Chapter Reading the Letter
Frederick read the letter three times.
The first time, the words blurred together, his eyes too full of tears to see clearly.
His mother's voice, a voice he had never really heard, not in the way a child should hear their mother, echoed through the careful handwriting.
She had been real. She had been alive. She had loved someone with all the passion and despair that love could hold.
And she had died regretting the choice she'd been forced to make.
The second time, he forced himself to go slowly, to absorb each sentence, to feel the weight of his mother's regret. She had loved a scholar. A man who made her laugh. A man who saw her as Catherine, not as Lady Catherine, not as a pawn in someone else's game.
She was going to run away with him. To escape the cold, empty life that was waiting for her.
And Helena had stopped her.
The third time, he understood.
His mother had not chosen duty. She had chosen fear—not her own fear, but the fear of others.
The fear of her father, who couldn't imagine a daughter who lived for herself.
The fear of Helena, who had spent her whole life believing that propriety was more important than happiness.
The fear of a world that couldn't accept love unless it came wrapped in appropriate packaging.
Don't let fear make your decision for you.
That was what Lydia had done. She had looked at their love and seen danger instead of possibility. She had listened to Helena's poison and believed that letting go was kindness.
But it wasn't kindness. It was fear wearing the mask of nobility.
And his mother's letter proved it.
Frederick stood up, the letter still clutched in his hand. He walked to the window, staring out at the garden where Lydia had stood just hours ago. Where she had listened to his plans and decided that saving him meant leaving him.
He thought about her words. The cruelty of them, the accusations about infatuation, the predictions of regret, the careful enumeration of everything he would lose. But underneath the cruelty, there had been something else. Something that sounded almost like desperation.
I love you more than I've ever loved anything. And that's exactly why I'm doing this.
She had said that. Right before she walked away. She had told him she loved him, and then she had left.
Because she was afraid.
Just like his mother had been afraid. Just like Helena was afraid. Just like everyone in his family had been afraid, for generation after generation, choosing safety over happiness and wondering for the rest of their lives why it felt so empty.
But Lydia wasn't like them. Not really. She had grown up with love—with Thomas' quiet devotion, with the memory of parents who had chosen each other against all odds. She knew what love looked like when it wasn't strangled by fear.
She had just forgotten, for a moment. Helena had made her forget.
And Frederick was going to help her remember.
He crossed to the desk and picked up the letter he had written to Helena earlier, the one severing all ties, the one Boggins had called "aggressive." He read it again with new eyes.
It wasn't enough.
Severing ties in private wasn't enough. Sending letters to sympathetic lords wasn't enough. Making plans and drafting declarations wasn't enough.
He needed to do something bigger. Something public. Something that would show Lydia, Helena, and the entire world that his love was not a passing fancy to be overcome by fear.
He needed to make a choice so absolute, so irrevocable, that no one could ever doubt it again.
If you ever have the chance to choose love, real love, the kind that makes you feel alive, choose it.
He was going to choose it. In front of everyone. In a way that could never be taken back.
But first, he needed to think. To plan. To figure out how to reach Lydia when she was convinced that leaving him was the kindest thing she could do.
He sat down at the desk and began to write.
***
The next morning, he emerged from the study with a plan.
It was audacious, possibly foolish, definitely risky. It would either win him everything or destroy what little remained of his standing in society.
But it was also true. And after a lifetime of lies, of pretending he didn't feel, didn't want, didn't love, Frederick was ready to be true.
Boggins was waiting in the corridor, his expression carefully neutral, but his eyes betraying concern.
"Your Grace. I trust you found the letter... illuminating?"
"I found it devastating." Frederick handed the letter to Boggins. "Read it. Then help me do something my mother never got to do."
"And what is that, Your Grace?"
"Choose love." Frederick’s voice was fierce. "Not in private, where it can be denied or minimised or explained away. In public. In front of everyone who matters."
Boggins read the letter in silence. When he finished, his eyes were suspiciously bright.
"Your mother was a remarkable woman," he said quietly. "I remember her vaguely. I was young when she died, but I remember thinking that she seemed... sad. Even when she smiled, there was something behind her eyes that looked like grief."
"She was grieving. For the life she gave up. For the man she loved." Frederick took a deep breath. "I won't make the same mistake, Boggins. I won't spend my life writing letters that no one will read."
"What do you intend to do?"
"I intend to show the world, and Lydia, that my love is not negotiable. That it cannot be bargained away or frightened into silence." Frederick’s jaw set. "And I intend to do it today. Before Helena has time to do any more damage."
"Today, Your Grace?"
"Today. At the village church. After Sunday services."
Boggins' eyebrows rose slightly. "You intend to make a public declaration. In front of the entire village."
"And anyone else who cares to listen." Frederick smiled—a fierce, determined smile. "Helena wanted me to choose duty over love. I'm going to show her what it looks like when I choose love over everything else."
"Your Grace…" Boggins hesitated. "Miss Fletcher may not come. After what happened yesterday."
"She'll come. Or she won't. Either way, I'm going to stand up and tell the truth.
" Frederick’s voice softened. "My mother never got that chance.
She died with her regrets locked inside her, hidden behind a covered piano, waiting for someone to find them.
I'm not going to wait. I'm going to speak my truth while I still have the chance. "
"Even if it costs you everything?"
"Even then." Frederick met Boggins's eyes. "Because my mother was right, Boggins. Love is the only sanity in a world determined to crush the life out of us. And I'm done letting that world win."
Boggins was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he smiled.
"It has been an honour to serve you, Your Grace. But it will be a greater honour to stand beside you today."
"You'll come?"
"Wild horses couldn't keep me away." Boggins straightened his cuffs with his usual precision. "Now. What do you need me to do?"