"Prove it."
"How?"
"I don't know. But until you figure it out, stay away from me."
She left the tent, and this time, he knew better than to follow. The other judges sat in uncomfortable silence until Mrs. Morrison finally spoke.
"Well. That was dramatic."
"That was horrible," the vicar corrected. "That poor girl."
"That poor duke doesn't look too happy either," Mr. Ironwell observed.
"He brought it on himself," Mrs. Morrison said, though not unkindly. "But he does look properly miserable."
"I'm still here," Alaric pointed out.
"Yes, and what are you going to do about it?" Mrs. Morrison asked. "Because if you're just going to sit there looking tragic, you might as well go back to London now."
"What would you suggest?"
“Oh no, I'm not helping you. Since you have so industriously dug the pit, I shall leave you to devise your own ascent.”
"Actually," the vicar said thoughtfully, "there might be something..."
"Reverend, no," Mrs. Morrison warned.
"What?" Alaric asked desperately.
"The Christmas service tonight. It's tradition for the lord of the manor to do a reading if he's in residence."
"He hasn't been in residence for twenty-three years," Mr. Ironwell pointed out.
"But he's here now," the vicar continued. "And if he were to do the reading, to participate in the service as himself, not as some pretend steward..."
"It would be a start," Mrs. Morrison admitted grudgingly. "A small start."
"What time?"
"Eleven o'clock. Midnight mass, technically, though we start a bit early because some of the older parishioners fall asleep if we actually wait until midnight."
"I shall be there."
"Will you though?" Mrs. Morrison asked. "Or will you run back to London like your father always did?"
"My father has nothing to do with this."
"Doesn't he? You're following in his footsteps quite nicely—avoiding responsibility, running from difficulty, leaving others to clean up your messes."
"That's not..." But he stopped, because wasn't it true? Hadn't he spent twenty-three years doing exactly what his father had done, just from a different location?
"I'll be there," he said again, more firmly.
"We'll see."
The rest of the fair passed in a blur. Alaric helped where he could, though people now treated him with the awkward deference due to a duke rather than the easy camaraderie they'd shown "Mr. Fletcher." He saw Marianne occasionally, always at a distance, always surrounded by others, always determinedly not looking in his direction.
As evening settled over the village, the snow caught the firelight and turned the world to molten gold. The bonfire roared in the square’s center, a great crackling pillar of warmth and tradition, and laughter carried on the air like carols half-remembered. It should have been a beautiful sight, the kind that made a man feel part of something grand and ancient. But Alaric stood at the edge of it all, hands buried in his coat pockets, feeling like an intruder at his own story.
