“I own a lodge beyond Windsor,” he spoke at last. “It is isolated in several acres of woodland. You will be utterly alone there… You ask much of me.”
“I ask only for freedom.”
CHAPTER 20
The ancient lodge stood in shadow. From the lower window, Gideon could glimpse a faint candle flame. Sally Oldcastle scurried about within, tending to Catherine. Her mistress lay in a bed that had not known warmth for years.
I promised her I would not watch. Yet I cannot help myself. I always stay close, silent, unseen…
“Weak, vulnerable,”whispered Aaron,“you have learned nothing from father.”
“Perhaps not,” Gideon whispered back, “but I am learning now.”
The night wore on. Wails reached Gideon through the shuttered windows. His hands clenched into fists.
The body broke when the poppy was taken away too swiftly. He had seen too many men die of it. Horribly.
He remembered the hells of Cheapside. Where disease stalked nightly, and desperation perfumed the air. Where food was more precious than gold, and the ground seemed to suck at your feet, miring you in that terrible place. He carried a vial, hidden in his coat, and prayed he would not need it.
I want her to know. I want to tell her everything. This secret weighs down my soul. But what if Aaron is still alive as the rumors say? What if she is still in love with him?
Gideon stole closer, unable to stop himself. He peeked through a window. The cottage was all on one level, and the window he looked through was the bedroom. It was lit by a flickering fire and the light of candelabras. Within, he found Catherine. Her face was damp with sweat, her hair darkened by it. Sally dabbed her brow, soaking the linen in a bowl of water on the bedside table.
Catherine clutched herself, writhing on the bed. She pincered at Sally’s hand. Gideon’s grip tightened on the vial. He yearned to be by her side, but he resisted the urge. He had made a promise, and his presence only brought her more pain. His weaning her off the damnable drug over the last few weeks was his only solace now.
Eventually, unable to watch any more, he turned away from the cottage, stalking into the trees but not going so far that he could not hear Catherine’s anguish. That tethered him.
She is not my wife. She is a means to an end. I will be strong. I will be alone!
“You will never be strong. Father was right about you. You are weak. That is why he exiled you. The runt of the litter,” Aaron’s poison whispered from somewhere in the shadows behind him.
“And yet you are the one hiding in the shadows,” Gideon hissed.
“Madness always starts out in the shadows.”
Gideon lashed out, his fist striking a tree that did not feel the blow. He struck again. Again. The pain in his hand cut through the muddle of emotions. It drew his focus, cleansed him.
Aaron fell silent.
Catherine did not.
Gideon cradled his damaged hand, knuckles bloody, and slid down the trunk of the tree to wait out the night. As he did, he stared into the night with eyes open, refusing to allow them to close. He would not sleep while she suffered.
He saw a night years ago. Saw the streets of Cheapside. Walked those streets once more.
They did not stick to his shoes, did not mire him as they did some. He was one of the few to escape their clutches.
Braziers lit the hells which he had known since his youth. Faces saw him and acknowledged his feral strength. He was safe here. The fear of those who recognized him kept him safe.
He kept blades about his person, had trained his body from the willowy slimness of his youth into a solid mass of muscle.
Gideon was no longer the helpless youth who had been tossed into the maw of Cheapside years before.
Entering a tavern at the end of a cobbled lane, he had intended to drink while he waited on the company of his employees. Waited on news of how their work had amplified his wealth.
The newspaper had been put on his table with his ale. As it always was. The words, which few in that place would be able to read, stopped him.
The ale lay forgotten.
