Chapter 20
The ancient lodge stood in shadow. From the lower window, Gideon could glimpse a faint candle flame. Sally Oldcastle scurried about within, tending to Catherine. Her mistress lay in a bed that had not known warmth for years.
I promised her I would not watch. Yet I cannot help myself. I always stay close, silent, unseen…
“Weak, vulnerable,” whispered Aaron, “you have learned nothing from father.”
“Perhaps not,” Gideon whispered back, “but I am learning now.”
The night wore on. Wails reached Gideon through the shuttered windows. His hands clenched into fists.
The body broke when the poppy was taken away too swiftly. He had seen too many men die of it. Horribly.
He remembered the hells of Cheapside. Where disease stalked nightly, and desperation perfumed the air. Where food was more precious than gold, and the ground seemed to suck at your feet, miring you in that terrible place. He carried a vial, hidden in his coat, and prayed he would not need it.
I want her to know. I want to tell her everything. This secret weighs down my soul. But what if Aaron is still alive as the rumors say? What if she is still in love with him?
Gideon stole closer, unable to stop himself.
He peeked through a window. The cottage was all on one level, and the window he looked through was the bedroom.
It was lit by a flickering fire and the light of candelabras.
Within, he found Catherine. Her face was damp with sweat, her hair darkened by it.
Sally dabbed her brow, soaking the linen in a bowl of water on the bedside table.
Catherine clutched herself, writhing on the bed.
She pincered at Sally’s hand. Gideon’s grip tightened on the vial.
He yearned to be by her side, but he resisted the urge.
He had made a promise, and his presence only brought her more pain.
His weaning her off the damnable drug over the last few weeks was his only solace now.
Eventually, unable to watch any more, he turned away from the cottage, stalking into the trees but not going so far that he could not hear Catherine’s anguish. That tethered him.
She is not my wife. She is a means to an end. I will be strong. I will be alone!
“You will never be strong. Father was right about you. You are weak. That is why he exiled you. The runt of the litter,” Aaron’s poison whispered from somewhere in the shadows behind him.
“And yet you are the one hiding in the shadows,” Gideon hissed.
“Madness always starts out in the shadows.”
Gideon lashed out, his fist striking a tree that did not feel the blow. He struck again. Again. The pain in his hand cut through the muddle of emotions. It drew his focus, cleansed him.
Aaron fell silent.
Catherine did not.
Gideon cradled his damaged hand, knuckles bloody, and slid down the trunk of the tree to wait out the night. As he did, he stared into the night with eyes open, refusing to allow them to close. He would not sleep while she suffered.
He saw a night years ago. Saw the streets of Cheapside. Walked those streets once more.
They did not stick to his shoes, did not mire him as they did some. He was one of the few to escape their clutches.
Braziers lit the hells which he had known since his youth. Faces saw him and acknowledged his feral strength. He was safe here. The fear of those who recognized him kept him safe.
He kept blades about his person, had trained his body from the willowy slimness of his youth into a solid mass of muscle.
Gideon was no longer the helpless youth who had been tossed into the maw of Cheapside years before.
Entering a tavern at the end of a cobbled lane, he had intended to drink while he waited on the company of his employees. Waited on news of how their work had amplified his wealth.
The newspaper had been put on his table with his ale. As it always was. The words, which few in that place would be able to read, stopped him.
The ale lay forgotten.
The tavern disappeared from around him, and he was returned to a different place.
They proclaimed the death of the Duke of Winchester.
Inside, Catherine tossed against the sheets. Sally bathed her brow with water.
“Why does he torment me so?” Catherine whispered, her voice thick with fever, “Why does he hide from me? He is not who he says he is. He cannot be.”
“Hush now, Your Grace,” Sally assuaged, “your mind is addled and speaks of untruths.”
“No.” Catherine’s eyes burned bright. “He is kind, though he would deny it. I have seen it... When he holds my hand. When he looks at me... But I am afraid of him, too. Afraid of what he keeps locked inside. Afraid that I want him more and more each day…”
Her chest tightened. She pressed her hand against the mattress upon which she lay. It felt solid. Fingers gripped it hard, wanting to tether herself. She was convinced that she was about to lose her contact with the real world. To be cast into outer darkness. She could not move, could not breathe.
Sally gave a sharp laugh, and it served to tether Catherine for a moment.
“The Duke? Kind? He is hard as iron. He cares for nothing but himself and his wealth. A cruel man, my lady. Ask any of his servants.”
“That—that is not true!” Catherine exclaimed with heat, “He shields it. But I know it is there. I know he is more than he lets the world see...”
“Dreams, Your Grace. He has no heart. If he has, he has buried it long ago.”
Catherine turned her face to the wall.
“…Then why am I drawn to him so?”
The words cut her deeper than any blade could. She felt tied to a man that she did not know. Who would not let her get close. But she would not give up. She would neither run away nor accept the mystery. She was determined to understand the truth. His truth.
After a silence, she stirred again. “Sally, has he a brother?”
“A brother?” Her maid sounded surprised. “I know nothing of it. When I came to Caerleon, the household was as you found it. The staff was all new. The Duke had replaced everyone. There was no brother. And never any talk of one.”
“Why did he replace the staff?” Catherine beseeched.
She tossed back to Sally.
The fever waxed and waned. Sometimes she saw Sally as who she was.
Other times, she saw Isabella. Or Aunt Nora.
Now, the fever made her bones ache, but her mind seemed to be sharp, racing faster than she could comprehend, alive with fears and doubts.
Questions that multiplied until they seemed to expand in her mind.
“I… never questioned it,” Sally applied a fresh cloth to Catherine’s brow, and its cool droplets were glorious.
She felt her body sink deeper into the mattress, and the young girl beamed in satisfaction.
“I don’t rightly know, Your Grace. It does seem odd, I suppose. Having an entirely new staff.”
“Did you ask why at the time?”
“We were discouraged from speaking about the past.”
Catherine’s face creased in pain. Her stomach clenched, and she turned, curling up in the bed. Sally stroked her hair, damp with sweat, and made soothing sounds. She squeezed her eyes tight.
Is this what Mama and Papa felt? Is this how they faced their last moments? What if Aunt Nora and Uncle Benjamin were telling the truth? This could be my last breath!
“Does anyone know anything about the old Duke’s family?” Catherine heard herself ask.
Part of her wanted to talk. Wanted to be distracted. She fought to focus on Sally’s response. It seemed to come at a great delay, as though time was slowing in between. Hours passed before Sally replied, though Catherine knew it had been mere seconds.
“There was a man, once,” the maid said. “A letter arrived for him. I saw it. It went to Mr. McKay because no one else knew where the man had gone after Caerleon. What made you think the Duke had a brother, Your Grace? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Catherine closed her eyes.
Because I do not think he is who he says he is.
Her breathing grew ragged. She rose suddenly, trying to climb from the bed. Sally held her back, but Catherine fought her with desperate strength.
“I must go,” she cried, “I must find him, the man who knows! I must ask!”
She shrugged free, darting for the door, wild with fever.
Catherine ran then.
She could not remain still. The call to action rang within her like a bell. If she were facing her last night on earth, she would not spend it writhing in a sick-bed. She would fight for the truth. She would be free!
Sally’s voice rang out from somewhere behind her. The maid stumbled while Catherine’s legs were driven by the fury of the feverish.
She tore open the door and dashed into the night.
“Your Grace!”
She was swallowed by the night.
Gideon had been watching the house through the trees. A pale light illuminated it from the moon above, but it could not touch the deep shadows in which he rested. The ground was damp beneath him.
His senses came to full alertness when he heard raised voices from within the house. The golden glow of the lamplight was crossed and re-crossed by flitting shadows. Then it was flicking rapidly through the house, showing in window after window.
The door burst open, and Catherine came sprinting out. Her maid appeared next, calling for her, lamp raised high above her head.
Gideon surged to his feet as he snatched up a nearby lamp and sprinted in the direction of his wife. By the time he reached the treeline, it felt like an eternity had passed since she had disappeared into its midnight embrace.
He wrestled with his frustration—his need to act. He slowed, knowing that he could run into a tree branch and knock himself out, even with the light of the lamp. Peering into the darkness, lamp held high, he scanned shrewdly for any sign of her passage instead.
“Catherine!” he called, but heard only the frantic rustle of branches and leaves in response.
An owl hooted in the far off, and something small barged its way through the undergrowth. He felt the wind of bat wings above his head. A fox yipped.
“Catherine! Answer me!” he shouted into the dark once more.