“No. I understand.”
Duncan looked away again, his jaw tightening once before he continued. “A few years after that, I nearly died myself.”
Charity went still.
He did not look at her when he said it, and that made it land even harder.
“It was not anything noble,” Duncan said, and there was bitterness in his voice. “It was a fight, and I made poor choices, and I lost a lot of blood. I lived, clearly, but for a while the doctors were not sure I would. While I was recovering, I had too much time to think about my promise.”
Charity swallowed.
“Is that when you decided?”
“Yes,” Duncan said. “Or rather, that is when I stopped pretending I had endless time to decide.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The water continued. The girls were laughing again, louder now. Matilda slipped and shouted in outrage. Augusta told her to stop being dramatic. The ordinary sound of them reached Charity so clearly that she felt, all at once, how close happiness and fear always sat beside each other.
She looked at Duncan’s face, and this time she did not stop herself from looking fully.
She had noticed the scars before. Anyone would. She had also noticed that he disliked being looked at too long, especially by strangers, which had made her train herself to be careful. But now he had just given her something private, something real, and the care she felt in that moment was stronger than caution.
Augusta and Matilda had run farther into the shallows, arguing over whose turn it was to count, and Charity realized they had a few moments where no one was watching closely.
She turned toward Duncan more fully.
“May I?” Charity asked softly, and though she had not named what she meant, her hand had already lifted slightly.
Duncan looked at her, then at her hand, and she saw him understand at once.
He held very still.
“Aye,” Duncan said, and his voice was low enough that she almost missed it.
Charity reached up carefully and touched the scar near his cheek with her fingertips, moving with a lightness that was more question than touch at first, and when he did not pull away, she let her fingers rest there properly.
His skin was warm. She felt the faint roughness beneath her fingertips, the shape of old healing. Duncan’s eyes stayed on her face, and the look in them changed in a way that made her breath catch.
Neither of them moved.
Charity became suddenly aware of everything at once: his shoulder close to hers, the warmth in his gaze, the fact that she was touching him in daylight with her sisters only a short distance away, the fact that she did not want to stop.
Then a voice rang out from behind them.
“CHARITY, YOU WRETCHED WOMAN, HOW DARE YOU?”
Charity jerked so hard that she dropped her hand at once and turned around in shock.
A woman was running toward them at full speed, skirts gathered in one hand, bonnet half askew, anger and delight mixed so openly on her face that for one confused second, Charity could only stare.
Then recognition hit.
“Temperance,” Charity said, and she had barely managed the name before Temperance reached her.
“You are the worst friend I have ever had, and if I do not tackle you this instant, I shall explode from indignation,” Temperance shouted, and then she did exactly that.
She crashed into Charity so hard that Charity lost her balance and went backward onto the blanket with a startled cry, and Temperance went down with her, arms around her so tightly that for a second Charity could hardly breathe.
