Chapter 23
The Serpentine glinted. Catherine and Gideon strolled along the gravel walk that followed it. Carriages rolled along the broad, paved road. Horse’s hooves clicked in precise steps. The sounds of the English gentry at play. Gideon was acutely aware of how their passage drew eyes.
We make a striking pair. Or, rather, Catherine is striking on her own. Any man on her arm would be elevated to the status of prince.
Catherine was radiant in a gown of soft emerald that brought out the color of her eyes. She walked with ease and confidence, in contrast to her recent ordeal. It was as if the real Catherine had become hidden beneath the woman cowed by her cruel relatives and sickened by the poison they fed her.
What were they up to? Why perpetrate such a monstrous crime? For control? Why?
Gideon’s hand brushed hers at times, deliberate but restrained. His pulse quickened each time he did. Each touch was a thrilling intimacy, hidden in plain sight and all the more exciting for that. His ears caught compliments that drifted from passersby.
“What a lovely couple,” said a lady to her companion.
“Such composure!”
“A handsome couple. Who is she?”
“Well, I know him. Winchester is his name.”
Gideon stiffened, uncomfortable and resentful. The compliments were weighted towards Catherine. Where his name was mentioned, he thought he detected approbation. It angered him.
He felt Catherine’s hand around his own. Without looking at him, she squeezed gently as though sensing his unease. It lessened his anger. He stole a glance, saw the corner of her mouth tugged upward in a barely suppressed smile.
They judge so easily. And I am forced to ever greater gymnastics to prove my honor because of their wagging tongues!
Their words should have meant nothing. When their words touched Catherine, Gideon felt a strange heat within him.
Anger, indignation, resentment, and… pleasure.
That emotion bubbled up like an underground spring.
It suffused him simply from being near her.
Even the words of strangers linking them together thrilled him.
Because those words were an intimacy. The realization of the depth of his feeling unsettled him.
The mantra went through his head. A talisman of protection. Attachment is weakness. Emotion is weakness. A Duke can afford neither. Cut them out.
As my father did. He cut out his grief for mother. Made himself stone.
But Catherine drew him. He could not stop noticing the way she carried herself, her laugh light and spontaneous, her gestures graceful yet unstudied.
He felt himself drawn closer with each step, and he could not forget the intimacy they had shared.
The memory burned quietly beneath his skin, a constant, simmering ache.
He caught her hand more firmly as she leaned toward him to comment on a flowering shrub by the path.
“You have grown braver in the world,” he said, attempting calm. “More… assured.”
She beamed up at him. “I feel alive for the first time.”
Alive. The word struck him. He wanted to protect that life, yet he feared what it cost him in himself.
They turned into a quieter avenue of the park, away from the main promenade. The tall trees cast long shadows over the path, the light dappled and soft. Gideon loosened his hold slightly, thinking they could walk in privacy.
Then, a sudden tug at his coat. A hand reached for his purse. He reacted instinctively, spinning and grabbing the youth by the wrist.
“What the devil?” he snarled.
He didn’t recognize the boy, just a street urchin, a pickpocket from the hells of the East End. There were thousands like him. But the boy recognized him. His grimy face went slack, and his eyes became large as dinner plates. He froze.
“It… it be the… G-general?” he stammered.
Recognition struck Gideon as if the boy had cast a stone to strike him between the eyes.
This young thief knew him.
Not the Duke of Winchester or even Gideon Tarnley.
The boy knew the name that had once struck terror into the underworld. The name that Gideon had carried like a cloak, which had pulled him out of the mire of poverty.
He let the youth go, stepping back, discomfited.
Catherine’s expression was confused.
“What do you mean, child? What did you call him?”
The boy was shaking, staggering back without taking his eyes from Gideon.
“Sorry, guv. I didn’t know. Don’t hurt me?”
“Get out of here!” Gideon roared, “Before I call the constables!”
The boy ran, swerving around surprised ladies and gentlemen, sprinting like a hare for the waiting streets beyond the greenery of the park. Gideon was seething, fists clenched, glaring after the boy.
Catherine curled a brow at him. “What did he mean?” she asked.
His jaw tightened. “Nothing. He was only a thief.”
Her gaze did not leave his. “He recognized you. I saw it. There was fear in his eyes—”
“I said it was nothing!” His voice rose, sharp and clipped. “The weather is turning. We should return to Caerleon.”
Some clouds had bunched on the horizon, but were far from troubling the sun.
“I don’t wish to leave,” she countered, defiance bright in her eyes. “I saw it. You were recognized, and you are hiding something.”
His ire surged. “Do you spy on me? Watch my every motion? Did you arrange this?”
Catherine looked astonished. “Arrange a pick-pocketing? How would I do that, pray tell?”
“I don’t know, but you have done nothing but question me about my past, and now this,” he muttered, defensively.
What would she do if she knew the truth? Would her Aunt and Uncle be preferable to being married to one of the most notorious criminals in London?
“I have done nothing but observe,” she replied evenly. “It is hardly subterfuge to notice another’s reaction.”
She had followed the urchin’s retreat until he was lost to sight. Now she glanced around with a smile, as though simply admiring the bright peacocks who paraded for the sake of being seen. Gideon stalked a few steps ahead, his coat flaring slightly behind him.
He stopped by the edge of the treeline, mind racing. Then turned back to Catherine, conscious of the eyes that examined their every move. Forcing a shoddy smile, he clasped his hands behind his back.
“Shall we partake of some shade?” he suggested.
Catherine walked gracefully towards him.
“That would be lovely. The sun is a trifle too hot today.”
“A case of mistaken identity, I can assure you,” he smiled politely.
“Then why react the way you did? Why not laugh off the… mistaken identity?” she murmured. “I do not ask this out of anger or even accusation. I ask out of desperation.”
She kept her voice low but intent. Her eyes brimmed with pleading.
“I want to feel safe with someone I can trust.”
Gideon took her hands, felt the flicker of resistance in hers, followed by submission. They were in public after all. They could not be honest in the language of their bodies or in their visible emotions. But she did not squeeze his fingers.
“You can trust me to be a man of honor. To protect you against injustice and cruelty.”
“But not about your identity?” she asked, plaintively.
“I am the Duke of Winchester,” he replied, flatly.
“Aaron Tarnley,” Catherine made it a statement.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
How easily the lie comes to my lips, even now. But then, the brunt of my title and the success of my ambitions depend upon it.
“But not your marriage?” a sly voice whispered to him. “Congratulations, brother. Your priorities are those of a Winchester.”
Gideon looked around. Two people walking through Hyde Park drew no attention. Two people arguing drew eyes. One person walking alone while their partner stalked away in anger made tongues wag. He turned.
“You come with me, or we remain here and draw unwanted notice. That is your choice.”
Catherine planted her feet firmly. “I will not move until you tell me the truth.”
Their eyes locked. Neither would yield. The park around them seemed to hold its breath.
At least that is how it felt to Gideon.
Then, from the main path, Jeremy Bexley appeared, strolling arm in arm with a lady in soft lavender, her maid just behind. Gideon recognized Isabella Merrick immediately; the maid acting as chaperon.
“Ah, Winchester!” Jeremy called cheerily, oblivious to the tension. “What a delightful surprise!”
Gideon exhaled slowly, masking his paranoia.
Catherine fell back slightly beside him, and the group merged into a single promenade along the path.
The argument between the pair was momentarily cloaked by etiquette, their expressions calm to the casual observer.
But Gideon’s mind galloped. Every smile Catherine gave, every nod, every glance he shared with her, felt like a calculated attempt to expose him.
Public promenading, being seen so openly—it had been her suggestion.
Is this an elaborate plan to lure out my secret?
Jeremy spoke to Isabella, “I went to school with him, not that you would know it. We moved in different circles, and time has taken great pains to change him beyond all recognition.”
“Do you think so, Everdon? I do not see much that has changed since our days at Thornbank.”
Everdon scoffed with good nature and earned a curious smile from his companion. Catherine also smiled, but it seemed forced. She watched Gideon.
“He was whip thin. Slender as a girl. Bookish. He would not have survived the bullies had it not been for his title. Now look at him!”
Gideon glowered. “Perhaps I wish to avoid the attentions of bullies in the adult world. I applied myself to my own defense.”
“Well then, muscle means a gloomy demeanour and a quick temper. Neither of which was the case for the boy that I knew.”
“Except you did not know. As you so eloquently put, we never spoke.”
“Suppose so.”
Gideon was acutely conscious of passers by, not listening perhaps, but aware of the tone of the conversation.
Jeremy bantered, peppering his exclamations with chuckles and chortles, grinning all the time.
An observer would say that these were two gentlemen ribbing each other over battles on the school playing field.
There were a thousand such conversations happening at that moment, all over Hyde Park.
Gideon smirked. “A Dukedom is a cruel master. Responsibility for the livelihood of others is a heavy burden to bear.”
He felt as though every muscle in his body was tense.
The casual reference to a shared past, a boyhood together, ignited all the fears he carried.
Exposure, weakness, the dangerous connection between past and present.
Catherine’s hand brushed his subtly, a grounding touch that reminded him why he remained beside her.
He stole a glance at her; she looked composed, luminous. There was compassion in her eyes, and he marveled at it. A moment ago, they had been arguing, about to march away from each other. A moment ago, only the need to keep up appearances had held them together.
Then she changed, her emotions pivoting on the head of a pin. The sight of her lips, compressed at the corners of her mouth, dimpling her cheeks, made his chest tighten. It reminded him, painfully, of all the feelings he had tried to repress. Desire, protectiveness, longing.
“She manipulates you,” Aaron whispered from behind his shoulder, “she is an adversary and you cannot see it. Pathetic.”
“So many men exaggerate the stories of their past to reflect themselves in a good light,” Catherine began, “I think my husband has been brutally honest in not denying the claims Lord Everdon has made. It makes me think that of the two, Winchester is being more truthful.”
It was a shield thrown up in front of Gideon. Whether Jeremy meant his words as an attack or not, Catherine felt it so and wanted to protect her husband.
“Everdon cannot be trusted to tell you the color of the sky,” Gideon said with a grin, “and certainly not his scholastic record.”
Everdon guffawed and nodded. Isabella smiled prettily, and a look passed between them, sharing the humor.
Gideon looked to Catherine, who had seen the same thing.
She glanced at him. Their eyes locked for a long heartbeat.
Those gold flecks in her eyes never ceased to entice him. So unique. So magical.
He thought that he saw an amnesty in her gaze, did not understand where it had come from, but examined his own feelings.
Do I suspect her? Does she manipulate me? Is that simply fear of… of attachment?
As they walked, he resolved, quietly, that he would maintain control. He could not deny that Catherine’s presence, her vitality, the blazing fire in her eyes had unsettled him in ways nothing else could. The day, the park, the people around him, all of it now carried the weight of the unknown.
And through it, Catherine remained beside him, unyielding, vibrant, and achingly alive.
He would guard her. He would not falter.
But he would need to navigate this delicate balance: the public appearance, the lingering intimacy, and the shadow of his hidden past that now threatened to follow him even into the open air of Hyde Park.
And beneath it all, he could not ignore the simple, undeniable truth.
He needed her.
More than he could admit.