Epilogue #2
“Me as I am. Not who I pretended to be,” Gideon said, “I am Gideon Tarnley. I was never the boy you remembered. We shared an upbringing, but he and I were and are very different.”
“I know,” Catherine said firmly. “I thought that I loved Aaron. For my entire life, I thought it. He was my ideal. The memories he and I shared were of endless summers. Play and imagination, and…it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t real. I was in love with an idea that never existed. I think…”
She floundered, trying to communicate something that she could not quite bring into being.
“The Aaron you remembered was as much your imagination as it was a real person,” Gideon said, “you wanted him to be real.”
“But he never was.”
“I must have been a disappointment.”
“No,” Catherine said quickly, “you were frightening. You were and are magnetic. You drew me when I wanted to be repulsed because you were not Sir Aaron Wolfheart.”
“And you no longer want Sir Aaron?”
“I want Gideon. I want the real man, not the one I imagined. I have the real man, the real Duke.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back from his temples.
He is so beautiful. Like a work of art. Hard as marble but also soft and vulnerable. Needing me as much as I need him.
“What about you? You were not seeking a wife when we met. But you needed one to impress Sir Obadiah.”
“I had given thought to a wife that I needn’t see or speak to.
A wife in name only. I thought a marriage for love would sap my strength.
I thought weakness would infect me like a disease.
That is what I was taught. Both by my father and by the unending game he made Aaron and me play.
Weakness in that game meant death. It almost killed me. ”
“And yet Aaron is so… fragile now.”
“And I am glad that he is near at hand. He will need me. I will protect him as well as I am able. From the gossip-mongers. From the world.”
Catherine looked down at the true knight. She and Aaron had once played games of chivalry, but Gideon was the reality. His urge to defend the defenseless had led to their marriage.
“You could have left me to my Aunt and Uncle. To Stafford. But you came back. You saved me,” she whispered.
“I could not leave you there.”
“And after everything you and Aaron have done to each other, you cannot leave him. You are Sir Wolfheart,” Catherine smiled.
Gideon actually blushed, putting his face into her lap. She bent over him, holding him tightly, kissing his hair.
“And you are Queen Kate. You were a pale, shivering thing when you came looking for me at Spencer’s. Looking for Aaron.”
“My Aunt and Uncle trained me well. I was afraid of my own shadow. I do not know how I had the courage to go to London by myself like that,” she shuddered.
“You were afraid, but you did so anyway. That is true courage.”
“I did not feel brave.”
“Then you stood up to me. No matter how vile I was to you, you stood your ground. You were and are magnificent.”
Catherine felt the praise as a warm glow inside her.
She could see the change that he had noticed.
She remembered how her Aunt and Uncle had crushed her under their boots, keeping her in her place.
The place they decided for her. It had taken a lot to overcome that conditioning.
Even now, it felt strange to assert herself. Good, but strange.
“Being a Duchess will take some getting used to.”
“You do it magnificently,” Gideon looked up at her with utter devotion in his eyes, “and I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she breathed with tears in her voice.
For a moment, they simply stayed in that position, his head on her lap as she stroked his hair. Then, Catherine felt something distant shift in her chest, something settling into place.
“You know, you remind me of someone…” she said quietly after a moment.
He pulled back to look at her, brow furrowed. “Who?”
“A little boy I thought I saw once. Years ago, when I visited Caerleon as a child. I was exploring where I shouldn’t have been—the lower floors, the servants’ quarters.
And I saw him in the shadows. He looked so frightened.
So alone.” She paused, trying to grasp the edges of the memory.
“I… I wanted to speak to him. But he vanished.
I asked Aaron about him later, but he said there was no such boy. That I must have imagined it."
Gideon had gone very still. “Perhaps you did.”
“Perhaps.” She tilted her head, studying his face. “But he had your eyes. The same look in them. Like he was carrying something too heavy for a child to bear.”
His throat worked. “Many boys carry heavy things.”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “I suppose they do.”
A silence stretched between them, comfortable and charged at once. He did not confirm or deny what she had seen. She did not press. Some things, she had learned, did not need to be dragged into the light to be real.
“If you did see such a boy,” he murmured at last, his voice rough, “I hope he found his way out of the dark.”
“I think he did,” she whispered. Then kissed him.
The kiss, when it came, was not fierce but aching, tender, drawn from the deepest well of longing.
Gideon rose and lifted Catherine into his arms, feeling the soft weight of her settle against his chest, and carried her from the dressing room to her bedroom.
He laid her upon the bed with a care that surprised him.
The sheets released the scent of lavender as she sank into them, and he knelt beside her, drinking in the sight of her.
She bit her lip, lying still. Waiting. The trust in that simple gesture made something tighten in his chest. He tugged his shirt up and over his head, and heard her sharp intake of breath. Even now, after all the times she had seen him bare, that tiny sound still drew in him a frisson of pleasure.
He was barefoot, only his breeches remaining, and he saw her eyes drop to them, to the obvious strain against the fabric.
She sat up, reaching for him, and he went to her, covering her body with his own. The kiss deepened, her tongue sliding against his in a rhythm that made his cock throb. Her hands mapped his back, his shoulders, and everywhere she touched felt like a brand.
His fingers worked at the laces of her nightgown, and when he finally pulled it over her head, leaving her bare beneath him, he had to pause for a moment at the sheer perfection of her. The curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the soft swell of her hips. She was exquisite.
“Turn over,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than he intended.
She looked at him, startled, and he saw the flash of heat in her eyes before she obeyed, rolling onto her stomach.
He pulled her up onto her knees, positioning her so that her forearms braced against the mattress, and the sight of her like this, offered up to him, made his breath leave him in a rush.
“Like this?” she asked, her voice barely there.
“Just like this.”
He shoved his breeches down just enough to free himself, too impatient to remove them entirely, and pressed the head of his cock against her entrance.
She was already wet, already ready for him, and when he pushed forward in one long, deep stroke, the tight, slick heat of her nearly undid him immediately.
They both groaned, and he gripped her hips hard, holding himself still for a moment because if he moved, if he felt her clench around him like that again, it would be over before it began.
He withdrew almost completely and thrust back in, harder this time, and heard her cry out.
The sound went straight through him. He set a rhythm that was steady and relentless, watching the way her body moved with each thrust, the way her fingers clutched at the sheets, the way her back arched to take him deeper.
“Good?” he asked roughly, though he could feel the answer in the way her body responded to him.
“Yes. God, yes.”
She pushed back to meet him, and the feel of her taking him so eagerly, so desperately, made pleasure coil tight at the base of his spine.
He slid one hand around to find the swollen nub between her thighs, and when he circled it with his fingers, still moving inside her with that deep, relentless rhythm, he felt her whole body go taut.
Her climax hit suddenly. She buried her face in the sheets and cried out, and the feel of her clenching and pulsing around his cock nearly dragged him over the edge with her.
He gritted his teeth, fighting for control, and kept moving, kept the pressure steady on that sensitive bundle of nerves, drawing out her pleasure until she was trembling and gasping beneath him.
When she finally went limp, he withdrew, ignoring her sound of protest.
“Not finished,” he exhaled heavily, and turned her onto her back.
He lifted her legs over his shoulders and entered her again in one swift thrust, and the new angle made them both gasp. She was so tight like this, so impossibly deep, and he could see every flicker of pleasure that crossed her face as he began to move.
He thrust hard and deep, watching her, unable to look away. Her hands grabbed at his forearms, her mouth falling open, and the sight of her coming undone beneath him was the most erotic thing he had ever witnessed.
“I love you,” she gasped.
Something in his chest cracked wide open. He leaned forward, folding her nearly in half, and kissed her hard. His hand found hers, fingers lacing together, and he held on tight as he thrust harder, faster, chasing the release that was bearing down on him like a freight train.
When it took him, it was with a force that left him shaking. He groaned against her mouth, his whole body shuddering as he spilled inside her, and the pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain. She held him through it, one hand stroking through his hair, and he felt utterly, completely shattered.
For a long moment, he stayed buried inside her, unable to move, unable to think. Then he lowered her legs carefully and collapsed beside her, pulling her against his chest where she belonged.
“I love you too,” he whispered quietly, his lips against her temple. “More than I knew I was capable of.”
She smiled against his shoulder, pressing a kiss there. “I know.”
The night deepened around them. Their whispers stilled, their breathing slowed, and they lay together in the quiet, limbs entwined. The barriers they had each spent a lifetime building had crumbled at last, and in their place was something neither had ever hoped to find: love.
The ghosts of Caerleon could keep their vigil. Here, in each other’s arms, they had finally found their way out of the dark.
The End?