Chapter 22
Sunday dawned cold and bright, with a sky so clear it seemed to stretch forever.
Lydia had not slept. She had not even tried to sleep; she had just been in her narrow bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the previous day's disasters over and over in her mind.
The breakup. Thomas's revelation about the letter. Her desperate run to the manor, only to find every door locked against her.
And now it was morning, and the church bells were ringing, and she had no idea what to do.
"You're coming to services," Thomas said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't think I can face…"
"You're coming." His voice brooked no argument. "Whatever happens today, you're not going to hide in your room and pretend the world doesn't exist."
"Uncle…"
"Get dressed. We leave in twenty minutes."
He left her alone to prepare, and Lydia sat on the edge of her bed, wondering how she was supposed to face an entire village of people who knew, who had to know by now, that she had broken the Duke of Corvenwell's heart.
Village gossip travelled fast. By now, everyone would have heard some version of the story. The blacksmith's niece, reaching above her station. The duke, besotted and foolish. The inevitable ending, when reality finally intruded on fantasy.
They would pity her. Or scorn her. Or both.
And she would have to sit through an entire church service pretending she wasn't dying inside.
***
The walk to church was quiet.
Thomas didn't speak, and Lydia was grateful for the silence. She needed time to compose herself, to build the walls that would get her through the next few hours.
The village was already awake and bustling, families making their way toward the stone church at the centre of the village. Lydia kept her eyes down, avoiding the curious glances she could feel following her.
They know, she thought. They all know.
But when she finally looked up, what she saw wasn't scorn or pity. It was something else entirely.
Concern. Sympathy. A few hesitant smiles, quickly hidden.
Mrs Thompson caught her eye and gave a small nod; not friendly, exactly, but not hostile either. Robert the carpenter tipped his hat as they passed. Even Mr Holloway, standing outside the Crossed Keys, offered a gruff "Morning, Miss Fletcher" that sounded almost kind.
They didn't hate her. They didn't even seem to blame her.
They think I was the one who got hurt, she realised. They think the duke broke my heart, not the other way around.
The irony was almost too much to bear.
The church of St. Michael's had stood at the heart of Ashwick for three hundred years.
It was a modest building by aristocratic standards, no grand spires or elaborate stonework, no flying buttresses or rose windows like the cathedrals of London, but it had a solid, comforting presence that Lydia had always loved.
Her parents had been married here. She had been christened here, in the same stone font where generations of village children had been welcomed into the faith.
When her parents died, it was Reverend Clarke's predecessor who had spoken the words over their graves, and the village women who had sung the hymns.
The church was part of her. Part of who she was.
Today, it felt like a trap.
They found seats near the back, in the pew they always occupied—third from the rear, left side, close enough to the door for a quick escape if the sermon ran long.
Thomas had been sitting in this same spot for forty years, since before Lydia was born, since before her father had married her mother and changed everything.
The church was filling quickly, families settling into their usual places with the comfortable familiarity of long habit.
The Thompsons took their spot near the middle, Mrs Thompson's candles providing the altar light as they had for decades.
Robert the carpenter sat with his wife near the front, his Sunday best coat straining slightly across his shoulders.
The miller's family occupied an entire pew, their children squirming with barely contained energy.
It was a normal Sunday. Ordinary. Exactly like a hundred Sundays before it.
Except for the whispers.
"Is he coming?"
"I heard he locked himself in the manor."
"He refused to see anyone."
"The viscountess is still at the inn in Thornbury…"
"She'll destroy him if he doesn't…"
Lydia felt her stomach clench. Of course, people were talking about Frederick.
Of course, they were wondering what had happened between them.
The entire village had watched their courtship unfold over the past month; the harvest fair, the storm, the cottage, the forge lessons, the dinner at the Crossed Keys.
They had seen something rare and precious taking shape, and they would naturally want to know how it ended.
But she hadn't expected him to come to church. Not after yesterday. Not after she had…
She couldn't finish the thought. She couldn't let herself remember the look on his face when she'd walked away.
He's not coming, she told herself. Why would he come? He's probably still at the manor, trying to pick up the pieces of what I destroyed.
The thought brought no comfort. Only guilt, heavy and sharp, was settling in her chest like a stone.
Right then, the door at the back of the church opened.
And Frederick walked in.
He was dressed immaculately; more formally than she had ever seen him, in a dark coat and crisp white cravat, his boots polished to a mirror shine. His face was pale but composed, his jaw set with determination. He looked, she thought, like a man going into battle.
Behind him came Boggins, equally formal in a suit that probably cost more than most villagers earned in a month. His expression was carefully neutral, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that suggested readiness. Preparation for whatever was about to happen.
The whispers died instantly. Every head in the church turned to watch as the Duke of Corvenwell walked down the center aisle, past row after row of stunned villagers, toward the front of the church.
Toward the pew reserved for the lord of the manor.
It had been empty for years, decades, really.
Frederick’s father had stopped attending services long before his death, preferring to conduct his spiritual business in private, away from the prying eyes of common folk.
And Frederick himself had never shown any interest in village worship.
The pew had become a kind of monument to the family's absence; a reminder that the Hawthornes considered themselves above such common rituals.
The velvet cushions were dusty. The prayer books in the rack were yellowed with age. No one had sat in that pew for so long that some of the younger villagers probably didn't even know what it was for.
Until today.
Frederick reached the pew and stopped. He didn't sit down immediately. Instead, he turned to face the congregation, to face Lydia, in her seat at the back, and their eyes met.
She couldn't read his expression. She couldn't tell if he was angry, or hurt, or something else entirely. His grey-blue eyes held hers for a long moment, searching for something she couldn't name.
What are you doing? She wanted to ask. Why are you here? What are you planning?
But she couldn't speak, and she couldn't move. She could only sit there, frozen, as the man she loved and the man she had abandoned stood in a church full of witnesses and looked at her like she held the answer to every question he'd ever asked.
Then he turned and took his seat.
The whispers resumed, louder than before.
"What is he doing here?"
"He never comes to services."
"After what happened with the blacksmith's niece…"
"He must be making some kind of point…"
"Did you see the way he looked at her?"
Reverend Clarke emerged from the vestry, his expression betraying surprise at the unusual congregation.
He was an older man, white-haired and gentle, who had presided over Ashwick's spiritual life for nearly thirty years.
He had married couples, buried the dead, christened the newborn, and weathered every scandal the village had produced.
But even he seemed uncertain in the face of this.
His eyes flickered to Frederick, then to Lydia, then back to Frederick. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.
"Let us pray," he said.
***
The service passed in a blur.
Lydia heard nothing and saw nothing. Her entire awareness was focused on the back of Frederick’s head, utterly still and utterly unreadable.
She tried to follow the prayers. She tried to mouth the familiar words of the liturgy, to stand when everyone stood and kneel when everyone knelt. But her mind was elsewhere, spinning through possibilities, trying to anticipate what Frederick was planning.
Because he was planning something. She was certain of it.
The Duke of Corvenwell did not attend village church services. He did not dress in his finest clothes for a Sunday morning in Ashwick. He did not bring his valet as a witness and sit in the family pew that had been empty for a generation.
Unless he intended to make a statement.
He's going to do something, she realised. Something public. Something that can't be taken back.
The thought filled her with equal parts of hope and terror.
What if he was going to denounce her? Publicly declare that she had led him on, toyed with his affections, and rejected him cruelly? It would be no more than she deserved, after the things she had said to him.
Or what if…
She didn't let herself finish the thought. She didn't let herself hope.
Reverend Clarke was speaking about love. Of course he was. The reading was from—Love is patient, love is kind—and Lydia wanted to laugh at the cosmic irony of it all. Here she was, having destroyed love out of fear, listening to a sermon about love's virtues.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.