Chapter 33
Catherine’s heart seized when she heard Gideon’s voice ring through the air. It was faint at first, almost lost among the calls of the woodland birds and the rustle of leaves. Faint but unmistakable.
Gideon.
It felt right to give him that name. He was truly Gideon to her, not Aaron. The sound of his voice made hope flare in her breast for a single, blinding instant.
Aaron felt it too.
His hand, already gripping hers with clammy force, tightened like an iron shackle. And then, as though the sound had revived some long-buried strength, his infirmity was gone. The stoop, the slowness, the faltering limp—all vanished. He moved with a power and swiftness that stunned her.
Before she could cry out again, he yanked her across the lawn towards the dark fringe of the trees, his stride sure, his arm strong.
“Aaron, stop!” she gasped, digging in her heels, but he hauled her on as though she weighed no more than a child’s doll.
She turned her head and caught one last glimpse of the house. Gideon appeared at the doorway, framed in sunlight, Meredith behind him, her face pale with confusion.
“Gideon!” Catherine cried, but Aaron clamped a hand over her wrist and dragged her into the wood.
The shadows swallowed them, branches tearing at her gown, briars clutching at her hem.
Aaron moved with unerring speed, threading through half-forgotten deer tracks, half-visible paths that wound into the wild tangle.
His breathing was harsh, but not strained.
His infirmity had been no more than a costume discarded now that it no longer served.
She tried to reason with him as they stumbled through the undergrowth.
“Aaron, you can’t keep running! You have to talk to your brother. Reason with him. He does not want this contest to continue. He wants peace!”
“Peace?” Aaron’s laugh was low, bitter, “I will not lose to him again! I will not yield. I am the victor, Catherine. I always was! It will end as it should have long ago.”
Catherine’s chest heaved. Lies, always more lies. He was clinging to them like a drowning man to driftwood. And Meredith, did she know? Had she been another pawn in this deception, tending an infirmity that was but another mask?
She thought then of the two brothers’ father. The twisted contests he had devised, the poisonous creed he had taught them. Conceal your weakness, master your emotions, project strength, or be cast aside as a weakling.
It damaged them both. They wrap themselves in cloaks of deception, hiding their true natures because they fear exposing a weakness.
Was this what had warped them both?
One who concealed his past sins, the other who concealed his infirmity, each playing roles rather than living as themselves?
Behind them, Gideon’s voice rang out again, closer this time.
Catherine screamed his name at the top of her lungs until Aaron clamped his free hand over her mouth.
Hope surged and then faded as Aaron picked her up about the waist and sped on.
He was too swift, too determined. He pulled her deeper into the wood until, at last, they broke into a clearing.
Before them stood an ancient mill, long abandoned, its sails broken and skeletal against the sky. The stream beside it was choked with silt, barely trickling, stagnant, and green with lilies and moss.
Aaron halted, but did not release her. His eyes burned as he turned to her.
“You must give him up. Gideon is violent and dangerous. He cannot change. He does not deserve you or the dukedom!”
Then, shockingly, he dropped to one knee, his hand still locked about hers.
“Marry me, Catherine!” His voice was strident with desperation. “I will give you what he never can. Let it be how it was always meant to be!”
She stared at him, stricken with disbelief. She saw fear in his eyes and understood the source. His brother. Gideon. Aaron did not love her as once he might have done—he was merely desperate to defeat his brother, caught up in their eternal conflict.
“No,” she whispered.
Then stronger.
“No, Aaron. You are a liar. To me, to Meredith. You have twisted and schemed just as Gideon once did. There is no difference between you.”
His jaw clenched, his eyes flashing with fury. Somewhere in the trees, branches cracked. Gideon was close. Aaron’s head snapped towards the sound, then, with sudden violence, he dragged her into the mill.
The air inside was damp, mouldering. The wooden stairs that spiralled upwards groaned at each step, threatening to give way.
Yet he pulled her higher, his grip unrelenting, until they emerged into a narrow attic chamber at the top, open to the air where once a window had been.
Below, the sails jutted like broken bones.
Aaron’s face in the dim light was almost feral.
“An honourable man,” he snarled, “would never risk the one he loves. Gideon will be forced to choose, fight for his dukedom, or let you fall. We shall see what kind of man he truly is!”
And then Gideon was there, bursting from the undergrowth into the clearing, his gaze lifting upwards. He froze as he saw Catherine framed in the gap, Aaron’s hand locked on her arm.
The brothers finally met for the first time since childhood.
Gideon raised his voice, steady despite the fear in his eyes. “Aaron! Bring her down. Please.”
“No! I will not let you beat me. Not again! You cheated, brother, you broke the rules. I was incapacitated! I never dreamed you would take what was mine.”
“I did not even know that we were playing still. I believed you dead,” Gideon pressed, stepping closer to the mill.
“Do not come any closer, brother!” Aaron warned, pushing Catherine closer to the edge.
Gideon froze—his eyes met Catherine’s. Then he lowered himself to his knees, hands held out to the sides to show himself unarmed and helpless.
“I will do nothing to risk her life.”
“I want what was mine. Caerleon!” Aaron cried.
“You should have been Duke,” Gideon conceded. “I believed you dead. You were the victor, father’s chosen. I will not contest it. I will swear it before any witnesses you care to choose. I give up the Dukedom to you. I am not Aaron Tarnley. I am Gideon Tarnley. Just… just bring her down!”
“It should have been me who married Catherine!”
Gideon shook his head, slowly. “You may claim the title. But Catherine must choose for herself whom she marries. That choice is hers alone.”
“She does not know you as I do! She does not understand the danger she is in,” Aaron retorted, spittle flying from his mouth, “I can protect her. From you!”
At that moment, Meredith appeared, breathless, carrying Aaron’s cane like a cudgel. She lifted it, threatening Gideon before seeing him on his knees, empty-handed. The cane was slowly lowered. She looked up at Aaron and Catherine in confusion. Doubt shadowed her face.
“Aaron? You… you lied to me?”
You poor woman. They have lied to us both. And I see now what I did not see before. That you are in love with Aaron.
Aaron’s grip on Catherine faltered slightly.
“It did not begin as a lie. I needed you very much in the beginning. I… I feared you would leave once I recovered. You were my nurse, my companion. But I knew you would not stay if you were no longer needed. And I… I had nothing to keep you by my side. No dukedom. No wealth. No power…”
Meredith’s expression broke with anguish.
“I stayed because I loved you, Aaron! And this man, this—this tyrant who drags an innocent woman to her death, is not the man I loved! What I see before me is what you told me your brother was capable of. But he is the one renouncing everything for the woman he loves. He is the one on his knees!”
She dropped the cane.
“I suppose you do not need this. Neither do I.”
She turned away. Aaron’s eyes shone, almost desperate.
“Stay! When I am Duke, we will have wealth and power. I can keep you safe! Happy!”
Meredith gave a broken laugh.
“I fell in love with a Duke without a dukedom. I loved the little life we had made for ourselves in obscurity. I do not want wealth, only love. If you want a duchess, choose another. I will not be one.”
Aaron’s face twisted. He looked down at Catherine.
“I thought you were the one I wanted. For you and me to be Duke and Duchess…”
“You don’t want me, Aaron! I’ve seen that look in your eyes before,” Catherine chided in no little frustration, “it is her you want. Go to her, Sir Aaron the Wolfheart. Get her back!”
Aaron dropped her hand and attacked the stairs, descending two or three at a time. As he sprinted to the door, Gideon rose from his kneeling position. The two men faced each other.
“No, no, no,” she whispered as she saw Gideon’s face darken.
Face to face with his brother, Gideon was succumbing to fury.
“You threaten her life for your petty game, and now you think you can run away?” he hissed.
“Get out of the way!” Aaron commanded.
“I starved because of you!” Gideon roared.
“No!” Catherine screamed.
“I lost everything because of you!” Aaron cried.
“Stop fighting each other!” Catherine yelled.
But the brothers were not seeing the real world or the present day. The confrontation was too much for them. Aaron moved first, running towards Gideon, who sprinted to meet his brother head-on.
The two men clashed. Brutally.
Fists struck, bodies slammed against the rotten beams of the mill.
“Stop!” Catherine screamed, her voice ringing high.
They did not hear. She staggered to the window’s edge, climbing onto the sill.
“Stop, or I will end this myself!”
Both men froze, their arms wrapped around each other, seeking the hold that would best the other. Horror dawned on Gideon’s face.
He knows I have the strength of will to do it.
Catherine stood poised over the drop.
Gideon was the first to relent. His hands fell to his sides, his breath ragged.
Aaron, seething, seized the cane Meredith had abandoned and struck Gideon across the temple.
Gideon fell, blood darkening his brow and spilling down his face. Aaron stood over him, cane raised, face contorted into an animalistic snarl. Gideon’s eyes never left Catherine. He did not get up. He did not fight. Had Aaron wished to kill him, he would not have fought back.
Catherine’s heart was breaking.
“Aaron, forget the competition. Forget winning. Go after Meredith! Win her back and be happy. This war between you will destroy everything!”
Gideon’s voice came hoarse from the ground.
“Aaron. You win, brother. I told you, take the dukedom. I will sign whatever you wish. I will begin again with nothing but honesty this time.” He looked up at Catherine, “Come with me. I can offer nothing but myself, without secrets, without walls.”
She looked down at him, battered, bloodied, but utterly true in that moment.
“I will,” she rasped. “I will, Gideon.”
“I will be Duke?” Aaron asked, his voice becoming small, childlike.
“As God as my witness. Upon my honor,” Gideon murmured.
“A Dukedom, or… Meredith.”
The cane slipped from his hand.
He took a step towards the trees.
Gideon looked away, his eyes fixed on Catherine.
Aaron looked from one to the other.
“Keep your damned dukedom!” he snarled, “I will be husband to Meredith and a pauper than be a Duke alone!”
He turned to run after Meredith and took one step. There she was, standing in the trees’ shadow, waiting.
“Do you truly wish to give up this quest that you have pursued for years?” she asked.
“Yes!” Aaron’s knees buckled, and he fell before her. She stooped, tears glinting in her eyes, and took him into her arms.
Gideon staggered to his feet, swaying from the blood loss. He climbed the stairs, his hand leaving smears of blood on the wood, until he stood before Catherine.
For a moment, he stood there, paralyzed as though fearing that she doubted him still.
“I will give the dukedom to the first man I meet,” he pleaded, breathless. “I don’t care. All I know is that I can’t—I can’t breathe when you’re not near.”
Catherine looked into his eyes, saw the truth there, naked and raw. Her heart answered before her lips did. She ran into his arms.