Aaron swayed slightly, scowling around the room. He winced and reached into the sleeve of his shirt to remove a wayward piece of glass, discarding it carelessly. Catherine’s eyes widened as the movement revealed his upper right arm through the laces of the shirt.
There was the birthmark, dark against his pale skin. And on the wrong arm.
Aaron caught her staring and glanced down at his shirt. He laced it up, hiding any sight of what lay beneath.
“What are you staring at?” he demanded.
“Your birthmark,” Catherine said, rising weakly.
“You stare at deformity. That is rude.”
He strode away, banging into a piece of furniture and swearing, kicking at it and sending another piece tumbling in a crash. Catherine instinctively covered her ears at the sound, flinching as she had learned to do when faced with her Aunt and Uncle’s violent tantrums in the past. Aaron stopped, breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice suddenly soft in contrast to his earlier rage, “you do not have to be afraid of me.”
Awkwardly, he righted the furniture he had upturned.
He looked back, and Catherine immediately quelled the urge to cower before him. She fought to overcome the instinct for fear that she had learned back at Haventon.
“I was not trying to frighten you,” he exhaled, kneeling beside her as though to avoid towering over her, “that is not the kind of man I am.”
“Then what kind of man are you?” she asked, voice trembling.
“One who cannot leave a defenseless woman in the face of abuse?” he answered with a sheepish grin. “I could have walked out of Haventon without looking back. But I could not bring myself to abandon you to them.”
“That is the kind of boy you were, too,” Catherine said.
Aaron shrugged, half-turning. “As I said, my memories of childhood are hazy at best. If you say it was so, then it was so.”
“I promise you that it was. It is.”
She studied him, righting herself up and brushing dust from her clothes. He raked a hand through his hair, sweeping it from hisface. That face had the austere cruelty of a Renaissance statue. Beautiful, perfectly crafted, but cold and hard. His honey-brown eyes appeared almost black in the half light, darkened further by his propensity for scowling. But those eyes were magnetic. Thoughts fled and words dried on her tongue under that stare. She could only look back and be reminded of the intimacies they had shared already.
It colored her cheeks, and she noted the twitch at the corner of his mouth, a smile quickly smothered.
“Something is funny?” she asked.
“Nothing about this is funny,” Aaron replied, mouth tightening back into a sword blade.
“You smiled.”
“I did not.”
“I was watching and I saw it distinctly.”
“It is dark and you are tired. And unwell.”
Catherine felt the cramp at that moment but tried to keep the pain from her face. She suddenly felt unbearably cold and had to clamp her teeth shut to prevent them from chattering.
“As I said earlier, I am not...” she began, and Aaron arched an eyebrow, stepping closer to her.
“You are flushed but shivering,” he gently touched her forehead, “and warm to the touch. Are you having muscle cramps?”
Catherine shook her head, closing her eyes as he pressed the back of his hand against her head. His other hand gently enclosed her upper arm, holding her steady. She swallowed, the feeling of illness temporarily leaving her, as though driven out by his caress. She gazed up into his eyes, unblinking and, for the moment, utterly lost.
“Your eyes are...”
“Merely eyes,” Aaron interjected smoothly, “I think we should get you to bed. I shall request McKay for a draught of Mother’s Milk.”
