"It's not that simple."
"Isn't it?" She turned to face him fully, her eyes bright in the gathering darkness. "You're the Duke of Corvenwell. You answerto no one. You can do what you like, marry whom you like, live however you choose. The only person stopping you is yourself."
"You make it sound easy."
"I never said it was easy. I said it was simple. Those are different things." She squeezed his hand. "My mother chose love over comfort, security, and social standing. She gave up everything for a blacksmith she'd known for a week. And she never regretted it. Not once. Not even when she was dying."
"I'm not asking you to give up anything."
"Not yet. But if this continues, if we continue, eventually, choices will have to be made. By both of us." Her voice was steady, but he could feel the tension in her grip. "I need to know that you're willing to make them. That when the time comes, you won't retreat behind your title and your walls and leave me standing alone."
"I've never wanted anything the way I want this," Frederick said. "The way I want you. And that terrifies me, because I've been trained my whole life not to want things. Not to reach for things. Not to risk anything that might hurt."
"And now?"
"Now I think the only thing more frightening than reaching is not reaching. Spending the rest of my life wondering what might have been. I am afraid of becoming my father, safe and secure and utterly alone." He turned to face her fully. "I don't want that, Lydia. I want to feel things. I want to risk things. I want to be alive, even if being alive means getting hurt."
"Even if it means disappointing your family? Losing your social standing? Being talked about in drawing rooms across England?"
"Even if it means all of that. Even if it means everything." He took her other hand, holding both of hers in both of his. "I can't promise that everything will be easy, or that the world will accept us, or that we won't face opposition from every direction.But I can promise you that I shall not let you face it alone. Whatever comes, we face it together."
"And I shall not retreat," he said.
Lydia was quiet for a long moment. Then she leaned in and kissed him.
It was brief, barely a brush of lips, but it sent lightning through his entire body. She pulled back before he could respond, her cheeks flushed.
"I've wanted to do that since the cottage," she admitted.
"I've wanted you to do that since the cottage."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because I wanted to earn it first. Earn the right to..." He gestured vaguely. "This. Whatever this is."
"And have you? Earned it?"
He thought about the question. He thought about everything he'd done since that first day at the fair; the attempts, the failures, the small victories. The dinner tonight, and Thomas' grudging acceptance. The way Lydia looked at him now, like he was someone worth looking at.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I'm going to keep trying until I do."
She kissed him again, longer this time, sweeter, and when she pulled back, she was smiling.
"Come on. My uncle will be timing us with a pocket watch if we stay out much longer."
They walked back to the house hand in hand, and Frederick felt, for perhaps the first time in his life, like he belonged somewhere.
At the door, Thomas was waiting—not with disapproval, but with the quiet acceptance of a man who had seen what he needed to see.
"Thank you for dinner," Frederick said. "It was more than I deserved."
"It was exactly what you deserved. What everyone deserves; a meal shared with people who care." Thomas extended his hand again, and Frederick shook it. "You're not what I expected, Your Grace. I'm glad to be wrong."
"Does this mean I have your blessing?"
"It means you have my tolerance. Blessing comes later, if at all." But there was warmth in his voice that hadn't been there at the start of the evening. "Take care of her. Or you shall answer to me."
"I will. I promise."
