"I'll tell him," Alaric promised. "All of it."
"Good. Someone should."
After dinner, as he prepared to leave, Marianne walked him to the door.
"Thank you," she said. "For helping today. You didn't have to work that hard."
"Yes, I did. Your mother's right—everyone helps everyone. Even absent dukes should help, if they were here."
"But they're not here."
"No," he agreed. "They're not."
"Edmund?" She used the name hesitantly. "Was any of it real? Last night?"
"All of it," he said quietly. "Every word."
"Even the parts that shouldn't have been?"
"Especially those."
She nodded, wrapping her shawl tighter. "The fair tomorrow. It's going to be chaos."
"I would expect nothing less."
"And then you leave."
"And then I leave."
"Back to your adequate life."
"Back to my safe life."
"Is safe the same as happy?"
"I used to think so."
"And now?"
"Now I think safe might just be another word for afraid."
She reached out and touched his hand briefly, so quickly he might have imagined it.
"Goodnight, Mr. Fletcher."
"Goodnight, Mrs. Whitby."
He walked back to the inn through the snow-cleared paths, thinking about last night's conversation, today's careful distance and tomorrow’s inevitable goodbye. The stars were out, brilliant in the clear post-storm sky, and somewhere someone was singing carols.
For the first time in years, they didn't sound like a lie.
They sounded like hope.
Chapter 12
"Your Grace appears to be attempting to hide behind a newspaper that is both upside down and from three days ago, which suggests either a desperate interest in old news viewed from an inverted perspective, or a rather pathetic attempt to avoid going outside where the entire village is preparing for the fair."
Alaric didn't lower the newspaper, though Grimsby's observation had rather destroyed its effectiveness as a shield. "I'm reading. Very thoroughly. From multiple angles."
