They loved her, and she loved them. And they were all looking at her with varying shades of disappointment.
"You're right," she said quietly. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."
The tension in the room eased. Mrs Wrightly patted her arm. Someone made a jest about young people and their foolish ideas, and someone else started a story about the time the old duke's horse had relieved itself in front of the church, and gradually the conversation flowed back into its normal channels.
Lydia laughed in the right places. She nodded and agreed and made all the appropriate noises of village solidarity.
But somewhere beneath the performance, a small voice whispered:You saw what you saw. You know what you know.
She told herself to be quiet. She told herself that the village was right and she was wrong, that her momentary sympathy had been foolish, that the Duke of Corvenwell was exactly what everyone said he was.
And she almost believed it.
***
The evening wound down in the way of village evenings, with the crowd thinning gradually as people remembered children to put to bed and animals to feed and all the small responsibilities that kept the wheels of daily life turning. Lydia stayed later than she should have, nursing her drink and listening to the conversations ebb and flow around her.
It was Mr Wrightly who finally brought up the subject she'd been half-dreading, half-anticipating all night.
"The manor commission," he said, settling into the chair across from her with the groan of a man whose knees hadopinions about the day's work. "How's your uncle getting on with it?"
"Nearly finished. Another day or two, and the hinges will be ready."
"And who'll be delivering them?"
Lydia shrugged, aiming for casual and probably missing by a mile. "Me, most likely. Uncle Thomas isn't one for dealing with stewards and clerks."
"Dealing with the duke, more like," Mrs Holloway said from across the room, her ears apparently sharper than her years suggested. "I hear he sometimes comes down to inspect deliveries personally. Very particular about quality, they say."
"I thought he never spoke to anyone," Lydia said.
"He doesn't speakwarmlyto anyone. There's a difference." Mrs Holloway's smile had an edge to it. "My sister said he once rejected an entire shipment of candles because the wicks were inconsistent. He made the chandler re-wax the whole lot. He didn't apologise, and he didn't explain. He just handed them back with thatlookof his and walked away."
"Sounds like he has standards," Lydia said, and then immediately wished she hadn't.
But Mrs Holloway only laughed. "Standards! That's one word for it. Another might beimpossibly demanding.Another might beincapable of human decency." She leaned forward, her eyes bright with something that was probably concern but looked a lot like a warning. "Be careful when you go up there, girl. Don't let him rattle you. Don't let him make you feel small. And whatever you do, don't…"
"Don't what?"
The older woman hesitated. "Don't expect anything. Don't hope for anything. Just do your business and get out. The less time you spend in that house, the better."
It wasn't quite advice. It was closer to prophecy, delivered with the certainty of someone who had watched better women than Lydia try to find warmth in cold places and fail.
"I'm just delivering hinges," Lydia said. "Not storming the castle."
"Famous last words," Mrs Holloway muttered, but she let the subject drop.
Lydia walked home through streets that were quiet now, the summer stars scattered overhead like spilt salt against black velvet. Her uncle's cottage was dark when she arrived; he kept early hours, claiming that the forge demanded it, so she let herself in quietly and climbed the stairs to her small room beneath the eaves.
Sleep should have come easily. The day had been long, the evening longer, and her body knew the rhythm of rest the way her hands knew the weight of a hammer.
But her mind refused to settle.
She kept seeing his face. That moment when their eyes met. The way he had looked at her was like she was the first person to actuallyseehim in a very long time.
You're being foolish,she told herself.He probably looks at everyone like that. It probably doesn't mean anything.
But she had felt something pass between them; something that wasn't hostility or indifference or the careful blank mask that both classes wore when dealing with the other. Something that had felt, for just a heartbeat, like recognition.
