Catherine let him continue.
“While you are here, I wish for you to be that person. You have made it abundantly clear that you have no qualms about being honest with me, and I need that.” He gave her a wry smile, holding up a hand as she opened her mouth, ready to tell him that she was not going to be his nursemaid. “I am not suggesting we spend every hour together; dinner will suffice. After all, that is likely to be the first social occasion I will encounter. The business matters we can tend to as and when they arise.”
“You wish for me to dine with you daily?” Catherine frowned.
“And correct my etiquette. To tell me what you know of theton. To be honest with me, when no one else will be.” He shrugged.
Catherine bit her lip. Her heart pounded in her chest as she searched his face for any sign of deception. She rubbed her throat, trying to figure out what game he was playing. Alaric kept looking at her, his eyes warm and his body at ease.
“And you will not take offense when I do it?” Catherine asked after several moments.
Alaric smiled and shook his head, placing a hand on his own chest and bowing. “I swear that I will not.”
“Very well.” Catherine found herself smiling back at him. “But only because I rather enjoy shouting at you. And you are right, of course, thetonwill exploit any weakness they sense, and if I can help keep us both safe, then I will. After all, once I have left, you will need to manage on your own.”
Alaric nodded. “I will see you at dinner.”
“You will.” Catherine turned and left before Alaric could say another word.
How does he do this? More to the point, what is this?
She had been furious with him, and now she was agreeing to be his... teacher? He was admitting vulnerabilities to her, asking her to be his partner.
She felt her heart flutter at the thought. He had seemed sincere, and he kept saying that he trusted her. Catherine’s eyes caught a tuft of dark hair as she saw Oliver playing under a tree, with Annabelle sitting nearby.
He abandoned his son.Alaric still maintained that Oliver was not his, but who else could be the boy’s father? Catherine walked toward the boy, reminding herself of all the pain he had endured. Catherine could not trust Alaric, no matter what he said or how much he seemed to have changed. He did not remember who he was, but she did.
Oliver looked up at her, and his eyes were like Alaric’s. They were not just the same green; the look in them made her think Oliver was taking in everything around him and cataloguing it meticulously in his mind.
The boy’s eyes lit up as they met Catherine’s, pulling her out of her thoughts and into the present. She kneeled down beside him. “Are you liking being outside, Oliver?”
He tapped a small finger against his mouth and then nodded.
“I used to love days like these when I was your age,” Catherine said, gesturing around them. “The sun shining, the birds singing. Blue sky stretching as far as the eye can see. It was like the world coming back to life. I just wanted to lie in the grass and watch the world go by.”
She saw Oliver follow the direction of her gesture. “Or I would run around and laugh and be so deliriously giddy that I felt like I could do anything. Do you ever feel like that, Oliver?”
Oliver paused and then nodded again.
Catherine noticed him tracing a finger through the soil, and an idea struck her. She drew her own finger through the dirt, making a small curve and then two lines. She drew a circle around them to make a very simple smiling face. She looked up at Oliver and canted her head.
She pointed at the drawing, then at herself, and smiled. “That is how I feel, now.”
Oliver pointed and then imitated the expression on his face, with his lips curling into a small smile. Seeing it made her heart soar, and her own smile widened.
Oliver widened the smile on Catherine’s drawing and laughed. His eyes danced as he looked up at her, his smile now more confident. The sound of his laughter seemed to fill the air around them, and a tension Catherine had not even realized was there eased from her chest. Then, Oliver took her hand gently, his smile flickering as he pointed to the dirt.
Catherine nodded. Understanding what he was asking, she gently squeezed his hand and then added another face to the dirt. This one had a downturned mouth.
Oliver mimicked the expression, then broke into a wide grin that made Catherine laugh. She made another face, and then another. Soon, Oliver was drawing too.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as if someone was watching her. She turned to face the castle, her eyes landing on Alaric’s study and the balcony. There was no one there.
She turned away and back to Oliver, uncertain why the sight of that empty balcony and closed door had made her feel like she had walked into town only to find that her favorite shop was closed. She shook it off and focused her attention on Oliver.
“Let us try animals next.” She grinned and attempted to draw a bird.
He is the one who matters.
