"Everyone has some charm. Yours is just buried. Under several layers of aristocratic conditioning and what I suspect is genuine social anxiety."
He stopped walking. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to someone who's looking." She met his eyes steadily. "You're not cold, Frederick. You're terrified. There's a difference."
No one had ever said that to him before. No one had ever seen past the ice to the fear beneath. He felt suddenly, dangerously exposed.
"How do you…Why can you…"
"Because I know what it's like to be afraid of people." She resumed walking, and he fell into step beside her automatically. "When my parents died, I didn't speak for three months. The village thought I'd gone mute. But it wasn't that I couldn't speak; it was that I was terrified that if I opened my mouth, I'd start crying and never stop. I was afraid that if people saw how broken I was, they'd stop loving me."
"What changed?"
"Mrs Wrightly sat with me one day. She didn't say anything, didn't ask me to speak, just sat there doing her knitting while I stared at the wall. And after about an hour, she said: You know, Lydia, being sad isn't the same as being broken. And even if you were broken, we'd still love you. That's not conditional on you being whole," Lydia smiled at the memory. "And then I cried for about six hours straight, and when I was done, I could talk again."
"That's..." Frederick searched for words. "That's extraordinarily kind."
"That's Ashwick. That's what community means. People who sit with you in the dark, even when they can't fix anything. People who love you through the hard parts." She looked at him sideways. "You've never had that, have you?"
"No." The word came out rougher than he intended. "I've had people who wanted things from me. People who feared me. People who needed me to be a certain way for their own purposes. But someone who just sat with me? Without expectations? No. Never."
"Then I'm sorry. That's a terrible way to grow up."
"I didn't know it was terrible. I thought it was normal."
"That's the worst part, isn't it? When you don't know that you're starving because no one ever showed you what being fed looks like."
They walked in silence for a moment, past stalls selling ribbons and handkerchiefs and small wooden toys. The afternoon sun was warm on their faces, and the sounds of the fair surrounded them; laughter and music and the calls of vendors hawking their wares.
"Why are you helping me?" Frederick asked finally.
"I told you. You're not as cold as everyone thinks."
"But why do you care? You could have left me to stumble around on my own. It would have been easier. Safer, certainly; people are already talking about us."
"Let them talk." Lydia shrugged. "I've been talked about my whole life. The orphan girl. The blacksmith's niece. The woman who works the forge like a man. You learn to ignore it after a while."
"That doesn't answer my question."
She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful.
"Do you remember what you asked me? In the manor? You asked me what I saw when I looked at you."
"I remember."
"I saw someone who was drowning. Not dramatically, not waving their arms and calling for help, but quietly, slowly, in a way that no one else seemed to notice. And I thought... I know what that feels like. I know what it's like to be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone." She met his eyes. "I couldn't just walk away from that. Even if you were a duke. Even if it was complicated. I couldn't watch someone drown and not at least try to throw them a rope."
Frederick felt something crack open in his chest, some wall he hadn't known he was still maintaining.
"You're an extraordinary person, Lydia Fletcher."
"I'm an ordinary person who's had extraordinary people help me. There's a difference." She smiled, taking the sting out of the correction. "Now come on. We've lingered too long; people will really start talking. Let me show you the rest of the fair."
***
"You're doing better," Lydia observed, as they paused near the old oak tree at the edge of the green.
"Am I?"
