Chapter 7
He was reaching for the carriage door when he heard the voices.
"Please, mister? Please?"
"Can we pet your horses? They're so big!"
"I want to touch the one with the white bit on his nose!"
He turned. A cluster of children had gathered near the carriage; not the mocking children of his usual passages through the village, but smaller ones, five or six years old at most, their faces bright with uncomplicated curiosity.
They were looking at Wellington and Cromwell, the matched greys who had pulled his carriage for the past three years, with the wide-eyed wonder that children reserved for things that were large and beautiful and possibly magical.
"The one with the white bit is Wellington," Frederick heard himself say. "He's quite gentle, actually. More gentle than he looks."
The children turned to him with expressions that mixed uncertainty with hope.
"Can we pet him?" The boldest one asked. A girl, maybe six, with her hair in lopsided braids and a smear of something, jam, possibly, across her cheek.
Frederick should have said no. He should have maintained the distance that his position required, the formality that his father had drilled into him. Dukes did not permit random children to pet their horses. It wasn't done.
"Yes," he said. "You may."
The girl's face lit up like sunrise. "Really?"
"Really. But gently. He doesn't like sudden movements."
He moved toward Wellington, making the soft clicking sound that the horse recognised and responded to. The great grey head turned toward him, nostrils flaring in greeting, and Frederick reached up to stroke the velvet nose.
"You have to approach from the side," he explained, as the children crept closer. "So he can see you. Horses don't like surprises."
"Why not?" A boy asked.
"Because in the wild, surprises usually meant predators. Lions and such."
"There aren't any lions here."
"Wellington doesn't know that. He's never seen a lion. So he has to assume they might be anywhere."
This seemed to satisfy the children's curiosity.
They gathered around, reaching up with small hands to touch Wellington's neck, his shoulder, the soft warmth of his flank.
The horse bore their attention with the patience of a creature who had long since learned that small humans were mostly harmless.
"What's his name again?" The girl with the jam-smeared cheek asked.
"Wellington. After the Duke of Wellington. He was a famous general."
"Was he brave?"
"Very brave."
"Is this horse brave, too?"
Frederick considered. "I think so. In his own way. He carries me through villages where people don't like me very much, and he never complains."
The girl looked at him with the uncomplicated directness of childhood. "Why don't people like you?"
It was such a simple question. Such a devastating one.
"I don't know," Frederick admitted. "I've never done anything to hurt them. But I've never done anything to help them, either. And sometimes that's just as bad."
The girl absorbed this with a thoughtful frown. "My mum says if you want people to like you, you have to be nice to them first."
"Your mother sounds very wise."
"She makes the best pies in the village. Do you want to try one?"
Frederick found himself smiling, actually smiling, the expression unfamiliar on his face. "I would like that very much."
"Come on, then!" The girl grabbed his hand, grabbed it, as if he were any ordinary person who could be touched by any ordinary child, and began tugging him toward the fair. "Her stall is this way. I'm Molly, by the way. What's your name?"
"Frederick."
"That's a funny name."
"Is it?"
"My cat's name is Frederick. He's orange, and he bites."
"I'm not orange," Frederick said. "And I try very hard not to bite."
Molly giggled; a pure, delighted sound that seemed to cut through all the tension of the morning. "You're funny. I thought dukes were supposed to be scary."
"Who told you that?"
"Everyone." She tugged his hand again, impatient to show him the pie stall. "But you're not scary. You're just sad."
Before Frederick could respond to this alarmingly accurate assessment, they had arrived at a stall manned by a woman who bore an unmistakable resemblance to Molly; the same bright eyes, the same stubborn set of the jaw.
"Mum! Mum! I found the duke! He's nice! He let us pet his horse, and he says he wants to try your pie!"
The woman, Molly's mother, looked at Frederick with an expression that mixed surprise with wariness and, underneath it all, the faintest glimmer of something that might have been reconsideration.
"Your Grace," she said carefully. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Nobody did," Frederick replied. "I'm trying to change that."
There was silence, but then she asked him: "Apple or cherry?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The pies. Apple or cherry? There's also gooseberry, but that's for the adventurous."
Frederick looked at the pies arrayed before him; golden-crusted, perfectly crimped, fragrant with fruit and sugar and something that smelled like home even though he'd never had a home that smelled like anything but cold stone and older, colder expectations.
"Gooseberry," he said. "I think I'm feeling adventurous."
Molly's mother handed him a slice of pie, and he took a bite.
It was, without exaggeration, the best thing he had ever tasted.
"This is extraordinary," he said, and meant it.
"It's just pie, Your Grace."
"No. It's…" He stopped, aware that he was about to say something embarrassingly sincere. "It's very good. What do I owe you?"
"Tuppence for the slice. A shilling for a whole pie."
He paid for four whole pies; over Molly's mother's protests that it was too much, that he couldn't possibly eat four pies himself, that she didn't have change for a pound note that he found while searching better in his pockets.
He told her to keep the change and consider the extra as a thank you for Molly's guidance, and he walked away with his arms full of pies and his heart lighter than it had been in years.
He had talked to a child. He had petted a horse with other children. He had bought pies and not offended anyone.
It wasn't much. It wasn't enough. But it was a start.
***
Lydia had been watching.
She hadn't meant to; she had told herself quite firmly that she was not going to spend the entire fair tracking the duke's movements like some sort of aristocracy-obsessed hawk.
But he was difficult to miss, in his too-fine coat and his too-shiny boots, moving through the crowd with the careful uncertainty of a man navigating foreign territory.
She had watched him fail. She had seen the candle seller's expression, the pie man's confusion, the child's tears. She had felt each small disaster as if it were happening to her, wincing internally at every misstep.
And then she had watched him succeed.
The children around his carriage. The gentle way he'd explained about the horses. His actual smile when Molly had grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the pie stall. The transformation in his face when he'd tasted the gooseberry pie, as if he'd discovered something precious and unexpected.
He was trying. Actually trying, just like he'd said he would.
She was moving toward him before she'd consciously decided to, weaving through the crowd with the ease of someone who had navigated this fair her entire life.
"Your Grace appears to be acquiring pastry."
Frederick turned. His expression when he saw her, the surprise, the relief, the warmth that softened his usually stern features, made something flutter in Lydia's chest that she firmly ignored.
"Miss Fletcher." He shifted the pies in his arms, nearly dropping one. "I was hoping I might see you."
"You have gooseberry on your chin."
"I…..What?" His free hand went to his face, encountered the evidence of his pie enthusiasm, and he flushed in a way that was entirely too endearing. "I apologise. I was…"
"Enjoying yourself?"
"Yes, actually." He sounded surprised by his own admission. "More than I expected to. Although I've also managed to offend approximately half the village, so perhaps 'enjoying' is too strong a word."
"I saw." She couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips. "The candle incident was particularly memorable."
"Was it that bad?"
"Let's just say that Mrs. Thompson will be dining out on that story for weeks."
He winced. "I was trying to be complimentary. About the wicks."
"I gathered. But you might want to avoid mentioning wicks to her in the future. Or candles in general. Or light sources of any kind."
"Noted." He looked down at his armful of pies, then back at her. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to.......I know I said I would try to manage on my own, but I find myself somewhat out of my depth, and…"
"Would I like to show you around the fair?"
"Yes. If you wouldn't mind."
Lydia should have said no. She should have maintained a proper distance, protected her reputation, and avoided giving the village gossip any more fuel than they already had.
But he was standing there with pies in his arms and gooseberries on his chin and an expression of such hopeful uncertainty that she couldn't bring herself to refuse.
"You'll need to do something about those pies first."
"Ah. Yes. I hadn't quite thought through the logistics of carrying four whole pies around a village fair."
"You could give them away."
"Give them away?"
"To people. As you pass them. It might help with the whole…" she gestured vaguely, "being less intimidating thing."
Frederick looked at the pies, looked at the fair and then looked back at her.
"That," he said slowly, "is either brilliant or insane."
"Most good ideas are both. Come on."