Chapter Seven #2
"I like underdogs." He glances at me with a slight smile. "Literally, in this case."
"Is that what I am? An underdog?"
"You've been kept safe," he says. "But safe isn't the same as alive." His dark eyes meet mine across the small room. "Yeah, I'd say that makes you something of an underdog."
Something about the way he says it—without pity, without judgment—makes my chest tight.
"What would happen if I stopped being safe?" I ask quietly.
"You’d find out who Charity Pembroke really is when nobody’s watching.
When nobody’s telling you who to be or how to behave or what’s appropriate for someone of your station.
" His voice drops lower, more intense. "You’d discover what it feels like to make choices based on what you want instead of what everyone else expects. "
What I want. The concept is so foreign it makes my head spin. I've spent so long focusing on what I should want, what I'm supposed to want, that I've never stopped to consider what actually calls to me.
But sitting here with Draco and Lucky, I'm beginning to understand. I want this—this sense of purpose, of being needed, of making my own choices. I want to feel alive instead of preserved.
Draco’s gaze sharpens. "Grace and Charity," he murmurs. "No wonder they tried to turn you into a saint."
"There’s something almost no one knows," I say suddenly, the words tumbling out before I can second-guess them.
Draco straightens, giving me his complete attention. "Yeah?"
"I have a workshop. Out in the old carriage house." I gesture toward the window that faces the converted building. "I make art. Sculptures. Large-scale pieces using welded steel."
His eyebrows rise. "Welding? That doesn’t exactly fit the sheltered princess image."
"My physics tutor introduced me to metalwork when I was fourteen.
Said it would help me understand stress and tension in materials.
" I can’t help but smile at the memory. "I think he expected me to make small decorative pieces.
Instead, I fell in love with creating something big and powerful and permanent. "
"What kind of sculptures?"
“I spent a long time frozen,” I admit. “Maybe that’s why your work feels alive to me.”The observation hits me like a physical blow. How did he see that so clearly when I’ve never even articulated it to myself?
"Maybe that’s who I really am," I whisper. "Maybe that’s who I’m supposed to be."
"Maybe it’s time to find out."
Lucky yawns and settles more comfortably against me, utterly relaxed. But neither Draco nor I move to break the moment. We look at each other across the small room, and I feel something shifting inside my chest—something fundamental and irreversible.
I can feel it in the way Draco looks at me, like he’s seeing Charity instead of just the Pembroke heiress. And I feel it in my own growing certainty that I don’t want to go back to being the perfect daughter who never causes any trouble.
I want to cause trouble. I want to make choices that matter. To discover what it feels like to live authentically instead of as someone else’s carefully constructed legacy.
"Draco?" I say quietly.
"Yeah?"
"When you said it was time to start figuring out who I am… did you mean it? Would you help me?"
He’s quiet for a long moment, studying my face like he’s trying to read something written there in a language he’s not sure he understands.
"That’s a dangerous question, Charity."
"Why?"
"Because once you start breaking free of that cage, there’s no going back to being the person everyone expects you to be. And some people won’t like the person you become."
"Then let it be dangerous," I say. "Danger means I picked it."
My parents come to mind—their carefully orchestrated plans for my life, of the way they’ve built their entire identity around protecting me from a world they see as fundamentally hostile.
Grace’s preserved bedroom rises in my memory and the ghost I’ve been trying to become for twenty-five years.
I think of Lucky, who chose to trust us despite every reason to remain cautious.
"I’m tired of being safe," I say finally. "Tired of living someone else’s life. If you’re offering to show me how to live as myself… yes. I want that."
Draco pushes off from the counter and crosses to where I’m sitting. He reaches down and takes my hand. The contact is simple and devastating; heat climbs my arm and settles somewhere that has nothing to do with safety.
Lucky lifts his head, sighs like an old man, and presses closer—as if we’ve passed some test.
"Then we’ll figure it out together," he says simply.
Outside, the sun is high in the sky, drenching the cottage in sunshine. Tomorrow, I’ll have to return to the main house, resume my role as the dutiful daughter who never causes any trouble.
But today, sitting here with Lucky warm against my side and this mysterious stranger holding my hand like it’s something precious, I feel like myself for the first time in my life.
Lucky stretches and settles deeper into sleep, completely content to be exactly where he is.
They named me Charity—the virtue of giving. But today, for the first time, I'm taking something for myself.
And it feels like coming home.