He looked at her, puzzled. “Out?”
“Yes. I have been kept like a prisoner all my life. Now I want to live. To do the things I have never done. To see and be seen. The first thing…” She beamed, her eyes bright, “...Take me to Hyde Park. Let us promenade, as others do. Let them see me with you.”
Gideon’s lips curved in the faintest smile. “Hyde Park?”
“Yes,” she whispered, “Hyde Park.”
He studied her for a long moment, then inclined his head. “Very well. We shall go.”
Her heart lifted as though the whole world had opened before her. No, not the whole world. She did not want the whole world. Just him.
That felt within her grasp.
CHAPTER 23
The Serpentine glinted. Catherine and Gideon strolled along the gravel walk that followed it. Carriages rolled along the broad, paved road. Horse’s hooves clicked in precise steps. The sounds of the English gentry at play. Gideon was acutely aware of how their passage drew eyes.
We make a striking pair. Or, rather, Catherine is striking on her own. Any man on her arm would be elevated to the status of prince.
Catherine was radiant in a gown of soft emerald that brought out the color of her eyes. She walked with ease and confidence, in contrast to her recent ordeal. It was as if the realCatherinehad become hidden beneath the woman cowed by her cruel relatives and sickened by the poison they fed her.
What were they up to? Why perpetrate such a monstrous crime? For control? Why?
Gideon’s hand brushed hers at times, deliberate but restrained. His pulse quickened each time he did. Each touch was a thrilling intimacy, hidden in plain sight and all the more exciting for that. His ears caught compliments that drifted from passersby.
“What a lovely couple,” said a lady to her companion.
“Such composure!”
“A handsome couple. Who is she?”
“Well, I know him. Winchester is his name.”
Gideon stiffened, uncomfortable and resentful. The compliments were weighted towards Catherine. Wherehisname was mentioned, he thought he detected approbation. It angered him.
He felt Catherine’s hand around his own. Without looking at him, she squeezed gently as though sensing his unease. It lessened his anger. He stole a glance, saw the corner of her mouth tugged upward in a barely suppressed smile.
They judge so easily. And I am forced to ever greater gymnastics to prove my honor because of their wagging tongues!
Their words should have meant nothing. When their words touched Catherine, Gideon felt a strange heat within him. Anger, indignation, resentment, and… pleasure. That emotionbubbled up like an underground spring. It suffused him simply from being near her. Even the words of strangers linking them together thrilled him. Because those words were an intimacy. The realization of the depth of his feeling unsettled him.
The mantra went through his head. A talisman of protection.Attachmentis weakness.Emotionis weakness. A Duke can affordneither. Cut them out.
As my father did. He cut out his grief for mother. Made himself stone.
But Catherine drew him. He could not stop noticing the way she carried herself, her laugh light and spontaneous, her gestures graceful yet unstudied. He felt himself drawn closer with each step, and he could not forget the intimacy they had shared. The memory burned quietly beneath his skin, a constant, simmering ache.
He caught her hand more firmly as she leaned toward him to comment on a flowering shrub by the path.
“You have grown braver in the world,” he said, attempting calm. “More… assured.”
She beamed up at him. “I feel alive for the first time.”
Alive. The word struck him. He wanted to protect that life, yet he feared what it cost him in himself.
They turned into a quieter avenue of the park, away from the main promenade. The tall trees cast long shadows over the path, the light dappled and soft. Gideon loosened his hold slightly, thinking they could walk in privacy.
Then, a sudden tug at his coat. A hand reached for his purse. He reacted instinctively, spinning and grabbing the youth by the wrist.
