Chapter 12 #3
"And yet here you are. At my table, eating my stew and courting my niece." Thomas fixed him with a look that was equal parts challenge and assessment. "How did you get from there to here?"
Frederick considered the question. It deserved an honest answer.
"I don't entirely know," he admitted. "I spent eight years after my father's death being exactly what he'd trained me to be.
Cold. Distant. Above it all. And then I rode through this village and saw your niece at the forge, and something.
.." He shook his head. "I can't explain it.
Something woke up. Something that had been asleep so long I'd forgotten it existed. "
"Love does that," Thomas said. "It wakes things up and makes you realise you've been sleeping through your own life."
"I didn't say it was love."
"You didn't have to." Thomas' mouth quirked into something that might have been a smile. "The look on your face when you walked in tonight said it clearly enough."
Frederick felt heat rise to his cheeks. Across the table, Lydia was blushing too.
"I think," she said, "that perhaps we should change the subject. Before my uncle embarrasses everyone further."
"Embarrassment builds character," Thomas said placidly. "But fine. Let's talk about something else." He turned to Frederick. "Tell me about the estate."
And so the conversation shifted to safer ground; rents and repairs, crop yields and livestock, the practical realities of managing land and the people who worked it.
Frederick found himself talking more openly than he ever had about the challenges he faced, the improvements he wanted to make, the ways he had failed and was trying to do better.
Thomas listened, asked pointed questions, and offered occasional observations that showed a shrewd understanding of economics and human nature alike.
"You're not what I expected," he said finally, as Lydia began clearing the dishes. "When I heard the Duke of Corvenwell was prying about my niece, I assumed the worst. Rich men usually want only one thing from village girls, and it isn't marriage."
"I'm not…" Frederick started.
"I know. I can see that now." Thomas held up a hand to forestall protest. "I'm not saying I trust you completely. Trust is earned, not given. But I'm willing to believe that your intentions are..... Better than I feared."
"They are. I promise."
"Don't promise. Just prove it. Through actions, over time. That's all any of us can do."
Lydia returned from the kitchen, drying her hands on a cloth.
"I thought Frederick might like to see the garden before he goes. There's still enough light, if we hurry."
It was a transparent excuse to get them alone together, and everyone at the table knew it. Thomas' eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded.
"Don't be long. It's getting cold."
"We won't be."
Lydia took Frederick’s hand, casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and led him toward the back door.
***
The garden was small but lovely, a patch of cultivated ground surrounded by a low stone wall.
In the fading light, Frederick could see vegetable beds prepared for winter, fruit trees against the south-facing wall, and a small wooden bench tucked into a corner where someone could sit and watch the sunset.
They sat there now, side by side, close enough that their shoulders touched.
"That went better than I expected," Lydia said.
"Your uncle is... not what I expected either."
"He threatened you, didn't he? While I was getting the cake."
Frederick blinked. "How did you…"
"He always does that. He threatened the miller's son when he came to court me at seventeen. And he threatened the travelling merchant who tried to charm me at nineteen. It's his way of showing he cares."
"What happened to the miller's son?"
"He decided I wasn't worth the trouble. The merchant, too." She glanced at him sideways. "Are you going to decide the same?"
"No." The word came out immediately, without thought. "Your uncle could threaten me with the worst punishment, and it wouldn't change my mind."
"He might, if you give him time. He's very creative."
Frederick laughed—surprised, delighted, grateful for the moment of levity. "I shall keep that in mind."
They were quiet for a moment, listening to the evening sounds; birds settling into trees, a dog barking somewhere in the village, the distant murmur of voices from the Crossed Keys.
"I think he likes you."
"I think he's reserving judgment. Which is fair. I haven't done anything to earn his trust yet."
"You came to dinner. You ate his food. You answered his questions honestly." She reached out and took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "That's more than most people would have done."
"It's not enough."
"It's a start. That's all any of us can ask for."
Frederick turned her hand over in his, tracing the lines of her palm with his thumb.
Her skin was rough in places; callused from the forge, marked by small scars from sparks and hot metal.
These were hands that had done real work.
Hands that had built things, created things, transformed raw materials into something beautiful and useful.
"Your hands," he said. "They're..."
"Rough. I know. Not like a lady's hands."
"No. They're extraordinary. They tell a story." He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. "Every callus, every scar—they all mean something. They mean you've lived. You've worked. You've made your mark on the world."
"That's a very romantic way of looking at rough hands."
"I'm feeling romantic."
"I noticed." She smiled, and the sight of it made his heart ache. "You're different, you know. From what I expected."
"So people keep telling me."
"I mean it as a compliment. The first time I saw you, I thought you were the coldest person I'd ever encountered. All ice and stone and impenetrable distance."
"And now?"
"Now I think the ice was armour. Protection.
A way of surviving a childhood that didn't allow for anything soft.
" She turned to look at him, her eyes dark in the gathering dusk.
"You're not cold, Frederick. You're warm.
So warm. You've just been hiding it because no one taught you it was safe to show. "
The words landed like a blow; not painful, but profound. Because she was right. She saw him more clearly than anyone ever had.
"How do you do that?" He asked. "See things so clearly?"
"I pay attention. And I've learned that people rarely are what they seem. The gruff ones are often the kindest. The cheerful ones are often the saddest. And the cold ones..." She squeezed his hand. "The cold ones are often just waiting for permission to thaw."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the last of the light fade from the sky. Stars were beginning to appear; faint points of light that grew brighter as the darkness deepened.
"Frederick," Lydia said softly.
"Yes?"
"What happens now?"
It was the question he'd been avoiding. The question that had no easy answer.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I know what I want. I want to keep seeing you. I want to know you better—every part of you, every story, every dream. I want to sit in this garden with you a thousand more times and never run out of things to say."
"But?"
"But I'm a duke. And you're..." He stopped, aware of how the sentence would sound if he finished it.
"A blacksmith's niece. You can say it. It's what I am."
"You're so much more than that. But the world, my world, doesn't see it that way. To them, you're unsuitable. Beneath my station. A scandal waiting to happen."
"And what do they want you to do? Marry some earl's daughter who speaks five languages and has never worked a day in her life?"
"Something like that."
Lydia laughed; a short, sharp sound with no humour in it.
"Then let them want it. You don't have to give them what they want."
"It's not that simple."
"Isn't it?" She turned to face him fully, her eyes bright in the gathering darkness. "You're the Duke of Corvenwell. You answer to no one. You can do what you like, marry whom you like, live however you choose. The only person stopping you is yourself."
"You make it sound easy."
"I never said it was easy. I said it was simple. Those are different things." She squeezed his hand. "My mother chose love over comfort, security, and social standing. She gave up everything for a blacksmith she'd known for a week. And she never regretted it. Not once. Not even when she was dying."
"I'm not asking you to give up anything."
"Not yet. But if this continues, if we continue, eventually, choices will have to be made.
By both of us." Her voice was steady, but he could feel the tension in her grip.
"I need to know that you're willing to make them.
That when the time comes, you won't retreat behind your title and your walls and leave me standing alone. "
"I've never wanted anything the way I want this," Frederick said. "The way I want you. And that terrifies me, because I've been trained my whole life not to want things. Not to reach for things. Not to risk anything that might hurt."
"And now?"
"Now I think the only thing more frightening than reaching is not reaching.
Spending the rest of my life wondering what might have been.
I am afraid of becoming my father, safe and secure and utterly alone.
" He turned to face her fully. "I don't want that, Lydia.
I want to feel things. I want to risk things.
I want to be alive, even if being alive means getting hurt. "
"Even if it means disappointing your family? Losing your social standing? Being talked about in drawing rooms across England?"