She could walk away. End things now, before they go any further, before she gets hurt worse than she already has. It was the sensible thing to do. The safe thing.
But safety had never been what she wanted.
She wanted Frederick; she wanted the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, the hesitation in his voice when he was about to say something honest, the way he'd held her hand in the garden like she was precious and worth protecting.
She wanted to fight for that. Even if the fight was hopeless. Even if she lost.
Her uncle had told her about her parents; about her mother giving up everything for love and never regretting it. About her father seeing a woman through a window and knowing, somehow, that she was the one.
Maybe that kind of certainty was hereditary. Because Lydia felt it now, deep in her bones, past all her fears and doubts and practical objections.
Frederick was worth fighting for.
And if she had to fight a viscountess to keep him, then that's what she would do.
Tomorrow, she would talk to him. Find out what had really happened, what threats had been made, what he planned to do about them. And then they would decide, together, whether this was worth pursuing or whether the cost was simply too high.
But tonight, she would do something she hadn't done in years.
She would pray.
And tomorrow, everything would change.
She just had to believe it would change for the better.
Chapter 14
"You're here early."
Lydia looked up from the forge fire she'd been staring into for the better part of an hour. Frederick stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the grey light of dawn, looking like he hadn't slept any better than she had.
His coat was buttoned wrong, one button off, all the way down, and there was a smudge of something that might have been ink on his cuff. Small details, but telling ones. The Duke of Corvenwell, who had been trained from birth to maintain impeccable standards, had gotten dressed this morning without really seeing what he was doing.
"I could say the same about you," she said. "It's barely past sunrise."
"I know." He stepped inside, and she could see his face now: the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I couldn't stay at the manor. I kept pacing, and Boggins kept looking at me like I was losing my mind, and I just…" He broke off, shaking his head. "I needed to see you."
"About your aunt."
He stopped mid-stride. "You know?"
"Molly came to my window last night." Lydia set down the poker she'd been using to stir the coals and turned to face him fully. "Her mother heard people talking at theCrossed Keys. A fancy lady from London has come to make you marry someone suitable. Threats to ruin me, ruin my uncle, ruin anyone who gets in her way."
"That's... remarkably accurate."
"Village gossip usually is. The details might be wrong, but the shape of the thing tends to be right." She crossed herarms, not in hostility but in something like self-protection. The warmth of the forge at her back was familiar, grounding. "So. What did she say exactly?"
Frederick moved further into the space, his boots echoing on the stone floor. The forge was small, barely large enough for the fire pit, the anvil, and the workbench where Thomas kept his tools, but it had never felt cramped before. Now, with Frederick filling the doorway and his presence filling everything else, it felt almost intimate.
"Her name is Lady Helena Blackmore," he said. "She's my mother's sister. My aunt." He paused by the workbench, running his fingers along the edge of it without really seeing it. "She arrived while I was at dinner with you and your uncle. She'd heard rumours about the fair, about the storm, about us, and she came to put a stop to it."
"How long has she known? About... this?"
"I'm not certain. Weeks, at least. She has people who report to her—servants, acquaintances, I don't know who exactly. But she knew about the harvest fair before I even returned to the manor that day. She knew about the cottage." His mouth twisted. "She seems to know everything."
Lydia felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. "And what does she want?"
"She wants me to come to my senses. That's how she put it." Frederick finally looked at her directly, and his eyes were fierce with something that might have been fear or might have been determination. "She's given me a week to end whatever this is between us and agree to meet Veronica Ashby."
