"Good." Mrs Wrightly patted her arm. "Now help me move this table. The angle is all wrong for the afternoon sun."
The morning continued while the village filled with the sounds of preparation; the sound of hammers everywhere, children shrieking with excitement, the fiddler warming up his instrument with a series of experimental scales that set everyone's teeth on edge.
By noon, the fair was in full swing. Stalls lined the village green, selling everything from pies to preserves to hand-carved wooden toys. Games had been set up for the children. The smell of food was in the air, and somewhere, someone had started a batch of mulled cider that perfumed the entire area with cinnamon and cloves.
It was, Lydia thought, exactly like every Harvest Fair she had ever attended. Warm and familiar and entirely predictable.
Which was why, when the cry went up from the edge of the green, she knew immediately that something unprecedented was about to happen.
"There's a carriage!"
She turned, heart suddenly pounding, and saw what everyone else was seeing: the gleaming black shape of the ducal carriage, making its slow and stately way down the ridge road toward the village.
"It's probably just passing through," someone said.
"On fair day? The road doesn't go anywhere else."
"Maybe he's lost."
"Dukes don't get lost. They have people to prevent that sort of thing."
The carriage drew closer, and the crowd grew quieter. By the time it reached the edge of the village green and stopped, actually stopped, not slowed down and continued like every year before, the silence was so complete that Lydia could hear her own breathing.
Then the carriage door opened.
And Frederick Hawthorne, seventh Duke of Corvenwell, stepped out into the Ashwick Harvest Fair.
He was overdressed. He knew it the moment his boots touched the ground, and he saw the assembled crowd in their simple clothes, their practical shoes, their expressions of naked astonishment.
The navy coat, which had seemed acceptable in his dressing room, now felt like armour; too fine, too formal, too obviously the garment of a man who didn't belong here. His boots, still gleaming from their morning polish, were already attracting mud like magnets. His cravat, perfectly tied by Boggins' expert hands, suddenly felt like a noose.
Everyone was staring at him.
He had expected that. And he had prepared for it as much as one could prepare for being the centre of attention in a place where one was historically unwelcome. But the reality of all those eyes, curious, hostile, disbelieving, was more intense than he had anticipated.
For a moment, he considered getting back in the carriage. Boggins would understand. The villagers would nod knowingly and say they had expected nothing better. Lydia would…
He found her in the crowd almost without meaning to, his gaze drawn to her like a compass needle finding north. She was standing near a stall covered in jam jars, her hair escaping its pins as usual, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and something that looked almost like hope.
She was watching him. Waiting to see what he would do.
He stepped forward.
The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath as he approached, parting before him.
Old Mr Wrightly was the first to speak. He materialised from somewhere in the crowd, his white eyebrows drawn together in an expression that could have been hostility or mere curiosity.
"Your Grace." His voice was carefully neutral. "We didn't expect to see you here."
"I received an invitation."
"You've received an invitation every year for eight years."
"Yes." Frederick forced himself to meet the old man's eyes. "I thought it was time I accepted."
A murmur ran through the crowd; speculation, disbelief, and underneath it all, the faintest hint of something that might have been interest.
"Well." Mr Wrightly gave him a long, assessing look. "Fair's that way. And mind the mud."
