Thomas had gone to deliver orders, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Which was probably for the best because she wasn't fit company for anyone right now.
The worst mistake of her life.
That was what Frederick’s mother had written. The worst mistake of her life, and she'd spent ten years regretting it.
Was that Lydia's future now? Decades of regret, of wondering what might have been, of writing letters no one would ever read?
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let him go.
Helena had been wrong. So terribly, devastatingly wrong. And Lydia had believed her, had used her poisonous wisdom to destroy the one good thing in her life.
She thought about Frederick. About his face when she'd walked away—the anguish, the confusion, the desperate love that even her cruelty couldn't extinguish.
She thought about Boggins. About his thirty-one years of watching Hawthornes choose wrong. About his plea for them to fight, to be different, to break the pattern.
She thought about Robert. About his words at the public house,love was always madness, and his blessing, hard-won and precious.
She thought about her parents. About her mother, Eleanor Ashworth, who had given up everything for love and never regretted it. Who had died happy, surrounded by people who loved her, having lived a life that mattered.
What kind of person am I going to be?
She had asked herself that question the night before Helena's deadline. She had wondered whether she would be the kind who fought for love or the kind who let fear win.
And she had chosen fear. She had let it make her decisions for her, exactly the way Thomas said not to.
But maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe there was still time to choose differently.
She stood up, her legs unsteady but her resolve firm.
If Frederick wouldn't see her at the manor, she would find another way. She would write to him, or send a message through Boggins, or stand outside his walls until he had no choice but to listen.
She would fight. The way she should have fought from the beginning.
Because love was always madness, but it was also always worth it.
***
Meanwhile, at the manor...
Frederick sat in the study where Lydia had left him, staring at the fire without seeing it.
He had been sitting there for hours. Boggins had come and gone several times, bringing tea that went cold, offering food that went untouched, hovering with the particular concern of a man who didn't know how to help but desperately wanted to.
Goodbye, Frederick.
The words kept echoing in his head. Her voice, so steady. Her eyes, so full of tears she was trying to hide. Her hand on the door, pulling it open, walking away.
She had left him.
After everything, after the forge and the manor and the public house and the promise to fight, she had left him.
I love you too much to watch you destroy yourself.
Your aunt was right about one thing: some things matter more than personal happiness.
Helena. Of course, it was Helena. She had known exactly which buttons to push, exactly which fears to exploit. She had found Lydia's vulnerabilities and used them ruthlessly.
And Lydia, brave, foolish, wonderful Lydia, had believed her. She had taken Helena's poison and swallowed it whole, convinced that she was being noble when she was really just being manipulated.
