“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.
