Chapter 31
The man smiled, and she knew that he was no impostor. This was Aaron Tarnley.
If this is Aaron, then who is the man I married?
Aaron extended a hand.
“I am here, as ever, on a quest to save you from the Black Knight. From Gideon. My brother.”
“Gideon?” she said, clinging to reality as best she could, “…brother?”
She remembered the painting she had found. The two boys. It seemed so obvious now.
Aaron nodded.
“Come in, Kate. Let me explain it all. I have so much to tell you.”
He offered his arm. In his other hand, he held a walking cane, and he leaned on it heavily. Catherine took his arm and followed him to a modestly appointed sitting room. He settled into an armchair with a sigh, as though he had just walked several miles.
“Forgive me. My constitution is… not what it was. I have struggled with illness for many years,” Aaron said.
Catherine took a seat next to him.
“I do not know where to start with my questions. I recognize you. You know our secret names, which I shared with no one…” she began falteringly.
He smiled. “After my father died, I… I suffered a breakdown of my mental faculties. He was a very difficult man, and the relief from his tyranny was such that… I could not comprehend the freedom it gave me.
“My mind rebelled, retreating from the real world. During that time, my brother stole my name, my dukedom, my life. He returned while I was unwell, claimed my inheritance, and set himself up in my place. But now I am whole again. And with your aid, I will take back what is rightfully mine.”
A woman entered then, plain but handsome, dressed in serviceable garments. Concern was etched in her brow. She carried a tray with a brown, glass bottle and a small, green glass. A plate lay under a linen napkin. She set the plate next to Aaron.
“Would you eat something, Aaron? It is just a little ham and your favorite cheese. And some of my pickles, fresh made. A ploughman’s lunch for a Duke.”
“Not at the moment, Meredith, dear,” Aaron replied, gently.
She poured a clear liquid from the bottle into the glass, which he took and swallowed. Meredith watched him with tenderness in her gaze.
“This is Meredith Chalmers, my nurse,” Aaron told Catherine. “She has been my guardian in these dark years.”
Meredith’s gaze was wary as it fell on Catherine.
“Good day to you, Catherine,” Meredith said.
Catherine thought the omission of her title very telling.
“Could you prepare some breakfast for our guests? I am sure that Catherine left Caerleon in too much haste to dine,” Aaron asked.
“Of course,” Meredith replied, leaving the room.
“Can we dispense with the pleasantries?” Stafford cut in abruptly. “As charming as your reunion is, I have little desire to sit through it.”
“Then do not, Stafford. I would speak to Catherine alone,” Aaron intoned with command in his voice.
Outside in the unkempt garden, Aaron leaned heavily on a cane, each step an effort. Catherine followed, convinced of his identity but unsure of the chain of events that had led to this point.
He is Aaron. The boy I knew. The man I sought protection from, or thought I did. The man I had once wanted to marry when I was a girl. And here he is… and I feel nothing.
“My father was a tyrant. He was not always so, but after our mother died, he became hard,” Aaron grated with some effort, his cane clacking against broken paving.
“Aar—Gideon has said as much,” she replied.
“It manifested in a desire for us to prove ourselves worthy of the Dukedom. We were forced to compete. Every day and in every way. A loser was not tolerated. Would not be fed. Would be forced to sleep in the woods like an animal. All, supposedly, to make us stronger. More worthy,” he continued, bitterness painting his words.
“Gideon told me that his father exiled him. For failing to live up to his standards.”
Aaron nodded once. They stopped before a dry fountain in the shape of a cherub holding aloft an amphora. Aaron sat on the edge.
“A moment to catch my breath,” he exhaled heavily. “Gideon was truthful. He was exiled. I was the victor. The chosen successor. Perhaps our father made the wrong decision because when the time came, I snapped. I broke like a reed.”
He clicked his fingers together, smiling ruefully. “Father would have turned in his grave.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Months, or rather weeks, into my tenure, I ran away. Some time later, I found out through a notice in the Times that the Duke of Winchester had returned. Aaron Tarnley had returned to retake the mantle of Dukedom after an inexplicable period out of England. Imagine my surprise!
“I had believed my brother to be dead after so many years—after being thrown out of Caerleon, little more than a child and with nothing to support him. But who else could it be? I wrote to him. He ignored me,” Aaron muttered bitterly. “I had no choice but to subterfuge.”
“Why not just go to Aar… to Gideon and…and talk to him?” Catherine asked.
“Knowing him how you know him,” Aaron said, fixing Catherine with a level gaze, “do you think he would have listened?”
“Yes!” she professed, loyally.
I believe he would. Despite his coldness. Despite his armor, he is a good man.
Aaron lifted an eyebrow. “I have many memories of Gideon. None good. He was ruthless and colder than a glacier. I… I was terrified of him. In truth, I think that perhaps Father exiled him because he, too, was afraid of what he had forged in Gideon. He did not want the blade turned on himself.”
Catherine shot to her feet. “But he has changed! I have seen it. Do you think that I would have remained with a man like that?” she asked, seizing her old friend’s hand, willing him to believe her.
He frowned, squeezing her hand in return.
Catherine wondered if he believed that she felt the same as she had done when they were both young.
She felt as though she were holding the hand of a brother, not a lover.
Her heart did not skip, her stomach did not flip.
She felt nothing for Aaron but a fondness for the times they had once shared.
“I wish I could believe that,” he said, finally.
“Find a way! I have struggled with doubt and paranoia. Gideon wrestles with it daily. It destroys you from within. You have to overcome it. To make a leap of faith and just… believe! Believe in me if you cannot believe in him. Is it not better than allying yourself with a man like the Earl of Stafford?”
Aaron grunted and flicked his hand. “Stafford was a necessary evil. When McKay shared information about my brother’s ambitions, it was not difficult to have a man as avaricious as Stafford inveigle himself with Sir Obadiah. Stafford has connections at court which impressed Sir Obadiah immensely.”
“If you think that you can parcel me up with him to fulfil Sir Obadiah’s requirements that his business partners are married men…” Catherine started, drawing back and reclaiming her hand.
“I would never!” Aaron snapped. “With you beside me, I can finally be victorious. Annul your marriage, Kate. Publicly condemn him as an impostor. Sir Obadiah will reject him. He will be forced to give up the Dukedom to its rightful heir!”
She shivered visibly. “I think you underestimate your allies. Stafford will try to force me to marry him. My aunt and uncle meant the same.” Catherine remembered the scorn Stafford had poured on the notion.
She wondered if Aaron was right. “So, Stafford will undermine Gideon financially by taking away his business venture. And you and I will undermine him socially, taking away the Dukedom?” she asked, carefully.
Aaron rose, taking her hand again. He did not wince as he stood and did so quickly and smoothly.
“I will protect you. You do not know the danger you are in—it makes me shudder to think of the risk you have taken, accepting that man,” he licked his lips, shaking his head.
“I… I will…” he seemed to struggle to find the right words and then blurted out, “I will marry you myself! It is what I dreamed of, all those years ago in the woods. I was too afraid to say it then, but it is the truth!”
“I remember those dreams…” Catherine murmured.
Aaron nodded, his eyes meeting hers and then dancing away.
“It can be as it was always meant to be. I will be Duke, and as Duke, I will be able to protect you.”
She saw the boy she had loved in the man standing before her. Standing straight and tall, the cane leaning against the fountain. Set against that was Gideon’s stony facade. His roughness. His stark and dangerous silences.
And his kindness. His compassion. The tenderness in his eyes the night I played the piano.
She had thought herself in love with Gideon.
But now he was revealed to be a usurper.
And the real Aaron was offering her everything she had ever dreamed of.
Except it was almost as though he was reluctant, as though he was forcing himself.
She remembered how Meredith Chalmers had looked at him.
And how she had all but glared at Catherine.
“And Meredith?” she asked, gently.
Aaron looked dumbfounded for a moment, then shook his head.
“She is my nurse. An employee. One I am fond of, but…” He trailed off.
Catherine smiled, once more reminded of the boy. Aaron wanted to protect her against the threat of his brother. The only way he could see to do so was to marry her, make her his Duchess. But that would mean giving up Meredith.
Life as Aaron’s Duchess would be safe and secure. I do not need to love him. Or be excited by him. He would protect me. At the cost of his happiness and Meredith’s.
Life as Gideon’s Duchess? Exciting. Passionate. Full of thrilling desire and tumultuous love. He was strong. Fierce. Quick to anger.
There is no question. I love the memory of Aaron, but the reality of Gideon.
Gideon woke late. Sunlight penetrated the fog that enveloped his mind. Birdsong followed by the pain of hours spent unmoving in a chair and the protesting ache from an abused head.
I feel like I am hungover, but I barely touched a drop last night. Mr. McKay gave me a glass of brandy when he saw that I had no intention of sleeping. One glass!
He went to Catherine’s room and found the door unlocked and Sally hard at work, cleaning.
“Where is she, Sally?” he asked, keeping his voice civil despite an instinct to snap.
“Her Grace went out earlier, Your Grace. Just after sunrise.”
Gideon ran a hand through his hair and over his face. He wanted to slap himself awake.
“Why so early? Where has she gone?”
“I do not know, Your Grace. She did not tell me. But she was escorted by Mr. McKay.”
“Mr. McKay?” Gideon was confused.
A butler always has duties to attend to. McKay never forgets his duties. Why would he escort Catherine anywhere that takes him away from the house?
“Will that be all, Your Grace?” Sally asked.
Gideon had forgotten her presence. He blinked.
“No… yes… thank you, Sally,” he said, remembering to add the last and receiving a smile and a curtsy in response.
Sally left the room with a bundle of laundry. Gideon stood there, looking around and seeing nothing. Then his eyes came to rest on the bureau.
Didn’t she accuse me of stealing a letter from her bureau? I did not, but someone must have.
Gideon trusted Mr. McKay. He always had. But something was curdling in his gut.
He strode to the butler’s office, calling himself ten different kinds of fool for having any suspicions of his most trusted servant. The room was empty, the desk neatly stacked. For a moment, he stood in the middle of the small room, looking about, unwilling to intrude on Mr. McKay’s privacy.
But the butler’s inexplicable behaviour worried him. No message left for his employer—he just abandoned his post.
That should be anathema for an ex-soldier. I think McKay still saw himself as a soldier. He would not do that without informing me.
He sat down at the desk and began to ruffle through the drawers.
There were ledgers and accounts relating to the running of the house.
Bills from suppliers and invoices for payments made.
The more paper he came across, the more haste drove his movements.
He stopped stacking things neatly, tossing paper over his shoulder, dropping it to the floor when it ceased to be of interest.
In his haste to close a drawer and open the next, he jammed it. There was a crack of wood, and the drawer would not move, remaining open, blocking the opening of the one beneath.
Frustration bubbled, and with one brutal wrench, he ripped it out of the bureau. He was about to toss it aside when he glimpsed the corner of a paper sticking out of the back. It was sandwiched between two layers of thin wood.
He realised that the drawer had a false bottom.
In his haste, he had disturbed the mechanism that kept the secret layer hidden, exposing something within.
He swung the drawer against the wall, and it disintegrated from the impact. Anxious faces appeared at the door, peeking in at their agitated master. Several pieces of paper had been concealed within the drawer’s secret compartment.
The first was a letter, addressing Isabella—Merrick he assumed.
His blood ran cold as he read Catherine’s suspicions.
McKay saw this. He took it from her room. He knew she suspected me. Which means he must also have suspected me. Did he take this out of loyalty to me? To keep my secret?
He took out more of the paper from the secret compartment and received his answer.
They were letters, unsigned and not addressed to anyone. They were all short. A couple of lines each. Lines which threatened to expose him. Which called him a usurper and a murderer. The handwriting matched the other poison-pen letters.
His enemy’s hand.
But not McKay’s hand. I know his hand. He did not write them. But he had them all along. They did not need to be posted… simply brought to me under the pretense of having been discovered on the doorstep.
Gideon straightened, chest heaving, fury boiling to the surface. His butler, his most trusted aide, was no ally but the author of his torment.
And worse, Catherine was with him.
Gideon crushed one of the letters in his fist. He was alone now. Alone, and Catherine in the power of the man who sought to ruin him.