11 True love stories are worth remembering
11
True love stories are worth remembering
Isabella
I’m in shock. I’m simply stunned by what I’ve just discovered.
Benjamin told the truth – the portrait in the gallery leaves no doubt.
He is Benjamin Gerard Waldorf, the fifteenth Duke of Waldorf. He is truly a duke from the past.
How on earth can this be real?
After we leave the museum, we walk to the park opposite the Royal Crescent. Benjamin basically places me on the first empty bench. I can hardly think.
He doesn’t say anything, the gentleman that he is – because he is one! I take a deep breath, wondering what to say. Where to start.
“Tell me everything.” I turn to him. “I want to know everything.”
Benjamin smiles slightly. “I’ve already told you everything. Almost, I think.”
“Tell me again. Please.”
He nods, his eyes riveted on mine. “Bella, are you well?” Benjamin takes my trembling hand.
I’m moved by his concern. My God in heaven, the man came from the past; he’s lost in a strange world; and he’s worried about me .
“I am. Scared, of course, but I am. My priority now is you.”
“Not at all.” He shakes his head. “I worry about you too.”
“Don’t. I’m fine,” I say again. “Tell me how everything happened from the beginning. I want to try to understand.”
Benjamin lets go of my hand and begins. He tells me that he was in his study one afternoon in 1817. He wanted to disappear and found the antique cameo. He tells me about the moment when his grandmother, many years ago, gave him the locket, which had previously belonged to her husband, who had it made after a trip to the Mediterranean at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Benjamin also remembers the ray of light that came from the little pink stone at the neck of the cameo silhouette, then he woke up in hospital, two hundred years later, after I ran over him on Tower Bridge.
“OK,” I say, “some things in this story seem suspicious.”
“Yes. The desire, the cameo. That’s what I tried to do today in the museum. I went to the study and wished I was back. I rubbed the stone like I did that afternoon.”
“It didn’t work?”
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” he replies in a gentle tone.
Of course, it didn’t work, Isabella . I take a deep breath, thinking.
“How strange… from everything you’ve told me, it should have worked.”
Benjamin lifts his shoulders gently. “It didn’t work.”
“Have you discovered anything else?”
He clenches his jaw at the question. “As I suspected, Gustave inherited the title. There is no other after him, nor have I found any information about Abigail.” Benjamin rubs his eyes. “I need to know what happened to her, Bella. If that bastard abandoned her, I don’t… I need to go back.”
The frustration in his voice is palpable. There’s pain there too. Without thinking, I pull him into a hug in an attempt to comfort him. Benjamin is surprised at first but then plunges his face into the crook of my neck. I stay there, wrapping my arms around him for a few minutes, smelling the woody, masculine scent. I wonder if this is the scent we usually describe in novels as sandalwood notes.
As we lean away, he meets my gaze.
“What was that for?”
“I don’t know, but I want you to know that I believe in you and that you’re not alone. We’ll find a way for you to go back and look after Abigail.”
“How, Bella?”
“I have no idea, but we will. We’ll research the subject, watch films, series about time travel. Something will give us an idea about how to do it.”
Benjamin doesn’t reply. But then again, what can he do apart from agree? I put myself in his shoes, imagining myself somewhere in the past or future. It would be awful to be away from my family, from my father, who, like Abigail, only has me.
My heart squeezes just thinking about it.
“I must confess that I’m relieved that you believe me,” Benjamin breaks the silence. “Not that you’ve done anything that bothers me, but now I won’t feel like a madman.”
“You understand why I didn’t believe you, don’t you?” I ask. I feel bad now for having doubted him.
“Of course I do. It’s insane.”
“Yes, but we’ll manage.”
Benjamin moistens his lips, scratching his unshaven beard.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“What if there’s no way?” he practically whispers. “What if it’s brought me this far, but I can’t get back? What if the past is already written in stone and my cousin really has taken the title and Abigail has suffered her fate, whatever it may be? What if I have to stay here, Bella?”
I slide along the bench, practically gluing myself to him, and stroke his cheek.
“Then you won’t be alone,” I say. “I won’t leave you alone, Benjamin. Not ever.”
Benjamin puts his hand over mine and presses our foreheads together. He closes his eyes, and I follow him, our breath mingling. My heart feels like it wants to burst out of my mouth, but I don’t move. I just hope he believes me.
When, a few moments later, Benjamin pulls away a little and opens his eyes, I know he does.
“Thank you. Even amidst this disaster, I’m very grateful to have found you.”
Me too. He has no idea how much.
We’re still in the moment when a loud laugh a few metres away brings us out of our reverie. Benjamin straightens up on the bench, and so do I, noticing the small metal plaque screwed to the iron backrest as I do so. I read the inscription in cursive letters: Mel and Jack: Two souls who met and lived a long life full of love .
“How beautiful…”
“Why is this sign here?” Benjamin asks me.
“Oh, that’s normal; there are lots of them in London. Couples, families, single people… I think it’s beautiful; it’s like an eternalised moment. True love stories deserve to be remembered.”
Benjamin lifts the corner of his lips. “You’re right. It’s very romantic.” He keeps looking at the sign.
“Jack… could it have been your friend?” I ask, trying to distract him. “It’s not impossible, after all, we know he ran the newspaper here in Bath.”
Benjamin laughs out loud. “Never. I understand the coincidence, but Jack Spencer would never get married. A romantic plaque, then, is unthinkable.”
“Why is that? People do fall in love!”
“Not Spencer.” Benjamin drops his body on the bench. “The man was a rake, the worst kind. To give you an idea, in the same period that I opened the newspaper, he opened an underground boxing ring in London. Believe me, this plaque belonged to someone else.”
If he says it, there’s no reason to doubt it, although my writer’s mind has already imagined Jack Spencer as one of the brutal deviants who end up surrendering to some powerful woman.
“What about you, Ben?”
“What about me?”
“Were you thinking of getting married before you disappeared?”
I don’t know why I’m asking. Perhaps, now that I’ve discovered that Benjamin really is a lord, I want to know everything about him.
Ben runs a hand through his hair, still silent.
“I don’t mean to be nosy, but it was expected of someone in your position, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. As a duke, I was supposed to produce heirs, build a family. Only…” He sighs. “I knew I’d have to do that at some point, but not now. I mean, not when I disappeared. My priorities were really Abigail, the newspaper, the Parliament.”
“Did you expect to fall in love?”
Benjamin meets my gaze. “Not exactly. Of course, it would be better to feel affection for my wife, but the objectives were more practical than that.” Before I can ask, he adds: “But I’ve fallen in love before. I think I have.”
“Really? With whom?”
The image of Benjamin in love is bittersweet. I can’t imagine him with another woman. On the other hand, I can only think that this man in love must be such a perfect prince.
“She was a lover I had for two years. When I realised I felt something stronger, I ended what we had. It was selfish; I thought only of myself, of preserving myself. And anything between us would be impossible, so…”
“Hmm, like Anthony Bridgerton in the series.”
“What?” Benjamin doesn’t understand my whisper.
“Nothing, it’s a character from a show. I’ll show it to you later. We can watch it together.”
He laughs softly. “What about you? Have you ever been in love?”
Oh, if only he knew. The first thing I think about is closing down this conversation. However, now that I know everything about this man, I don’t think it’s fair to hide anything from him, no matter how much I dislike reliving my failed love life.
“I was in love with a guy from my town. We dated for a while; I thought I was going to marry him. He was my only real boyfriend; before that, I only had a few flings.”
Benjamin’s eyes are fixed on me. “Why does this seem like a story of a broken heart?”
“Because it is.” I smile sadly at him. “For me, at least. Matheus has found someone else. He seems happier with her, I have to admit.”
“I can’t imagine how anyone could not be happy by your side, Bella.”
The words enter my ears and go straight to my heart.
“Thank you, Ben. I don’t blame him for breaking things off. That wasn’t the problem. I think I just… waited too long. I trusted too much; I accepted less than I deserved. Cinthia always tells me that I’m an incurable romantic, but I think that’s prevented me from seeing certain things. If I’d known that we were so much less than I thought, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time.”
“Didn’t your disappointment change your convictions about love?”
I shake my head. “No, of course not. Just because something has gone wrong with a relationship, doesn’t mean love stops being real. I believe in love with all my broken heart. And I’ll keep believing, even if I don’t find someone to love. I just don’t want to live an illusion.”
“If a man refuses to love you, Bella, it’s his problem. Never yours, miss, please don’t think otherwise.”
My heart flutters like the wings of a hummingbird. Many people have said similar words to me since we broke up. My family, friends, Cinthia. I never believed them; I thought they were telling me to make me feel better.
But Benjamin… I believe in him. I believe with all my being. If he treats me well like this… there’s nothing to stop me from finding another man who does too.
“Well, let’s see what happens.” I push my hair out of my face. “For now, I’ll just be happy to get back to writing. I’ve been in a terrible creative block since everything happened. But since we met, I’ve had lots of ideas. I’ve written them all down; my notebook is full.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“A year and a half, a bit more. Whenever I try to write, to put ideas into words, it’s a mess. Everything has been, really. You don’t always have to be travelling through time to feel lost.”
Because if I think about it, there’s no better word to define me than lost. My life is quiet, with no major drama. I graduated from university; I had a job that made me happy; I was in a relationship; and I wanted to get married. Suddenly, my plans for the future collapsed. I made a radical decision, used up my savings, left the country, and started living one day at a time. I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow; I don’t have a long-term plan. Yes, I think “lost” explains my situation well.
“I know.” Benjamin agrees. “I’ve been feeling lost ever since Barney left. Believe me.”
I believe it, and I honestly hope that he finds himself, no matter what.
“That’s why I decided to come to London,” I continue. “I used all the money I was saving for the wedding to pay for the trip.”
“Were you engaged?”
“No, I just thought we’d be.” I shrug. “My romantic side couldn’t resist imagining it,” I joke.
Benjamin and I remain silent. I’ve talked too much about my past relationship; I don’t want to think about it anymore. However, I realise that telling Ben everything that happened is different from the other times I’ve done it. It seems that… the whole story of the break-up no longer causes me pain. I feel unexpectedly indifferent.
“What do you want to do now?” I look at the phone screen. “The train leaves in two hours. We’ve got time.”
Benjamin straightens his posture, placing his hand on the back of his neck. “I have no idea. What do you have in mind?”
“Why don’t you give me a tour à la Benjamin?”
He laughs, with his perfect white teeth. “Tour à la Benjamin?”
“Yes, show me the city through your eyes, from the perspective of the 1800s.”
He seems to like the idea because he smiles and stands up, holding out his hand to me. “I think it’s perfect. Will you do me the honour, Miss Isabella?”
I accept the gesture. “It would be a pleasure, Your Grace.”