“So you’re still thinking about sending your sisters away?”
“We have been here three days, they are still jumping at footsteps in the hall, Augusta is watching every servant as though she expects them to report back to Edward, and Matilda has asked me twice whether she will be scolded for opening the wrong door, so yes, I am thinking about it.”
“And you think that they are still very frightened of me?”
“They might be, or they might not be,” Charity sighed. “But the fact of the matter remains that they are still in this home and my uncle is out there.”
“Charity,” Duncan said. “I cannot keep having this conversation with you. It would be the worst idea to send them away, someplace where I cannot monitor the situation.”
“But…” Charity tried to argue. “But well, it would be better for me, I think. It would give me some peace of mind that they are not being immediately targeted.”
“Out of sight and out of mind?”
Charity felt her cheeks flush at the implication.
“That is not what I mean in the slightest,” she argued back. “Sending them away doesn’t mean that they will not be on my mind constantly.”
“Very well. Let me humor you for a moment,” he nodded, “suppose we are to send them away, where do you reckon that place might be?”
Charity felt stumped. She did not have a clear answer to that yet.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “perhaps you have a friend that can take them in.”
“Oh?” Duncan raised his eyebrows. “So you think that they will be safer with a friend of mine than they are here?”
“No, well… I am only saying that they will not be a target there,” she admitted. “It will be better, perhaps.”
“I cannot even begin to explain to you how wrong you are.”
“Yes, we often don’t agree,” Charity looked up at him.
It was something that she had realized. Their relationship was one that was based on frequent disagreements.
Surely, that was not what he had been expecting when he had signed up for a marriage with her.
“Let’s assume that we do send them off,” Duncan said. “As you say. But then what will happen to you?”
“Me?” Charity blinked, startled.
“Yes. You. Where do you go?”
“Nowhere?” she replied, confused. “Unless you would rather wish for me to?”
“I haven’t said that,” he said coyly. “So then you remain with her? Without your sisters?”
“Yes, well,” she was growing more and more flushed now. “I agreed to marry you, and I don’t see how a marriage between us would work if I were to be in another place entirely. So yes, I would remain here.”
“And how often would you see your sisters?”
Charity realized what he was doing.
“You’re rather clever, aren’t you?” she said, shaking her head. “You’re making me think through my suggestions in a way that I haven’t yet.”
“Yes, and I’m rather surprised that you haven’t, considering your hobby of overthinking matters.”
Duncan stood up then.
“Charity, I need you to trust me regarding things,” he said. “I know that you say that you want to be considered for decisions. But I have seen the world, and I know things that you might not. You need to trust me.”
