But his gaze dropped to her robe, and the expression on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Duncan asked, his voice rough with sleep. It was not ahappy to see youtone, but it was less lethal than what his initial reaction had suggested. “Are you ill again?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m not ill, I just need to talk to you.”
“At this hour?” Duncan seemed taken aback.
“Yes, now. Please. You must not deny me.”
Behind her, Malcolm cleared his throat with exaggerated politeness.
“If you’ll forgive me, Your Grace,” Malcolm said, grinning, “I’ll leave you to it for yer privacy.”
Duncan’s eyes cut to Malcolm with a glare, and then immediately back to Charity. Somehow, though, the interaction puts her a little at ease. There is something warm about how both men react around one another, that could only be achieved by familiarity.
“Come in,” he said curtly.
Charity shyly followed him inside, now suddenly feeling Malcolm’s absence. Never before has she been in a room alone with a man, and never did she think it would be under these sorts of circumstances.
In the dim light of the room, she noticed that he was not dressed as he had been earlier. He wore a loose shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and trousers instead of a coat. The shift in clothing made him look even larger, because there was less structure hiding his body, and her attention went to the line of his collarbone, and then his chest, which peeked through.
Charity’s face heated again, immediately.
But she stole another look and spotted a scar that was peeking out from beneath the open collar, thicker than the scars on his face. Her gaze fixed on it without permission.
How had he survived that?
And then, before she could stop herself, another thought followed the first:
If he had survived something like that, maybe he could help her.
No, he definitely could. The question was whether he would. Charity realized she had been staring at his chest for too long when Duncan spoke.
“Are you finished?” he asked, and Charity’s gaze jerked up to his eyes. A blush crept up her face again, hot and immediate, and she wanted to throw herself out the door just to escape the humiliation. “What do you want to talk about that you can’t wait until morning?”
“I was suspicious of you,” she blurted, “and I know I shouldn’t have been, but I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t know who you were, and I woke up in the woods and you were standing over me and….” She cut herself off only because she realized she was rambling, then forced herself to continue more clearly. “I was suspicious because I’m an heiress, I have wealth, and a great deal of it. And when you wake up drugged and moved across a border, your mind goes to the simplest explanation, which is that someone wanted what you had…”
“Go on,” he said, not giving her much of a reaction.
Charity swallowed.
“My uncle,” she continued, “inherited my father's title. He is a viscount. He looks respectable, but he has no money. He came to York six months after my parents’ funeral and told me I would marry my cousin so that my dowry stays in the family.”
“And?”
“And my cousin Robert,” Charity said, “was there. The one whom I was to marry, of course, and he didn’t look pleased. I don’t think he wanted it, but he didn’t stop it either, and I was furious and frightened and…” She took a breath, then pressed on. “My uncle threatened my sisters and said if I didn’t behave sensibly, he’d take a more active role in directing their futures.”
Just repeating the threat made her shudder. She could take anything when it came to herself, but with her sisters, she could not bear to think that anything should happen to them.
“Why have you come to tell me your family affairs?” Duncan said. Once again, she could not make out his true feelings.
“I need you to understand because…” she steadied herself again, “the only person who benefits from me being removed at this exact moment is my uncle. He wants my inheritance under his control. If I refused to marry Robert, then it might not have gonehis way. But if I am gone, or if I am disgraced, or missing, or presumed to have fled, then he can change the plan.”
“Explain.” Duncan’s eyes held hers, unblinking.
“Augusta,” she said. “My sister is much younger than me. If I’m out of the way, my uncle could decide to marry Robert to Augusta instead. He could argue it’s the only way to keep the inheritance in the family, or to keep the household ‘protected,’ and because she’s younger….”
She did not even want to think of the possibility.
