Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

WORDS ARE ALL I HAVE

" W hat about, ‘How could I not weep when I think of all the days between now and our next meeting? For days might as well be years, nay, centuries. Please, most dear and wonderful Plumkin —'" Dominic was saying, but Charlotte cut him off.

"You cannot combine our nicknames," she pointed out.

They had been writing letters to each other for more than an hour, and to her immense surprise, she found that she was quite enjoying the experience. I suppose the tea and sandwiches helped.

She had always struggled to eat at formal dinners where there were many people and had grown used to being hungry after such events. There was something overwhelming about the noise, and she always felt self-conscious as she ate.

She had been surprised that the Duke had noticed and even more taken aback by the fact that he had wanted to do something about it.

It is mostly for his own benefit, after all, he is the one who said he likes to have snacks when he writes.

"Very well, ‘most dear and wonderful, Precious Plum — send me a gift. Let me know you love me, by sending me'…" Dominic looked at her, a lecherous glint in his gaze, and Charlotte narrowed her own eyes suspiciously at him.

"Send you what exactly?" Charlotte asked.

"Your kni—" Dominic began, stopping midway through his sentence as Charlotte swatted him. "Ow."

"Be serious." She glared at him, feeling her cheeks practically radiating with heat. "If you ask me for… well, what you suggested, it will not end well for you."

"Fine, send me a glove," Dominic suggested, scratching out a line in his letter and adding in another.

"A glove?" Charlotte canted her head towards him, confused.

Is this some trick? Is he going to make another lewd remark? Charlotte was still trying to puzzle at the answer when the Duke said, "Yes. So, I might hold it and pretend I am holding your hand."

Her cheeks coloured even more, and she looked away, surprised at the sweetness of his words. "You really are rather sentimental."

For some reason, the image of Dominic walking through his estate, holding one of her gloves, sent a rush of warmth through her chest. She shook her head, refusing to allow her thoughts to go any further down that dangerous path.

"You are the one who insisted I was; I am simply trying to play the part convincingly. I except you to be just as soppy in return." Dominic pointed his quill at her.

"Ah, but you see, I did not say that I was so inclined," Charlotte replied, batting her eyelids in an affectation of innocence.

"You are a woman. People expect such things of you," he retorted.

"People expect such things of women, not necessarily me." She shrugged.

"Are you not a woman?" Dominic looked her up and down. "I must say that would be rather a surprise."

"You just want me to say nice things about you," Charlotte replied.

Dominic winked at her. "I always want people to say nice things about me, but I find I would especially appreciate it from you, my Plumkins."

"You are lucky that the heaviest thing I have to throw at you is paper." She surveyed the room around her, looking for something more satisfying to hurl at the man's head. "Though I suppose I could throw a cushion at you."

"That would definitely upset the inkpot, and it would mean we would have to start all of this again." Dominic gestured to the letters around them. "Though I would not complain if it ruined the letter in which you said my laughter sounded like the braying of a donkey."

"I said it was ‘endearingly' like the braying of a donkey. Endearingly ." She put an emphasis on the word endearing, unable to resist teasing him.

He scowled at her. "You still said I have a laugh like a donkey. And you also wrote that I reminded you of a peacock."

"Peacocks are my favourite bird," Charlotte explained. "I quite like how flamboyant they are, and take an odd pleasure in the other worldly noises they make." And I love that my stepmother is deeply afraid of them.

She did not feel the need to share this last part with Dominic, however.

Dominic looked confused. "Then why did you make it sound like such a bad thing?"

"I did not; you simply took it that way." Charlotte shrugged. "Although I can perhaps, in retrospect, see how you might have gotten that impression as the preceding line did say something about, ‘It is nice to be away from you; it gives me a chance to miss your constant squawking."

"You do not say." Dominic rolled his eyes at her.

"Fine, if you are going to be so sensitive, I shall throw it away." Charlotte balled up the letter and threw it into the fire. "Happy now?"

"Extraordinarily so." Dominic nodded appreciatively.

"Anything for you, Sweetkins." Charlotte smiled at the Duke's grimace.

"What a considerate Plum you are." He inclined his head towards her.

"I try." Charlotte held up one of the letters she had written and said, "Tell me what you think of this. ‘I find that the length of these summer days seems a cruel irony, for it makes the time seem to stretch far too long until I see you again.'"

"Well, it is definitely sentimental." Dominic chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Though you somehow still avoided giving me a compliment."

"You are like a fisherman casting your net out for compliments," Charlotte teased.

"Just one nice thing; surely it cannot be that hard." Dominic raised an eyebrow at her. "I have managed to find several nice things about you."

"Such as?" Charlotte asked.

"You have a wit that is so sharp it would gut half the soldiers in the kingdom before they had a chance to draw their swords." He grinned.

She felt her colour rise. "That is not particularly nice."

"What? I said you had a sharp wit!" Dominic gave her a fake wounded look.

"And that I am apparently capable of murder!" She glared at him.

"Are you not?" he teased.

"Do you really want to find out?" Charlotte folded her arms across her chest.

"Possibly. It is rather hard to see what you would use in this room to murder me. And the image of you trying to do so is somehow adorable." Dominic gestured to their substantial height difference.

"You are utterly ridiculous." Charlotte sighed.

"Thank you." Dominic bowed to her. "I also said that you had a smile so beautiful it would make poets weep."

"I am beginning to think you do not understand compliments. They are supposed to be nice things," she said as though explaining a very basic fact to a particularly obstinate toddler.

"It would make the poets weep with frustration because they could not hope to convey such beauty in mere words." Dominic's gaze met hers, and she saw an earnestness she had not expected.

"Oh," she said.

"I also said that I admired your loyalty and the way you cared so deeply for your sisters," Dominic added as he leafed through his collection of letters. "So, it seems only fair you say something nice about me."

"Well, it is hard when I know very little about you," Charlotte pointed out.

"You know that I am handsome." He gestured to his face, giving her what she assumed he thought was his most charming smile.

To her immense frustration, she found that it softened her, just a little.

She forced herself to say as cooly as possible, "Are you?"

"I have been told often enough." Dominic gestured to himself and struck a ridiculous pose.

"But anyone can tell you that you are handsome. And yes, I will add it into my letter, Sweetkins. Honestly, did your mother never tell you that vanity is a sin?" Charlotte teased him.

The Duke stiffened, and an odd look crossed his face, but before Charlotte could read it, it vanished. He shook himself and smiled at her, but there was a tension to it that had not been there before.

"My mother did not tell me much. She… She was not well for much of my childhood," the Duke explained, his voice seemingly detached and dispassionate.

"Oh. I did not know. I am sorry." Charlotte thought of her own mother and how sick she had been in the final days of her life.

"Why would you have known? We only just met." Dominic looked at her.

"Is your mother… Is she better now?" Charlotte asked hesitantly.

"She is dead," Dominic replied, his voice flat. "I like to hope that she is with my father and that they are both happy."

"Did they love each other very much?" Charlotte asked.

A mix of anger and sadness flitted across Dominic's face. "I do not think I have ever seen two people so in love."

"You make it sound as though it were a bad thing." She frowned at him.

"Maybe it was." He sighed. "It does not matter. What's done is done, and wherever they are now, I must hope that it is a better place."

Charlotte thought of her own mother and how sick she had been before she died. She remembered the days she had spent nursing her. The hours she had pleaded with God to help her get better.

She saw something of that pain in Dominic's expression, and without thinking, she gently laid a hand on his. The warmth of it surprised her, spreading through her as she gently squeezed his hand and then released it.

Softly, she said, "It must have been hard caring for her while she was sick."

"It was. But I managed. And now, I need only look after myself." He smiled "Well, and my setters."

"Setters??" Charlotte asked.

"You know, the hunting dogs." The Duke raised an eyebrow at her

"Yes, I know what a setter is, I was referring to the plural. How many do you have?" Charlotte leaned forwards.

"Only three, by no means an excess," he replied.

"And you did not bring them with you?" Charlotte did not have a dog of her own: her stepmother had forbidden dogs in the house, and Charlotte hated the idea of it not being able to be with her.

"Grandmother has a strict ‘no pets' policy for large family gatherings. A necessary policy when one of you has eighteen terriers." Dominic grimaced.

Charlotte gaped. "Eighteen?!"

"Yes, at last count." Dominic shook his head wonderingly, and Charlotte tried to guess which one of Dominic's family had eighteen terriers.

The thought of having a puzzle to solve made the thought of meeting more of the family somehow less daunting. And I expect anyone with that many dogs is likely to be a fairly memorable character.

Dominic continued, "And most of us have at least one dog. Once, grandmother permitted us to bring our pets,, and utter pandemonium ensued."

"I can imagine. I am surprised the servants did not quit on the spot." Charlotte laughed.

"Would you, if grandmother was your mistress?" Dominic gave her a look.

"No, I suppose not." Charlotte paused and after a while she asked, "What are your dogs' names?"

"Elpis, Sirona, and Sooty. Elpis and Sirona are sisters. I found them both abandoned as puppies a few years ago and hand reared them. When I am at my estate, they follow me wherever I go, and usually, I bring them with me whenever I can." He looked as though he missed them both terribly.

"Sooty was a gift from my grandmother when I recovered from an illness I had last summer." An odd look crossed Dominic's face, and he absentmindedly stroked his chest. "He is less attached to me than the girls but does not like to be parted from me terribly often."

Was he holding something back? The tightness around his eyes piqued her curiosity, but before she could figure out how to ask him about it, Dominic said, "She forbade me to call him anything other than Sooty."

"Is he a black labrador then?" Charlotte asked.

"No, he is yellow. Grandmother has a rather mad sense of humour at times." Dominic shook his head, but Charlotte could see a fond, wry smile spreading across his face.

"I am sure she delights in the odd looks you get when you summon your yellow labrador named ‘Sooty'." She tried to imagine the look on the Dowager Duchess's face.

"My grandmother loves nothing more than to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously," Dominic replied, hastily stifling a yawn behind his hand. "Well, I think that is enough to be getting on with, don't you?"

Charlotte surveyed the pile of letters in front of them and nodded. "Yes, I think so. Shall we decide which ones we are happy to share with your grandmother?"

"I thought the first few we wrote and perhaps this one." Dominic gestured to a few letters in the pile.

"Which one is that?" Charlotte peered at the letter he was pointing at; it was one of hers.

"Where you write that I am always on your mind and that you are counting the days until we see each other again." He added the letter to the pile.

"And what about the one where you speak of crying because you miss me?" She picked up another letter and added it to the Duke's pile, smiling sweetly. "You did say your grandmother loved to remind you not to take yourself too seriously."

"That was a mean trick, and I hate that I have had to include it at all." Dominic frowned at her.

"You made me write that I had fallen off my horse because I was so distracted thinking of your hand in mine," Charlotte pointed out.

"That is true. We should definitely include that one in the ones we share with her." Dominic grinned and added the letter to the pile.

"And what should we do with the rest?" She gestured at the handful of letters and papers scattered around them.

A soft snore sounded from the corner of the room, and Charlotte realised that her lady's maid had fallen asleep. She exchanged a look with Dominic, who laughed. His laughter was soft, as though he did not want to wake the woman, and Charlotte kept her own laughter low as well.

"Well, we should throw away the drafts and such." Dominic glanced at the fire which had unfortunately gone out.

"Probably sensible. Would I be correct in assuming that your family are likely to snoop around our rooms?" Charlotte murmured.

"We are a rather competitive lot," he said.

"Then we should ‘hide' the rest of these letters around our rooms, somewhere they can be found." Charlotte tried to think of suitable hiding spots and after a moment she said, "What about under a pillow?"

"Under a pillow?" The Duke canted his head towards her.

"Yes, a sort of sweet homage to wanting to be near each other as we sleep." She gestured vaguely.

"Oh, that is excellent! You should write it in another letter. Or add it in. I think this one has space for a postscript." Dominic handed her a letter, and Charlotte added the line to it. "And I think with that, we can wake Beatrice and bid each other good night."

"Indeed." Charlotte moved away and woke the maid. As she left the room, she glanced over her shoulder.

Dominic was watching her.

"Good night, Dominic."

"Good night, Charlotte."

As she climbed into bed, she ran the tips of her fingers across the palm of her hand, remembering the warmth of Dominic's skin beneath her own. She realised what she was doing and stopped, giving herself a firm shake. She needed to be careful.

She had enjoyed herself, and that was not what she had come here to do. She was here to win a fortune, not a husband.