Chapter 22 #3
Augusta’s eyes followed Duncan’s retreating back, and her jaw clenched. “Of course he is,” she muttered, as if she was trying to be angry on Charity’s behalf.
Charity did not answer. Her fingers had already found her necklace, and she hated that they did it without her permission, hated that her body reached for the chain whenever she felt cornered or frightened or overwhelmed.
She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger as if the movement could keep her from saying something foolish.
The footman opened the carriage door, and Matilda climbed in slowly, still sniffing. Augusta followed, stiff and silent, then turned back as if she expected Charity to move too, as if she expected Charity to do what she always did, which was swallow her feelings and keep walking.
Charity stood there for another second, still touching her necklace, still staring in the direction Duncan had gone, and something in her chest shifted, since she could not bear the idea of letting him leave like that, not after everything, not after he had stepped into their lives and made it feel possible to breathe, not after he had kissed her and then acted as if the kiss had meant nothing.
She took one step toward the corridor, then another, then stopped as if she was fighting herself.
You don’t get to do this, she thought, and the anger rose fast enough to steady her.
Charity turned sharply toward the carriage. “Stay,” she said, and the word came out like an order rather than a request.
Augusta blinked, surprised.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to speak to him,” Charity said.
“Who? The duke?” Augusta’s eyes widened. “But what is left for you to say now?”
Charity did not answer. She couldn’t explain to her sisters at this moment what she was intending to do when she herself had little idea.
All that she knew was that she could not stand to just go away without having a last conversation with him.
Charity climbed out of the carriage, skirts gathered just enough so she would not trip, heart pounding hard enough to make her dizzy, and her fingers still rubbing her necklace even as she told herself to stop.
Duncan was halfway down the hallway when she reached him, and he turned at the sound of her footsteps.
Had he expected her to run after him like this? Or did he not care?
“Duncan,” Charity said, her voice shaking with anger and hurt mixed together. “Stop.”
“What are you doing?” Duncan asked, stopping. For a second, she could see a flicker of emotion in his face, but he quickly masked it.
“I… are you really asking what I’m doing?” she said. Her hands were trembling now, and it felt embarrassing to be facing him like this.
She felt as though she was entirely exposed. But now it was too late for her to turn back.
“You stepped into my life, and you helped my sisters. All this time that we have spent together… I thought… well, was it really so easy for you to say goodbye to me?”
“I said goodbye since you’re leaving,” he said, as if the logic was enough. “What did you expect me to say otherwise?”
Charity felt herself tremble even more.
“You always say the logical thing,” she went on. “But don’t you understand how cold you’re coming across when you do? It’s… I am tired of this. You are kind to me one moment as though I matter to you in some way, and then in the very next, you are cold.”
“Charity…” Duncan sighed.
“No, you don’t get to react like this,” she stepped closer.
For a moment, she worried if she would look entirely mad confronting him like this. He was calm while she was the opposite. But then she told herself that this might be the last chance she has to be honest with him.
She was not going to waste it.
“Why did you help me then?” she demanded.
“Why did you show me such kindness that no one else in my life has ever shown me before? You made me feel safe… and you looked at me… you… Why did you kiss me if it all had to come down to this? This awful scenario where I have to simply go away and pretend as though none of that mattered even a little bit?”
“I’m worried about you,” Duncan said, taking note of the state of her distress.
“Oh, you don’t get to say that you worry about me. That would be admitting that you feel something for me, and you’ve just demonstrated that you do not. If you did, then you would not be calm about me leaving.”
“Do you want a moment to settle your thoughts?”
Charity shook her head.
“I don’t understand it. None of it,” she went on. “I know that you are not without emotion, because I have felt it. But you bury it so deep inside of you that I cannot retrieve it. You are willing to watch me walk away so easily…”
Duncan took a slow breath, and Charity saw the tension in his face. He looked like he was holding himself back by force.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Duncan said.
“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Charity replied, and her hand clenched around her necklace again. “This is simply not right… You cannot make me love you and then let me go like it was nothing.”
Love.
She had finally said the word out loud. Her heart was pounding against her chest, but this was the only way that she could admit it to him.
Under extraordinary circumstances. Just as they had met.
It seemed to have left an impression on Duncan, who was looking at her with an intensity that she had never seen from him before.
He took one step toward her, then another, and before Charity could say anything else, his hand caught her wrist gently. He stopped her from fiddling with her necklace.
“Enough,” Duncan said.
Charity tried to break away from him, thinking that this was just another way to get her to be quiet.
“You will have to hear…” she said, “I… you cannot just watch me leave…”
Her words were cut short. Suddenly, Duncan was kissing her.
Kissing her!
There was an urgency in the way in which his lips moved against her. Almost as though all the emotions that he had been holding back from her had now been let loose.
Charity made a small sound against his mouth. She hated that her body responded so easily, hated that she wanted him even while she had been furious a second ago.
And now she didn’t want this moment to end.
When he pulled back, his forehead stayed close to hers, and his breathing was not as controlled as before.
“I helped you since I wanted to,” Duncan said, and his voice sounded rough now. “I said goodbye since I was trying to do the only decent thing left.”
“Why is letting me go the decent thing to do? Do you despise my presence that much?”
‘It is decent since you have a choice now. I was not going to hold you to a bargain you made when you were desperate. I was going to do it without pushing you and without trapping you. Why can’t you see that?”
Charity was shaking her head again.
It was his logic against her emotions once again.
“And you didn’t think it might kill me? You didn’t think it might hurt?”
“It hurt me to say it,” he replied. “But I just wanted what was best for you.”
“You are what’s best for me,” she said. “And you can’t make me believe otherwise. You are the only one I want, even if you let me go. That will never change.”
Duncan only stared at her for a moment.
“Do you mean that?”
“I promise you. Don’t let me go.”
“I love you,” he said finally, and the bluntness of it made Charity’s breath catch. “I have loved you for longer than I wanted, and I tried to keep it out of your way, and I failed. I want you, and I want your sisters safe, and I want you here, but….”
“There is no but,” Charity’s heart pounded. “Stop acting like you don’t care,” she whispered.