at her.
“I am always here for you, Benedict, if you want to talk,” she whispered.
He realized in that moment that it did not matter that she had not told him sooner. Suddenly he felt that nothing much mattered, except this moment in time as they stood together in the clearing, the lush green grass underfoot and the trees rustling gently in the breeze.
He knew what he wanted to do, but he tried to hold back. The longing he felt for her was not waning, despite all his efforts to manage his feelings. As she gazed at him, the urge became stronger. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes wide.
A loose tendril of hair was hanging by her face, and he longed to push it away, but he knew that if he reached out to her, he would not be able to stop himself from kissing her. The desire in him was too strong now. All other thoughts left his mind.
She moved slightly towards him, still looking deeply into his eyes. He thought for a moment of the first night they had met, and remembered that same look in her eyes. He had wanted to kiss her then, but of course he had held back. Now, though, he could resist no longer. He moved towards her and pressed his lips against hers, feeling her gasp with surprise as their lips met.
Chapter 13
Alice felt the warmth of Benedict’s mouth against hers and her first response was shock and surprise. But as the shock melted away, the feelings that overtook her were much harder to give a name to.
Their mouths were pressed together, and his lips were dry and warm. She felt his arm encircling her waist, and pulling him closer to her. She felt herself beginning to yield to him, even though everything she had ever been taught was telling her that she should not. She should not be here alone with him, and she should not be allowing him to press his body against hers.
But as his soft mouth began to move against hers, gently at first, and then a little more powerfully, she allowed herself to succumb to the wonderful feeling. His tongue swept across her lips, and she felt every fiber of her being come to life, in response to his kiss.
