“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. Shecarried 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—Gideonhas 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.
