Chapter 13 #2
“It should be—you are their employer and their protector. Once upon a time, they would have been serfs, owing service to you in exchange for your protection as their feudal lord. Now we call it being in service, but it is not much different.”
Aaron propped his chin on his fist, watching her.
“This is the most animated I have seen you when the subject isn’t myself,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “And is it something you are passionate about?”
“Yes. Perhaps not so much when we were children. But since, I have come to appreciate that... well, that servants are not the lower orders—they are people,” Catherine replied emphatically. “At Haventon, I was closer to the staff than to my supposed family.”
I am trusting him now, with information about myself that may give him power over me. Trust must be earned. I hope this shows him he can trust me.
Catherine sat, cheeks still slightly flushed. She was not used to speaking out or in passion. Her instinct was to be meek and quiet; that was the best way of avoiding punishment.
“Allow me to be mother,” Aaron said.
Catherine suppressed the surprise she felt as Aaron poured tea for them both, adding honey to his own and then to hers at her nod. She had not expected a man and a Duke besides to be pouring the tea, but to summon a servant or wait for her to do so.
“A man who knows how to brew tea. You are full of surprises,” she murmured, sipping her tea and finding it just to her taste.
“I can cook too,” he added with a wry smile.
“Truly? How do you come by such a skill?” she asked, sitting back in her chair. She was hiding an ache in her back that was growing worse, one of the many random pains that her condition brought without warning.
“In my youth… after we knew each other,” he corrected pointedly, “I learned many skills considered... essential for survival. Beginning with cooking over an open-fire food which I had killed and prepared for myself...”
“Aaron!” she exclaimed with a gasp. “Killed with your own hands? You hunted and...”
He arched his brow. “This is hardly radical behavior. Most gentlemen hunt.”
“You and I always hated the notion. Do you remember your father thrashing you for refusing to join the hunt on your eleventh?” she asked.
Aaron stared into his own tea, brooding.
Catherine watched him, holding her breath.
Would this see her invitation within Aaron’s walls revoked?
See him fly into a rage? She watched his hands tighten on the delicate, china cup.
There was pain in his face, she thought.
In the tightness of his eyes. She sympathized with him, wondering what he had experienced during those long months when they had been apart.
“I remember many thrashings…” he said, finally, “forgive me, but that particular one does not stand out. Perhaps he simply used a birch instead of a belt or the flat of his sword-blade.”
Catherine jumped up before she was consciously aware of what she was doing. She went around the table and fell to her knees beside him, seizing her hands.
“Aaron, I will not pry. I can see how hard it is to talk about it. Just know this. I, too, struggled with cruelty... I will not call them my family… my guardians. I too was beaten. I... I know how you must have felt.”
Aaron looked down at her, his hands tightening on hers. Then he pulled free, stroked her face.
Catherine closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his rough palm against her cheek.
She clasped her hand to his, wanting to be as close to him as she could in that moment.
All thoughts of who he had become fled from her mind.
It mattered little, for at that moment, he was merely a lonely little boy who needed comfort.
That his trauma was the same as hers, she did not doubt. She could see it in his eyes.
Whether you are Aaron or not, I believe that you went through what you say. I feel it between us. We are kindred spirits.
“Get up, please,” he said, gently.
Catherine blushed and went back to her chair. Aaron got up and dragged his own chair around the table to sit closer to her. She found herself smiling as he took her hand upon the table.
“That is the first time I have spoken of... what happened to me in this house,” he murmured gently. “I do not know why I entrusted you with it.”
“Because we are... no, I will not say married. I know it was purely political. Because you recognized something in me that was similar to you?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he exhaled, “or I am being a sentimental fool and trusting the nearest lady because she is beautiful.”
“That sounds an excellent reason, if not entirely true,” she smiled shyly.
“Not true that I am being sentimental or that you are beautiful?”
“The latter,” Catherine laughed.
But Aaron did not laugh. He looked at her as though she had questioned something that she should not.
“But you are,” he repeated.
The sun shone directly upon his face, and he leaned back slightly to allow shadow to claim him.
She watched him through the dazzling bar of light, his face in darkness.
His eyes caught the glint, and she felt as though she were being observed by some ancient deity with the light of stars in its eyes.
“I have never been told so,” Catherine said quietly.
Aaron’s hand squeezed upon hers, fingers intertwining.
“I do not seek the company of others as a rule. But today I have sought you out twice. Against my better judgment. Take it as a compliment.”
Catherine blinked; the light seemed to be becoming very bright, and Aaron, further and further away. She held onto his hand as though it were anchoring her to him, to the room, or even reality. Her mouth grew very dry.
“I thank you for the compliment,” she heard herself saying as her head swayed gently from the weight, “…and I will pay one to you. Since the first day I met you, I thought you were the most handsome and beautiful boy I had ever met…”
Was Aaron smiling?
It was hard to see.
He was so far away now, and the light between them so very incandescent. She thought she saw a small boy at his side. The boy she used to spend summers with. The boy from whom the man came.
He was looking at his older self as though the man were a stranger.
“Boy?” Aaron asked… or was it the boy who spoke?
“That very afternoon, I swore to myself that one day I would marry you…” Catherine whispered faintly, “…and here I am.”
“Catherine?”
“Where is the boy…?” she heard herself breathe, “he was right there...”
Then she was falling, and a figure was moving swiftly, scooping her into his arms and carrying her to the bed.