What if I Fall: The Pocket Watch Chronicles Page 7

  He smiled at her. “I suppose I have a bit to learn. But come to think of it, I don’t have the requisite knowledge to travel alone in this century. You are the only person here who knows my situation. I need your help.”

  “Oh, Benedict, I’m sorry. I’d forgotten that. Of course I’ll help you.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind. Now, I must ask one last favor. Would you mind terribly helping me pack? All of the clothing is so strange, I’m not sure I can figure out what is Benjamin’s and what isn’t.”

  Glad for something to do, Sara answered, “Of course, I don’t mind. I’ll see if I can find his luggage.” She went into the bedroom and looked under the bed. That’s where she had stowed her suitcase in her cabin, but there was nothing there. She opened the door to what she assumed was a standard wardrobe. It turned out to be a rather large walk-in closet and Benjamin’s bag was on a shelf there.

  “Here’s his…uh, that is to say, your bag.” She laid it on the bed and opened it before returning to the closet and removing all of the hangers holding Benjamin’s clothes. She laid them on the bed beside the suitcase. “Here, take this stuff off the hangers and pack it. I’ll look in the drawers and bathroom.”

  She found two drawers containing socks, boxers, and tee-shirts which she also piled on the bed. In the bathroom, she found a leather shaving kit and put all of the toiletries that appeared to be his into it.

  When she returned, Benedict nearly had all the clothing packed.

  He looked up. “Is that it?”

  “I just have to get his shoes.”

  Benedict looked down. “I’m wearing shoes.”

  She laughed. “But he’ll have several other pairs.” She returned to the closet and found a pair of dress shoes, running shoes, and hiking sandals. After putting them in the bag, she did a mental run through of everything in her room. She frowned when she realized she had put her wallet and passport in the safe and she was fairly certain Benjamin would have done that as well.

  “Do you have anything in your pockets?”

  Benedict felt them, then pulled the pocket watch out of one and the plastic cruise card that served as ID key and currency on board the ship out of another. “Just these.”

  Sara frowned. “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “All of the cabins on this ship have safes in which guests store valuables. I suspect Benjamin’s wallet and passport are locked in his. You’ll need them, but we don’t know the combination.”

  “Combination?”

  “Yeah. I’ll show you.” She found the cabinet containing the safe. “When you put something in the safe, you enter a four-digit number using these buttons.” She pointed to the key pad. “Then the safe locks and to unlock it, you have to put in the same four digits again. But clearly, you won’t remember the number he used.”

  Benedict canted his head. “What year was he born?”

  “He’s the same age as Mark, so, 1976 I guess.”

  “Try that.”

  “Really?”

  Benedict shrugged. “It can’t hurt to try.”

  She did and to her surprise it worked. She removed Benjamin’s wallet and passport. “How did you know that?”

  “I’m not sure. But the moment you said four-digit number, I thought of the year I was born.”

  “And when was that?”

  He grinned. “1730.”

  “Amazing. I still can’t believe the pocket watch worked. I should put that as the code to flummox Daphne, but I won’t.” She set the safe again using 1976. “We can go now. I suspect Mark hasn’t started packing his things yet, but it will be faster if I do it anyway.”

  As they left the cabin Benedict said, “Speaking of Mark, what does bros before hoes mean?”

  “Brothers before whores. It’s a crass way for a guy to say he values his male friends over girlfriends.”

  He scowled, looking very much like the old Benjamin. “He called you a whore? I think I will kill him.”

  Chapter 6

  Benedict’s first few hours as Benjamin Talbot had been extraordinary. He’d expected to see and experience remarkable things just as Gertrude had said he would. But he could never have imagined what truly lay in store. He hadn’t quite understood what Gertrude meant when she said he’d be “on holiday” on board a ship. It was very common for wealthy young men to take two to three years visiting the major cities in Europe after completing their formal education. They called it ‘The Grand Tour’ and Venice was a popular destination.

  However, the destination was goal, not the time spent travelling. Benedict couldn’t imagine choosing to spend any significant amount of time in cramped quarters at sea. But it didn’t take him long to understand the appeal of taking a “cruise” as these twenty-first century people called it. The ship on which he found himself was unbelievable. Huge didn’t begin to describe it—it was the size of a small town. It had multiple eating establishments and bars, hundreds of cabins which housed thousands of people; there were even pools of water for swimming and recreation areas where children played.

  Benjamin Talbot’s cabin was high above the water level and extremely large. It had a sitting room, bedroom, bathroom, and an outdoor balcony. He knew fishermen on the Lido whose homes weren’t as spacious.

  He’d agreed to stay with Sara, believing her cabin was similar. He could sleep on the couch in the sitting room, giving Sara the bedroom. However, when he’d entered her cabin, he’d been dismayed to see that it was only one room. There was a sitting room, but nothing separated it from the bed.

  “Sara, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there’d be no separate sleeping areas. I can’t stay with you here. I don’t wish to damage your reputation. I’ll find somewhere else.”

  “There is no place else. Remember that’s what I was trying to arrange when I ran into Benjamin.”

  “I’ll find a place. I can sleep on the deck if I must.”

  Sara smiled. “Even though there are lounge chairs on the deck, sleeping all night in one would be…frowned upon. Although, truthfully I’d considered it myself.”

  “Well, I’ll find something.”

  “Nonsense. We’ll have the cabin attendant split the bed.” She pulled the covers off the end of the bed. “See? It’s actually two small beds pushed together.”

  “But your reputation…”

  “You needn’t worry about it. A lot has changed. Men and women—well, social mores have relaxed quite a bit. After all, I was staying in this cabin with Mark and we aren’t married.” She frowned. “I mean, I thought he might propose to me, but that’s water under the bridge.”

  “I’m sorry he hurt you, Sara.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll get over it. Really, I’ll be fine. And I want you to stay here with me.”

  You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely certain. We’ll only be here one night anyway.”

  “Then thank you. I’m grateful.”

  “Besides, that gives us some time together to bring you up to speed on life in the twenty-first century.”

  So after sorting things out with guest services, regarding who was staying where, they spent hours talking. He found himself very attracted to Sara. Gertrude had said, “She’s a kind lass with a good heart,” and she certainly was that. But she was also smart, funny, and quite lovely.

  At one point in the afternoon, Sara explained air travel to him. At his look of incredulity, she added, “Don’t worry about anything. It really is very safe. I’ll take care of all our arrangements when we get to Corfu tomorrow.”

  “Is it really possible to travel all the way from Greece to America in one day?”

  “It’s possible, but it might take us two because we’re doing this at the last minute. We’ll fly first to one of the major cities in Europe—perhaps Athens or Venice. But there’s a good chance that we might not be able to get an onward flight home tomorrow. If that happens, we’ll just spend a night in an airport hotel and take the earliest flight we can the
next day.”

  “Things go very fast in this century.”

  Sara nodded. “Yes, they do. Too fast sometimes.”

  “All of this has me a bit worried about something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I appreciate everything you’re teaching me, but there is so much to learn. It isn’t possible to become Benjamin Talbot overnight. How am I going to explain what’s happened to Benjamin’s memory? I thought perhaps if we had some time together before returning to America, I could learn enough about him to get by. But that won’t happen in a day or two.”

  She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. You do want to stay then? The full sixty days?”

  “Yes. I want to see and experience all I can. That’s why I accepted the pocket watch.”

  “Then, I guess we’ll have to stage some sort of accident after which you can claim to have amnesia. But I’m not sure how best to do that. Let me think about it for a while.”

  ~ * ~

  Mark Holland sat on the couch in the spacious sitting room of the Admiral’s suite, his head in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other as Daphne stormed around the room spouting obscenities.

  “This is total shit, Mark. Total effing shit. Do you know what he did? Do you?” She didn’t give him the chance to respond. “The son-of-a-bitch took his credit card off of this room account.”

  “I know, Daphne. I put my card on it. You’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “He’s my boyfriend. He brought me not that simpering, know-it-all bitch.”

  “Really? He’s your boyfriend? You’re going to go there with me?”

  “Well, he is my boyfriend. At least as far as everyone else is concerned. Now all the plans you and I made are shot to hell.”

  “And you only have yourself to blame.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Mark shook his head. “It’s bad when you start believing your own lies. You know good and well that you orchestrated this whole business.”

  “You were the one who wanted to go on a cruise.”

  “No, Sara wanted to and I needed to keep her happy. You were the one who insisted on you and Benjamin coming too.”

  “That was for us, Mark. You and me. It was a chance to spend some more time together, right under their noses.”

  “It was an insane risk to take. We had a system at home that worked. Mondays and Thursdays. I always work late those nights and am too tired to see Sara. She never questioned it. And on the rare occasion that Benjamin wanted to see you during the week, you made whatever excuse worked at the time or you bailed on me. We could have gone on for ages like that. Intending to sneak off while we were all on vacation together was a stupid plan.”

  “It was not a stupid plan. I knew Benjamin would spend hours in the casino. Your only job was to get rid of Sara for a little while here and there, but you couldn’t manage to do that right. Now we have to control the damage or everything will be ruined.”

  “Everything is ruined already, Daphne.”

  “No, it isn’t. We can fix this. I just need to get Benjamin alone. I can convince him Sara was lying.” She glared and pointed at him. “You back me up on that. As soon as he calms down, he’ll listen to you. You’re his best friend. Then I’ll swoop in and remind him how much I love him. I’ll let him do all the kinky things he likes and he’ll get over this.”

  “God, Daphne, I don’t need to hear that.”

  She took the drink from his hand, downed it, and then straddled his lap, pushing her pelvis against his. “Don’t be like that, baby. You know this is for us. Everything I do with him is for us. Just like you work Sara for the same reason. It’s the long con.”

  “It’s not worth it. I’m comfortably wealthy as it is.”

  “Yeah, you have millions but he has billions. I just need to convince him to marry me, and in a couple of years, I’ll take one small part of one of those many billions in a divorce settlement. Fifty million is nothing to him. Meanwhile, you marry Miss Priss and charm her out of her fortune before you divorce her.”

  “Sara doesn’t have anywhere close to what you or I have already. I’ve never quite understood why you’re so set on taking it.”

  “Because it’s there, begging to be taken. Besides, you were already dating her when we all reconnected. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. I’d work Benjamin for a few years and you’d do the same with her. Benjamin never suspected a thing and neither did dewy-eyed dumb Sara. You know that was the plan. We’d both make millions the old-fashioned way—by divorcing rich spouses—and we’re set for life. We’d never have to work again.”

  “We wouldn’t have to work anyway, but I like being involved in Holland Imports. I enjoy what I do.”

  “You have no vision, Mark. Why settle for less than everything?” She took his face in her hands while grinding her pelvis against him. She kissed him, the taste of bourbon strong on her tongue. Normally he’d be rock hard by now, but today it did nothing for him. Daphne had always been fun and forbidden. When she’d come back into their lives, she’d wanted Mark, not Benjamin. Then she came up with this scheme which required her to pretend she was Benjamin’s. That didn’t sit well with Mark at first, until he realized he had already won something Benjamin wanted. If anything, that made Mark love screwing around with her even more. Now he wondered if he’d only been interested in her because she was Benjamin’s. Benjamin had always been able to have anyone and anything he wanted. Even when they were teenagers, Benjamin was all about the conquest. He set his sights on girls simply to prove he could win their attention, even if it meant luring them away from a friend.

  Mark had no trouble attracting the attention of girls either, and there were always plenty around who, if they couldn’t attract Ben or ceased being the flavor of the month, were more than happy to date Mark. As a result, he only dated girls Benjamin had taken a pass on. The side benefit was that he never worried about Benjamin stealing one of his girlfriends. Benjamin had already had them, or turned them down. The fact that Mark never tried to compete with Ben was probably why they remained friends.

  Sara had been the exception to that rule. Mark met her first and Benjamin was dating someone else at the time. Still, Mark knew she wasn’t really Benjamin’s type. Benjamin went for tall, slender, leggy blondes with big boobs and blue eyes. Sara was petite, only about five-foot-four, and she had soft curves. Simply put, less boob and more hips than Benjamin liked. Not to mention the fact that she was a brunette with brown eyes. She also lacked the cool sophistication of his sleek blondes. Her unruly curls spilled over her shoulders, giving her an adorably tousled look most of the time. But the thing that assured Benjamin wouldn’t give her a second look was her sweet, romantic nature. He had no time for it.

  However, always playing the sidekick and taking leftovers did rankle after a while. That was another reason why sneaking around with Daphne was such a guilty pleasure. For once, there were two women, both of whom were more interested in Mark than Benjamin. So when Daphne showed up and planted the seed in his head about conning Benjamin, Mark liked the idea of not only stealing Benjamin’s girl, but taking a nice chunk of his money, too.

  Now Mark sat here having essentially taken Benjamin’s girlfriend from him, something he never thought possible. But he hadn’t derived as much pleasure from it as he’d expected to. What’s more, it appeared that Benjamin had taken Sara from him and Mark was beginning to think Benjamin might have gotten the better deal.

  God damn it. He wanted Sara back. And that meant helping Daphne win Benjamin back. He pushed Daphne away, breaking the kiss. “You’re right, Ducky. We need to do whatever it takes for Benjamin to take you back.”

  “Don’t call me Ducky,” she hissed.

  Mark knew she didn’t like the old nickname she’d acquired in school. She always maintained that it had been a play on Daffy Duck—Daphne Ducky—but like most school nicknames
, it had a much crueler origin. She had a slightly prominent nose to start with. When she broke it in her freshman year playing field hockey, it only made things worse. The other girls started calling her ducky. That summer she’d had surgery to repair it and returned to school in the fall with a perfect, and significantly reduced, nose. But the name stuck.

  “Awe come on, Ducks, it’s cute.”

  “It isn’t cute.”

  “Sure it is.” He leaned forward, pulled her groin hard against his own, and nuzzled behind her ear until she purred. Then he whispered, “Nothing fucks like Daphne Ducks.”

  “Stop it.” She shoved against his chest, pushing off his lap. “I mean it.”

  He laughed and put his hands up. “Okay, okay, I was just trying to lighten the mood a little, but I’ll stop. Now how do you suggest we go about this?”

  ~ * ~

  Sara sat on her stateroom balcony watching Benedict, who stood staring out at the open water. At this moment, with his face set in a stern expression, it was hard to believe he wasn’t rich obnoxious Benjamin Talbot. But he wasn’t. He’d turned out to be a compassionate, thoughtful eighteenth-century shipbuilder.

  As Sara had predicted, Mark hadn’t gone immediately to collect his things. Benjamin helped her pack them. When Mark arrived, after having consumed several drinks, it had been clear he’d intended to wheedle his way back into Sara’s good graces.

  That wasn’t happening.

  If she had been alone, it would have been much harder to turn him away. As it was, Benedict wouldn’t let him cross the threshold. He shoved Mark’s suitcase at him in a very Benjamin-like manner, and shut the door.

  After that, she and Benedict went to guest services—he experienced his first elevator ride on the way—and they made the necessary changes to ensure Mark no longer had access to her cabin and Daphne no longer had access to Benjamin’s credit card.

  Not wishing to run into either Mark or Daphne, Sara had ordered room service for lunch. Then she’d spent the rest of the day giving Benedict a crash course on life in the twenty-first century. She was able to pull up pictures and videos on her laptop to show him everything from airplanes and automobiles to how modern plumbing worked.