Chapter 8
The remainder of the afternoon passed in a blur of small, ordinary moments that felt, to Frederick, like tiny miracles.
Lydia showed him the sack race, which was indeed deeply undignified and extremely entertaining.
He found himself laughing, actually laughing, at the sight of children tumbling over each other in their desperate attempts to reach the finish line.
When Molly tripped and went sprawling, he started forward instinctively, only to see her leap up, triumphant, having crossed the line in second place.
She ran over to him afterwards, still half-wrapped in her sack. "Did you see? Did you see? I almost won!"
"I saw. You were magnificent."
"Next year I'm going to win for real. You'll see."
"I believe you."
Molly beamed at him like he'd given her a gift. Which, he supposed, he had; the gift of being believed in, of being seen as capable of triumph. It cost him nothing, but to her it seemed to mean everything.
"You're good with children," Lydia observed, as Molly ran off to show her mother the ribbon she'd won for second place.
"I'm surprised by children. I didn't know they could be like this."
"Like what?"
"Open. Trusting. Willing to like someone just because that person was nice to them once." He watched Molly disappear into the crowd, a small figure bouncing with excitement. "The children I knew growing up were........Different. More guarded. More aware of social position and expectations."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was. Though I didn't realise it at the time. I thought it was normal, I believed that all children maintained a certain distance, that friendship was a transaction rather than a gift." He turned to look at her. "How did you learn differently?"
"I had the village. After my parents died, every child in Ashwick decided I was their responsibility.
They included me in their games, shared their secrets, made me part of their world whether I wanted to be or not.
" She smiled at the memory. "I was too sad to push them away, and by the time I stopped being sad, I'd forgotten how to be alone. "
"That sounds wonderful."
"It was, and it is." She touched his arm again, that brief, electric contact. "You could have that too, you know. Not the same, you can't go back and have a different childhood, but something like it. Community. Belonging. People who know you and want you around anyway."
"You make it sound simple."
"It is simple. It's just not easy."
Lydia showed him the apple bobbing, which he politely declined to participate in despite her teasing insistence that it would "improve his image considerably."
"I am not putting my face in a barrel of water while the entire village watches," he said firmly.
"Why not? It's fun."
"It's undignified."
"So is having gooseberry on your chin for an hour, but you managed that."
"That was an accident. This would be deliberate indignity."
She laughed, and the sound of it warmed something in his chest. "Fine. No apple bobbing. But you're going to have to do something undignified eventually. It's good for the soul."
"I'll take that under advisement."
She showed him the craft stalls, where he managed to purchase a wooden horse for Molly without causing any diplomatic incidents. The craftsman, an elderly man with gnarled hands and kind eyes, wrapped it carefully in cloth and handed it over with something that almost looked like approval.
"For the little Whitmore girl, is it?" he asked.
"Yes. She was helpful to me earlier. I wanted to thank her."
"Hmm." The old man studied him for a moment. "You're not what I expected, Your Grace."
"So I've been told. Repeatedly."
"Not a bad thing, necessarily. Just... surprising." He handed Frederick the wrapped horse. "Come back next year. I'll make you something custom."
"I'd like that," Frederick said, and meant it.
They stopped at a stall selling hot cider, and Frederick discovered that village cider was nothing like the refined wines he was accustomed to; it was rough and sweet and tasted like autumn distilled into liquid form.
He drank two cups and would have had a third if Lydia hadn't gently pointed out that cider was stronger than it seemed and perhaps he should pace himself.
"I'm a duke," he protested. "I can hold my drink."
"You're a duke who hasn't eaten anything but pie today and is currently swaying slightly on his feet. Sit down and have some bread."
He sat, and he had some bread while he watched the village swirl around him. Families and friends and lovers, all of them connected by invisible threads of history and affection; and he felt, for the first time in his life, like he might someday be allowed to be part of something like this.
She showed him the musicians, who were now in full swing with a collection of country dances that had half the village spinning and stomping with joyful abandon.
"Do you dance?" Lydia asked, watching the dancers with a wistful expression.
"I was taught. But I don't know these steps."
"They're not hard. It's mostly just spinning and hoping you don't fall over."
"That describes most of my social interactions."
She laughed; a real laugh, full and warm and utterly without guile. "You're funnier than I expected, you know."
"Am I?"
"Funnier. Sadder. More..." She searched for the word. "More human, I suppose, than I expected."
"I'll try not to be offended by the low expectations."
"You shouldn't be. The expectations were based on evidence. You're providing new evidence." She smiled at him, and something in his chest expanded painfully. "It's not a bad thing. It's just surprising."
The dancing continued. The sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose.
Frederick watched the villagers spin and laugh and hold each other close, and he felt a longing so intense it was almost physical; the desire to be part of something, to belong somewhere, to have what these people had and took for granted.
"I should learn the steps," he said suddenly. "For next year."
Lydia looked at him. "Next year?"
"I intend to come back. If that's…" He stopped, suddenly uncertain. "If that would be welcome."
"You're planning that far ahead?"
"I'm trying to. I've spent eight years not planning at all. I think it's time to start."
The look she gave him then, not quite hope, not quite belief, but something in between, was worth every awkward moment of the day. Worth the mud on his boots and the gooseberry on his chin and the dozen small failures that had preceded this one small success.
"I think," she said slowly, "that next year you should wear different boots."
"What's wrong with these boots?"
"Besides the fact that they're currently holding approximately a pound of mud each?"
He looked down. She was right; his boots were disasters, caked with earth and probably ruined beyond repair. Boggins would be devastated.
"They seemed appropriate this morning."
"For a formal dinner, perhaps. For a village fair, you want something you can actually walk in."
"You could help me choose." The words were out before he could stop them. "I mean…Not that I expect…I only thought…"
"Yes."
He blinked. "Yes?"
"If you're going to be attending village fairs, you should probably own at least one pair of practical shoes. I can help you find some."
It was such a small offer. Such a domestic one. The kind of thing friends did for each other, the kind of casual intimacy that Frederick had only ever observed from a distance.
"I would like that," he said, and meant it more than he had ever meant anything.
The evening deepened. The bonfire was lit, casting dancing shadows across the green. The music shifted to something slower, more intimate. Couples began to drift together, swaying in the firelight.
Frederick was acutely aware of Lydia beside him; the warmth of her presence, the occasional brush of her shoulder against his arm. He wanted to ask her to dance. He wanted to put his arms around her and join the swaying couples and pretend, just for a moment, that he was someone who belonged here.
But he couldn't. Not yet. Not without proving that he could show up again and again, that this wasn't a moment of weakness or curiosity but the beginning of something real.
"I should go," he said, though every part of him wanted to stay.
Lydia nodded, not surprised. "The carriage has been waiting."
"Yes. And I've taken enough of your time."
"It wasn't taking. It was sharing." She turned to face him, her features soft in the firelight. "Thank you for coming. For trying. For…" she hesitated. "For being different from what I expected."
"Thank you for showing me what I was missing."
They stood there for a moment, the fire crackling behind them, the music playing, the village alive with celebration all around.
Frederick was acutely aware of everything—the warmth of the flames on his back, the scent of wood smoke and autumn, the way the firelight caught in Lydia's hair and made it glow like copper.
"May I ask you something?" He said.
"You seem to be making a habit of that."
"Yes, well." He took a breath. "Would it be.....I wondered if perhaps in the future, not now, obviously, but at some point, that would be convenient for you…"
"Frederick."
He stopped. She had said his name. Not "Your Grace," not "the duke," but Frederick, and the sound of it on her lips made something flutter in his chest.
"Yes?"
"You're rambling."
"I am. I apologise. I'm not very good at this part."
"What part?"
"The part where I ask if I might see you again. Not at a fair, though I would come to another fair, I would come to every fair if you wanted me to, but somewhere else. Somewhere we could talk without half the village watching."
Lydia was quiet for a long moment. The firelight played across her features, and Frederick couldn't read her expression, and he couldn't tell if she was trying to find a way to refuse politely or if she was simply considering his words.