Chapter 19
For a long time, she didn't move.
She stood where Helena had left her, staring at the empty street, trying to make sense of everything she'd heard.
Is your happiness worth his future?
It wasn't a fair question. Helena had admitted as much. But unfair questions still demanded answers, and Lydia didn't have one.
She thought about Frederick. About the way he'd looked at her across the table at the Crossed Keys, like she was something precious. About the way he'd faced Robert's interrogation without flinching, declaring his intentions in front of an entire room of sceptical strangers.
I want to marry her if she'll have me.
He wanted to marry her. He wanted to throw away everything his family had built, everything he'd been trained to be, everything society expected of him; all for her.
It should have been flattering. It should have been the most romantic thing she'd ever heard.
Instead, it terrified her.
Because Helena was right about one thing: Frederick didn't know what he was giving up.
He'd never been without his position, his influence, his place in the world.
He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be truly powerless; to be shut out, whispered about, dismissed by everyone who had once deferred to him.
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.
Their children. Little faces with his eyes and her stubbornness, growing up in the shadow of a scandal that wasn't their fault.
In the village, they would be the duke's children; set apart, never quite belonging to the world of ordinary folk. In society, they would be the blacksmith's grandchildren; tolerated, perhaps, but never truly accepted.
Belonging nowhere. Welcome nowhere.
Too noble for the village, too common for society.
Lydia moved back into the forge, her movements slow and mechanical. The fire had burned low in her distraction; she rebuilt it without really seeing what she was doing. Her hands knew the motions, had known them for fifteen years, but her mind was elsewhere.
She thought about her own parents. About her mother, Eleanor Ashworth, who had given up everything to marry a blacksmith. Who had never regretted it, according to Thomas. Who had been happy, genuinely happy, until the fever took her.
But Eleanor had moved down the social ladder. She had simplified her life, not complicated someone else's. That was different.
Wasn't it?
She was dead within ten years. Fever, they said, but I always thought it was more than that.
Helena's sister. Frederick’s mother. A woman who had given up love for duty married a man she didn't love, and died before her son could even remember her properly.
That was the other path. The path Helena was offering; the path of sacrifice, of letting go, of giving Frederick back to the world that had always claimed him.
But that path had destroyed Frederick’s mother. It had left her hollow and exhausted, wearing herself out against the cold walls of a life she'd never chosen.
How was that better? How was any of this better?
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let him go.
Lydia picked up her hammer. Set it down again.
She didn't know what was kind anymore. She didn't know what love meant, or duty, or sacrifice. She didn't know anything except that she was tired; tired of thinking, tired of worrying, tired of carrying a weight she'd never asked to carry.
She wanted to go back to before. Before the harvest fair, before the storm, before a duke had walked into her life and changed everything. She wanted to be the simple blacksmith's niece again, with simple problems and simple solutions.
But there was no going back. There never was.
Consider what I've said.
She was considering. That was the problem. She couldn't stop considering.
She tried to work.
She picked up her hammer, positioned the iron on the anvil, and struck it with the familiar rhythm that had always brought her peace.
It didn't help.
Helena's words circled in her mind like vultures, picking at every certainty she'd tried to build.
He would give up everything for you.
She knew it was true. She had known it since the cottage, since the storm, since he'd looked at her with those grey-blue eyes and said he couldn't stop thinking about her.
Society will shun him. His children will pay for his choice.
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let him go.
She struck the iron harder, channelling her confusion into force. The metal sparked and deformed, taking a shape that had nothing to do with hinges or nails or anything useful.
My sister loved someone else. She gave him up.
And died in that cold manor, leaving a son who grew up without her warmth, without her love, without the protection a mother should provide.
Was that what Helena wanted for Frederick? A loveless marriage, a lonely life, the slow calcification of the soul that came from doing duty without joy?
Or was she offering something different; a chance for him to have both? A suitable wife, a respectable position, the opportunity to do good in the world without the stain of scandal?
What does love really mean?
Lydia set down her hammer, her arms aching, her mind no clearer than before.
Love meant wanting the best for someone. That much she knew. Love meant putting their happiness above your own.
But whose happiness? What kind of best?
The best she could give him, her heart, her loyalty, her fierce devotion, or the best his world demanded; propriety, position, the approval of people who would never accept her?
She thought about what Robert had said at the public house. Love was always madness. There was no sensible reason to risk everything for another person.
But Robert had also said that the people who never risked it, the ones who played it safe, ended up bitter and alone.
So which was worse? Risking everything for love and possibly failing? Or playing it safe and definitely losing?
In another world, I would be proud to call you family.
That was the cruelest thing Helena had said.
Because it acknowledged what they both knew: that in a different life, with different circumstances, there would be no obstacle.
That the only thing standing between Lydia and Frederick wasn't character or compatibility or love; it was an accident.
The accident of birth that made him a duke and her a blacksmith's niece.
And accidents couldn't be undone. Not by love, not by determination, not by anything.
Consider what I've said.
She was considering. That was the problem. She couldn't stop considering.
The fire had burned down to embers, unattended in her distraction. Lydia rebuilt it mechanically, not really seeing what she was doing. Her hands knew the motions, but her mind was elsewhere.
She thought about the manor; the vast, empty rooms, the portraits of disapproving ancestors, the weight of three hundred years pressing down on every surface.
She'd walked through those halls with Frederick.
She had seen the places where he'd suffered as a child, and she had listened to him talk about his father's coldness, his mother's absence, the loneliness that had been his constant companion.
He wanted to escape that. He wanted to build something different, something warmer. And he'd chosen her to build it with.
His children, your children, will be whispered about. They will spend their lives paying for a choice their father made before they were born.
The words wouldn't leave her alone.
She picked up her hammer again and struck the iron.
The rhythm helped. The physical exertion, the heat of the fire, the familiar smell of metal and smoke. These were things she understood. Things she could control.
Unlike love. Unlike the future. Unlike any of the things that actually mattered.
What does love really mean?
She still didn't have an answer.
***
Thomas found her there hours later, standing at the anvil, staring at a piece of iron that had been heated and reheated so many times it was barely usable anymore.
"You look like a disaster," he said.
"Thank you. That's very supportive."
"I'm not trying to be supportive. I'm trying to be honest." He moved to stand beside her, studying her face with concerned eyes. "What happened?"
"His aunt came to see me."
Thomas was quiet for a moment. "And?"
"And she offered me five hundred pounds to disappear. I refused."
"Good."
"Then she…" Lydia's voice cracked. "Then she told me about Frederick’s mother. About how she loved someone else, gave him up, and married the old duke instead. About how she died in that cold house, worn out from trying to be something she wasn't."
"I've heard the stories."
"She said the kindest thing I could do is let him go. Set him free to marry someone appropriate. Someone who wouldn't cost him everything."
Thomas didn't respond immediately. He moved to the forge, checking the fire, adjusting the coals with the automatic competence of long practice.
"What do you think?" Lydia asked.
"I think Lady Helena is a formidable woman who knows exactly how to get what she wants."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I can give you." Thomas turned to face her. "I can't tell you what to do, Lydia. I can't tell you whether to stay or go, whether to fight or surrender. That's a choice you have to make for yourself."
"What would you do? If you were me?"
"I'm not you. And I've never been in love the way you are." Thomas' voice softened. "But I watched my brother make this choice. I watched him decide that Eleanor was worth any cost, any consequence, any sacrifice. And I watched him be right about that."
"But then they died."
"They died. And Lydia…" He reached out and took her hands. "They died having lived. Really lived, not just existed. They had love, joy and a daughter they adored. They had everything that mattered."
"Helena said…"
"Helena is afraid. She has spent her whole life being afraid; of scandal, of change, of anything that might disrupt the careful order she's built around herself.
" Thomas's eyes were gentle. "Fear makes people say terrible things.
It makes them believe terrible things. Don't let her fear become yours. "
"I'm already afraid."
"I know. That's normal." He squeezed her hands. "But there's a difference between being afraid and letting fear make your choices. You can feel the fear and still choose love. You can be terrified and still be brave."
"What if I'm not brave enough?"
"Then you'll learn to be. Or you won't, and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been." Thomas released her hands and stepped back. "Either way, the choice is yours. Not Helena's, not Frederick’s, not mine. Yours."
Lydia stood there, looking at her uncle, the man who had raised her, protected her, loved her through everything, and felt something shift inside her.
"I need to think," she said.
"Then think. Take all the time you need." Thomas moved toward the door. "But don't take too long. Some choices have deadlines."
He left her alone with her thoughts, her fears and the dying fire of the forge.
***
That night, she dreamed of fire.
She was standing in the forge, but it wasn't her forge—it was vast, stretching out in all directions, with flames that reached to the ceiling and beyond. Frederick was there, standing on the other side of the fire, his hand outstretched toward her.
Come to me, he was saying. I'll keep you safe.
But the fire was between them, growing hotter and higher with every step she took.
I can't reach you, she called back. The fire is too strong.
Then I'll come to you, he said.
And he stepped forward, into the flames.
She screamed and tried to run toward him. But the fire was everywhere now, consuming everything, and she couldn't see him anymore, couldn't hear him, couldn't…
She woke with a gasp, her heart pounding, her sheets soaked with sweat.
The room was dark and quiet. The only sound was her own ragged breathing and the distant hoot of an owl somewhere in the night.
Just a dream. It was just a dream.
But the image stayed with her; Frederick walking into flames. Sacrificing himself without hesitation, without thought for the consequences, because he loved her.
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let him go.
Lydia lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, and wondered if Helena was right.
The morning came grey and cold, with clouds that promised rain.
Lydia dressed slowly, her movements mechanical. She hadn't slept after the dream; she had spent the remaining hours of darkness staring at nothing, turning Helena's words over and over in her mind.
His children will pay for his choice.
Society will shun him.
He would give up everything for you.
In the cold light of morning, the words seemed even heavier than they had the day before.
She went through the motions of breakfast without tasting anything. Thomas watched her with concerned eyes but didn't ask. He knew, she realised. He always knew. But he was giving her space, letting her work through it on her own.
At the forge, she stood looking at the fire for a long time before picking up her tools.
Two more days.
One more day, she corrected herself. Helena had come yesterday. The deadline was tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Frederick would have to face his aunt. He would have to declare, publicly and irrevocably, that he was choosing Lydia over everything else.
Or he would have to walk away from her forever.
Unless you walk away first, the voice in her head whispered. Unless you make the choice for him.
She picked up her hammer but set it down again.
Consider what love really means.
Lydia was considering. And the more she considered, the less certain she became.