Author's Note: Please excuse the liberties I have taken with the Persuasion timeline (altering the season, and extending "within five minutes" to "within a day.")

Frederick hoped that no one was paying very close attention to him. It would hardly impress his brother's parishioners if Captain Wentworth's mind was obviously anywhere except on Reverend Wentworth's sermon. In that respect, he had probably chosen the best possible service in which to woolgather; only the farmers would be alert during Sunrise Service, whereas the merchants and gentry might still be more than half asleep themselves. Once he tuned out his brother (a skill perfected through years of ignoring elder-brother lectures), he could think in peace...and he did need to think.

Think. His brother had accused him of indulging too greatly in that pastime during his visit to Shropshire (the first time Frederick could ever recollect Edward of telling him he thought too much). Yet Frederick could not seem to help himself, knowing as he did that had he thought more during his time in Somerset, much grief could have been avoided for everyone.

He had badly bungled matters almost from the moment he had arrived. That terribly snide remark he had made about Anne's appearance altering, knowing that it would wind back through the chain of gossip to her, for example; even at the time, a vague uneasiness had warned him he had done wrong, and now the memory stung like a whip strike. In truth, he had not even looked at her in making that pronouncement: he had wished to see her as too altered and careworn to excite his interest again, and so he had. The sole difference in her appearance between that morning and the morning she was admired by the stranger in Lyme was an increase in hope, due, he suspected, to having only half the usual number of Musgroves demanding her attention.

That had been merely the tip of the iceberg. For the next few weeks, he had ignored and avoided her to the extent that had any of the Musgroves possessed a smidgeon less self-absorption, and even an ounce of perception, it must have been obvious that they had not been such casual acquaintances as he had implied. He had been angry with Anne at the time of the impromptu dance at Uppercross, when the faintest flicker of her eyes betrayed her pain at his brusque vacating of the piano bench - she had rejected him; she had no right to expect any more than the barest civility, he felt -- and so buried his guilt at her reaction in anger. Indeed, the only thing he had done correctly in the whole wretched visit was to ensure that Sophy and the Admiral took Anne home with them when she had been taxed beyond her endurance by the long walk to Winthrop.

He had not even realized how much he had encouraged Louisa's stupidity, between his bitter musings about the ill effects of being persuadable and using her as a shield to distract himself from Anne, until after he had taken Anne and Henrietta back to Uppercross (there had been a journey! His guilt at encouraging Louisa in her headstrong ways choking him until all he wanted was to seek comforting advice from Anne, and knowing that he had done too much to alienate her to have any right to her sympathy). Then, when he had returned to Lyme, he discovered that not only Louisa's family, but even Harville and Benwick had expected that he merely awaited Louisa's recovery to declare himself. He had immediately denied any such intention to his friends, but knowing that Harville had believed such a possibility brought home the unwelcome realization that he had behaved with more partiality than he ought. Even after Frederick had quitted Lyme and fled to Shropshire, his dreams had been uneasy. Over and over, a tearful Louisa Musgrove ripped him away from conversations with Anne, screaming "but you are promised to me!"

Louisa would haunt his nightmares no more. Weeks of dreading a letter -- or worse yet, a visit -- from her father or her brother, demanding that he live up to his obligation and marry her, had finally come to an end yesterday. Harville had written to say that the girl was going to marry Benwick, the pair of them having grown close during her convalescence. The respite was far more than he deserved...or could understand.

Benwick had adored Frances Harville, a woman whose intelligence, sensibility and generous spirit, while not quite the equal of Anne's, rendered her infinitely superior to Louisa Musgrove. Comparing the two...moonbeams were a better imitation of sunlight. Women like Frances (and Anne) stayed in one's heart forever; their words and opinions lingered in the mind. The Musgroves, though nice enough, had nothing to distinguish them in the memory from a thousand other silly and indulged young women. He could understand why Harville felt both confusion and pain at the new engagement: it passed Frederick's comprehension how any man how had seen the superiority of a Fanny Harville could now be captivated by a Louisa Musgrove.

Light had begun to filter in through the previously dark windows of the sanctuary. The realization brought Frederick out of his own thoughts long enough to hear a part of his brother's sermon. "...Easter serves to remind us that we have been given second chances, if we but have the courage to use them. None of us is beyond hope of redemption if we only allow ourselves to be saved; as the old saw reminds us, ‘the darkest hour is just before the dawn..."

He pondered his brother's words (while attempting to ignore a growing suspicion that Edward's message was a veiled older brother lecture aimed directly at himself). Less than a full day ago, he had feared himself bound to Louisa Musgrove by honor, doomed to marriage with a woman he did not love. Now, with neither honor nor inclination binding him, he was free to seek out the object of his affections. He knew he still loved Anne, had never actually been able to stop loving her, but the question remained: did she still love him?

He puzzled over that question for a moment. She had remained unmarried for the past eight years, despite having at least one "eligible" suitor; he presumed that the baronet would have been no less particular in his standards for a son-in-law in dealing with Charles Musgrove than with him...and even if Sir Walter had been lenient, Mary had demonstrated that she had inherited more than a fair share of what the Musgrove girls called "The Elliot Pride." While he was inclined to hope that she had done so because she still harbored affection for him, he could not conclude so definitely. Had she not been able to advise Benwick of a number of writers to help him overcome his grief and past attachment? Surely she would not have recommended them had she not found them helpful herself? -Anne was no hypocrite.

Still, she had not married. Even if he took the opposite tack of his hope -- believing she was indifferent rather than still faithful to him -- it was impossible to conclude otherwise than that her spinster status had not caused her to compromise in any fashion her standards for an eligible suitor. Money and title would not matter to Anne; intelligence, kindness, and character would be her concerns. Perhaps his recent conduct would not bear close scrutiny, but he knew that he had fulfilled those requirements once; logically, therefore, he could do so again.

Frederick looked up once more at the light now spilling through the stained glass windows, feeling the darkness of his own uncertainties fall away like the fading night shadows. This time, her family could have nothing to say against the connection. This time, he would not let his anger at the past cloud his judgment of the present. This time, Anne would, at long last, be his.

He would be in Bath on Wednesday