"I thought so. Good construction, wrong purpose. Made for drawing rooms and ballrooms, not for anything useful." The cobbler shook his head with the resignation of a craftsmanconfronted with inferior work. "Sit down, Your Grace. Let me see your feet."
"Is that entirely…"
"If you want boots that fit, I need to see what I'm fitting them to."
Frederick sat. He removed his boots, an activity he wasn't sure he'd ever performed in public before, and submitted to Mr Marsh's examination with the uncomfortable feeling of being judged and found wanting.
The next twenty minutes were an exercise in humiliation. Frederick was measured, questioned, criticised, and subjected to a lecture on the inadequacy of London boot-makers that he suspected was directed at him personally. Mr Marsh made him stand, sit, walk across the room, and stand on one foot while the cobbler examined his arches.
"You've been walking wrong your whole life," Mr. Marsh announced. "Putting too much weight on the outside of your feet. Probably because those fancy London boots don't support you properly."
"I didn't realise there was a wrong way to walk."
"There's a wrong way to do everything, Your Grace. Most people muddle through anyway. But if you want boots that last, you need to understand your feet." He made a note on a scrap of paper. "High arches, narrow heel. I can work with that."
Through it all, Lydia sat in the corner, watching with barely concealed amusement.
"You're enjoying this," Frederick accused, during a brief moment when Mr. Marsh had retreated to his back room to fetch samples.
"Immensely."
"He's treating me like a recalcitrant schoolboy."
"He treats everyone like a recalcitrant schoolboy. Last week, he made Mrs Wrightly stand in the corner for five minutes because she couldn't decide between two colours of kid leather."
"That's absurd."
"That's Mr Marsh. He takes footwear very seriously."
The cobbler returned with an armful of leather samples, and the process continued. By the time they emerged, Frederick, having ordered two pairs of boots, one for walking and one for "standing about looking approachable," which Mr Marsh insisted were different things, the afternoon had shifted toward evening, and the sky had taken on an ominous quality.
"It looks like rain," Frederick observed.
"It's been threatening all day." Lydia glanced up at the clouds, her expression thoughtful. "We should probably start back. It could break at any moment."
"I shall walk you home."
"You don't have to."
"I want to." He met her eyes, willing her to see that he meant it. "Unless you'd rather I didn't."
She was quiet for a moment, and Frederick had the terrible feeling that she was about to refuse; that the boot shopping had been enough, that the door she'd opened was closing again.
"All right," she said. "But my uncle's forge is on the other side of the village. It's a bit of a walk."
"I don't mind walking."
"In those boots?" She glanced down at his feet; still clad in the impractical, mud-attracting boots from the fair. "You'll ruin them."
"They're already ruined. And the new ones won't be ready for a week." He offered his arm, a gesture that felt simultaneously too formal and not formal enough. "Shall we?"
***
The first drops of rain began to fall as they reached the edge of the village proper; fat, heavy drops that promised worse to come. By the time they'd gone another hundred yards, the sky had opened up entirely, transforming the autumn afternoon into a wall of water.
"This way!" Lydia grabbed his hand and pulled him off the main road, down a narrow path he hadn't noticed. They ran, stumbling over roots and rocks, while the rain soaked through their clothes and turned the ground to mud.
Frederick didn't know where they were going; he could barely see, but he held onto Lydia's hand and followed, trusting her knowledge of the terrain. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, she pulled him through a doorway into sudden, blessed dryness.
