Chapter 1
I have not heard from her in many months. The absence of her letters—a silence I did not believe possible—gnaws at me daily. I ask the maid, time and again, perhaps too often, whether anything bearing my name has arrived: a letter, a scrap of parchment, a note even—though I know well it is in vain. There is nothing. No word. No sign.
We quarreled. A disagreement of pride, of passion ill-governed. I had forgotten myself—forgotten her. I spoke out of turn, sharp-tongued and clouded with emotion. Her words had struck a tender place in me, and I lashed out, a fool unworthy of the grace she once offered me.
She had chosen another—openly, deliberately—and I, fool that I am, accepted the arrangement she proposed. To share her. To exist in the shadow of a man she claims to love more dearly. What madness. What humiliation. And still, she returned to me after that, her voice soft, contrite—apologizing with downcast eyes and trembling lips. Yet she did not revoke her decision. She stood firm in it.
And I—what did I do? I swallowed my rage and smiled like a servant too grateful to be dismissed. I thought perhaps, in time, her heart might sway back to me. That the letters would resume, that her pen would reach for my name again. But nothing has come. Not even a whisper of her from the mouths of others.
So I sit now, steeped in this bitter stillness. I glare at the window and curse the light that spills through it. I glare at the maid, poor soul, who brings me neither news nor comfort. I glare at the bed in which I do not sleep, and at the books and ledgers that now mock me with their pointless order.
She has left me here, in my silence and my questions. Is she content with her choice? Does she ever think of me, even fleetingly? Does my name echo in the corners of her mind as hers does in mine? I cannot ask her, for I will not burden her happiness with my misery.
And yet—I wish to know. I ache to know.
Am I still hers, in some hidden, stubborn way? Or has she forgotten me as thoroughly as the world seems to have?
A voice, cruel and quiet, answers me each time I ask:
Fat chance.
And I despise it for being right.
And yet it amuses me—how, even after all this time, I have not grown accustomed to the silence. It sits beside me like an unwelcome companion, shifting now and then only to remind me of its presence. A void where her voice used to echo.
“My lord,” the maid called gently from the doorway, her voice interrupting the endless drumming of my thoughts, “she writes to you.”
I sprang from my chair, my legs betraying me before my mind could catch up. Foolish, ridiculous—hope was a poison I had long sworn to purge from my blood. I halted mid-step, remembering that in a fit of bitterness, I had declared—rather theatrically, I’ll admit—that I would see no more of her. And yet, here I was.
Heart racing at the sound of her name.
