Chapter 11 #2
"For dinner."
"Is everyone going to repeat things to me today? Yes, Uncle Thomas. The Duke of Corvenwell is coming to dinner tomorrow night. To eat food. At our table."
Thomas set down his hammer and crossed his arms. "You're sure about this?"
"I'm sure that I want to find out if I'm sure. Does that make sense?"
"Not particularly. But then, love rarely does." He studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "What happened during that storm?"
"We talked."
"For three hours."
"There was a lot to talk about."
"And that's all? Talking?"
Lydia met her uncle's eyes steadily. "He held my hand.
He kissed my knuckles. He told me things about his childhood that broke my heart.
And he looked at me like I was the most important person in the world.
" She felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back. "That's all. And it was everything."
Thomas was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he uncrossed his arms and leaned back against his workbench.
"I remember when your mother first came to the village," he said. "Did you know that?"
"You've mentioned it before."
"Have I mentioned that I didn't like her at first?"
Lydia blinked. "You said something about not believing she would fit into the village life."
"It's true. She arrived in Ashwick like a creature from another world—fine clothes, soft hands, a way of speaking that marked her as different.
My brother took one look at her and forgot how to breathe.
And I..." He shook his head. "I thought she was going to break his heart.
I thought she'd play with him for a while, like a cat with a mouse, and then go back to her real life and leave him in pieces. "
"What changed your mind?"
"She stayed. When things got hard, when her father disowned her, when the money ran out, when she had to learn to do things she'd never done before, she stayed.
She didn't complain, didn't blame him, didn't retreat into bitterness.
She just... adapted. Became part of us." Thomas's voice roughened.
"When she was dying, when the fever took her, took both of them, she held my hand and thanked me.
Thanked me for welcoming her, for accepting her, for letting her be part of this family. As if she'd been the lucky one."
Lydia felt tears sliding down her cheeks now, and she didn't try to stop them.
"The point," Thomas continued, "is that I was wrong.
I judged her before I knew her. I assumed that because she came from one world, she couldn't belong in another.
And she proved me wrong, every day, for many years.
" He pushed off from the workbench and crossed to where Lydia stood.
"I'm not going to make that mistake again.
If this duke, this man who makes you smile like you can't help it, if he's willing to sit at our table and prove who he is, then I'm willing to give him a chance. "
"You'd do that? For me?"
"I'd do considerably more than that for you, child.
" He pulled her into a hug—the kind of bone-crushing embrace he'd given her when she was small and scared and needed to know she was loved.
"You're my brother's daughter. You're the closest thing I have to a child of my own.
If you think this man is worth knowing, then I trust your judgment. "
"I don't know if he's worth knowing. But I want to find out."
"Then find out. But be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"I know. Sometimes too careful." He released her and stepped back. "Maybe it's time to be a little reckless."
"Uncle Thomas!" She laughed through her tears. "Are you encouraging me to throw caution to the wind?"
"I'm encouraging you to live. To take chances.
To let yourself want things, even if wanting them is terrifying.
" His eyes were bright with emotion. "Your mother gave up everything for love.
Your father risked everything for love. It's in your blood, Lydia.
You can fight it if you want to, but eventually, it's going to win. "
"Now I definitely need to buy better wine. I can't serve a duke that swill from the public house."
"I told him not to bring anything ostentatious."
"Good. Because if he shows up with a case of French champagne, I'll know he's not paying attention." Thomas picked up his hammer again, but his expression had softened. "Six o'clock, you said?"
"Six o'clock."
"Then we'd better start planning and preparing."
Lydia crossed the forge and hugged him again—fiercely, gratefully, with all the love she hadn't known how to express until she'd almost lost everything.
"Thank you, Uncle Thomas."
"For what?"
"For trusting me. Even when I'm probably being foolish."
"You're not foolish. You're brave. There's a difference." He kissed the top of her head. "Now go get cleaned up. You smell like rain and old cottages, and you've got a dinner to plan."
She went, leaving him alone with his forge and his thoughts and the complicated feelings that came with watching someone he loved step into the unknown.
***
In the village, the gossip machine was already running at full speed.
"They were gone for hours," Mrs Thornton reported to the assembled crowd at the Crossed Keys. "Hours! In that storm!"
"Where did they go?"
"No one knows. But she came back looking like a drowned cat, and he rode off toward the manor like nothing had happened."
"Suspicious."
"Very suspicious."
"Might have just been sheltering from the rain."
"For hours? In each other's company? Without a chaperone?"
"When I was young, sheltering from rain with a handsome man led to my first husband."
"Your first husband was a blackguard who left you for a woman in York."
"That was later. The beginning was very romantic."
Old Mr Wrightly, who had been nursing the same ale for the better part of an hour, cleared his throat meaningfully.
"I saw them earlier," he said. "At the cobbler's. He was getting fitted for boots."
"Boots?" Mrs Thornton's eyebrows rose. "What kind of boots?"
"Working boots. The kind you'd wear if you were planning to spend time in mud and muck." He took a slow sip of his ale. "Marsh said he ordered two pairs. He paid in advance and did not haggle."
"Dukes don't haggle."
"This one didn't even try to negotiate. He just paid what Marsh asked and seemed grateful for it."
There was a ripple of murmurs around the room. A duke who didn't haggle was unexpected. A duke who was grateful was practically mythological.
"He's playing some kind of game," said Robert the carpenter, who had been listening from the corner. "He has to be. Men like him don't suddenly decide to mingle with common folk. There's an angle."
"What angle? What could he possibly want from us?"
"Land, labour. Something. Rich men always want something."
"He already has more land than he knows what to do with. And his tenants provide all the labour he needs."
"Then it's the girl. He wants the girl."
The room went quiet. It was one thing to speculate about a duke's motives in the abstract; it was another to suggest he was pursuing one of their own.
"If he touches that girl improperly…" Someone started.
"He won't." This came from Thomas Fletcher himself, who had entered the public house without anyone noticing. The blacksmith's presence commanded immediate attention; he was well-respected, well-liked, and not a man anyone wanted to cross. "I've spoken with him. Briefly, but enough."
"And?"
"And he's not what I expected." Thomas crossed to the bar and accepted the ale that Mr Holloway silently poured for him. "He's awkward and uncertain. And he looks at my niece like he can't quite believe she's willing to talk to him."
"That's how predators work, though, isn't it? They seem harmless until they're not."
"Maybe. But there's another possibility.
" Thomas took a long sip. "Maybe he's just lonely.
Maybe he's spent his whole life being treated like a title instead of a person, and he doesn't know how to connect with anyone.
Maybe my niece is the first person who's ever looked at him like a human being, and he doesn't want to lose that. "
"You're defending him?"
"I'm observing him. There's a difference." Thomas set down his mug. "He's coming to dinner tomorrow. At my house. To eat at my table and prove that he's serious about whatever this is."
The silence that followed was profound.
"A duke," someone said finally. "At your table."
"That's what I said."
"Eating your food."
"That's generally what one does at dinner, yes."
"Thomas, are you sure about this?"
"I'm sure that my niece is a grown woman who can make her own choices.
I'm sure that this duke, whatever else he might be, seems genuinely interested in her as a person, not just a conquest. And I'm sure that the only way to know if he's trustworthy is to give him a chance to prove it.
" Thomas looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes in turn.
"I'm not asking any of you to like him. I'm not even asking you to trust him.
I'm just asking you to wait and see. Let him show us who he is before we decide what to do about it. "
Mrs Wrightly, who had been listening from her corner table, spoke up for the first time.
"You're quiet," Mr Holloway observed, sliding a cup of tea across to her. "No opinions on the duke and our Lydia?"
"Plenty of opinions. None that would help anything."
"That's never stopped you before."
"No. It hasn't." She wrapped her hands around the warm cup.
"I've known that girl since she was seven years old and crying in my kitchen.
I've watched her grow up, find her strength, and become someone I'm proud to know.
And now she's caught the eye of a duke, and I don't know whether to be happy for her or terrified. "
"Maybe both."
"Maybe." Mrs Wrightly sighed. "My grandmother used to say that love is like fire; it can warm your home or burn it down, depending on how you tend it."
"And which do you think this is?"
"I think it's too early to tell. I think they don't know themselves yet." She sipped her tea. "But I also think that girl has good instincts, and she's not the type to lose her head over a title. If she sees something in him... Maybe there's something there to see."
"That's remarkably charitable, coming from you."
"I'm old, Robert. I've seen enough to know that people can surprise you." She set down her cup and rose to leave. "I just hope, for both of them, that this surprise is a good one."
The public house fell into contemplative silence after she left. Thomas finished his ale, nodded to the room, and departed to prepare his home for the most unusual dinner guest it had ever hosted.
Behind him, the speculation continued; quieter now, more thoughtful. The village was reserving judgment, but it was watching. Always watching.
That was what villages did.
***
That night, in two very different houses, two very different people lay awake thinking about tomorrow.
Frederick stared at the ceiling of his enormous bedroom and tried to remember the last time he'd looked forward to anything the way he was looking forward to dinner with a blacksmith and his niece.
He couldn't.
His whole life had been a series of events to be endured rather than anticipated. Balls he attended because he was expected to. Dinners with people he didn't care about, discussing topics that didn't interest him. An endless parade of obligations dressed up as social occasions.
But tomorrow was different. Tomorrow was something he wanted. Someone he wanted to know better, a connection he wanted to deepen, a possibility he wanted to explore.
It was terrifying, exhilarating and entirely new.
He thought about the cottage, about the warmth of the fire and the sound of rain on the roof and Lydia's face in the flickering light.
He thought about the things he'd told her, secrets he'd never shared with anyone, vulnerabilities he'd spent a lifetime learning to hide.
And she hadn't flinched, she hadn't judged.
She had just listened, understood, and shared her own wounds in return.
That was what he'd been missing, he realised. Not just connection, but reciprocity. Not just being seen, but seeing in return. A relationship where both people gave and both people received, where vulnerability was met with vulnerability rather than exploitation.
He didn't know what would happen tomorrow.
He didn't know if this strange, fragile thing between Lydia and him would grow into something lasting or collapse under the weight of their different worlds.
He didn't know if the village would accept him, or if his own class would shun him for reaching below his station, or if any of the thousand things that could go wrong would go wrong.
But for the first time in his life, he was willing to find out.
That had to count for something.
He turned onto his side, facing the window where moonlight was beginning to filter through the clouds. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would sit at a blacksmith's table and eat whatever food was placed before him and try to be the kind of man who deserved the chance he'd been given.
Tomorrow, everything might change.
Or nothing might change.
Either way, he would have tried. And trying, truly trying, with his whole heart, was more than he'd ever done before.