Chapter 16 #2
"Please, Your Grace. Allow me to finish." Boggins' eyes held a quiet plea that Frederick had never seen before. "I have things I need to say, and if I don't say them now, I may never find the courage again."
Frederick subsided, trading a confused glance with Lydia.
"When I first came to this house," Boggins continued, "I was seventeen years old. Youngest footman, lowest rank, invisible to everyone who mattered. I used to watch the family at dinner, standing against the wall, ready to serve, but mostly just observing. And what I observed was fascinating."
He paused, taking a sip of his tea.
"His Grace's grandfather was still alive then.
A formidable man, by all accounts. Cold as ice, precise as clockwork.
But there were moments, brief moments, when I would catch him staring at nothing, with an expression that looked almost like grief.
I didn't understand it at the time. I thought he was simply tired, or distracted by business matters. "
"My grandfather?"
"The same. Years later, I learned about the farmer's daughter.
About the match that was broken off, the life he might have had.
And suddenly those moments of grief made perfect sense.
" Boggins set down his cup. "He spent forty years married to a woman he didn't love, raising children he couldn't connect with, managing an estate that meant nothing to him.
And every day, in quiet moments when he thought no one was watching, he mourned the choice he'd been too afraid to make. "
"I never knew…"
"Of course you didn't. Hawthornes don't share such things. They bury them, hide them, pretend they don't exist. That's what you were taught, isn't it? Emotions are a weakness. That wanting things is beneath your station."
Frederick was quiet.
"Your father was the same," Boggins continued, his voice gentler now.
"I watched him become exactly what his father had been; cold, distant, utterly alone.
I watched him marry a woman he barely knew, father a son he couldn't love, work himself into an early grave trying to fill the emptiness inside him with ledgers and accounts. "
"You knew him well. My father."
"I knew him better than anyone, I think.
Which is not the same as knowing him well.
He didn't allow anyone that close." Boggins' gaze was distant, remembering.
"But I saw the cracks. The moments when the mask slipped.
The nights he sat alone in his study, staring at nothing, with that same expression of grief I'd seen in his father. "
"He never talked about it."
"He never talked about anything. That was the point.
He was so afraid of feeling that he simply stopped.
Stopped feeling, stopped connecting, stopped living in any meaningful sense.
" Boggins' voice hardened. "And then he died, and no one mourned him.
Not really. Not the way you mourn someone you love.
We mourned the loss of a master, a duty, a structure to our days.
But not the man. Because there was no man left to mourn.
Just a title and a position and an empty chair at the head of an empty table. "
The room was very quiet.
"In all those years," Boggins continued, "I have watched this family retreat further and further into isolation.
I watched His Grace's grandfather become bitter and cold after his family forced him to abandon the woman he loved.
I watched His Grace's father become emotionally absent, more interested in ledgers than in his own son.
I watched His Grace himself build walls around his heart so high that I feared no one would ever be able to scale them. "
"This is very flattering," Frederick said dryly.
"It's not meant to be flattering, Your Grace. It's meant to be truthful." Boggins' gaze shifted to Lydia. "And then you arrived, Miss Fletcher. And everything changed."
Lydia blinked. "I didn't…"
"You did. Whether you intended to or not, you did.
" Boggins' voice softened slightly. "For eight years, I have watched His Grace go through the motions of living without actually being alive.
I have watched him keep everyone at arm's length, including myself.
I have watched him become exactly what his father raised him to be; cold, controlled, utterly alone. "
"Boggins…"
"And then you looked at him. At the harvest fair, at the forge, wherever it was. You looked at him, and something in him woke up." Boggins' hands were clasped tightly in his lap. "I have waited many years to see him smile the way he smiles now. I had given up hope that it would ever happen."
The room was very quiet.
"Why are you telling us this?" Lydia asked.
"Because His Grace's aunt is going to try to end this.
She's going to use every weapon in her considerable arsenal to separate you, and I need you both to understand what is at hazard.
" Boggins' voice hardened. "I have served this family for three decades.
I have watched three generations of Hawthornes sacrifice love for duty, happiness for propriety, themselves for their name.
And I have watched every single one of them regret it. "
"My grandfather…"
"Your grandfather spent forty years married to a woman he didn't love, wishing he'd had the courage to fight for the one he did.
Your father spent thirty years treating emotions like diseases to be cured, and he died alone in his study without a single person in the world who actually mourned him.
And you…" Boggins' voice cracked slightly.
"You were becoming the same thing, Your Grace.
I watched it happening, and I couldn't stop it, and I thought…
..I thought you were going to die the same way they did.
Cold. Alone. Having never really lived."
"Boggins…"
"I am asking you, both of you, not to let that happen.
" Boggins’ eyes were bright with something that might have been tears, though Frederick couldn't quite believe it.
"Fight for this. Whatever Lady Helena throws at you, fight for it.
Because what you have is rare, and precious, and worth more than all the propriety in the world. "
The silence that followed was absolute.
Frederick had never seen Boggins show anything like this kind of emotion. The man was unflappable, imperturbable, the very definition of professional detachment. And yet here he was, practically begging them to stay together.
"I don't know what to say," Frederick managed finally.
"You don't need to say anything, Your Grace.
You just need to remember it. When things get hard, and they will get hard, remember that there's at least one person in this house who believes you deserve to be happy.
" Boggins rose from his chair, his composure reassembling itself around him like armour.
"Now. Shall I bring tea? I imagine you both have a great deal to discuss. "
"Tea would be... Yes, tea." Frederick shook his head. "Boggins. Thank you. I don't…I've never…"
"I know, Your Grace." Boggins' voice was gentle. "That's rather the problem, is it not? No one in this family has ever known how to say the important things." He moved toward the door. "I'll return with the tea shortly. Miss Fletcher—it has been a genuine pleasure making your acquaintance."
"Likewise," Lydia said, her voice slightly unsteady.
Boggins nodded and withdrew, closing the door behind him with perfect precision.
Frederick and Lydia sat in stunned silence.
"That was..." Frederick started.
"Unexpected?"
"I was going to say extraordinary, but yes. Unexpected covers it too." He ran a hand through his hair. "In all those years, I've never heard him say anything like that. I didn't even know he…" He broke off, shaking his head. "He's been watching me. Worrying about me. This whole time."
"He cares about you."
"Apparently. I had no idea." Frederick laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. "I thought he was just doing his job. I thought it was all just... professional detachment. It seems he's been hoping I'd find someone who could make me happy for over a decade."
Lydia reached over and took his hand.
"You inspire loyalty," she said. "Even when you don't realise it. Even when you're being cold and distant and difficult. People see something in you worth caring about."
"Do they?"
"I do. Boggins does. My uncle Thomas is coming around, even though he'd never admit it." She squeezed his hand. "Your aunt is wrong about you, Frederick. You're not the cold, empty person she thinks you are. You never were, you were just hiding."
"I was very good at hiding."
"You were. But you're not hiding anymore." She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. "And Boggins is right. Whatever comes next, we fight for this. Both of us. Together."
"Together," Frederick agreed.
The door opened, and Boggins returned with the tea service, his composure once again impeccable, as if the emotional confession of minutes ago had never happened. He set out the cups, poured with precision, and withdrew with a murmured, "will there be anything else, Your Grace?"
"No. Thank you, Boggins. For everything."
"Of course, Your Grace."
The door closed.
Frederick and Lydia looked at each other.
"Well," Lydia said. "That was the strangest tea invitation I've ever received."
"Welcome to Corvenwell Manor. Where nothing is ever quite what you expect."
They sat in silence for a moment, the tea cooling between them. Lydia found herself thinking about Boggins' words; about three generations of Hawthornes retreating from love, about walls built so high no one could scale them.
"He's right, you know," she said finally.
"About which part?"