Just in case it mattered, someday.
***
TheCrossed Keyspublic house had been serving the thirsty citizens of Ashwick for nearly two hundred years, and in that time, it had accumulated the particular atmosphere of a place that knows it is beloved. The ceiling beams were low enough to threaten taller patrons with concussion. The fireplace, unlit in summer but somehow still the room's focal point, was blackened with centuries of smoke. The floorboards creaked in specific patterns that regulars used as a kind of primitive navigation system, and the whole establishment smelled of spilt ale and wood polish and the indefinable scent of communal memory.
Tonight, it was full of people.
Old Mr. Holloway, who had owned the public house for forty years and would own it until he died and possibly after, was holding court from his usual position behind the bar. He was a mountain of a man, with hands like dinner plates and a voice that could silence a room or fill it with laughter depending on his mood. Tonight, his mood was expansive.
"I saw him myself," he was saying to a cluster of men at the counter. "Face like a funeral in winter. Not a nod, not a wave, not so much as a blink in our direction."
"Same as always, then," said Robert the carpenter.
"Same as his father. Same as his grandfather. They're all cut from the same bolt, that family. Cold silk and sharp edges."
"My grandmother used to say the Hawthornes were cursed," offered young Daniel, the miller's son. "She said some ancestor made a bargain with some infernal power for wealth and power, and the price was…"
"Their souls?" Robert suggested.
"Their hearts. No Hawthorne has ever truly loved another human being. They can't, apparently. Part of the deal."
This was met with the particular silence that village superstition always commanded; half scepticism, half uneasy belief.
"That's nonsense," Mr Holloway said finally, but without much conviction. "Still. There's something not right about that man. Something missing."
Lydia had changed from her forge-clothes into something more presentable, a simple blue dress that had belonged to her mother and still fit tolerably well after all these years. Her hair was pinned more securely, her face scrubbed clean of soot, and she had even allowed herself a dab of the rose water that Mrs Wrightly gave her every Christmas despite Lydia's insistence that she never used it.
She used it sometimes. For occasions.
The passage of the duke apparently qualified.
"And he didn't evenlookat her," Mrs Holloway was saying as Lydia made her way through the crowd toward the corner where the village women had claimed their traditional territory. "Poor Mrs Addison, standing right there at her gate, waving, actually waving, if you can believe it, and he looked straight through her like she was made of glass."
"Ice, more likely," Mrs Wrightly corrected. "That man doesn't see glass. He only sees mirrors; himself reflected at him, over and over."
"Mrs Addison shouldn't have waved," said Martha Fenn, who was notorious for having opinions about everyone's behaviour. "She gave him the satisfaction of being ignored. Better to turn your back and let him know he doesn't matter."
"He should matter, though," countered her sister Elizabeth. "He's the duke. He's responsible for half the county. If he doesn't matter, what does that say about us?"
"It says we have sense. We know better than to rely on someone who can't be relied upon."
"When has he ever failed to be reliable?" Lydia heard herself ask, and immediately regretted it as several heads turned her direction.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Martha demanded.
"I only meant…" Lydia searched for safer ground. "He pays his debts promptly. Uncle Thomas has never had trouble collecting from the manor."
"Oh, he pays his debts," Mrs Holloway agreed. "We should acknowledge that much. But there's more to being a landlord than settling accounts. There's presence, there's care, and there's showing up when people need you, not just when the ledgers require it."
There was a general murmur of agreement. Lydia accepted the drink that someone pressed into her hand and found a seat on the edge of the group, close enough to participate but far enough to observe.
"Remember when the miller's barn burned down?" Mrs Wrightly said. "Three years ago. The whole village came out to help. We passed buckets until our arms ached. We raised money for rebuilding. We took turns feeding the family while they sorted themselves out."
"I remember," Lydia said quietly. She had been there, passing buckets alongside everyone else.
"And where was the duke? In his great stone house on the hill. Not a word, not a penny and not a single acknowledgement that something terrible had happened to people who live on his land."
"His steward sent a letter," someone offered.
