"Nothing."
"Lydia."
"When you care about someone." She pulled back just enough to look at him properly. "When you care about someone, you don't let them fight alone. Even when the fight is terrifying. Even when you're not sure you can win."
"Even when a viscountess is threatening to destroy everything you've built?"
"Even then." She smiled, or tried to. "Although I reserve the right to be absolutely terrified while we're doing it."
"That seems fair."
He kissed her then, softly at first, then with more urgency, like he was trying to communicate something that words couldn't quite capture. She kissed him back with equal intensity, her hands clenching in the fabric of his coat, pulling him closer.
When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing harder than they should have been.
"Seven days," Frederick said. "We have seven days until her deadline."
"Then we'd better make them count."
The sound of footsteps on the stairs made them spring apart like guilty children. A moment later, Thomas appeared in the doorway, his expression shifting from surprise to resignation to something that might have been amusement.
"Your Grace." His tone was perfectly neutral. "You're here early."
"I'm aware." Frederick had gone slightly pink, which would have been funny under other circumstances. "I came to speak with your niece. About.......A matter of some urgency."
"I gathered that." Thomas moved past them to the forge, checking the fire with the automatic competence of long practice. "Are you planning to stand there all day, or are you going to make yourself useful?"
Frederick blinked. "Useful?"
"This is a working forge, not a parlor. If you're going to take up space, you might as well learn something." Thomas gestured to the tools hanging on the wall. "Grab an apron. The leather one, the others catch fire too easily."
"You want me to... work the forge?"
"I want you to try. Whether you succeed is another matter entirely." Thomas' eyes held a challenge that Lydia recognised; the same look he'd given her when she was twelve and had demanded to learn the trade. "Unless you're too delicate for manual labour?"
Frederick’s jaw tightened. For a moment, Lydia thought he might refuse, might retreat behind the dignity of his title and the distance of his station.
Instead, he shrugged off his coat, handed it to Lydia, and reached for the leather apron.
"Show me what to do."
Thomas' smile was small but genuine. "Good answer."
***
The next two hours were, by Frederick’s own admission, among the most humbling of his life.
"You're thinking too hard."
"I'm barely thinking at all."
"That's not what your arms are telling me. Look at them—stiff as boards. You're fighting the hammer instead of letting it work for you."
Frederick stared at the piece of scrap iron he was theoretically shaping. It was supposed to be a hook; Thomas had shown him the basic form, had demonstrated the strikes and the turns with the easy grace of someone who'd been doing this for forty years. It had looked simple when Thomas did it. Effortless, even.
In Frederick’s hands, the iron had become something that looked more like a mangled snake than anything functional.
"Try again." Thomas pulled the iron from the fire with his tongs and set it on the anvil. "Strike where I showed you. Light grip, let the weight do the work."
