Charity sighed, “Yes, but they have no other choice. Come, Matilda. The carriage is waiting for us.”
Charity pressed a kiss to the top of Matilda’s head, then straightened. Augusta had appeared now, looking visibly relieved that her younger sister had been found.
“Come,” Charity said again and began guiding them back toward the house.
Duncan walked beside them for a short while without speaking, hands clasped behind his back. Charity tried not to look at him too often. Every time she did, she felt that stupid knot in her stomach tighten. By the time they reached the hall, servants were already waiting near the door, and the luggage had been stacked neatly. The housekeeper stood with a composed expression that looked a little softer than usual.
“Miss Charity,” the housekeeper said, “the carriage is ready, and your trunks have been secured.”
“Thank you,” Charity said, feeling her throat constrict.
Matilda tugged at Charity’s sleeve and thenturned toward the housekeeper, sniffed hard, then threw her arms around thewoman’s waist with sudden force. The housekeeper froze for a second, then patted Matilda’s back with awkward care.
“Goodbye,” Matilda said into her skirts. “I like you.”
Duncan did not stay near the door for long, and Charity noticed it the moment Matilda stepped back from the housekeeper and wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
He stood a few paces away from the luggage and the footmen, his posture straight, his expression composed, and when Charity finally turned toward him with Matilda still clinging to her skirt and Augusta standing rigid at her side, he did not offer explanations or comfort, and he did not step closer, as if he had already decided that the best kindness he could give was distance.
“Goodbye, Charity,” Duncan said, and his voice was calm, neither sharp nor warm, and that calmness was what made it feel so cruel, since she could still remember the way he had looked when Edward was in the chapel, and she could still remember the kiss, and she could still remember his hands on her face, and now he was speaking as if none of it had ever happened.
Charity stared at him for a moment, not since she wanted to make a scene in front of the servants, but since she could not quite understand how he could say it like that and then expect her to simply walk away as if the last weeks had not carved new shapes into her life.
“Goodbye,” Charity managed, and even to her own ears the word sounded wrong, as though it belonged to a stranger.
Duncan gave a short nod, then turned without waiting for another response, and he walked down the corridor at an even pace as if he had places to be and duties to return to, and not as if he was walking away from the woman he had been holding a few days ago as though letting go might break him.
Charity felt her throat tighten immediately, and she hated herself for it, since she refused to cry in front of the staff, but she could feel the tears pressing anyway, and she had to blink hard to keep them back.
Matilda looked up at her, eyes still wet.
“Is he leaving?” Matilda asked, confused and anxious.
“Yes,” Charity said, and her voice stayed steady only because she forced it. “He is leaving.”
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 betweenher 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.
