“No. I came here to apologize for being so... prickly. I will not begin another argument,” Aaron said with stony determination.
His face was steel. His voice was granite. He held Catherine’s gaze, and she knew she could not look away. Some ancient and dark magic held her. It was a magnetism that she gladly gave herself over to. There was no escape, nor did she seek one.
“I do not want to argue either. I... I confess that afterwards I do not remember how our silly bickerings even started,” she murmured.
Aaron moved closer, not looking away or speaking. It was as though he, too, was drawn to her, drifting as though against his will, pulled by a devilish current. He opened his mouth to speak, but there came another knock at the door. His face twisted intoone of frustration, and he whirled, drawing breath. Catherine spoke up before he could explode.
“Come in!” she called out brightly, “quickly please,” she whispered.
But Aaron was close enough to hear. He looked at her with a whip of his head, and she stared back, smiling innocently. His lips twitched once, and he whirled to face the maids who had carried the breakfast things on trays.
“The light is best in my bedroom, by the bay window,” Catherine beamed, opening the door wider for them. Nudging Aaron with her elbow, she muttered, “I would not be angry with servants for doing as they have been instructed.”
“Nor would I,” he replied calmly, offering his arm.
She took it and followed him into the bedroom, which was being converted into a breakfast room. The maids moved a table to the window and found chairs throughout Catherine’s suite of rooms, arranging them opposite each other, bathed in the rectangle of pale daylight that spilled into the middle of the room from the tall window.
“Splendid! Thank you so much. What are your names?” Catherine asked cheerily.
“It does not matter. You may leave us,” Aaron interrupted.
The maids curtsied and scurried from the room, shutting the door behind them. Aaron sat, indicating Catherine should do likewise. Instead, she remained standing, hands planted on hips and glaring him down with pursed lips.
He looked back, face blank. “Is there something wrong?”
“I do not much care for the way you speak to staff,” Catherine chided, seating herself finally.
Aaron blinked as though surprised. “They are servants. How else am I supposed to address them?”
“Aspeople. With names and feelings and their own lives.”
“I know they have names and feelings and their own lives beyond their service. But it is not relevant to me,” Aaron responded, still sounding confused.
“Itshouldbe—you are their employer and their protector. Once upon a time, they would have been serfs, owing service to you in exchange for your protection as their feudal lord. Now we call it being in service, but it is not much different.”
Aaron propped his chin on his fist, watching her.
“This is the most animated I have seen you when the subject isn’t myself,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “And is it something you are passionate about?”
“Yes. Perhaps not so much when we were children. But since, I have come to appreciate that... well, that servants are not the lower orders—they are people,” Catherine replied emphatically. “At Haventon, I was closer to the staff than to my supposed family.”
I am trusting him now, with information about myself that may give him power over me. Trust must be earned. I hope this shows him he can trust me.
Catherine sat, cheeks still slightly flushed. She was not used to speaking out or in passion. Her instinct was to be meek and quiet; that was the best way of avoiding punishment.
“Allow me to be mother,” Aaron said.
Catherine suppressed the surprise she felt as Aaron poured tea for them both, adding honey to his own and then to hers at her nod. She had not expected a man and a Duke besides to be pouring the tea, but to summon a servant or wait for her to do so.
“A man who knows how to brew tea. You are full of surprises,” she murmured, sipping her tea and finding it just to her taste.
“I can cook too,” he added with a wry smile.
“Truly? How do you come by such a skill?” she asked, sitting back in her chair. She was hiding an ache in her back that was growing worse, one of the many random pains that her condition brought without warning.
“In my youth…afterwe knew each other,” he corrected pointedly, “I learned many skills considered... essential for survival. Beginning with cooking over an open-fire food which I had killed and prepared for myself...”
“Aaron!” she exclaimed with a gasp. “Killed with your own hands? You hunted and...”
