She was seated by the fire, ramrod straight, with a cup of tea that had long since gone cold beside her.
"Frederick." Her voice was cool, precise, utterly without warmth. "How kind of you to finally return home."
"Aunt Helena. This is unexpected."
"I imagine it is. I don't make a habit of travelling to the wilds of the countryside without good reason." She set down her teacup with a click. "Sit down. We need to talk."
Frederick sat. Not because she commanded it, but because he suspected he would need to be sitting for whatever came next.
"I've heard the most disturbing rumours," Lady Helena began. "About you. About your activities here in this village."
"I can imagine what you've heard."
"Can you? Then let me be specific." She folded her hands in her lap with the precision of a judge preparing to deliver a sentence. "I have heard that you attended a village fair. That you consorted with common people; farmers, tradesmen, children. That you were seen giving away food, like some sort of medieval saint dispensing charity."
"All true."
"I have also heard that you have been courting a woman. A blacksmith's niece, of all things. That you were seen walking with her, talking with her, sheltering alone with her during astorm." Her eyes narrowed. "And that tonight, this very evening, you dined at her uncle's house. Like a common suitor calling on a common girl."
"Also true."
"Are you quite bereft of sense?"
The words came out sharp, cutting through the careful facade she had maintained. For a moment, Frederick saw the real Helena beneath the armor—not the Dowager Viscountess, but his mother's sister, the woman who had held him at his mother's funeral and told him that his mother was watching from heaven.
"No," he said. "I think I'm finally finding it."
"Finding it? By throwing away everything your family has built? By dragging the Hawthorne name through the mud of some desolate village?" Helena's voice rose. "Your mother would be heartbroken, Frederick. Heartbroken."
"Don't." The word came out harder than he intended. "Do not use my mother as a weapon. You don't know what she would have wanted."
"I knew her better than anyone. She was my sister."
"She was my mother. And she died before she could tell me anything; what she wanted for me, what she dreamed of, whether she was happy in her marriage or just enduring it. So don't presume to speak for her. You have no more insight into her wishes than I do."
Helena's mouth tightened. "I see your time among commoners has taught you insolence."
"It's taught me to speak honestly. Something I was never permitted to do in this house."
"Honesty is overrated. What matters is propriety. Duty. The obligations you owe to your position." Helena rose and began to pace, her silk skirts rustling against the carpet. "You are the Duke of Corvenwell. Your ancestors have held this title forthree hundred years. You have a responsibility to marry well, to produce heirs, to maintain the standing of this family in society. And you are proposing to throw all of that away for a girl who works at a forge?"
"I'm not proposing anything yet. I'm simply…"
"Simply what? Simply amusing yourself with an unsuitable woman until you tire of her? Is that what you intend?"
"No." Frederick stood too, unwilling to be loomed over. "That is absolutely not what I intend. Lydia Fletcher is not an amusement. She's not a dalliance. She's…" He stopped, searching for words. "She's the first person who's ever seen me. Not the title, not the money, not the position. Me. The person I am beneath all of that."
"The person you are is the Duke of Corvenwell. That's not something you can take off and hang in a closet."
"I know that. But I can be both, can't I? A duke and a person? A title and a man?"
"Not if you marry a blacksmith's niece, you can't." Helena stopped pacing and faced him directly. "Do you understand what will happen if you pursue this? Society will shun you. Doors that have been open to the Hawthornes for generations will close. Your children, if you have any, will carry the stain of their mother's origins for the rest of their lives. You will become a laughingstock. A cautionary tale. The duke who threw everything away for a village girl."
"Let them laugh."
"This is not a jest, Frederick!"
"I know it's not." He met her eyes steadily. "I know exactly what I'm risking. But I also know what I'm risking if I don't pursue this. I'm risking becoming my father—cold, alone, dying eventually with no one to care. I'm risking a lifetime of emptiness dressed up in fine clothes. I'm risking never knowingwhat it feels like to be loved by someone who doesn't want anything from me except myself."
