"Your mother sounds very wise."
"She makes the best pies in the village. Do you want to try one?"
Frederick found himself smiling, actually smiling, the expression unfamiliar on his face. "I would like that very much."
"Come on, then!" The girl grabbed his hand, grabbed it, as if he were any ordinary person who could be touched by any ordinary child, and began tugging him toward the fair. "Her stall is this way. I'm Molly, by the way. What's your name?"
"Frederick."
"That's a funny name."
"Is it?"
"My cat's name is Frederick. He's orange, and he bites."
"I'm not orange," Frederick said. "And I try very hard not to bite."
Molly giggled; a pure, delighted sound that seemed to cut through all the tension of the morning. "You're funny. I thought dukes were supposed to be scary."
"Who told you that?"
"Everyone." She tugged his hand again, impatient to show him the pie stall. "But you're not scary. You're just sad."
Before Frederick could respond to this alarmingly accurate assessment, they had arrived at a stall manned by a woman who bore an unmistakable resemblance to Molly; the same bright eyes, the same stubborn set of the jaw.
"Mum! Mum! I found the duke! He's nice! He let us pet his horse, and he says he wants to try your pie!"
The woman, Molly's mother, looked at Frederick with an expression that mixed surprise with wariness and, underneathit all, the faintest glimmer of something that might have been reconsideration.
"Your Grace," she said carefully. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Nobody did," Frederick replied. "I'm trying to change that."
There was silence, but then she asked him: "Apple or cherry?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The pies. Apple or cherry? There's also gooseberry, but that's for the adventurous."
Frederick looked at the pies arrayed before him; golden-crusted, perfectly crimped, fragrant with fruit and sugar and something that smelled like home even though he'd never had a home that smelled like anything but cold stone and older, colder expectations.
"Gooseberry," he said. "I think I'm feeling adventurous."
Molly's mother handed him a slice of pie, and he took a bite.
It was, without exaggeration, the best thing he had ever tasted.
"This is extraordinary," he said, and meant it.
"It's just pie, Your Grace."
"No. It's…" He stopped, aware that he was about to say something embarrassingly sincere. "It's very good. What do I owe you?"
"Tuppence for the slice. A shilling for a whole pie."
He paid for four whole pies; over Molly's mother's protests that it was too much, that he couldn't possibly eat four pies himself, that she didn't have change for a pound note that he found while searching better in his pockets. He told her to keep the change and consider the extra as a thank you for Molly's guidance, and he walked away with his arms full of pies and his heart lighter than it had been in years.
He had talked to a child. He had petted a horse with other children. He had bought pies and not offended anyone.
