He arched his brow. “This is hardly radical behavior. Most gentlemen hunt.”
“You and I always hated the notion. Do you remember your father thrashing you for refusing to join the hunt on your eleventh?” she asked.
Aaron stared into his own tea, brooding. Catherine watched him, holding her breath. Would this see her invitation within Aaron’s walls revoked? See him fly into a rage? She watched his hands tighten on the delicate, china cup. There was pain in his face, she thought. In the tightness of his eyes. She sympathized with him, wondering what he had experienced during those long months when they had been apart.
“I remember many thrashings…” he said, finally, “forgive me, but that particular one does not stand out. Perhaps he simply used a birch instead of a belt or the flat of his sword-blade.”
Catherine jumped up before she was consciously aware of what she was doing. She went around the table and fell to her knees beside him, seizing her hands.
“Aaron, I will not pry. I can see how hard it is to talk about it. Just know this. I, too, struggled with cruelty... I will not call them my family… myguardians. I too was beaten. I... I know how you must have felt.”
Aaron looked down at her, his hands tightening on hers. Then he pulled free, stroked her face.
Catherine closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his rough palm against her cheek. She clasped her hand to his, wanting to be as close to him as she could in that moment. All thoughts of who he had become fled from her mind. It mattered little, for at that moment, he was merely a lonely little boy who needed comfort. That his trauma was the same as hers, she did not doubt. She could see it in his eyes.
Whether you are Aaron or not, I believe that you went through what you say. I feel it between us. We are kindred spirits.
“Get up, please,” he said, gently.
Catherine blushed and went back to her chair. Aaron got up and dragged his own chair around the table to sit closer to her. She found herself smiling as he took her hand upon the table.
“That is the first time I have spoken of... whathappenedto me in this house,” he murmured gently. “I do not know why I entrusted you with it.”
“Because we are...no, I will not say married. I know it was purely political. Because you recognized something in me that was similar to you?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he exhaled, “or I am being a sentimental fool and trusting the nearest lady because she is beautiful.”
“That sounds an excellent reason, if not entirely true,” she smiled shyly.
“Not true that I am being sentimental or that you are beautiful?”
“The latter,” Catherine laughed.
But Aaron did not laugh. He looked at her as though she had questioned something that she should not.
“But you are,” he repeated.
The sun shone directly upon his face, and he leaned back slightly to allow shadow to claim him. She watched him through the dazzling bar of light, his face in darkness. His eyes caught the glint, and she felt as though she were being observed by some ancient deity with the light of stars in its eyes.
“I have never been told so,” Catherine said quietly.
Aaron’s hand squeezed upon hers, fingers intertwining.
“I do not seek the company of others as a rule. But today I have sought you out twice. Against my better judgment. Take it as a compliment.”
Catherine blinked; the light seemed to be becoming very bright, and Aaron, further and further away. She held onto his hand as though it were anchoring her to him, to the room, or even reality. Her mouth grew very dry.
“I thank you for the compliment,” she heard herself saying as her head swayed gently from the weight, “…and I will pay one to you. Since the first day I met you, I thought you were the most handsome and beautiful boy I had ever met…”
Was Aaron smiling?
It was hard to see.
He was so far away now, and the light between them so very incandescent. She thought she saw a small boy at his side. The boy she used to spend summers with. The boy from whom the man came.
He was looking at his older self as though the man were a stranger.
“Boy?” Aaron asked… or was it the boy who spoke?
