The letter arrived in the quiet of the afternoon, carried on the wings of a wind that seemed older than the stones of the garrison itself.

Shina held it as though it might burn her fingers, tracing the edges with careful, almost reverent fingers.

It was small, deceptively simple, but it carried a weight that threatened to unseat the very balance of her days.

The letter bore only one thing: a date, precise and unyielding, three days prior to the end of the month, and a summons to a place unnamed, to a man unnamed, yet familiar in a way that made her pulse shiver in recognition.

His scent lingered on the letter—sandalwood and something sharper, like the edge of a storm.

Her eyes lingered on the inked number. Time itself seemed to slow, stretching seconds into minutes, a cruel mirror of the tension knotting her chest.

To come—or to forget. There was no middle ground. The message hummed with the promise of ruin, of ecstasy, of lives unmade and remade, all in the span of a single encounter. It was not merely an invitation; it was a reckoning.

Shina's lips trembled as she kissed the paper, tasting the faint iron tang of dried ink. She thought of him, thought of Aiden, of the memory of his laugh echoing in the corridors of her mind, more vivid than the present life she endured.

Her husband, the baron, sat across the room, unaware of the silent upheaval that had seized his wife. He smiled as though life were a perfumed garden and he the only bee entitled to its nectar.

"Shina, my dear," he said, his voice a lazy drawl as he turned a page in his ledger, "you're awfully quiet today. Is the embroidery not to your liking?"

She forced a smile, her fingers tightening around the letter hidden in her lap. "It's fine, my lord," she murmured, her voice soft but steady, a practiced mask. "Merely lost in thought."

He chuckled, oblivious. "Always dreaming, aren't you? A woman's mind is a maze I'll never navigate." His tone was indulgent, as if her thoughts were trifles, inconsequential as the wind outside.

Unaware, and therein lay her deepest frustration—he had forgotten everything that mattered, even the son whose absence should have hollowed his chest.

If she had not married him, Shina mused, biting the inside of her cheek to contain the rising heat of her thoughts, she would have been with Aiden already.

He was the most exquisite thing she had ever seen, a storm made flesh: charm, danger, beauty all interwoven in ways that threatened to unravel the careful veneer of propriety she was forced to wear.

Yet here she was, trapped within these stone walls, beside a man whose softness bordered on oblivion, whose memory of grief seemed already worn away.

Her sigh was a whisper against the tapestry of the room, a single thread of longing woven into the mundane.

She returned her gaze to the letter once more, and in that small act of devotion, the inked words transformed into a silent promise.

"I will find you," she thought, a tremor of resolve coursing through her veins. "Much sooner than he expects." Her fingers lingered on the paper as if she could will the meeting into existence merely through the heat of her touch.

"Shina," the baron said suddenly, his voice sharper now, pulling her from her reverie. "What's that you're holding? Another of your gossip letters?"

Her heart lurched, but her hands were swift, tucking the letter into the folds of her gown. "Just a note from the seamstress," she lied, her voice smooth as silk. "About the new drapes for the hall."

He nodded, satisfied, and returned to his ledger. "Good. The old ones are frightfully drab." His ignorance was her shield, and she wielded it with a pang of guilt that quickly dissolved into defiance.

Outside, the wind rattled the shutters, a reminder that the world beyond the castle walls was alive, moving, conspiring.

---

Meanwhile, Aiden's carriage trundled along the dust-streaked road, the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves a counterpoint to the whirl of his thoughts.

From the high window of the garrison, he glimpsed the castle shrinking into the horizon, a stubborn monument of the life he had once known, now poised to be left behind.

He had intended to linger longer, to manipulate circumstance until his designs were perfected. Yet fortune had come to him, wrapped in ink and seal, and the woman he sought had been drawn to his doorstep instead of the other way around.

The timing was fortuitous, almost too convenient, and he allowed himself a private, crooked smile.

"Too perfect," he murmured, his voice low, as if confiding in the leather upholstery of the carriage. "The gods must be bored to play such games with me."

******

___yeah I am____ 😶‍🌫️

******

His companion, a wiry man with a scar tracing his jaw, leaned forward, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

"You're grinning like a fox in a henhouse, Aiden. What's the letter got you scheming now?"

Aiden's smile widened, but he didn't turn his gaze from the window. "Scheming,? You wound me. I'm merely… answering a call. The lady has made her choice, and who am I to deny her?"

She snorted, leaning back. "A lady, is it? Another noble heart to break? You'll have the whole court after your head one day."

"Let them come," Aiden said, his tone light but laced with steel. "They'll find I'm not so easily caught."

He blamed the earl, the blood commander, anything that might veil his machinations from those who would otherwise scrutinize too closely.

Each setback, each complication of noble intrigue, became a tool sharpened for his hand. The journey, once measured in careful calculations, now carried the thrill of serendipity.

He leaned back in the carriage, eyes half-closed, imagining the faces of those who would find themselves at the mercy of his subtle persuasion.

Within the same drawing-room, Natalia observed silently. Her emerald hair glimmered beneath the filtered light, a cascade of living color against the muted grays of the castle stone. She felt the piercing gaze of Flora upon her, a scrutiny that made her chest tighten.

Flora turned her attention then to Aiden, and the subtle shift in the air was palpable, a quiet acknowledgment of territories crossed and boundaries tested.

Natalia's cheeks burned with the heat of exposure, a flush both of embarrassment and of awakening.

She had seen Aiden's charm before, but now, in the intricate dance of gazes and unspoken claims, it was undeniable: the man wielded desire as a weapon, and it was aimed at hearts not yet his to command.

"Natalia," Flora said softly, her voice a velvet blade, "you stare at him as though he's a puzzle you could solve. Be careful. Some riddles are meant to stay locked."

Natalia's breath caught, but she met Flora's gaze with a steadiness she didn't feel. "I'm not so easily swayed, lady Flora. I only… wonder what drives him.... Don't you?"

Flora's lips curved, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Oh, I know what drives him. Power. Passion. The thrill of what he can't have. And you, my dear, are far too curious for your own good."

Natalia's fingers twisted in the folds of her skirt, but she held her tongue. Flora's own sigh was a shiver across the spine, a confession she would not voice.

She wondered, bitterly and with secret delight, why he pursued the married, the older, the bound.

Did the constraints of society thrill him? Or did he simply see through to the unguarded, the vulnerable, the willing? Each thought was a stone dropped into the still waters of her composure, ripples threatening to spill secrets she was not yet prepared to share.

She was the future viscountess, yet she found herself a pawn in the intricate games Aiden orchestrated.

Aiden, seated with his habitual arrogance, turned his head slightly, a smirk teasing the corners of his mouth.

"This is only the beginning," he murmured, almost to himself, yet loud enough for the green-eyed nun at his side to catch the words.

Amber's hand, steady and warm, moved to rest where devotion and temptation intertwined. Right at his crotch.

"Indeed," she whispered, her voice a mixture of reverence and ownership, and the contact spoke volumes that no letter or gaze could convey.

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