“I think it best we don’t keep secrets from each other.”
“You’re picking up on assertiveness quickly, I see,” he observed.
“I had an excellent teacher.” Her eyes met his. “Do we agree?”
“I have no secrets.” The lie came easily. From years of keeping up the façade to any and all living souls. “Only a desire not to burden you with petty gossip. But if you have any confessions, I’m all ears.”
Catherine paused, staring into the golden bubbles rising in her wine glass. Her lips parted—
Sir Obadiah heaved to his feet again, glass raised. “A toast!”
Gideon lifted his glass with barely concealed irritation. He glanced at Catherine. She gave a small shake of her head.
Whatever she’d been about to say would have to wait.
CHAPTER 18
“What are you thinking of?” Aaron asked.
They walked in the gardens of Sir Obadiah’s house. From the open windows came the sound of billiard balls and Sir Obadiah’s raucous laughter. The night embraced Catherine and Aaron. An orange moon loitered close to the treetops, swollen and casting a bright light over the manicured lawns.
“Why do you wish to know?” Catherine replied.
“Because you have been very quiet this past hour. In fact, ever since our talk of secrets.”
“I find social occasions rather fatiguing,” she said with a morsel of honesty, “there is such a need to be... I can’t think of the word.”
“Sociable?” he offered.
She laughed. “That one will do. That is a good one.”
He grinned. “Frankly, I, too, find them fatiguing, but it is the curse of our rank. To get by, we must be seen.”
“And be seen, beingseen,” she underlined in a voice that spoke volumes about her opinions on the subject.
“AndChrist alive, that is the worst,” he shuddered, chuckling.
They walked arm in arm. Catherine found herself savoring the way Aaron’s scent mingled with the woody trees that lined their path. He was almost like a force of nature, a part of it.
“Actually, I was thinking of our... tumble in the woods,” Catherine started, then she began babbling, “I mean our literal tumble, nottumblein the sense that word is used in its colloquial form. That is to say, I mean, when I ended up on top of you and...” She stopped and faced him, all apple-cheeked. “Oh my, I am not making this sound any better, am I?”
She felt nervous, as though she were balancing on a blade’s edge. What she’d said was true—she thought of that moment constantly, far too many times than she supposed was healthy. Aaron against the rock, shirtless, his body like carved stone. Desire had hazed her vision in the moment, but the memory was crystal clear. Kissing down his chest. His left arm. Biting gently, careful not to mark him, but to mar him all the same.
I know that he has a birthmark on his left arm. I thought it should be on his right, but what if I have that wrong? It was such a long time ago. Isn’t it proof enough that I have seen it twice, in the flesh?
“I have thought of that moment many times myself.” His voice pulled her back. “It grieves me that we became so close, only to have this distance open between us.”
“I felt vulnerable after what we shared,” she said carefully. “And I felt used and discarded. That is why I got so angry.”
“I understand now.” His thumb brushed across her knuckles. “I did not at the time. But is there nothing else troubling you?”
Who took my letter to Isabella and my writing implements?
“Nothing,” she lied.
She had considered telling Aaron everything.
Asking him directly if he was truly Aaron Tarnley and why he had forgotten so much of their childhood, includingher. But she held back. She sensed that this path would lead to their dissolution. It would take on diverging roads that would draw their marriage apart.
