Chapter 15 #2
"That's the general idea. My ancestors believed that intimidation was a form of hospitality.
" Frederick moved to stand beside her, looking at the hall with the weary familiarity of someone who had long since stopped seeing it.
"When I was a child, I used to slide down that bannister.
My father caught me once and lectured me for an hour about the dignity of the Hawthorne name. "
"You slid down bannisters?"
"I was six. And it was the only fun I was allowed to have, most days." He offered her his arm. "Shall I give you the tour?"
"The tour of what?"
"Everything. The whole house. All the rooms I've never shown anyone, all the ghosts I've never talked about." His voice was light, but his eyes were serious. "You showed me your world yesterday. I want to show you mine."
Lydia took his arm. "Lead the way."
***
The tour began with the portrait gallery—a long corridor lined with paintings that seemed to go on forever, face after face after face of Hawthornes stretching back into the mists of history.
"This is my great-great-grandfather," Frederick said, stopping before a particularly stern-looking man in an elaborate wig. "He once had a servant flogged for using the wrong fork at dinner."
"That's horrible."
"That's the Hawthornes." He moved to the next portrait. "This is my great-grandmother. She outlived three husbands and was rumoured to have poisoned at least one of them, though no one could ever prove it."
"Did she?"
"Probably. He was apparently a terrible person. Most Hawthornes are." He gestured down the length of the gallery. "Three hundred years of cold, calculating, morally questionable people, and I'm supposed to be the culmination of all of it. The pinnacle of the line."
Lydia studied the faces staring down at her; the same grey-blue eyes, the same angular features, the same expression of careful neutrality. Generation after generation of people who looked like they'd never been taught how to feel.
"Tell me about them," she said. "The interesting ones. The ones with stories."
Frederick looked surprised. "You want to hear about my ancestors?"
"I want to understand where you come from. Who made you?" She moved to the nearest portrait; a woman in an elaborate gown, her expression as cold as winter. "Start with her. Who was she?"
"Lady Catherine Hawthorne. My great-great-great-grandmother.
She was married at fifteen to a man thirty years her senior and spent the rest of her life running this estate because her husband was too busy drinking and gambling to manage it himself.
" Frederick’s voice was thoughtful. "She was brilliant, by all accounts.
Increased the estate's income tenfold, expanded our holdings, and negotiated contracts that are still in effect today.
But she's never mentioned in the official histories.
Just a footnote to her husband's legacy. "
"That's infuriating."
"It is. But it was also the way things were done.
Women managed, men took credit, and everyone pretended that was natural and right.
" He moved to the next portrait. "This is her son.
My great-great-grandfather—the one who flogged the servant.
He inherited everything his mother built and spent forty years running it into the ground.
The estate was nearly ruined before his son managed to salvage it. "
"How?"
"Marriage. His son married an heiress, the daughter of a wealthy merchant who wanted the respectability of a title.
She brought money, we brought lineage, and everyone pretended it was a love match.
" Frederick’s voice was bitter. "That's how it's always been.
Hawthornes marry for advantage, not affection.
We accumulate wealth and power, but never happiness. "
They continued down the gallery, portrait by portrait, story by story.
The cruel grandfather who beat his children.
The uncle who gambled away a fortune and shot himself in his study.
The aunt who ran away with a soldier and was never spoken of again.
The cousin who died in a duel over a gambling debt.
"This is the most depressing family history I've ever heard," Lydia said, after the tenth or eleventh tragic tale.
"I know. That's rather the point." Frederick stopped before a painting she hadn't noticed before; smaller than the others, tucked into an alcove at the end of the corridor. "But there's this one."
The portrait showed a young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, with dark hair and laughing eyes. Unlike all the others, she was smiling; a real smile, full of warmth and mischief.
"Who is she?"
"Lady Elizabeth Hawthorne. My father's sister.
My aunt." Frederick’s voice was soft. "She died before I was born, a riding accident, they said, though there were rumours it wasn't entirely accidental.
She was betrothed to a man she didn't love, and one day she went riding alone and never came back. "
"Frederick..."
"She was the only Hawthorne in three hundred years who smiled in her portrait.
The painter said he'd never met anyone so full of life.
" He touched the frame gently. "Sometimes I come here just to look at her.
To remember that it's possible. Being a Hawthorne and still being happy. Even if it didn't last."
Lydia felt her throat tighten. "You never told me about her."
"I don't tell anyone about her. She's... mine.
The one ancestor I'm actually proud of, even though she never did anything the family would consider important.
" He turned to face her. "She reminds me that the cold isn't inevitable.
That somewhere in the Hawthorne bloodline, there's a capacity for warmth. I just have to find it."
"I think you already have."
"Because of you."
"Not because of me. I didn't put anything in you that wasn't already there. I just…" She searched for the right words. "I just made it safe for you to let it out."
Frederick was quiet for a moment, looking at the portrait of his aunt.
"You don't look like them," she said suddenly.
"I have the same face."
"You have similar features. But they all look…" She searched for the right word. "Empty. Like portraits of portraits. You don't look like that."
"I used to. Before…" He stopped, glanced at her. "Before you."
"I didn't do anything."
"You did everything." He took her hand and led her further down the gallery. "This is my grandfather. He nearly married a farmer's daughter, apparently. My father used to tell me the story as a warning; what happens when Hawthornes forget their station."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. His family intervened, the match was broken off, and he married someone appropriate instead.
He had children, managed the estate, died bitter and alone.
" Frederick’s voice was carefully neutral, but Lydia could hear the undercurrent beneath it.
"My father said it was a lesson in duty.
I always thought it was a lesson in tragedy. "
"What happened to her? The farmer's daughter?"
"I don't know. The story never included her fate.
She was just an obstacle to be overcome, not a person with her own life and feelings.
" He turned away from the portrait, his jaw tight.
"That's what my aunt sees when she looks at you.
Not Lydia Fletcher, with her fire and her strength and her extraordinary ability to see through nonsense.
Just an obstacle. A problem to be solved. "
"And you? What do you see when you look at me?"
Frederick was quiet for a moment. Then he turned, took both her hands in his, and looked at her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"I see the first person who ever made me feel like I was more than my name.
The first person who looked at me and saw someone worth knowing, rather than something to be managed or appeased.
I see someone brave and honest and completely unimpressed by everything that's supposed to impress people.
" His voice dropped. "I see someone I want to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve. "
"Frederick..."
"Too much?"
"No. Just…" She swallowed hard. "Just right. Exactly right."
He kissed her, there in the gallery, surrounded by three hundred years of disapproving ancestors. It was gentle and fierce and everything in between, and when they finally broke apart, Lydia was fairly certain her legs had forgotten how to work.
"More tour?" Frederick asked.
"More tour," she agreed, her voice only slightly unsteady.
***
He showed her the nursery, where faded wallpaper still bore the marks of toys that had been removed decades ago. "I wasn't allowed to keep my toys after I turned five. My father said they were distractions from my studies."
He showed her the schoolroom, where a single desk faced a wall covered in maps and charts. "I spent six hours a day in this room until I was eighteen. Latin, Greek, mathematics, history, and estate management. Everything a duke needs to know and nothing a person might actually want to learn."
He turned to face her, his expression raw in a way she'd never seen before.
"Promise me," he said. "Promise me that if I start disappearing again, you'll pull me back. Even if I fight you. Even if I say I don't need it. Promise me you won't let me become him."
"I promise."
"Even if it's hard? Even if I'm difficult and stubborn and all the things I've been trained to be?"
"Even then." She reached up and touched his face. "Especially then."
He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, and for a moment, he looked younger than his thirty years. Vulnerable in a way that dukes were never supposed to be.
"Thank you," he whispered. "For seeing me. For being the first person who ever really saw me."
"You made it easy."
"I didn't. I made it almost impossible. But you did it anyway." He opened his eyes. "Come on. There's more to show you."