"Unexpected?"
"I was going to say extraordinary, but yes. Unexpected covers it too." He ran a hand through his hair. "In all those years, I've never heard him say anything like that. I didn't even know he…" He broke off, shaking his head. "He's been watching me. Worrying about me. This whole time."
"He cares about you."
"Apparently. I had no idea." Frederick laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. "I thought he was just doing his job. I thought it was all just... professional detachment. It seems he's been hoping I'd find someone who could make me happy for over a decade."
Lydia reached over and took his hand.
"You inspire loyalty," she said. "Even when you don't realise it. Even when you're being cold and distant and difficult. People see something in you worth caring about."
"Do they?"
"I do. Boggins does. My uncle Thomas is coming around, even though he'd never admit it." She squeezed his hand. "Your aunt is wrong about you, Frederick. You're not the cold, empty person she thinks you are. You never were, you were just hiding."
"I was very good at hiding."
"You were. But you're not hiding anymore." She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. "And Boggins is right. Whatever comes next, we fight for this. Both of us. Together."
"Together," Frederick agreed.
The door opened, and Boggins returned with the tea service, his composure once again impeccable, as if the emotional confession of minutes ago had never happened. He set out thecups, poured with precision, and withdrew with a murmured, "will there be anything else, Your Grace?"
"No. Thank you, Boggins. For everything."
"Of course, Your Grace."
The door closed.
Frederick and Lydia looked at each other.
"Well," Lydia said. "That was the strangest tea invitation I've ever received."
"Welcome to Corvenwell Manor. Where nothing is ever quite what you expect."
They sat in silence for a moment, the tea cooling between them. Lydia found herself thinking about Boggins' words; about three generations of Hawthornes retreating from love, about walls built so high no one could scale them.
"He's right, you know," she said finally.
"About which part?"
"All of it. But especially the part about fighting." She turned to face him fully. "Your aunt is going to do everything she can to separate us. She's going to threaten and manipulate, and make our lives as difficult as possible. And if we're going to survive it, we need to decide now that we're going to fight."
"I've already decided."
"Have you? Really?" Lydia's voice was gentle but firm. "Because fighting doesn't mean grand gestures and romantic declarations. Fighting means getting up every day and choosing this, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard."
"I know."
"Do you? Because there will be days when your aunt's threats will feel very real. Days when the whispers and the stares and the closed doors wear you down. Days when you wonder if it's worth it, if I'm worth it, if any of this is worth the price you're paying."
"Lydia…"
"I need you to understand what you're choosing. Not what you're choosing today, when everything feels possible, and the future seems bright. What you're choosing for the rest of your life." She reached out and took his hands. "Because I can't be the reason you lose everything. I won't be. If you're going to do this, if we're going to do this, it has to be because you've looked at all the costs and decided they're worth paying."
Frederick was quiet for a long moment, his thumbs tracing circles on the backs of her hands.
"When I was twelve," he said finally, "my father took me to London. It was the first time I'd been to the city, the first time I'd seen the House of Lords, the first time I'd understood what my future looked like. And I remember standing in that chamber, looking at all those men in their robes and wigs, and feeling like I was looking at my own coffin."
