Augusta rolled her eyes. Typical of her, as she was just a young girl who did not like to be given lectures by her older sister.
“Oh, please. Let us not turn this into a sermon,” she said. “I’ve only said that he is not so bad.”
“He is lovely,” Matilda said. “I think he will take care of you very well.”
Charity could not help but smile. It pleased her greatly that her siblings had taken so well to Duncan, and she wanted their bond to grow even more.
And there was no better way to do that than to get them to spend more time together.
“Well, if you really must know, then I can ask him if he can spend some time with us today,” Charity said, much to the delight of Matilda.
“Can you please?” she said, eagerly. “If it’s not too much trouble…”
“Well, she is about to be his wife,” Augusta said to Matilda, shooting a pointed look in Charity’s direction. “If she cannot get him to do something, no one can. I suppose the duke will not be saying no to his future duchess.”
Charity tried to dismiss the comment with a little wave of her hand, but it made her feel something in the base of her stomach.
“Eat your breakfast now,” she said. “I will sort this out.”
Staying true to her promise, she showed up outside of Duncan’s study once again. He was in the middle of going through what looked like some important papers when she walked into the room.
“Something wrong?” Duncan looked up at her, surprised by her sudden appearance.
“Does something need to go wrong for me to come see you?” she said, stepping closer to him but stopping at a reasonabledistance. There was a hint of amusement in her voice, and she realized that it was nice seeing him.
No matter what the reason was.
“Ah, well, no,” Duncan replied. “But it is rather unusual for you to make an appearance at this hour, so naturally I wonder what must have prompted it.”
“So you are anticipating something going wrong?” she decided to tease him just a little bit more.
“Charity,” he warned, shooting her a look. “What do you want? I really do not wish to be playing these guessing games.”
“Fine then,” she laughed. “I wanted to ask you if you have some free time this afternoon. The girls wanted to spend some time with you.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised.
“They asked you to come relay this message to me?”
“Well, no. Matilda, in particular, is rather shy, but I can tell that she would like for you both to spend some more time together.”
“Huh,” Duncan said, leaning back in his chair.
“Unless you would rather not prefer to do that,” Charity said, hesitance creeping in her tone. “Which is fine as well?—”
“Must you assume?” Duncan cut in half way. “I wouldn’t mind this, don’t worry about it.”
Charity couldn’t stop smiling. “Thank you. This means a great deal to me.”
For a moment, it looked like Duncan was going to say something in response, but then held back.
Charity collected the girls and met Duncan in the garden an hour later. He had shown up already speaking to one of the staff members, but dismissing him immediately when he saw that Charity was there.
“I was told that there were some activities planned for the evening,” he said in greeting.
Matilda smiled ear to ear, and even Augusta seemed like she didn’t want to immediately exit.
“Yes, well. It’s very nice weather out, and so I thought that we could do something,” Charity nodded. “Matilda, what do you think we should be doing?”
