“Do not say that,” he muttered.
“Would you care?”
“Of course!” he replied hotly.
“You have given no sign of it one way or the other,” she mumbled.
A wave of nausea swept through her, and she found her forehead touching Aaron’s. He held her by the shoulders, hands strong and unyielding. Even a disease must give way before such power.
“I do so now,” Aaron pressed.
“Ah, but now… it is too late. When you are riddled with drink, it does not count for much.”
“In vino veritas.”
“If only I could be worthy ofveritaswithoutvino,” she mumbled.
“I do not like this conversation,” he replied, face darkening.
Catherine found a moment of painless clarity. She laughed, her ingrained meekness shed for the moment.
“I do not like much of what has happened to me, but saying so will not help me. We must... play the hand we are dealt. Is that not what you used to say?”
She closed her mouth abruptly as Aaron stroked her cheek with his thumb. His touch moved her beyond the mundane. Beyond the dust sheets and the old furniture. Beyond the smell of brandy.
She tried to reminisce of those idyllic childhood times, but something in his touch refused to allow her to bring those memories to mind. Instead, she was transported elsewhere, somewhere entirely more sensual and less innocent. She tilted her face, and the touch of his thumb became his hand, cupping her cheek. His rough thumb stroked her lips, which she parted for him, breathing out in shallow, desperate gasps.
“I couldn’t agree more. There is little point in wishing. It has never served me well.”
“When we were children, we used to wish all the time,” Catherine whispered.
“Did we?”
She peeled open her eyes and found him distracted by her face, entranced in his study of her. Then he became aware of her gaze, and his look sharpened.
“Yes, I suppose we did,” he mused aloud. “As children often do. When they grow up, they give up childish fancies.”
“And it serves us no better. Perhaps we should still be wishing for that which we don’t have.”
“A recipe for misery.”
“Orhope.”
Aaron laughed, a harsh sound, sharp as the broken edge of a fishing hole in an ice pond.
“Hope?” he asked, “Where have you met such?”
“In your company. Many times. I hoped for the chance to travel, to read, and to write. To experience. You hoped for...”
Aaron fell silent. Catherine waited, but he did not finish her sentence.
“I will not say what I hoped for except victory,” he said at last.
“Over whom?”
“Everyone.”
He levered himself to his feet. Catherine felt bereft of his touch. She lifted her hand to her face as though seeking some trace of it still, lingering on her skin.
