A Gothic Lesson in Love

by Curtis Bennett

  That evening, they finally committed to discussing their future. Not then, but soon.

  Later Irene and her aunt discussed what they felt was an awkward situation. Irene’s sudden dilemma; she was in love and no longer wanted to return to the states, at least not right away.

  Audrey advised her to find out Andrew’s intentions before she made any hard decisions about delaying her return home. Irene agreed.

  The two watched a variety show and ate freshly baked brownies before calling it a night.

  The early morning sun slanted across the landscape as Irene rode her scooter along the expansive countryside. The forecast called for temperatures in the low nineties. Dressed in an off-white colored denim skirt and matching blouse, she felt prepared for the weather prediction. It wasn’t long before she arrived at the Seabrook residence.

  As she dismounted, she noticed a dark van parked a short distance down from the property. It must have broken down from mechanical problems, was her fleeting thought.

  Walking passed the mailbox; she noticed the name change as well. It now read Seabrook.

  Entering the cottage minutes later she found Andrew in his study playing a popular jazz tune. She made her approach and quietly sat down next to him as he continued to play. The two traded smiles and a quick kiss. A minute later he ended the piece.

  “Good morning, Irene,” he said as he embraced her and kissed her. “What do you have there?” he asked referring to a small white pastry bag she was holding.

  A secret smile softened her mouth. She had purchased something special for him along the way.

  “Good morning, my love,” she replied with a bright smile as she handed the bag to him. “I decided to treat you to a favorite dessert of mine.”

  “What is it?” he asked, probing the contents of the bag.

  “It’s Tiramisu,” she said cheerfully.

  “Homemade or store bought?”

  “Store bought.”

  “What’s in it?” he asked, inspecting the piece he held.

  “It’s made with ladyfingers, mascarpone and espresso.”

  “I’ve heard of Mascarpone before,” he said, taking a bite of the dessert.

  “Yes, it’s Italian cream cheese,” Irene said matter-of-factly.

  “Umm, this tastes so delicious,” he sighed, chewing on the rich tasting delicacy.

  “I’m delighted you like it,” she said with a star-struck gaze.

  “I’m so honored,” he came back with a gentle smile.

  Irene’s face turned solemn just before saying, “I noticed the name change on the mailbox on my way in. I also noticed that all of the dark curtains have been removed from every window in the house. And I like it. Since I first spoke to you, I’ve looked forward to the day you’d come out of the shadows, but now that you have, I am very concerned. Aren’t you afraid you may be discovered?”

  “Yes, I changed everything right after you left yesterday evening,” he replied, taking another bite of the dessert. “And no, I’m no longer concerned about the past.”

  “But I still am.”

  “Irene, I just can no longer go on living in the shadows. Can’t you see that it’s you who have freed me? Besides, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Well, I admit, you have been a different person ever since I returned from Europe.”

  “Then it is settled,” he said standing up.

  The two walked over to the window overlooking the garden.

  “Andrew, when did you first realized that you were in love with me?”

  “When you showed up that evening looking like royalty,” he replied. “I was completely mesmerized by the way you carried yourself, and by the way you presented yourself, and by the way you expressed your thoughts. I knew that moment I could no longer go on living like a recluse. I also knew that I could no longer go forward without you in my life.”

  “I don’t know what to say Andrew,” she uttered softly, her girlish eyes glued to his.

  “Don’t say anything,” he advised her with a slight grin. “Since we’re on the subject, when did you realize you were falling in love with me?”

  “It was when I was over in Greece and France. I thought about you all of the time. Day and night and all in between,” she professed. “I went to sleep thinking about you and I woke up thinking about you. In between that, I daydreamed and thought about you some more. Then when I returned and I saw your photo in the magazine at the clinic –”

  “What photo? You saw my photo in an office magazine,” he said abruptly. “Where? When? How long ago?”

  “I cannot remember the name of the magazine but it featured you and another professor who went missing some years ago. It was about three weeks ago but the article was a couple of months old. Is there something wrong?”

  Andrew seemed shaken, unsure, she noticed.

  Pacing the floor he paused briefly.

  “Was the other man featured in the magazine Dr. Eugene Bellamy?”

  “Yes, that’s him. You know him, don’t you?”

  “Dr. Bellamy was a colleague and a very good friend of mine,” he quipped as he resumed his pacing. “I gather he made some inquiries about my sudden disappearance and eventually stumbled onto the scandal that sent me into this forced exile.”

  “You think he suffered a fate like yours?”

  “That or worse,” Andrew replied, walking over to his desk and leaning against the front of it, his arms crossed just below his chest while he contemplated his friend’s fate.

  Rising up from the piano stool, she walked over to him and placed her arms loosely around his neck, her eyes searching his. “We can only hope and pray for the best, Andrew.”

  “I imagine that’s all we can do,” he uttered above a whisper as he wrapped his arms around her diminutive waistline and pulled her closer to him, her fragrance mild but cinnamon sweet.

  Their lips touched, and parted. In the stillness of the moment, they shared a smile.

  “I do declare, you’re shivering,” he said in disbelief.

  “I’m all right,” she cooed, her eyes misty. “Just hold me, darling. Hold me close.”

  Chapter 17

  It was settled. Irene would return to Virginia Beach and Andrew would follow a month later. This allowed him ample time to take care of his personal affairs and put the property up for sale. And it allowed her time to deal with her family and the suddenness of her engagement. Once in America, the two would have a private ‘by invitation only’ wedding. It was important to Irene that her family be involved in her wedding in some way. She just did not know in what way. There was much work to be done, much planning, and so little time. It wasn’t going to be easy holding an interracial wedding below the Mason-Dixon line but they both decided that she should wed in her hometown before they moved up to Vermont to live. Andrew had a good friend who lived there.

  Andrew felt liberated. Irene felt alive and bubbly and so much, they both felt like celebrating. Putting on another romantic record, they held each other by the hand and at the waist, and danced in wide circular patterns. When the ballad was over Irene shook herself.

  “Why did you do that?” he chuckled with a raised eyebrow.

  “I had to shake myself to see if all of this was truly real or was just some wonderful dream I was having, one I would sadly awaken from,” she explained.

  The two sat down, her shapely form propped on top of his lap, her head pressed gently against his, his muscular arms clasped around her protectively.

  “I love you, my dear and handsome enchanter,” she said, pursing her lips and kissing him.

  “I love you even more, my lovely enchantress,” he replied blowing gently into her ear.

  “That feels so good,” she sighed.

  “It was meant to,” he replied.

  The two held onto to one another like there was no tomorrow.

  “So, you have no relatives who can make the wedding,” she said later, stroking his neck and earlobe with her fingers.

 
“My father was killed in a rebellion in Liberia when I was seven years old. My mother, who was white and British, died in a car accident two years after my father’s death. I am an only child and after my mother passed I was raised by my uncle, the one who willed me this property.

  “I have no cousins that I know of. My father was an only child and my mother only had the one brother. He had a child and heir who died from cancer at the age of twenty-three.”

  “How tragic your history sounds,” Irene said planting a kiss on his cheek and then on his neck.

  “I have a photo of my parents, if you care to see them,” he said gazing into her chestnut brown eyes.

  “I would love to see them,” she replied. The joy was bubbling up inside her again.

  “I’ll go upstairs and get it,” he said, standing up. “It’s on the table in my bedroom by the window. “It won’t take long, lass. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t keep me waiting too long, professor. Someone might claim me as theirs while you’re gone.”

  “I’m not worried about that, not at all star pupil,” he smiled, pausing long enough to say, “Remember this always, no man will ever love you as much as I love you.”

  With that exchange, he blew her a kiss, then took off.

  Leaning back in the chair, she listened as he went up the stairs and into his room. It would not be long before her Romeo returned to his Juliet, she told herself. It would not be long before she was back in his loving embrace.

  She did not make much of it at first, the sound of shattering glass. It would not be the first time someone dropped something and broke it. But the eerie silence that followed told her that something was amidst.

  Rising up, she trotted over to the staircase. Once there she called out his name and asked if everything was all right. Silence was what she got back in response. At that very moment she got that sinking feeling and it was one of dread.

  Charging up the stairs, she rounded the corner and entered his room. There he lay on his back, broken glass from the window scattered all about him, the color red percolating from his chest area.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried, as she rushed to his side. He was semi-conscious. “You’ve been shot.”

  “I’ll-be-fine,” he said laboriously, his breathing erratic.

  “Please, baby, don’t try to speak,” she urged him, looking about the room for clean linen. She found some in the chest at the foot of his bed. Going into nurse mode, she opened his shirt, and somehow managed to get it off of him. She wrapped the linen around his massive chest, lifting him up just long enough to pass it under him. Stopping the bleeding was paramount. She knew this from her intensive medical training.

  Next, she located the phone in his room and called the operator who dispatched the police.

  Returning to him she sat down and cradled his head on her lap and waited for the cavalry to arrive. Few things could have prepared her for this moment but she was thankful she was able to assist him in some way. Who would want to harm her Prince Charming, she thought over and over again?

  As she waited, she stroked his hair and talked to him, telling him that everything was going to be all right. She tried her best to keep him from losing consciousness.

  It wasn’t long before she heard the sound of sirens. The cavalry had arrived and inside of fifteen minutes and enforce. An ambulance pulled onto the property a few minutes later.

  While the medics tended to Andrew, the lead investigator questioned her. He wanted to know everything and wanted her to account for everything, including her relationship with him. She was relieved to be able to tell them that Andrew was her fiancé. It sounded more official, and statelier, than the whimsical and less respected term boyfriend. When she was asked about Andrew’s identity, and she gave it, his incredulous response was, “This is Andrew Maurice Seabrook, the professor who has been missing for nearly ten years? By George!”

  Irene confirmed it with a nodding of her head.

  Andrew had already been rushed to the hospital when Audrey arrived. She found her niece sitting quietly in a stupor daze. The two hugged and cried in each other’s arms.

  “It’s all my fault, auntie,” she sobbed. “I should have never allowed him to fall in love with me.”

  “Now you hold it right there, young lady,” Audrey said, gripping her niece firmly by the shoulders. “This is not your fault. This is not his fault. Do you understand me? So don’t go blaming yourself or him. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  Irene nodded as a bucketful of tears left a wet trail on her face.

  More softly-spoken, Audrey said, “Are you ready to go to the hospital?”

  “Yes, I’m ready,” she said, choked up.

  “Old man Dempsey is waiting for us in his truck,” Audrey said, dabbing at her eyes. “We have better get going.”

  Given the okay by the inspector, the two departed.

  As old man Dempsey drove off, Irene took note that the dark colored Volkswagen van that she had first noticed when she arrived was gone. She wondered if there was a connection to any would be assassin. At this juncture, she could rule nothing out. If only she had mentioned this van to Andrew she told herself in hindsight, there might have been a different outcome.

  Andrew was in surgery for over two hours. There was damage to one lung and acute internal bleeding. The doctors gave him a 50-50 chance of recovering. They would be more certain over the next forty-eight hours, Irene was told. He had been shot by a high-powered rifle and that added to the severity of the injuries.

  Unsure if he might take a turn for the worst, she and her aunt camped out in the waiting room that night. They were offered complimentary coffee and freshly bake coffee cake. They also tossed in two complimentary pillows and blankets. A visiting priest spoke to the two women and prayed with them.

  That morning they ate breakfast in the cafeteria. Irene did not have much of an appetite but she managed to eat most of her scrambled eggs and toasted bagel with cream cheese. Though exhausted and nerve-wrecked, she was buoyed by the fact that she was going to get the chance to visit him after breakfast. He was still in intensive care but because of his dire circumstance, she had been given the green light to visit with him.

  He was conscious when she went in to see him in his sterile environment. The life-support equipment prevented him from speaking but he could nod his head and squeeze her hand. She told him how much she loved him and would be there for him. She told him that her aunt, and even her mother and younger sister Margo, were praying for his speedy recovery. Though his grip on her hand was weak, he signaled that he understood.

  An attending nurse poked her head inside the room and informed Irene she had two minutes left to talk to him. Leaning over him, she kissed his forehead and told him how much she loved him and needed him to get well. She put on a brave face and smiled, saying that everything was going to be all right. Andrew squeezed her hand as if to say he agreed.

  Slowly backing out of the room, she waved and blew him a kiss. He blinked twice then gazed at her lovely face as though he was memorizing every detail of it. Once outside of the room and out of his line of sight, she collapsed in her aunt’s waiting arms and sobbed.

  For two days straight she loitered around the intensive care unit, waiting for an opportunity, any opportunity, to visit with him. Five to ten minute sessions with him was her usual constellation prize for her lofty efforts. But she gladly took them whenever they presented themselves She wasn’t in a position to have it any other way.

  Though he was not out of the woods yet, they were talking about the possibility of transferring him out of the IC Unit in another day or two. This was the best news Irene had received since this whole nightmare began three days earlier. She felt so good; she spent the entire night at her aunt’s place and for the first time since this tragedy occurred.

  Waiting for her in the refrigerator was a rich slice of New York-styled cheesecake with cherries on top, her favorite.

  Rising early the following morni
ng she rode her scooter over to the hospital, skipping breakfast. Her prayers had been answered. Andrew was no longer in the IC Unit. Once she obtained the new room number, she hurried over there but discovered that someone else had claimed an audience with him before her arrival. It was Inspector Josh Hogan, a tall burly man in his late forties. He had salt and pepper hair and steely blue eyes. He was a twenty year veteran. He was one of the oldest on the force.

  He greeted Irene the moment he saw her in the passageway after his interview with Andrew. He immediately asked her if they could talk in private. Though anxious to see Andrew, she felt she had little choice but to make herself available to the inspector.

  “Your fiancé either knows who tried to kill him or he knows who is behind this attempt,” the inspector began. The man was slightly older but a dead ringer for Basil Rathbone, one of the more popular actors to portray the fictitious British detective known famous around the world as Sherlock Holmes. “The odd thing, my lady, is that he won’t talk about it, at least not to us. Now listen to me and carefully, someone wants to kill your fiancé. And they may not stop until they bury him for good. So, if you truly care about this man, get him to speak to us, and soon, lass. Good day, Miss Porter.”

  Irene stood in place collecting her thoughts before coming to life again and making a mad dash into Andrew’s room.

  She hugged him but carefully.

  “I missed having you in my arms something terribly,” he said, his eyes moist, his heart heavy, his voice weak.

  “And I missed you as well, especially hearing your deep and sensuous voice,” she said fighting back the tears. “Did I ever tell you that you have the sexiest voice I’ve ever heard in person or over the phone?”

  Andrew managed a smile.

  “So, how do you feel, darling?”