“Would that be so terrible?” Louise asked quietly. “Us, together?”
The question pierced him. Aaron stepped back, needing distance to think clearly. “You know why it’s impossible.”
“Because of your father?” Louise retrieved the poetry book, holding it like armor. “Because you’re terrified of becoming him?”
“Because I am him.” The words emerged harsh, bitter. “I have his blood, his temper, his capacity for obsession.”
“You have his eyes, too. Does that make you see the world the way he did?”
Aaron turned toward the dying fire, unable to face her while he spoke the words that haunted him. “He destroyed them. Every woman who trusted him. He collected them, used them, discarded them when they no longer amused him.”
“You’re not him.”
“You don’t know what he was capable of.” Aaron gripped the mantel, knuckles white with tension. “There was a woman. She was his mistress for two years. Beautiful, accomplished, from a wonderful family that had fallen on hard times.”
Louise remained silent, but he felt her attention like a physical touch.
“She became pregnant.” The words scraped his throat raw. “And my father was furious. He had been careful, or thought he had, at least. He accused her of infidelity, of trying to trap him, of every vile thing he could imagine.”
“Aaron …”
“He threw her out. In January. In a snowstorm. With nothing but the clothes she wore.” Aaron’s voice had gone flat, emotionless, the only way he could tell this story. “She lost the child. The hemorrhaging killed her three days later.”
The silence stretched between them, broken only by the pop of dying embers.
“How old were you?” Louise’s voice came gently as spring rain.
“Sixteen. Old enough to understand what had happened. Too young and powerless to do anything about it.” Aaron turned to face her, needing her to understand. “I stood in his study while he read the letter informing him of her death, and do you know what he said?”
Louise shook her head.
“‘Well, that’s tidily resolved then.’ As if she were a problem to be solved, rather than a person who had loved him.”
Louise crossed to him, her hands finding his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. “You are not him. Do you understand me? You are not him.”
“I have his blood.”
“You have your mother’s, too. The woman who cried over dead flowers and wrote poetry in margins and loved you before you were born.” Her thumbs stroked his cheekbones with devastating gentleness. “You think your father’s cruelty defines you, but I see your mother’s tenderness every time you’re with Emily. Every time you gentle your voice for her, every time you protect us even at cost to yourself.”
“Louise …”
“You could have taken me that first night. I threw myself at you, remember? A desperate woman in a vulnerable position. Your father wouldn’t have hesitated.” She moved closer, her body nearly touching his. “But you protected my virtue, even when I didn’t want protecting. You’ve given me pleasure while expecting nothing in return. You’ve created boundaries to keep me safe, even though it’s killing us both.”
Aaron closed his eyes, overwhelmed by her words, her nearness, the truth she offered like absolution.
“A man like your father would have bedded me, ruined me, and discarded me by now.” Louise’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “You’ve done nothing but cherish me. Even when you’re trying to push me away.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then stop pushing me away.” She pressed her lips to his in a kiss so gentle it nearly broke him. “I know what you’re thinking. That you’ll become him. That loving someone will somehow poison you. But you’ve already proven you’re nothing like him.”
Aaron pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair. She was right. Their time was limited, borrowed, stolen from circumstances that would eventually reclaim them. But perhaps that made it more precious, not less.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted against her hair.
“Neither do I.” She pulled back to look at him, and her smile held both sadness and hope. “But maybe we can learn together.”
A sound from the hallway made them spring apart. The door opened to reveal Cecilia in her wrapper, Buttercup padding beside her.
