Chapter 4 #2
Frederick was aware that he was staring. He was aware that staring was inappropriate, that his behaviour was already unusual enough to generate household gossip for weeks, that he should say something formal and dismissive and get this over with before he made an even larger fool of himself.
He couldn't seem to stop looking at her.
She was different in this light; softer, somehow, without the forge fire behind her.
Her dress was simple blue cotton, clean but clearly mended in places.
Her hair was pinned more carefully than it had been yesterday, though wisps still escaped around her face in a way that suggested she had better things to do than fuss with her appearance.
There was no soot on her face today, as well.
He found himself almost missing it.
"Your Grace," she said finally, and her voice was exactly as he thought it would be—clear and direct and utterly unimpressed by his title. "I wasn't expecting.......The housekeeper usually handles..."
"I am aware of what is usual." He moved toward the table where the hinges lay, grateful for the excuse to look at something other than her. "I wished to inspect the work personally."
"It's good work."
"I will be the judge of that."
He picked up one of the hinges, turning it over in his hands.
The metalwork was excellent; he could see that at a glance.
Smooth joins, balanced weight, the kind of craftsmanship that spoke of years of experience and genuine skill.
His father would have found something to criticise anyway, some tiny flaw to justify rejection, because that was what Hawthornes did.
They found fault. They demanded better. They never, ever admitted that something was simply good.
"Your uncle's work?" he asked.
"Mostly. I helped with some of the finishing."
"You work at the forge?"
She lifted her chin slightly, as if expecting criticism. "I do."
"That is..." He searched for the right word. "Unusual."
"Is it?"
"For a woman. Yes."
"I wasn't aware that iron cared about the gender of the hands that shaped it."
Despite himself, Frederick felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It wasn't quite a smile; he wasn't sure he remembered how to smile, but it was closer than he had come in months. "I imagine it doesn't."
She was staring at him now. Not with the hostility he had expected, or the deference he was accustomed to, but with that same assessing look from yesterday. As if she were trying to solve a puzzle and finding the pieces didn't fit.
"Your Grace," she said slowly, "why am I here?"
"You are delivering ironwork. I believe we established that."
"I mean, in this room, alone. With you." She didn't look away, and she didn't flinch from the directness of the question. "This isn't normal. Dukes don't inspect hinges personally. Dukes don't dismiss their housekeepers to speak with blacksmiths' nieces in private. So why…"
"You looked at me."
The words came out before he could stop them, and Frederick had the distinct sensation of having stepped off a cliff into empty air. Too late to take it back. Too late to pretend he hadn't said it. All he could do was fall.
"Yesterday," he continued, because silence would be worse, "when my carriage passed through the village. Everyone else turned away. Or glared. Or mocked. But you looked at me."
She was very still now. "That bothered you?"
"No. That's the problem." He set down the hinge, suddenly unable to bear its weight. "It didn't bother me at all. It felt... I don't know. I don't have words for what it felt like."
"Like being seen?"
He looked at her sharply. "Yes. How did you…"
"Because that's what I saw." Her voice was quiet, careful, as if she were handling something fragile. "Everyone else sees the duke. The title. The carriage and the clothes and all the... trappings. But you…"
She stopped. Shook her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't……This isn't appropriate. I should go."
"Wait."
The word came out sharper than he intended. Desperate. Not at all ducal.
She paused halfway to the door. "Your Grace?"
"Frederick," he said, and immediately wished he could swallow the syllables back. What was he doing? What was he thinking? "That is……Never mind. Please stay, just for a moment."
She should have left. Any sensible woman would have left. The duke was behaving erratically, saying strange things, breaking every rule of appropriate conduct between their respective stations. Leaving was the wise choice.
She turned back instead.
"What do you see?" He asked, and his voice cracked slightly on the question. "When you look at me. What do you actually see?"
For a long moment, she didn't answer. She studied him the way she might study a piece of metalwork; evaluating, considering, looking for flaws and strengths in equal measure.
"I see a man who is very tired," she said finally. "And very alone. And very afraid of something, though I don't know what. I see someone who has been told his whole life that he can't afford to be human, and who believed it, and who is only just starting to realise it might not be true."
Frederick felt something crack in his chest, some wall he had built so long ago, he had forgotten it was there. Some defence he had maintained so carefully that he had convinced himself it was actually him.
"That is..." He had to stop, clear his throat and start again. "That is a great deal to see from a carriage window."
"I notice things." A faint smile touched her lips. "It's something of a family trait."
"Miss Fletcher…"
"Lydia." She said it firmly, meeting his eyes with something that looked almost like a challenge. "If you're going to be Frederick, then I should be Lydia. Fair is fair."
"Lydia." Her name felt strange in his mouth. Unfamiliar. Like a word in a language he had never learned. "I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"This. Talking. Being... seen." He gestured vaguely at the space between them.
"I was taught that dukes don't explain themselves.
Don't apologise. Don't show weakness or uncertainty or any of the things that make people actually human.
I was taught to be above it all. And I believed it, because believing it was easier than acknowledging that I was just… "
"Lonely," she finished for him. "Yes. I thought so."
"The village hates me."
"The village doesn't know you."
"Does that matter? The result is the same."
Lydia was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was thoughtful. "Do you know how I came to live with my uncle?"
"No."
"My parents died when I was seven. Fever.
They went within days of each other, and I was left with nothing; no family, no home, no idea what would happen to me.
" She paused. "The village took me in. The whole village, not just my uncle.
Everyone helped, and everyone cared. They didn't have to because I wasn't their responsibility.
But they did it anyway, because that's what community means. "
"I don't see…"
"They did it," she interrupted gently, "because they knew my parents.
Because my parents had been part of Ashwick, had given to Ashwick, had shown up for every fair and festival and crisis for years before I was born.
The village helped me because my family had helped them first. That's how it works. "
Frederick stared at her. "You're saying it's my fault. That they hate me because I haven't…"
"I'm saying that trust goes both ways. You can't expect people to care about someone who has never shown any interest in caring about them. It doesn't matter that you haven't hurt them; not actively hurting people isn't the same as actually being there for them. The absence matters too."
It was, Frederick realised, exactly what Boggins had been trying to tell him. Just stated more directly, without the comfortable buffer of irony.
"I don't know how to be there for them," he said.
"I was never taught. Every instinct I have says to stay apart, stay above, don't engage.
The few times I've tried…" He broke off, remembering.
Attempted conversations that went wrong.
Offers of help that came across as condescension.
The endless, exhausting dance of trying to connect and failing so badly that distance seemed like the kinder option.
"Tell me about those times," Lydia said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm curious. And because I think you want to tell someone, and I'm here, and…" She shrugged. "And maybe I can help. Maybe I can't. But you'll never know if you don't try."
Frederick looked at her; this village girl with iron in her soul and directness in her gaze, who had somehow walked into his house and asked him questions no one had ever dared to ask before.
He could send her away. It was still an option. He could summon the housekeeper, complete the transaction, return to his comfortable isolation and his familiar loneliness. But something in her honesty made him want to reveal more.
Or he could take a step. Just one small step toward something different.
"There was a tenant farmer," he heard himself say.
"Two years ago. I heard his roof was damaged, so I went to see him.
To offer help. But I…I didn't know how to talk to him.
Everything I said came out wrong. By the end of the conversation, he was more offended than when I started, and I still don't understand what I did. "
"What did you say exactly?"
Frederick tried to remember. "I told him I would have the roof repaired at estate expense. That seemed reasonable."
"And?"
"And I may have mentioned that I was surprised the damage had been allowed to become so severe. That regular maintenance would have prevented it."
Lydia winced. "Oh."
"What?"
"You blamed him for his own misfortune. While offering to fix it."
"I wasn't blaming him, I was…" Frederick stopped and reconsidered. "All right. I suppose I see how it might have sounded that way."
"It sounded like you thought he was incompetent. Like you were helping out of duty, not caring. Like you expected gratitude for pointing out his failings." Her voice was matter-of-fact, not cruel. "Is that what you meant?"
"No! I meant…" He struggled to find the words. "I meant that I had noticed. That I was paying attention. That his situation mattered enough for me to come personally instead of sending a steward."
"Did you say any of that?"
"No. I thought it was obvious."
"And what did he say in response?"
Frederick's expression flickered with something that might have been embarrassment. "He said he appreciated His Grace's condescension in visiting personally, and that he would be certain to maintain his property better in the future so as not to inconvenience the estate."
"Let me guess. You didn't recognise that as sarcasm."
"I recognised it eventually. After he had already…" Frederick waved a hand. "There may have been some door-slamming on his part. And some standing awkwardly in his yard while I was trying to determine how a conversation about roof repairs had become an international incident."
Despite herself, Lydia felt her lips twitch. "You stood awkwardly in his yard?"
"For approximately three minutes, yes. Boggins eventually rescued me by bringing the carriage around, but those were very long three minutes." He paused. "I sent a written apology afterwards. Very carefully worded. I had Boggins review it for any accidental insults."
"What happened?"
"He never responded. I assume he either didn't receive it, didn't read it, or didn't believe it. None of those options were particularly encouraging."
Lydia was quiet for a moment, processing. The image of the Duke of Corvenwell standing awkwardly in a tenant farmer's yard, trying to figure out where a conversation had gone wrong, was so far from the cold, indifferent aristocrat the village imagined that she almost wanted to laugh.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"You seem to be asking me things regardless of permission."
"Fair point. Why do you care?"
Frederick blinked. "I beg your pardon?"