Our voices might mingle beneath the moon’s gentle glow, soft as the summer breeze that kissed the roses below my window.
And just for a moment, I let myself believe.
The infatuation nestled within me—a clandestine spark, flickering in the darkness, threatening to ignite the air I breathed.
It was irrational—a fantasy spun from a single, stolen moment.
An ember in the otherwise cold hearth of my existence.
Yet it warmed me, as the suffocating reality of my betrothal loomed like a execution.Lord Winston.The very name sent shards of ice through my veins, unnerving me to the marrow.
“Off you go,” Mary murmured, tucking an errant strand of hair into place.
My feet carried me forward with hesitant grace, each step down the grand staircase a silent plea for courage.The balusters blurred into a maze of intricate carvings, the sweeping arc of polished wood guiding and entangling me.
This house, this world—a gilded prison.
And at the foot of the stairs, time stilled.
As if the world itself had paused, holding its breath.
He stood there.
The stranger.
The man who had haunted my thoughts, slipping unbidden into my waking reveries.He had stepped through the open door of my father’s estate as if willed into existence by my longing, as if fate had drawn him back to me.
Dark.Handsome.
His being filled the space like smoke—intoxicating, inescapable.
Our eyes locked, and in that instant, a tempest raged between us—silent but undeniable.
Was there recognition in his gaze?A torrid understanding?
Or was it merely the hopeful whisper of my heart, desperate to believe that destiny had not been so cruel?
“Elizabeth.”
My father’s voice decimated the charged silence, splintering the moment as effortlessly as a blade through silk.
I turned, finding him standing there—his frame rigid, his attire as ostentatious as ever, crowned by one of those stark white wigs that seemed an affront to fashion itself.
I reached the last step just as he beckoned me forward, his voice steeped in importance.“I’d like you to meet our guest, Lord Amir Hassan of Anatolia.Lord Hassan, I present my daughter, Lady Elizabeth Alexander.”
Lord Hassan.
The name curled through the air, unfamiliar yet now irrevocably his.
With a poise I scarcely felt, I approached the man who had unknowingly kindled such turmoil within me.
He took my gloved hand, and a jolt shot through me when his lips brushed the back of it—like the first flash of lightning splitting an oppressive sky.
The contact was fleeting, yet it left an imprint, a quiet claiming of space between us.His grip was gentle but firm, the warmth of his skin stark against the cool propriety demanded of us both.
His dark eyes held mine, secure and unreadable, but I swore I saw that same unspoken recognition within them.The same awareness had lingered between us since that first, unguarded collision in the corridor.
I was ensnared.
