Chapter 20 #2
What if, twenty years from now, he woke up and realised that love wasn't enough? That the price had been too high? That he had traded his birthright for a woman who could never truly belong in his world?
You could give him back his future.
She could. It would destroy her, she knew that with absolute certainty, but she could do it. She could walk into that study and tell him it was over. She could make him believe that she didn't want him, didn't love him, had never really loved him at all.
It would be cruel. It would be devastating. But it would also be a gift.
The gift of his future. The gift of his position. The gift of a life unencumbered by scandal and shame.
Is your happiness worth his future?
No. It wasn't. It never had been.
Lydia turned and walked back toward the manor.
***
She found him in the study.
He was alone now, Boggins had presumably gone to attend to other duties, standing by the window where she had eavesdropped, staring out at the garden she had just walked through. He turned when she entered, and his face lit up with a smile that made her heart crack.
"Lydia." He crossed the room in three strides and took her hands. "I was going to send for you. There's so much I need to tell you; plans I've been making, letters I've written. We're going to fight this, properly this time, with…"
"Stop."
The word came out harder than she intended, and Frederick’s smile faltered.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to talk to you. About us. About everything." She pulled her hands free of his grip, stepping back to put distance between them. "About today."
"Of course. Whatever you need." He gestured toward the sofa. "Shall we sit? I can have Boggins bring tea…"
"I don't want tea. I don't want to sit." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the fire burning in the grate. "I just need you to listen."
"I'm listening."
She looked at him, taking in every detail.
The way his hair fell across his forehead, slightly dishevelled from running his hands through it.
The way his cravat was tied with perfect precision, as if he'd taken extra care this morning.
The way his eyes, those grey-blue eyes that had first caught her attention at the harvest fair, were watching her with a mixture of love and concern.
He was beautiful. And he was about to sacrifice everything for her.
She couldn't let him.
"I heard you," she said. "Just now. In the garden. You were talking to Boggins about your plans."
His expression; surprise, then a hint of embarrassment. "You heard that?"
"The letter to your aunt. The declaration to the Lords. The bridges you're planning to burn." She forced herself to hold his gaze. "You're going to give up everything. Aren't you?"
"Yes." His voice was steady. "I've thought about it carefully, Lydia. I know what I'm doing."
"Do you? Do you really understand what you're throwing away?"
"I understand exactly what I'm throwing away. And I don't care." He moved toward her, but she stepped back again, maintaining the distance between them. "Lydia, what is amiss? You're behaving like…"
"Like what? Like someone who's realised the truth?" Her voice cracked slightly. "Like someone who's finally understood what Helena was trying to tell me?"
"Helena?" His expression hardened. "What did Helena say to you?"
"She came to the forge. Yesterday. She offered me money to leave you."
"And you refused. Obviously."
"Obviously." Lydia's hands were shaking. She clasped them together to hide the tremor. "But she also said something else. Something I can't stop thinking about."
"What?"
"She said that sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is let them go."
Silence.
Frederick stared at her, his face slowly draining of colour.
"Lydia," he said carefully. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying she's right." The words felt like broken glass in her throat. "I'm saying that I've watched you plan to destroy your entire future for me, and I can't let you do it."
"You can't…" He broke off, shaking his head. "This isn't your decision to make."
"Isn't it? You're sacrificing everything because of me. Your position, your family, your future. Because you love me."
"Because I love you. Yes. And I won't apologise for that."
"I'm not asking you to apologise. I'm asking you to stop.
" She felt tears burning in her eyes and blinked them back fiercely.
"I'm asking you to think about what you're doing.
Really think about it. Not just today, when everything feels possible, and love seems like enough.
But twenty years from now. Thirty years. Fifty."
"I have thought about it. I've done nothing but think about it for weeks."
"And you honestly believe that in fifty years, you won't regret this? That you won't look at everything you gave up and wonder if it was worth it?"
"I know I won't."
"How? How can you possibly know that?"
"Because I know what my life was like before you.
" His voice was fierce now, almost angry.
"I know what it felt like to wake up every morning with nothing to look forward to.
I know what it felt like to go through the motions of living without actually being alive.
I spent thirty years being exactly what my family wanted me to be, and it was killing me.
Slowly, quietly, but killing me all the same. "
"Frederick…"
"You saved me. Don't you understand that?
You looked at me and saw something worth knowing, something worth wanting, when everyone else just saw a title and a fortune.
You made me want to be better. To be more.
To be human." He stepped toward her again, and this time she didn't retreat.
"I'm not sacrificing anything for you. I'm gaining everything.
You are my future, Lydia. The only future I want. "
The tears were falling now, hot and wet on her cheeks. She couldn't stop them.
"I can't be your future," she whispered. "I can't be responsible for everything you're losing."
"You're not responsible. I'm making this choice freely. Gladly."
"But that's exactly the problem." She forced herself to look at him, to see the love and confusion and dawning fear in his eyes. "You're so blinded by love that you can't see what you're doing. You're walking into a fire, Frederick. And I can't just stand here and watch you burn."
"I'm not…"
"Your mother did the same thing." The words came out before she could stop them.
"Helena told me. She loved someone else, a scholar, a man who made her laugh, and she was going to run away with him.
But she gave him up. She married your father instead, and she spent the rest of her short life being miserable. "
Frederick went very still.
"Helena told you about my mother?"
"She told me everything. How your mother loved someone else.
How she sacrificed that love for duty. How she died in this cold house, worn out from trying to be something she wasn't." Lydia's voice was shaking.
"And she told me that if I really loved you, I would do the same thing.
Give you up. Set you free. I would not let you lose anything, and I would not try to be something that I am not. "
"That's…..That's manipulation. Helena is manipulating you."
"Is she? Or is she telling me the truth that I didn't want to hear?
" Lydia wiped at her tears with the back of her hand.
"Your mother chose duty over love, and it destroyed her.
But at least she gave your father an heir.
At least she fulfilled her obligations to the family.
At least she didn't burn everything down on her way out. "
"I don't care about heirs. I don't care about obligations."
"You should. You're a duke, Frederick. You have responsibilities. People who depend on you—tenants, servants, everyone whose livelihood is tied to this estate. And you're going to throw all of that away because of me."
"I'm not throwing it away. I'm just…"
"You're just choosing love over duty. The way your mother didn't." Lydia took a deep breath.
"And maybe that's the right choice. Maybe Helena is wrong, and Boggins is right, and love really is worth more than all the propriety in the world.
But I can't know that. Not for certain. And neither can you. "
"Lydia…"
"What I do know is that I can't be the reason you lose everything. I can't wake up every morning wondering if today is the day you start to regret it. I can't spend the rest of my life waiting for you to realise that you made a mistake."
"I won't regret it. I won't…"
"You don't know that. You can't know that. And I…" Her voice broke. "I love you too much to watch you destroy yourself for me."
The words hung in the air between them, terrible and true.
Frederick stared at her, his face a mask of anguish.
"What are you saying?" His voice was barely above a whisper. "Lydia, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying it's over." The words felt like murder. "I'm saying that I won't let you sacrifice everything for me. I'm saying that the kindest thing I can do, the only thing I can do, is let you go."
"No."
"Frederick…"
"No." He grabbed her hands, holding them so tightly it almost hurt. "I won't accept this. I won't let you walk away because you think you're saving me."
"I'm not thinking it. I know it."
"You don't know anything." His voice was rising now, desperate. "You're scared, Helena scared you, and you're running away."
"Maybe I am. Maybe this is cowardice dressed up as sacrifice." She felt her heart shattering, she felt it breaking into pieces that would never fit back together. "But I'd rather be a coward who sets you free than a brave woman who watches you burn."
"I don't want to be free. I want to be yours."
"You can't be mine. Don't you understand?" She pulled her hands free of his grip, stepping back. "You were never meant to be mine. We were never meant to be anything."
"How can you say that? After everything we've…"
"What have we done, Frederick? We've known each other for a few weeks. A month, at most." Her voice was steadier now, colder; she was building walls, putting distance between her heart and her words. "In the grand scheme of a life, that's nothing. A moment. A flicker."
"It's not nothing. It's everything."
"To you, perhaps. Because you've never had anything like this before.
Because you were so starved for connection that the first person who looked at you kindly seemed like salvation.
" She forced herself to meet his eyes, to watch the impact of her words.
"But I'm not your salvation, Frederick. I'm just a woman.
An ordinary woman with an ordinary life. And you deserve more than ordinary."
"I don't want more than ordinary. I want you."
"You think you do. Right now, in this moment, you believe it with all your heart.
But that's infatuation talking, not reason.
" She was quoting Helena now, using the viscountess's poison as a weapon.
It made her sick, but she couldn't stop.
"Infatuation fades. It always fades. And when it does, you'll look around at everything you've given up, and you'll wonder why. "
"I won't."
"You will. You're a Hawthorne. It's what you do.
" The cruelty of the words surprised even her.
"Your grandfather gave up the woman he loved and spent forty years regretting it.
Your father buried his emotions until there was nothing left to bury.
And you—you'll follow the same pattern, one way or another.
Either you'll sacrifice love for duty, as they did, or you'll sacrifice duty for love and spend the rest of your life wondering if it was worth it. "
Frederick’s face had gone pale. "That's not fair."
"No. It's not. None of this is fair." She took another step toward the door. "But I'm not going to be the experiment that proves which path is worse. I'm not going to spend my life watching you calculate the cost of loving me."
"I'm not calculating…"
"You will be. Eventually. When the doors close and the whispers start.
When your children are snubbed by the children of your peers.
When you sit in the House of Lords and realise that no one takes you seriously anymore because you married a blacksmith's niece.
" Her voice cracked, but she pushed through.
"You'll calculate it then. And I can't bear to watch that happen. "
"Lydia, please." He was begging now, actually begging, the Duke of Corvenwell reduced to pleading with a woman who was actively breaking his heart. "Don't do this. Don't let Helena win."
"This isn't about Helena. This is about us; about what we are and what we can never be." She reached the door, her hand on the handle. "You're a duke. I'm a blacksmith's niece. In another world, maybe that wouldn't matter. But in this world, it matters more than anything."
"It doesn't matter to me."
"It will. Give it time."
"How much time? A year? Ten years? Fifty?" His voice was raw. "How long do I have to wait before you believe that my love is real?"
"Forever." The word came out barely above a whisper.
"You could love me forever, and I would still wonder if it was enough.
If I were enough. If the cost was worth it.
" She turned to face him one last time, and the pain in his eyes nearly destroyed her resolve.
"That's no way to live, Frederick. That's no way for either of us to live. "
"So you're just going to leave? Walk away from everything we could have been?"
"I'm walking away from everything we would have destroyed." She opened the door. "Your position. Your future. Your chance to do good in the world. All the things that make you who you are."
"You make me who I am."
"No. I showed you who you could be. There's a difference." She stepped further away. "Someone else can show you that, too. Someone more suitable. Someone who won't cost you everything."
"I don't want someone else."
"You will. Eventually."
"Lydia…"
"I love you." The words escaped before she could stop them—the truth, raw and terrible and inescapable. "I love you more than I've ever loved anything. And that's exactly why I'm doing this. Because loving you means wanting what's best for you, even if that's not me."
"You are what's best for me."…
"No. I'm what you want. That's not the same thing."
"Lydia, please…"
"Goodbye, Frederick."
She walked out of the study. She heard him call her name, once, twice, a third time with something that sounded like a sob, but she didn't stop. She didn't turn around, and she didn't look back.
She walked through the corridor, past the portraits of his ancestors, past the rooms where they had shared secrets and stolen kisses and built dreams that were now crumbling to ash.
She walked out of the manor and out of his life.
And she didn't let herself cry until she was out of sight of the windows.