"You understand what people will say," she said finally. "If the Duke of Corvenwell starts calling on the blacksmith's niece."
"I don't care what people say."
"That's because you're a duke. You can afford not to care. I'm a village girl with nothing but my reputation to recommend me. I can't afford to have that reputation……. Complicated."
"I wouldn't…" He stopped, then he started again. "I would never do anything to compromise your standing. I'm not asking for anything improper. I'm asking if I might visit. Talk. Learn to be..." He gestured vaguely. "Human. With your help."
"You want me to teach you to be human?"
"Is that terribly pitiful?"
"It's terribly honest." She smiled, and the sight of it made his heart clench. "Which is refreshing, coming from a duke."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a'let me think about it.'I need to consider the implications. Weigh the risks." Her smile turned wry. "Consult with Mrs Wrightly, who will undoubtedly have opinions."
"Of course." He tried to hide his disappointment, but suspected he wasn't entirely successful. "Take whatever time you need."
"Frederick." She touched his arm, just briefly, just the lightest pressure of her fingers through his coat sleeve, and the contact sent a shock through him that he felt in his bones. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying 'not yet.' There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"'No'is a door closing. 'Not yet'is a door that's still open, just not quite ready to be walked through."
It would have been so easy to reach for her. So natural. So right.
He didn't. But the wanting felt like a promise.
"Goodnight, Miss Fletcher."
"Goodnight, Your Grace."
He turned toward the carriage, took three steps and stopped.
"Frederick," he said, without turning back. "You called me Frederick once. I'd like you to do it again. Whenever you choose."
"Goodnight, Frederick."
The sound of his name in her voice—warm, soft, intimate in a way that titles could never be—was worth every awkward moment of the day.
He walked away before he could say something foolish, but he carried her voice with him anyway; the way she'd said his name, like it was a word worth speaking. The way she might say it again, someday, if he proved himself worthy of it.
The carriage door closed behind him, the horses started forward, and Frederick Hawthorne, seventh Duke of Corvenwell, left the Ashwick Harvest Fair having learned something that no one had ever taught him before. That he could be wrong. That he could change. That he could, if he tried hard enough and wanted it badly enough, become the kind of man who wasn't always above.
The kind of man who could belong.
***
In Ashwick, the fair continued into the night. The bonfire burned high. The music played on. And the gossip, that eternalengine of village life, had shifted into a new and unfamiliar register.
"Did you see him with the children? With the horses?"
"He bought four pies from Margaret. He paid a whole pound and told her to keep the change."
"He sat with the Fletcher girl for nearly an hour. Just talking."
"He smiled. I saw it. An actual smile."
