Chapter 8 #2
"You understand what people will say," she said finally. "If the Duke of Corvenwell starts calling on the blacksmith's niece."
"I don't care what people say."
"That's because you're a duke. You can afford not to care. I'm a village girl with nothing but my reputation to recommend me. I can't afford to have that reputation……. Complicated."
"I wouldn't…" He stopped, then he started again. "I would never do anything to compromise your standing. I'm not asking for anything improper. I'm asking if I might visit. Talk. Learn to be..." He gestured vaguely. "Human. With your help."
"You want me to teach you to be human?"
"Is that terribly pitiful?"
"It's terribly honest." She smiled, and the sight of it made his heart clench. "Which is refreshing, coming from a duke."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a 'let me think about it.' I need to consider the implications. Weigh the risks." Her smile turned wry. "Consult with Mrs Wrightly, who will undoubtedly have opinions."
"Of course." He tried to hide his disappointment, but suspected he wasn't entirely successful. "Take whatever time you need."
"Frederick." She touched his arm, just briefly, just the lightest pressure of her fingers through his coat sleeve, and the contact sent a shock through him that he felt in his bones. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying 'not yet.' There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"'No' is a door closing. 'Not yet' is a door that's still open, just not quite ready to be walked through."
It would have been so easy to reach for her. So natural. So right.
He didn't. But the wanting felt like a promise.
"Goodnight, Miss Fletcher."
"Goodnight, Your Grace."
He turned toward the carriage, took three steps and stopped.
"Frederick," he said, without turning back. "You called me Frederick once. I'd like you to do it again. Whenever you choose."
"Goodnight, Frederick."
The sound of his name in her voice—warm, soft, intimate in a way that titles could never be—was worth every awkward moment of the day.
He walked away before he could say something foolish, but he carried her voice with him anyway; the way she'd said his name, like it was a word worth speaking. The way she might say it again, someday, if he proved himself worthy of it.
The carriage door closed behind him, the horses started forward, and Frederick Hawthorne, seventh Duke of Corvenwell, left the Ashwick Harvest Fair having learned something that no one had ever taught him before.
That he could be wrong. That he could change.
That he could, if he tried hard enough and wanted it badly enough, become the kind of man who wasn't always above.
The kind of man who could belong.
***
In Ashwick, the fair continued into the night. The bonfire burned high. The music played on. And the gossip, that eternal engine of village life, had shifted into a new and unfamiliar register.
"Did you see him with the children? With the horses?"
"He bought four pies from Margaret. He paid a whole pound and told her to keep the change."
"He sat with the Fletcher girl for nearly an hour. Just talking."
"He smiled. I saw it. An actual smile."
At the Crossed Keys, where the older villagers had retreated as the evening grew colder, the conversation was more nuanced but equally intense.
"I don't trust it," said Robert the carpenter, nursing his ale. "A man doesn't change overnight. Especially not a Hawthorne."
"He seemed genuine enough to me," countered Mr Holloway from behind the bar. "Awkward as anything, but genuine. You don't fake that kind of awkward."
"My grandmother always said…"
"Your grandmother thought the moon was made of cheese, Daniel. Her opinions on dukes are not necessarily reliable."
"Still." Robert shook his head. "Eight years of nothing, and now suddenly he shows up at our fair, pets horses with children, buys half the pies in the village? It does not make sense."
"Maybe he's lonely," offered Mrs Thompson, the candle seller, who had apparently forgiven, or at least temporarily forgotten, the wick incident. "My sister worked at the manor. She said he eats every meal alone and sits in that big empty house with no company but his valet. That's no way to live."
"Plenty of ways he could fix that loneliness. He could have married any woman in England. Probably still can."
"Maybe he doesn't want just any woman."
This observation, delivered with a significant look toward the door through which Lydia Fletcher was not currently visible but was clearly implied, caused a ripple of murmurs around the room.
"You're not suggesting…"
"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm observing."
"There's nothing to observe. He talked to her. That's all."
"He talked to her for over an hour. He held her hand at one point and looked at her like she was perfection itself."
"He did not look at her like that."
"He did. I saw it. Martha saw it too. Didn't you, Martha?"
Martha Fenn, who had been pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation, nodded reluctantly. "He looked at her. More than seemed strictly necessary for a casual conversation about whatever they were discussing."
"See?"
"That doesn't mean anything. Rich men look at pretty girls all the time. It doesn't mean they intend to do anything honourable about it."
The word "honourable" hung in the air, full of implications.
"If he does anything dishonourable to that girl," Mr Holloway said quietly, "he'll answer to this village. Duke or no duke. That's Thomas Fletcher's niece. She's ours."
There were murmurs of agreement around the room; fierce, protective, the sound of a community closing ranks around one of its own.
Outside, unaware of the conversations taking place about her, Mrs Wrightly found Lydia near the bonfire, staring into the flames with an expression that Mrs Wrightly couldn't quite decipher.
"So," the older woman said, settling beside her. "The duke came after all."
"He did."
"And he didn't cause a catastrophe."
"No. He caused several small ones, but nothing catastrophic."
"The candle incident?"
"Among others. But he recovered. He's better than he thinks he is. Just untrained. Like a horse that's never been properly socialised."
"Did you just compare the Duke of Corvenwell to a not socialised horse?"
"It seemed apt." Lydia smiled slightly. "He's not cold, Mrs Wrightly. He's scared. There's a difference."
"I know the difference, child. I've been watching people for sixty-three years." Mrs Wrightly was quiet for a moment. "I may have been wrong about him."
Lydia looked up sharply. "What?"
"Don't make me repeat it. I'm old and set in my ways, and admitting error is uncomfortable.
" Mrs Wrightly's mouth twitched. "But I saw him with young Molly.
The way he looked at her—like he didn't know children could be friendly.
Like he'd never experienced kindness from a stranger before.
" She shook her head. "Whatever else he is, he's not untouchable. Not anymore."
Lydia thought about the duke's face when he'd tasted the gooseberry pie.
The wonder in his eyes, as if he'd discovered something extraordinary.
The way he'd looked when she'd told him about her parents, about the village that had saved her; he seemed hungry, almost, for the kind of love she described.
"No," she agreed. "Not anymore."
"You're being careful, aren't you? With whatever this is?"
"There isn't a whatever this is. He's a duke. I'm a blacksmith's niece."
"That's not an answer."
Lydia sighed. "I'm being as careful as I can. But..." She looked at the fire again, at the dancers, at the village that had raised her and loved her and given her everything she had. "But some things are worth being careful about. And some things are worth the risk."
"And which is this?"
"I don't know yet. That's why I'm being careful."
Mrs Wrightly studied her for a long moment. Then, surprisingly, she patted Lydia's hand.
"Your mother said something similar once. About your father." She smiled, small and sad. "She wasn't wrong. Just be sure you know what you're risking. A heart is a difficult thing to repair once it's been broken."
"You think he'll break my heart?"
"I think all love has the potential for heartbreak.
That's what makes it worth something; the risk.
The vulnerability. The willingness to let someone close enough to hurt you.
" Mrs Wrightly rose, her joints creaking in protest. "But I also think that a man who looks at a child the way he looked at Molly, who takes off his fine coat to wrap around a shivering boy, who says 'I'm sorry' like he actually means it; that's not a man who breaks hearts on purpose.
That's a man who's learning to have one. "
She walked away, leaving Lydia alone with the fire and her thoughts and the memory of a duke who had looked at her like she was the most important person in the world.
It was probably nothing. It was probably foolish. It was probably the beginning of heartbreak.
But as Lydia watched the flames dance and the stars emerge overhead, she found that she didn't regret any of it. Not the conversation in the manor. Not the afternoon at the fair. Not the way he'd said her name or the way he'd looked at her or the way his hand had felt when she'd taken it.
Frederick Hawthorne had come to the Harvest Fair. He had tried. He had stumbled and recovered and tried again. And somewhere in the process, he had become something more than a cold duke on a hill.
He had become a possibility.