Chapter 10
Catherine sat by the fire, wrapped in linen, squeezing water from her hair. Her skin still hummed from Aaron’s touch, from what he'd done to her at the lake. But the warmth in her belly had curdled into something uncomfortable the moment Jeremy and Bella appeared on that path.
God, they'd seen everything. Or near enough.
Her cheeks burned. Not from shame at what she’d done—though perhaps there should have been some—but from the timing. She had been so lost in him, so utterly consumed, that she hadn’t heard them approach until it was too late.
A knock at the door made her start. She clutched the linen tighter. “Come in.”
Sally entered with a dinner tray, her usual cheerful smile in place. “Dinner, Your Grace. Shall I serve it on the table?”
“Am I not dining with the Duke?” Catherine tried to keep her voice light, but something in her chest tightened.
“I'm afraid His Grace has gone to dine in town with Lord Everdon, ma'am.”
Of course he had. He hadn’t spoken to her since they’d left the lake. Hadn’t even looked at her while she dressed. Silent all the way back to the house.
Had he taken what he wanted and decided he was finished?
It made her feel used. She pulled the linen tighter about herself.
“Just set the tray down by the hearth. I will eat while I dry myself by the fire.”
Sally smiled and set down the dinner, picking up some of the damp, discarded linen sheets after relieving herself of the tray.
“Were you swimming, Your Grace?” she asked.
“I was.”
“In the lake in the woods? His Grace goes there a lot, I’ve heard.”
“Yes,” Catherine thought about how she had stood and watched him swim before he was aware of her presence.
It had been a rare unguarded moment in which she could observe one of his rituals, his habits.
She had been thrilled at the insight she felt it gave her into Aaron’s character.
His spirit. A man who bathed daily in a lake in the middle of a wood.
That was no conventional gentleman. There was something wild about that.
“Do you know anything about the Duke’s past?” Catherine asked suddenly, thinking back to his scars.
“No, Your Grace. Very little. I came here not long after he gained the title. He was as he is now. I have heard of the scars in passing, from his valet, Jonathan.”
“Hmm. Has His Grace discussed those scars with his valet?”
“His Grace does not discuss anything with anyone, Your Grace,” Sally frowned.
Catherine thought back to the lake. To watching him emerge from the water like some pagan god, droplets sliding down that impossible body. Every detail was seared into her memory. The scars. The muscles. The birthmark on his upper arm—
Her breath caught.
The birthmark…
It had been on his right arm. The inside of his bicep. But in childhood, she vividly recalled tracing that mark with her finger during a summer game, and it had been on his left arm. She was certain of it!
Wasn’t she?
“Your Grace?” Sally was staring at her. “Are you quite well?”
Catherine realized she'd gone rigid, the bread frozen halfway to her mouth.
“I—yes. Just a headache. From all the exertion today.” She forced a smile. “That will be all, Sally.”
She sat alone for a long time after Sally left, staring into the flames. An uncomfortable feeling had been growing within her. The birthmark could mean nothing. Memory was fallible. Children noticed odd things, and she had indeed been very young.
But am I remembering correctly? Was it ever on his left arm? If it is no longer there, then I must have been wrong. My memory must be at fault.
An uncomfortable tension was tailoring into her shoulders.
Or perhaps I am remembering correctly. Perhaps they are all conspiring against me. Aaron, his friend. Even Bella, who appeared so suddenly and without being called for. But for what reason?
Another thought settled in her stomach like a stone just then. If the birthmark had moved—if it truly had been on his left arm in childhood—then the man Catherine had married wasn't Aaron Tarnley at all.
But that was mad. Wasn't it?
She pressed her fingers to her temples. The headache was real now, a dull throb that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. And beneath it, that familiar ache in her joints. The one that had plagued her at Haventon.
And he tells me that he gave me poppy juice. Accused my Aunt and Uncle of drugging me! A convenient lie to justify his attempting to do just that! But why? So that he can take advantage of me? Whatever does he aim to gain from that?
Suddenly resolved to action, she swept the linen from about her shoulders and stood, skin still damp.
She went to her bedchamber and withdrew her thick dressing robe from her wardrobe, swathing herself in it.
If Aaron was out of the house, dining at his club, perhaps, then there was an opportunity to obtain some answers for herself.
She went towards his private rooms, not knowing exactly where they were within the house.
I believe they are somewhere above the guest rooms, but where in this maze I do not know. Heavens, I ought to get my hand on that bizarre little map!
She could ask Sally, but did not trust that the maid would not report the question to Mr. McKay. Who would promptly refuse her any entry. No. She couldn’t trust Sally. Couldn’t trust anyone in this house.
The thought should have frightened her. Instead, it sharpened her resolve.
She pulled on her dressing gown tighter and stepped into the corridor. The house was quiet; the servants retired or occupied elsewhere. She climbed the main staircase, then a narrower one. The air grew mustier. Dust motes danced in the lamplight.
She tried doors at random. A linen closet. A servants’ room. Another narrow stair leading up.
With each empty room, her certainty grew.
He was hiding something. Something that required locked doors and dusty corridors and a house so large you could lose yourself in it.
This was all a plan by Aaron to have everything his own way.
To have Catherine as a wife of convenience in order to remain free himself.
But still be able to enjoy her body. Using poppy juice to weaken her resolve through it all.
He did not say how much he had given me. What effects on the mind does such a substance have? I must discover the secrets he is hiding!
That he was hiding secrets, she had no doubt. Something monumental and terrible.
She came to a double door with ornate brass handles and elaborate carvings on each panel.
The dust was thickest here. She tried the handles, which screeched gratingly into her ears.
Wincing, the heavy door opened, scraping across the floor as though the hinges had relaxed their hold.
Within was a large graveyard of furniture.
The windows bore no curtains, and pale moonlight spilled through in all its evening glory. Every inch of the room was taken up with shapes beneath dustcovers.
She peeked beneath a few. A chaise, a piano forte, a bookcase, a tea chest. She made a disgusted sound. This wasn’t Aaron’s private study but simply a storeroom, filled to the gunnels and abandoned.
She turned to leave—when something caught her eye. A portrait, leaning against the far wall.
The dust sheet had slipped, revealing two boys in formal dress. They had the same raven hair, the same strong jaw. One of them was undoubtedly Aaron. She recognized him immediately. She had known him when he was older, but she could see the foreshadowing of the older boy in the younger face.
Catherine found herself smiling at the somber countenance that gazed out of the painting.
“You always were so earnest, weren't you, Aaron?”
Her finger traced the younger boy’s face in the portrait. So serious, even then. But it was the other boy who held her attention now.
They were dressed identically, their hair painted the same pale gold.
The second boy was standing, his hand resting on Aaron’s shoulder in a gesture that seemed both protective and possessive.
The longer she studied them, the more similarities emerged.
The shape of their jaws. The set of their eyes.
A brother?
But Aaron had never mentioned a brother. Not once, in all their childhood summers together. Not once since she’d found him again.
A sudden bang made her fumble the portrait. It slipped from her hands, crashing to the floor before slamming with a thwack against the wall. The sound had come from beyond the doors and along the dusty hallway.
Catherine froze.
Another sound reached her. Heavy footsteps approaching, uneven and punctuated by thuds. As of someone colliding with walls. A low groan, then a laugh—bitter and mirthless.
Her pulse hammered now. She remembered Aaron telling her stories of Caerleon being haunted by his great-grandfather’s ghost. She’d accused him of scaring her cheaply back then. What if it was true?
She crept, silent on bare feet, to the doors and peered out.
Aaron was steadying himself with a hand against the wall, head down, hair hanging over his face. He gave a sudden laugh and muttered something inaudible.
I do believe he is drunk!
As his head slowly rose, she ducked back behind the door. When she heard him advance along the hallway, she skittered across the room, weaving around the shrouded furniture, then stooping behind something large enough to conceal her. She listened as he entered the room.
“There you are!”
Her heart stopped, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Who has broken you, eh? Was it me? On another drunken night? I can hardly be blamed, can I? We were never encouraged to be friends.”
Catherine froze, realizing that he was talking to someone or something else.
She heard the tinkling of glass and the creaking of wood.
Peering through a gap between the furniture that concealed her, she saw him lifting the picture that she had dropped moments ago.
She winced as broken glass fell across his arms.
He swiped it away as though brushing aside dust. She could almost feel the shards embedding themselves into his hands.
“I remember this being painted. By God, but that was a painful experience. Father was never satisfied. And I took the blame. Always. Did you ever do anything wrong?”
Suddenly, he spun and threw the broken frame across the room.
“Damn you! Damn you both!” he roared.
Shards of broken glass had showered across Catherine as the frame exploded against the wall. She cried out, covering her head and feeling the pieces settle on her skin.
Aaron heard.
Suddenly, the chair or sideboard, whatever it was that sheltered her, was wrenched aside. He towered before her, appearing vengeful and angry. Catherine cowered before him. A trickle of blood ran between the fingers of her left hand.
“You are spying on me!” he yelled.
Then his eyes fell on the blood, and his expression changed. He fell to his knees, wrenching his coat off his back, then his waistcoat.
“You’re hurt. God, I’m sorry,” he babbled, sounding like a lost little boy.
He took her hand, and Catherine fought every instinct that told her to snatch it back and run from this drunken madman. Peering closer, Aaron deftly picked the glass shard from her hand. He gently ran his fingers over her skin, searching for more.
“I think there was only one,” she said, softly, eyes never leaving his boyish face.
“But… but there is so much blood—”
“I think it is coming from you, Aaron,” she whispered.
His hands were leaving smears of blood on everything they touched, lacerated by the glass he had tried to wipe from his coat. Now he held them up to his face, frowning in confusion.
“I don’t remember doing that,” he mumbled.
“Let me,” Catherine coaxed.
She took his hands in hers and began performing the same examination that he had just done for her.
Each time she felt something sharp protruding from his skin, she extracted it as delicately as she could, squeezing the wound it left behind to force any remnants out with the fresh blood. He winced, watching her as she worked.
“I do not know if this is how it is done, but it makes sense,” Catherine said.
“Your hands are shaking,” Aaron murmured, his head close to hers.
“I am cold. I do not need any more medicine,” she declared abruptly.
She could smell brandy from Aaron’s breath and on his clothes. It clung to him like some mischievous imp.
He smiled placatingly. “It is withdrawal. Your body craves the poppy juice—”
“It is just the cold,” Catherine countered, throwing down his hands.
She stood, hugging herself against the shivering that vibrated through her. She felt a sheen of sweat on her forehead. How long since he had given her the poppy juice? How long did it take for the body to miss?
But Aunt and Uncle never gave me anything like that! Never! I mean, surely they could not hide it in the meagre rations I was given. This is nothing but a devious trap!
Aaron slumped back, closing his eyes.
“My head is spinning. I do not have the energy to argue the point. I believe that withdrawal can produce reactions in the mind as well as the body, but…” he waved his hand as though dismissing her.
“…Who are the two boys in the painting you destroyed?” Catherine asked after a breath.
Aaron opened his eyes, and she was surprised to see tears. He closed his lids, brows furrowing, and when he opened them again, the tears had disappeared. His face hardened once more, softened only a touch by the drink—but still stony.
“A ghost, no more,” he muttered with a cursory wave of the hand.
“You have not talked of your past after me, much.”
“Because I despised every moment!” Aaron snarled, eyes going wide, “my father wanted a Duke who would prove himself worthy. I was forced to fight for everything, and it still wasn’t enough!”
Catherine’s heart broke for him.
“You seemed so happy,” she whispered, “I had no idea.”
“It doesn’t matter. I won,” he sighed, “I won in the end.”
“Who is the second boy in the picture? He looks so like you.”
Her only answer was the soft sound of snoring. The brandy had overwhelmed him.