Charity was quiet for a moment.
“Do you consider me naïve?”
“Now you’re putting words in my mouth,” Duncan shook his head. “When did I say that you were naïve?”
“You wouldn’t be the first to assume that,” she sighed. “I... you know, before my sisters and I were reunited, I had spent most of my life in a nunnery. It was a rather sheltered life, and I suppose it made me incapable of looking at the larger picture in some situations, like this one.”
It was a big thing for her to admit something like this but somehow, it had come easily to her.
Strange. It was easy to open up to Duncan. That was perhaps the most surprising realization of them all.
Duncan was quiet for a moment and then finally spoke up.
“You are not at the nunnery anymore, and nor are you at your uncle's house. I would like to make it clear that you are a free person in this house,” he said. “So stop thinking yourself as a caged bird.”
Charity sighed, rubbing the sides of her arms.
“I suppose I can be rather neurotic about things,” she nodded. “And you’ve signed up for a lifetime of this by agreeing to marry me.”
“I am sure that I come with some faults of my own,” Duncan replied.
Charity tried to rake through her mind to find a fault with him, but did not arrive at one.
“I think you have more of a reputation issue,” she said after a moment.
That seemed to pique the duke's interest, though he tried to maintain a neutral expression.
“And what do you mean by that?”
Charity considered her words carefully.
“When I first met you, I had the most startling image of you,” she said. “Like... I thought you were something to be terrified of, but the more I get to know you, I find that is not the case. You are not nearly as terrifying as you appear to be.”
Something shifted between them at her confession.
“Is that high praise coming from you?” He said after a moment.
“I don’t know what it is. You may make of it as you like.”
Duncan sighed.
“I suppose I can appear to be rather terrifying,” he agreed. “And I like to keep it that way.”
“But not with me,” she said and was surprised by the intimacy of her own statement. “I mean to say… well… if we are tohave a marriage between us, then what is the use to keep up appearances?”
Duncan looked at her in a manner that unsettled her. But in a good way.
“I think you see past my appearances.”
Charity could not help but blush at that, though she could not find a response.
“You don’t think that’s true?” he prodded further.
“I think it is,” she said. “I’m realizing that myself.”
“I suppose that… well, I suppose that this relationship between us is full of surprises, isn’t it?”
Charity wanted to ask so many questions. She looked at him and then looked away.
