Chapter 18 #2
They stood on opposite sides of the forge, the fire between them. Helena had declined to sit, not that there was anywhere to sit, really, unless you counted the anvil, and seemed remarkably unbothered by the heat and smoke.
"I'll be direct," she said. "I don't believe in wasting time with pleasantries."
"Neither do I."
"Good." Helena's lips curved in something that was almost a smile. "Then we understand each other."
"I doubt that very much."
"Perhaps." Helena moved closer to the fire, studying the flames with an expression Lydia couldn't read. "I came here expecting to find a fortune hunter. Someone who had identified my nephew as vulnerable and was exploiting that vulnerability for personal gain."
"I'm not…"
"I know. I realised that within minutes of watching you. You're not interested in his money or his title. You're interested in him." Helena's voice was almost admiring. "That makes you considerably more dangerous."
"I'm not dangerous."
"You are to my family. To everything we've worked to build over three centuries.
" Helena turned to face her. "Let me be frank with you, Miss Fletcher.
My nephew is the last of the Hawthornes.
The end of a line that stretches back to the Norman Conquest. Everything his ancestors built, everything they sacrificed, everything they hoped for their descendants; it all rests on his shoulders. "
"That's not my doing."
"No. But it will be your doing if you allow him to throw it away." Helena's voice hardened. "He's infatuated with you. Besotted. I've heard the way he talks about you. He would walk away from everything, his title, his estates, his position in society, just for the chance to be with you."
"That's his choice."
"Is it? Or is it a choice you've helped him make, whether you intended to or not?"
Lydia felt her spine stiffen. "I've never asked him to give up anything. I've never…"
"You don't have to ask. That's the nature of infatuation. He'll offer it willingly, eagerly, without ever considering what he's sacrificing." Helena moved closer, her eyes intent. "Let me show you something."
She reached into her reticule and withdrew a small leather case. When she opened it, Lydia saw a lot of money; crisp, new, more money than she'd seen in her entire life combined.
"Five hundred pounds," Helena said. "Enough to start a new life. Travel to the Continent, establish yourself in a trade, and live comfortably for years. All I ask in return is that you end this... distraction... before it destroys both of you."
Lydia stared at the money. Five hundred pounds. Enough to solve every financial worry she'd ever had. Enough to give Thomas a comfortable retirement. Enough to build a life of security and ease.
"No."
The word came out flat, final.
Helena's expression didn't change. "You haven't considered it."
"I don't need to. I'm not for sale."
"Everyone has a price, Miss Fletcher. It's simply a matter of finding it."
"Then you haven't found mine. And you won't." Lydia stepped closer, close enough to see the fine lines around Helena's eyes, the evidence of sixty years of calculation and control.
"I love your nephew. Not his money, not his title, not anything he can give me.
I love him. The man who tries to make jests when he's nervous and can't shape a hook to save his life and looks at me like I'm the first good thing that's ever happened to him. "
"Love," Helena said, the word like it tasted sour. "How romantic."
"It's not romantic. It's terrifying. Loving someone with everything you have, knowing you could lose them, knowing the world is arranged against you." Lydia's voice shook slightly. "But I'd rather be terrified with him than comfortable without him."
Helena was quiet for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she closed the leather case and tucked it back into her reticule.
"Very well," she said. "I suspected as much. The offer was worth making, but I didn't expect you to accept it." Her voice softened, became almost gentle. "Let me try a different approach, then. Not an appeal to your greed, which you clearly don't possess, but to your love itself."
"What do you mean?"
"You say you love Frederick. I believe you. The question is, what does that love actually mean? What are you willing to do for him?"
"Anything."
"Anything? Even let him go?"
The words hung in the air, sharp as knives.
"I don't understand," Lydia said.
"Then let me explain." Helena moved to the window, looking out at the village street beyond.
"My nephew is nearly thirty-one years old.
He's spent his entire life preparing for one thing: to be the Duke of Corvenwell.
To manage the estates, to sit in the House of Lords, to carry on the family legacy. It's all he knows."
"That's not true. He's more than…"
"Is he? Or is that what you want to believe?" Helena turned back to face her. "I've known Frederick since he was born. I watched him grow from a child into a man. And I've watched him struggle, year after year, to be something other than what his father made him."
"He's changing. He's becoming…"
"He's in love. That's different from changing." Helena's voice was patient, almost kind. "Infatuation makes us believe we can be anyone, become anything. But eventually, the infatuation fades. And when it does, we're left with who we actually are."
"You don't know him. Not really."
"I know the world he lives in. I know its rules; rules that have existed for centuries, that govern everything from who we marry to how we're buried." Helena's voice hardened. "Do you know what happens to a nobleman who marries beneath his station? Do you truly understand the consequences?"
"He's told me…"
"He has told you what he imagines, what he hopes. But he hasn't lived it, because it hasn't happened yet." Helena began to pace, her silk skirts rustling against the stone floor. "Let me paint you a picture, Miss Fletcher. A picture of the life you're contemplating."
"I don't need…"
"You do. Because I don't think you understand what you're asking for.
" Helena's eyes were fierce. "The wedding itself would be a scandal.
Every paper in London would print the story; the Duke of Corvenwell, marrying a blacksmith's niece.
They would find every unflattering detail of your life and publish it for entertainment.
Your parents' deaths, your uncle's business, every customer who ever complained about a poorly made nail. "
"I can endure gossip."
"Can you? What about your uncle? What happens to his business when the nobility decides he's not fit to serve? What happens to this forge when the manor stops ordering ironwork, and the local gentry follow suit because they don't want to offend a viscountess?"
Lydia felt her stomach clench. She hadn't thought about that. She hadn't considered that Helena's revenge might extend beyond her to Thomas, to the business that had supported them both for decades.
"You would do that?" she asked. "Destroy an innocent man's livelihood out of spite?"
"It's not spite. It's a consequence." Helena's voice was matter-of-fact. "In our world, actions have repercussions. Your uncle chose to support this......connection. He'll share in its costs."
"That's monstrous."
"That's reality. The reality of power and influence and the way society actually works." Helena stopped pacing and faced her directly. "But let's move past the immediate scandal. Let's talk about the years to come."
"I don't want to."
"You asked for honesty. I'm giving it to you." Helena's voice softened slightly. "The first year will be difficult but manageable. Frederick will be cut from guest lists, excluded from clubs, whispered about in drawing rooms. But he'll have you, and the novelty of rebellion will sustain him."
"It's not rebellion. It's love."
"The distinction is irrelevant to society.
What matters is deviation from the norm.
And deviation is punished." Helena continued her recitation with the air of someone describing a well-known historical event.
"By the second year, the isolation will begin to wear.
He'll miss the world he knew; not the superficiality of it, but the connections.
The friendships he had with men of his class.
The ability to accomplish things through networks of influence. "
"He doesn't care about influence."
"He says he doesn't care. But he's never been without it.
He doesn't know what it means to be truly powerless.
" Helena's voice was almost gentle now, almost pitying.
"By the fifth year, he'll have children.
Your children. And he'll watch them grow up in a world that refuses to accept them fully.
Too noble for the village, too common for society. Belonging nowhere, welcome nowhere."
"You're describing a nightmare."
"I'm describing reality. A reality I've watched play out before." Helena's eyes were distant, remembering. "My grandfather married a woman of his own choice; a merchant's daughter, not as low as you but low enough. She was beautiful, clever, devoted to him. And he destroyed her."
"Destroyed her how?"
"By loving her. By bringing her into a world that would never accept her, that would always see her as an interloper.
She spent thirty years trying to be good enough, proper enough, noble enough and she never was.
She died exhausted, having worn herself out trying to be something she could never be. "
Lydia felt the words land in her chest, heavy as stones.
"I'm not her," she said. "I wouldn't try to be something I'm not."
"Wouldn't you? Can you honestly tell me you'd be content to be the scandalous duchess, the constant source of whispers and smirks? That you wouldn't spend your life trying to prove yourself worthy of a position you never asked for?"
"I…" Lydia stopped. Because she didn't know. She had never considered what it would actually be like, day after day, year after year, to be the woman who didn't belong.
"You see?" Helena's voice was gentle now, without triumph. "You're beginning to understand."
"I understand that you're trying to frighten me."
"I'm trying to prepare you. There's a difference.
" Helena moved closer, her eyes intent. "I don't hate you, Miss Fletcher.
I don't even disapprove of you; not personally.
In another life, you might have been exactly the kind of woman I would admire.
Strong, capable, refusing to be diminished by circumstances. "
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because the circumstances matter. Because the world we live in has rules, and those rules exist for reasons. Because I watched my sister give up the man she loved, and I've spent forty years wondering if I should have helped her run away instead of helping my father stop her."
The admission caught Lydia off guard. "You helped stop them?"
"I was young. Nineteen years old, convinced I understood the world better than I did.
" Helena's voice cracked slightly. "I told my father where they were meeting.
I thought I was saving her from a terrible mistake.
I thought…" She stopped and shook her head.
"I thought duty mattered more than love.
That position and propriety were more important than happiness. "
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure. I've spent forty years being sure, and in the last few weeks, watching Frederick with you, I've begun to wonder if I was wrong all along.
" Helena's eyes met hers. "That's why I'm here, Miss Fletcher.
Not to threaten you, but to make sure you understand what you're choosing.
Because my sister didn't understand. She thought giving up her love was a simple sacrifice, easily made and easily recovered from. She was wrong."
"What happened to her?"
"She married Frederick’s father, and they had a son.
Tried to be the duchess everyone expected her to be.
" Helena's voice was bitter. "She was dead within ten years.
Fever, they said, but I always thought it was more than that.
I thought she simply stopped fighting. She stopped trying to survive a life that had no joy in it. "
"That's…" Lydia's voice broke. "That's awful."
"It is. And I don't want it forFrederick.
I don't want him to choose love, only to watch it curdle into regret.
I don't want him to spend his life wondering what might have been if he'd made a different choice.
" Helena reached out and touched Lydia's arm; a brief, unexpected gesture. "And I don't want it for you, either."
"For me?"
"You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you. You could find someone else, someone from your own world, who wouldn't ask you to become something you're not. You could have a simple, happy life, without scandal or scrutiny or the constant weight of expectations."
"I don't want someone else. I want him."
"I know. I can see it." Helena's voice was sad. "That's what makes this so tragic. You love him, and he loves you, and in a better world, that would be enough. But we don't live in a better world. We live in this one, with all its cruelty and unfairness and rules."
She moved toward the door, her composure reassembling itself around her like armour.
"I've said what I came to say. The money is still available, if you want it; not as payment, but as a gift.
A chance at a new life, free from all of this.
" She paused at the threshold. "But if you don't want the money, at least consider what I've told you.
Consider what love really means. And ask yourself: is your happiness worth his future? "
"That's not a fair question."
"No. It's not." Helena's eyes were gentle. "But life rarely asks fair questions. It asks hard ones, and expects us to answer anyway."
She left.
The carriage clattered away down the street, leaving silence in its wake.
Lydia stood in the doorway of the forge, watching it disappear, and felt something cold settle in her chest.