Chapter 10 #2
"Then we'll see what happens." She smiled, and the sight of it made his chest ache.
"We shall proceed carefully, see each other properly, not just through the excuse of boot shopping or fair attendance.
Let people talk because they're going to talk anyway.
And maybe, if we're very lucky, we shall figure out if this is something worth keeping. "
"It is." He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles; a gesture that was probably too intimate, too presumptuous, too much too soon. But she didn't pull away. "I don't know much, Lydia, but I know this is worth keeping. You're worth keeping."
The rain continued to fall. The fire crackled and spat. And in the abandoned cottage on the edge of Frederick’s neglected estate, something began that neither of them fully understood, but both of them were willing to explore.
***
They talked for hours.
Not about anything momentous, at least not at first. They started with small things: favourite foods; his was roast lamb; hers was strawberry tart, childhood memories; his were mostly lonely, hers were mostly chaotic, embarrassing stories that they'd never told anyone else.
"Wait," Lydia said, laughing so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes. "You fell into the fountain? In front of the entire gathering?"
"In my defence, I was twelve and the fountain was not where I expected it to be."
"How does a fountain sneak up on someone?"
"It was a very stealthy fountain. And I was distracted."
"By what?"
"By..." He felt himself flush. "There was a girl. One of the guests' daughters. She had red hair, and she smiled at me, and I was so busy looking at her that I walked straight into the fountain and emerged covered in lily pads."
"What did your father say?"
"He didn't say anything. He just looked at me with this expression of profound disappointment and walked away. I spent the rest of the evening hiding in the library, convinced I'd ruined everything."
"For falling into a fountain?"
"For being human. For being visible. For failing to maintain the appropriate dignity of a Hawthorne." He shook his head. "My entire childhood was like that. Tiny failures, met with silence. I learned very quickly that the safest option was to never try anything at all."
Lydia's laughter had faded into something softer. "That sounds awful."
"It was. Though I didn't realise it at the time.
I thought it was normal. I thought everyone's father was a distant figure who communicated primarily through expressions of disappointment.
" He shifted closer to the fire, which had burned down to embers.
"It wasn't until I went away to school that I realised other boys had families who actually seemed to enjoy their company. "
"Did you make friends at school?"
"Not really. I didn't know how. The other boys all seemed to have this ease with each other.
They knew how to jest and play and form alliances.
I just knew how to be quiet and invisible and excellent at my studies.
" He smiled ruefully. "I was the boy who always had the highest marks and no one to celebrate with. "
"That's..." She shook her head. "I want to go back in time and find that boy and give him a hug."
"He would have had no idea what to do with a hug. He'd probably have frozen solid and made everything awkward."
"I'd have hugged him anyway."
The fire had burned low, casting long shadows across the cottage floor. The rain had softened from a deluge to a steady patter—still too heavy to venture out in, but no longer sounding like the end of the world.
"Can I ask you something?" Frederick said.
"You seem to be doing that regardless of permission."
"Indeed." He turned to face her more fully. "When you think about the future, your future, what do you see?"
It was a dangerous question. Too intimate, too soon. But the strange cocoon of the storm and the firelight and the hours of conversation had created something between them, a fragile bridge that could bear more weight than he'd expected.
Lydia was quiet for a moment, considering.
"I used to see the forge," she said finally.
"Taking over from my uncle when he gets too old to work.
Becoming the village blacksmith. Marrying someone, a farmer, maybe, or a tradesman, and having children who would grow up the way I did, surrounded by community. "
"And now?"
"Now I don't know." She met his eyes. "You've complicated things, Frederick Hawthorne."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Complications aren't always bad. Sometimes they're just... the universe telling you that your original plan was too small."
"That's a remarkably philosophical way of looking at it."
"I've had a lot of time to think. Storms are good for that." She glanced toward the window, where the rain was still falling in silver sheets. "What about you? What do you see when you think about your future?"
"Until recently? Nothing." The admission came out more starkly than he'd intended.
"I saw the estate, the duties, the endless march of days that all looked the same.
I saw myself getting older and colder and more alone.
I assumed I'd eventually marry someone appropriate; a lord's daughter, probably, someone who would understand the role and wouldn't expect anything from me emotionally.
We'd have children, because that's what one does, and I'd raise them the way I was raised, because I don't know any other way. "
"That sounds..." Lydia searched for a word.
"Empty? Depressing? Soul-crushing?"
"I was going to say 'lonely.' But those are appropriate too."
"It would have been lonely. It would have been exactly the life my father had, which I think was precisely the point.
" He stared into the dying embers. "But then I rode through a village and saw a woman at a forge, and she looked at me, actually looked at me, not through me or around me, and something shifted.
I don't know what and I don't know why. I just know that suddenly the future I'd resigned myself to seemed unbearable.
And that's why I'm here, sitting in an abandoned cottage in a rainstorm, telling you things I've never told anyone. "
"Why me?" The question was soft, almost wondering. "Of all the women you must have met, ladies, heiresses, women who would have been appropriate, why a blacksmith's niece who insulted you to your face?"
"Because you insulted me to my face." He turned to look at her, trying to put into words something he was only beginning to understand.
"Do you know how many people have agreed with me my entire life?
How many servants and tenants and social equals have nodded and smiled and told me exactly what I wanted to hear?
Hundreds. Thousands. And none of them saw me.
They saw the title, the money, the power, and they tailored themselves to fit what they thought I wanted. "
"And I didn't."
"You told me I looked like stone. You told me I was tired and alone. You told me my father was dead and I could stop trying to please him." He shook his head. "No one has ever spoken to me like that. With honesty. With the assumption that I could handle the truth."
"Most people assume dukes can't handle the truth."
"Most people are right. Most dukes can't." He reached out and took her hand again, marvelling at how natural the gesture had become. "But I'm trying to be different. I'm trying to be the kind of person who deserves honesty. And you make me believe that might actually be possible."
The rain had slowed even further; barely a drizzle now. The storm was passing.
"We should probably go soon," Lydia said, though she made no move to stand. "People will wonder."
"Let them wonder."
"That is easily said. You're a duke. I'm the one who will have to answer questions about where I was and who I was with."
"Then tell them the truth. Tell them you were with me."
She laughed, surprised. "Just like that?"
"Just like that. I told you…I want to do this properly. Not hiding, not making excuses. If we're going to see where this leads, we should do it openly."
"The village will have opinions."
"The village already has opinions. They might as well have accurate ones."
Lydia studied him for a long moment; really studied him, with those clear eyes that seemed to see everything he tried to hide. Then, slowly, she smiled.
"You really are different, aren't you? From what everyone says."
"I'm trying to be. I don't know if I'm succeeding, but I'm trying."
"That's all any of us can do." She squeezed his hand once, then released it. "Come along. The rain is easing. We should return before my uncle dispatches a search party."
They rose, brushing dirt and dust from their still-damp clothes. The fire had burned down to ash. The storm had moved on, leaving the world clean and fresh and new.
At the cottage door, Frederick paused.
"Lydia."
She turned, silhouetted against the grey light filtering through the doorway.
"Thank you," he said. "For the fire. For listening. For…" He stopped, overwhelmed by everything he wanted to express and couldn't. "For being here."
"Where else would I be?" She smiled, and it lit up the dim interior of the cottage. "Come on, Your Grace. Let's get you home before you catch a cold. I didn't spend an hour teaching you about fire-lighting just to have you die of fever."
She stepped out into the rain-washed world, and Frederick followed, feeling for all the world like he was stepping into a new life entirely.