Chapter 15
“Miss Charity, is everything alright?”
Charity was intercepted pacing in the hallway by the housekeeper. She realized how silly she must have looked, for she had been pacing up and down for the last half hour.
“I…” Charity started, already feeling at a loss of words. “Well, I was wondering… I was…”
“Are you looking for His Grace?” the housekeeper asked, sparing Charity the embarrassment.
She nodded.
“Yes, do you happen to know where he is?” Charity asked, assuming innocence. She already knew where he was, though.
She had been keeping track of his movements all morning, but was feeling unsure about how to approach him.
The pair had not spoken to each other in the last few days, since their little argument. Naturally, she felt fairly hesitant to approach him.
What if he doesn’t want to see me? She mulled over for what felt like the tenth time.
“Yes, His Grace is in his study.”
“Right then. I suppose I will go see him there,” Charity said, knowing that she could not keep delaying things anymore.
Begrudgingly, she made her way over and knocked once.
“Come in,” Duncan said.
Charity stepped in with a small stack of folded papers in her hand, and she closed the door behind.
“I hope I am not bothering you, Your Grace,” she started. Her tone was polite to a fault, and she wanted to let him know that she was not here to start any arguments.
Duncan looked at the papers in her hands and then leaned back slightly in his chair.
“No, you’re not bothering me in the slightest,” he noted. Charity was relieved to see that there was no hostility in his tone. Did that mean that he had gotten over their little argument from the day before? “Is it something important?”
Charity chewed on her lip.
“Would you mind if I take a seat first?”
“Not at all. Make yourself comfortable,” Duncan nodded. “You seem a bit on edge.”
“I suppose I’m just a bit nervous,” she admitted, looking away from him. Suddenly, the furniture appeared very interesting in comparison. Anything to avoid his gaze.
“Yes, we’ve established that you tend to get that way in my presence,” he said, and there was a hint of teasing in his tone.
“If I may speak,” she steadied her, “I wasn’t sure if you were going to want to see me after.. well, our last conversation did not exactly go smoothly.”
“Hmm,” Duncan replied, smoothly. “I don’t have a tendency to hold onto grudges.”
“I shouldn’t have compared you to him,” she came clean.
Her heart was beating fast now, and she hoped that he wouldn’t be able to tell that her hands had started to sweat.
She neatly wiped them down on the front of her skirts and knotted them together in front of her.
“That was very out of line for me, and I suppose I had said it in the heat of the moment.”
“I’m glad you’ve come to that realization,” his reply was curt and without emotion.
Charity frowned.
“You’re still cross with me, I can just tell,” she said. “Can we go back to how things were before?”
Duncan regarded her for a moment. “Words are of great significance to me, and you cannot be so reckless with yours. It reminds me… well, it reminds me of others who did the same. I tend to respect my word, and wish that you do the same.”
“You will not have to worry anymore,” she said, sighing. “The last thing I wish to do is to remind you of something that you don’t want to remember.”
Duncan was not a man made out of stone. Quite the opposite, though his outward appearance gave the impression of a stern man.
Early in his life, he had seen his parents sometimes speak words to him that they did not mean in the heat of the moment. He had always taken them to heart and learned that he would never utter something that he didn’t truly mean.
Charity was staring at him with a soft expression now. It was disarming just how beautiful she looked in these unguarded moments.
“What did you initially come to speak to me about?” he said, wanting to traverse back to safer topics. “Those papers that you brought in with you. What are they for?”
“Oh,” Charity glanced over at the papers, as though she had herself forgotten the purpose of her visit. “Those are… That’s a list I’ve made. I was hoping that we could speak a bit about wedding guests.”
Duncan had always appreciated good management skills, and knew that a future Duchess would require them. To him, this demonstrated that Charity had the capability to do so.
“I’d like to hear about it.”
“I have made a list of people I would like to invite, and I wanted to ask whether there are any from your side we should add before I send anything to the staff.”
Duncan did not have to think much about it.
“I don’t think that I have a very long list.”
“Still,” she pressed, eyebrows knitting together, “I’m sure that there exists a list of some kind. I’d like you to tell me, so that no one gets missed.”
Duncan let out a short laugh, which only served to confuse Charity.
“I’m sorry. Did I say something out of sorts?”
“Not at all,” Duncan said, still smiling.
“Then why did you laugh?”
“Well, for one thing, there is no list. There’s only one person I should like to be there, and that is Malcolm. And for him, I can just hand deliver the invitation myself,” he admitted.
Charity blinked, clearly surprised.
“Is that because... well, do you not have many you wish to invite, or not many available to invite?” she went on to ask. “There’s a distinction between the two.”
“Both,” Duncan said, shrugging casually.
“I assumed there would be others from your acquaintance.”
“I have many acquaintances,” Duncan said. “But I suppose that there are not many that I would consider as friends. I can see that it's a bit strange for you.”
“Not strange,” she said immediately, “I know you have a tendency to keep to yourself, but I just assumed.. well, it’s not as though you are not capable of having many friends. If you wanted, I am sure that there would be a whole group of best friends.”
“You underestimate my liking for company,” he smiled.
“Everyone loves company,” Charity shrugged. “Even if you’re a self-proclaimed recluse.”
Duncan could not help but chuckle at that.
“What about you? On your side,” he asked. “Who are these people you wish to invite?”
“Oh, well,” she said, her expression easing immediately and growing warmer. There was a sparkle in her eyes as she began to speak again, which Duncan found endearing.
She looked down at the list again as if it had become something she was glad to talk about rather than merely a task to be completed.
“I do not have a long list of ladies and families and drawing-room obligations, which I suppose is fortunate, since that would only make this more difficult, but there are a few people I care for deeply, and I want them there if it can be managed.”
“Tell me,” Duncan nodded once.
Charity glanced at him, as though checking whether he truly meant it, then continued when she saw that he did.
“My friends from the nunnery. I shall like for them to be there,” she said. “And of course, their husbands as well.”
Duncan listened without interrupting, and as she kept speaking, he found himself paying less attention to the names and more to her face, to the way she spoke when she was not trying to win an argument or defend herself, and to the way her whole expression changed when she spoke about people she loved.
“And these friends mean a great deal to you?”
Charity looked slightly surprised by his interest, then answered more easily than before.
“We met in the least graceful way possible, which will probably disappoint you if you had imagined something solemn and worthy. I was new, frightened, and trying very hard to appear neither of those things. They saw through me in under a minute.”
Duncan’s mouth shifted very slightly. “I see..”
“During my nunnery days, they were the support I needed to survive,” she admitted.
“So, you need company,” he smiled, turning her comment back on her.
“I needed almost everyone and behaved as if I needed no one at all, which was not my finest period,” Charity gave him a dry look.
Duncan found himself looking at her longer than he should have.
He had seen her angry, frightened, defensive, exhausted, and determined, but this was different.
There was no fight in her now. She was simply speaking, and in that plain, open way, she looked younger and softer and far too easy to look at.
He shifted slightly in his chair, annoyed with himself at once.
“And these friends,” Duncan said, keeping his tone even. “They know about the marriage?”
Charity’s smile faded, though not completely.
“They know enough to understand that it is happening quickly and under difficult circumstances, and the ones who know me well enough will understand the rest without my writing it plainly.”
Duncan studied her for a second.
“And they approve?”
Charity let out a small breath. “I do not know if approve is the word, but they trust me to make the best decision I can, and I think they will be relieved that my sisters and I are safe, which matters more to me than whether they find the arrangement romantic.”
The word sat between them for half a second.
Romantic.
“It is not romantic,” Duncan looked down at the desk, then back at her.
Charity’s gaze held his, and for a moment, he could not tell whether she was agreeing with him or simply noting that he had felt the need to say it.
“No,” Charity said at last, and her tone stayed calm. “It is not. I have no qualms about that, Your Grace.”
Something in him eased at hearing it, and something else did not.
He glanced at the papers in her hand again. “You said there were others.”
Charity nodded and looked back at the list.
“There are a few local people who have shown us kindness in the past and who would be hurt if they heard of the wedding after the fact, and I would rather avoid that if I can. And then there are the practical names, of course, people who ought to be informed rather than invited in any intimate sense, which is a different category entirely.”
“That sounds sensible,” Duncan gave a short nod.