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Rules of Devotion

Pairing: Viscount! Seungcheol x Lady Whitlock! F. Reader

Wordcount: 52,8K

Smut Warnings: Explicit sexual acts - Unprotected intercourse - PIV - Fingering (F. Receiving) - Implied virginity (Periodical context) - Semi-public intercourse - Use of petnames

First part of the series ‘The House of Carat’.

This story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors do not interact.

The Ashbourne gates swallow your carriage whole.

Iron scrollwork rises like black lace against the lanternlight, and the world narrows to the rhythm of hooves on stone, the hush of well-trained horses, and the faint creak of leather harnesses that have carried a hundred families into a hundred nights like this—hope dressed as satin, panic sewn into hems, reputations balanced on the thin edge of a smile. Then the wheels slow. The footman drops down from his perch. The latch clicks, and the door opens, the cold slipping into the carriage.

Georgina shifts so quickly the cushion gives a little sigh beneath her. She’s been trying to sit still for the entire drive and failing with enthusiasm, her excitement too big for her bones. Her gloved hand grips the edge of the seat as if she might launch herself out and into the night. Cecily, beside her, is composed to the point of stillness—chin lifted, shoulders neat, hands folded in her lap as if she has trained herself to take up as little space as possible in case the world decides it does not have room for her. You go first, because you always go first.

The step down is small, but it feels like a threshold. Your boot meets stone, and the chill bites through the sole. You straighten without thinking—shoulders back, chin level—because you have learned that the body must hold the composure even when the mind is crowded.

Ashbourne Hall is not ostentatious the way new money shouts. It doesn’t need to. It is old enough to be certain. A wide, pale façade. Tall windows glittering with candlelight. The faint, warm pulse of music pressing through glass like a heartbeat behind a door. The entrance is alive with motion: servants in dark livery threading between arriving carriages, a doorman receiving invitations, ladies stepping down like swans pretending they are not balancing on thin ice. Each laugh, each murmured greeting, each rustle of fabric is a small performance. You can taste the powder in the air, the faint sweetness of perfume, the smoke of torches, the damp iron scent of spring edged by the last bite of cold. You turn and offer your hand to Georgina.

She takes it like she’s already halfway into the ballroom. She looks up at the hall with eyes that shine as if it might be a promise. “It’s bigger than I imagined,” she breathes. “Everything is bigger before you step into it,” you murmur, and help her down. Cecily follows carefully. Her fingers rest in your palm with one brief tremor—one heartbeat of betrayal from her body—before she steadies. She doesn’t look up at the hall as Georgina does. She looks at the steps, as if numbers are safer than wonder.

You hear your name before you are properly inside. It is not spoken to you directly, but rather threaded through the air like a ribbon someone is pulling. Your family is known. Not powerful enough to be untouchable, not obscure enough to be ignored. Your father’s barony gave you a title and a place at the edges of rooms like this. His death gave you—quietly, efficiently—everything else. The account books. The responsibility. The precariousness disguised as dignity.

A lady in pale lilac turns her head as you pass. Her smile is polished, her eyes sharper than her pearls. Her companion leans closer, fan half-raised like a shield. “That’s Lady Whitlock,” the companion murmurs—softly, but not softly enough. “Poor thing,” the first replies with a sweetness that could curdle cream. “Two sisters out at once. I heard the estate is… strained.”

“Strained,” the companion echoes, pleased with the word, as if it tastes better than simple truth. “And she chaperones alone. How brave.” A third voice slides in, amused. “Or desperate.” There is a small laugh, quickly hidden behind lace.

The phrases land in you like the familiar press of a bruise. Not new pain. Just pain you recognise. You keep walking. Georgina leans close, curls brushing your shoulder. “Are they talking about us?” she whispers—half offended, half thrilled by the drama of it. “They are always talking,” you reply evenly. “Let them waste their breath.” Cecily’s fingers tighten around yours. “I don’t want to be a topic,” she murmurs. You squeeze her hand once—an answer more than comfort. “Then we make them speak about what we choose,” you tell her. “Tonight they speak about your poise. Tomorrow they speak about your prospects.”

The doorman takes your invitation without looking at the name—because he already knows it. He stands aside. Warmth spills over you as you step in. The entry hall is wide enough to host a battle. Marble underfoot, rugs soft enough to swallow sound, paintings that watch you with inherited judgment. A servant appears as if summoned by your breath.“Lady Whitlock,” he says, voice trained to respect. “May I take your cloaks?” You hand them over. Your gloves stay on. You always keep your gloves. Then you step forward, and the ballroom opens like a jewel box snapped wide.

Light everywhere—chandeliers glittering like cut stars, mirrors multiplying the crowd into a soft infinity of movement. Silk moves like water. Fans flutter like nervous birds. Laughter rises and breaks and reforms. Music coils through the air—violins bright and quick, the deeper structure beneath keeping everyone in time whether they wish to be or not. It is beautiful, yes. And it is hungry.

The marriage mart dresses itself as celebration with startling skill. The rules are softened by music, the stakes disguised by champagne. Young ladies carry dance cards as if they are harmless paper, when in truth they are maps—who you allow close, who you refuse, who you are seen with, and therefore assumed to be aligned with. Mothers angle daughters like chess pieces. Men hover with smiles that mean different things depending on the weight of their title. And everywhere—everywhere—you see the theme of the house that built itself on stones pulled from the earth and turned into power.

Diamonds wink at throats. Sapphires hang from ears. Emeralds flash on fingers. Pearls gleam like soft temptations. It is not subtle, and yet it is not vulgar. It is a declaration, perfectly executed. Carat & Co. does not need to advertise here. The ballroom is its showroom. At the far end of the room, set on a side table, is a display—tasteful, almost restrained, but still arranged like an art exhibit. A velvet tray holds a necklace of pale diamonds, a brooch shaped like a spray of leaves, and a ruby pin so small it looks unpretentious until it catches the light. You steer Georgina and Cecily away from the display and toward the edge of the room where you can see everything: the doors, the exits, the corners where trouble likes to grow. You have learned that visibility is a kind of power, and vigilance a kind of protection. Before you can begin the careful work of introductions, a familiar, steady presence is suddenly beside you. Lady Halstead.

“My dear,” she says, and the affection in the words is real enough to press briefly at the back of your throat. “If you stand any straighter, I shall assume you are being fitted for a coffin.” A laugh threatens, small and treacherous. You keep your smile neat. “Lady Halstead.” She takes your gloved hands between hers anyway, as if she has never cared much for rules that do not serve her. She is draped in deep green velvet that makes her silver hair look like moonlight. Widowed, wealthy enough to be unbothered, sharp enough to be feared by those who pretend not to fear women. Your late mother’s friend.

Her gaze sweeps over your sisters with quick precision—measuring without viciousness—then returns to you. “They’re grown,” she murmurs. “And you’ve made them look like they belong.” It lands oddly—not praise, but acknowledgement of the work no one applauds. Georgina curtsies with enthusiasm. “Lady Halstead,” she says brightly, “I have heard you can reduce a lord to stammering in three sentences.” Lady Halstead’s eyes twinkle. “Only the foolish ones,” she replies. “The clever ones learn to keep their mouths shut.” Cecily curtsies more softly. “Good evening, Lady Halstead.”

Lady Halstead’s attention settles on her with a gentleness that does not condescend. “Miss Cecily,” she says. “You look very lovely. Don’t let anyone persuade you that quiet is the same as invisible.” Cecily’s cheeks colour. She nods, grateful, slightly overwhelmed. Lady Halstead turns to you again, voice lowering. “I’ll stay near,” she says, practical as always. “You cannot be in three places at once, no matter how determined you look.”

“I can try,” you murmur.

“Try less,” she returns, and her tone makes it a finality. You draw in a breath and let your shoulders loosen by a fraction. Lady Halstead tips her chin toward a nearby cluster—an impeccably dressed mama with two daughters, both in fresh, hopeful colours, both wearing the careful brightness of girls who have been told this night matters. “Come,” she announces briskly. “I’m going to introduce you to Lady Northcott and her girls. They’re new enough to the Season not to have learned all the cruelty yet.”

“Lady Halstead,” you murmur, half-admonishment. “Oh, hush,” she says, and steers you forward anyway.

Lady Northcott turns as you approach, her smile widening with relief at an introduction offered by someone of Lady Halstead’s standing. Her daughters—Amelia and Alice, as Lady Halstead names them—brighten like candles catching flame. They look at Georgina and Cecily with immediate curiosity, eager for friends, eager for any tether that feels safe. Polite phrases begin—the oil that keeps the machinery running. Compliments on gowns. Remarks on the music. A mild exclamation about the splendour of Ashbourne Hall as if splendour is not the entire point. Georgina is already halfway into charm—voice perfectly pitched—when a footman passes with a tray and she reaches for a second glass of champagne as though the night might be improved by bubbles alone. You stop her without making it a spectacle. Two fingers around her wrist, gentle and unyielding. “Lemonade,” you murmur, smiling as though you’re teasing. Georgina pouts. “It is a ball,” she whispers back, scandalised by your restraint. “It is also a battlefield,” you return softly. “Hydrate.”

Lady Halstead’s mouth twitches as if she approves. Georgina, defeated by your tone, releases the glass. You take one instead—only to set it aside untouched on the nearest table at the first chance. Lady Northcott prattles on, relieved by your attention. Her daughters ask Cecily questions—where she prefers to walk in the park, whether she enjoys music, whether she has been to Vauxhall. Cecily answers carefully, grateful for conversation that doesn’t demand too much of her at once. It is, for a moment, almost pleasant.

Then the room realigns. Not a hush. A ripple. A collective awareness turning toward the grand staircase. At the top of it, the Ashbourne brothers appear. Not one man, but a line of them—five—each cut from the same belonging, and yet utterly different in the way they wear it. They don’t descend like boys eager for attention. They descend like a family returning to its post. Hosts first, gentlemen second.

Jeonghan leads—too composed, too smooth at the edges. His expression is calculating in the way a ledger can be, and you have the sudden sense that he watches the room not for beauty but for leverage, for weakness, for the hidden seam in any conversation he might later pull apart. Beside him walks Joshua, whose quiet feels deliberate rather than shy. His gaze moves like a lantern—soft, searching, finding faces rather than exits. If Jeonghan looks like strategy, Joshua looks like conscience forced to operate in a world that rewards neither. Hoshi follows with a brightness that isn’t foolishness; it’s energy held on a short leash. He smiles at someone in the crowd, quick and dazzling, and you can practically hear the older matrons deciding what kind of trouble that smile might become if it ever stops being decorative. Wonwoo comes next, half in shadow even under chandeliers. He doesn’t scan the room so much as mark it—eyes narrowing, attention landing on corners, on doors, on the spaces where people think no one is watching. He has the air of a man who would rather be somewhere else, and the deeper air of a man who knows he must be here anyway. A pace behind, Mingyu’s absence is a shape all its own—noticed even if no one names it aloud. A missing piece in a set like this is always noticed. It becomes its own kind of story. Then, inevitably last, as though the staircase was built to deliver him: Viscount Ashbourne. Seungcheol. He is dressed like any gentleman—dark coat, immaculate linen, cravat tied with accuracy—yet the clothes look like they obey him rather than the other way around. He carries himself with a calm that reads as confidence from across a room. Up close, you suspect it is something more like control.

The brothers reach the bottom of the staircase, and a cluster immediately forms—mothers and titled men, a slow-moving knot of anticipation. You can see the choreography from across the room as they begin their rounds: greetings executed; nods precise; smiles rationed. Jeonghan speaks and people lean in, eager to be chosen for his attention. Joshua answers questions with quiet care, and somehow that makes him even more disarming. Hoshi is swallowed for a moment by young ladies with dazzling smiles, then rescued by a brother’s hand at his elbow. Wonwoo disappears with him into the shadows as if the shadows were waiting for them. The room barely notices his exit.

Seungcheol speaks to Lord this and Lady that, and receives compliments and condolences with the same guarded expression. He listens. He answers. He never lingers. His gaze lifts then, not to you, but beyond—toward the doors. Toward the exits. A man who keeps counting ways out is a man who never feels fully safe. Your chest tightens with an emotion you refuse to name. Because you know the story of the woman who is not here. Because you know what it means to lose a parent and immediately become something else—something useful.

Lady Halstead’s presence anchors you back into conversation—Lady Northcott still speaking, her daughters still eager—until Seungcheol’s circuit bends naturally toward you. Partly because you are a guest of standing, partly because Lady Halstead is not subtle when she decides someone should do their social obligations properly. “Lady Halstead,” he greets her evenly. Lady Halstead inclines her head. “Lord Ashbourne.” He acknowledges Lady Northcott with polite efficiency, his gaze flicking over her daughters the way a host checks the room is functioning as it should. Then his attention comes to you, attentive in the manner of a man trained to speak to whomever is placed before him. “Lady Whitlock,” he says. You curtsy. “Viscount Ashbourne.”

He offers a brief nod to your sisters. “Miss Georgina. Miss Cecily.” Georgina curtsies with too much energy. Cecily’s is more modest, but still impeccable. The Viscount’s attention lingers an instant too long to be meaningless—on Cecily’s soft, uncertain smile and Georgina’s eager brightness. Finally, his eyes return to you. “You look tired,” he observes. It is not a line. It is not said like a compliment disguised as concern. It is said like a truth no one else has dared to speak aloud. Heat pricks behind your ribs—annoyance, surprise, something more treacherous that feels like relief. Because he is not pretending you are fine. You hold his gaze because if you look away, you will feel like you’ve lost something you didn’t agree to gamble. “I am,” you say, and the honesty shocks even you. Then you correct, smooth it, so it sounds less like resignation: “But it is nothing, my Lord. Merely the ordinary wear of keeping a household afloat and two young ladies untrampled.”

“It must be… efficient,” he says, the pause almost invisible, “to bring them out together. To have it done.” Done. As if this is an errand. As if Georgina and Cecily are tasks to complete rather than girls with hearts. It lands wrong. You keep the smile. You let the correction slip out just as smoothly. “Not done,” you say, sweet enough for the room to accept it as pleasantry. “Settled. Happily, if we are fortunate.” Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours for the briefest moment—steady, unruffled. He doesn’t falter. He doesn’t apologise. He simply acknowledges the rebuke by not reacting to it at all, which somehow makes it feel more like a challenge than a mistake. “Fortune is a fickle ally,” he replies.

“Then we must be more loyal to ourselves than to fortune,” you return instantly. The Viscount studies you, and you can’t tell if he’s surprised or simply recalculating. Before you can decide what to do with his statements, a gentleman approaches from behind him—murmuring his title, waiting to be acknowledged. Seungcheol inclines his head once—hostly, final. “Enjoy the evening,” he says to the group, and moves on without another glance, swallowed back into the circuit of duty.

Lady Northcott exhales as if she’s just spoken to royalty. Her daughters whisper behind their fans. Lady Halstead says nothing, because she doesn’t need to. You breathe in carefully. The music shifts. The next set is called. A new dance begins. And then Georgina is approached. A gentleman—young, confident, dressed well enough to have money and titled enough to have ambition comes her way. He bows. “Miss Georgina Whitlock.” Georgina curtsies, her eyes already daring him to entertain her. “Good evening.”

“May I have the honour of the first set?” he asks. Before you can even catalogue his face properly, a second suitor arrives from the other side—dark-haired, smiling, a little too pleased with himself. He bows, quick and eager. “Miss Georgina,” he says. “The second, perhaps?”

Georgina’s eyes flick to you—conspiratorial, asking permission in the only way she ever does: by already deciding she will take it. You give her a small nod. Two dances are a safe amount of visibility. Enough to be noticed without being overwhelmed. Enough to make her desirable without letting anyone assume she is easy to corner. Georgina beams. “You may both,” she says brightly, as if granting favours rather than accepting them. She offers her dance card, and their pencils scratch dutifully—two names inked like claims. Her excitement is contained, barely. She looks like she might float. Lady Halstead leans toward you, voice dry. “She’ll have half the room by midnight if you let her.”

“I won’t,” you murmur, even as you watch Georgina glide toward the forming lines with the first suitor. Her set begins, and the dancers take the floor. Music rises, crisp and bright. Bodies move in a practised rhythm. Skirts flare. Hands meet and separate. Cecily stays beside Lady Halstead. No one approaches her. It isn’t cruelty, not always. Often it’s simply the way rooms like this behave—chasing what is loud, what is radiant, what seems easy to want. Cecily’s beauty is quieter. It asks you to look twice. Most people, in a marketplace, refuse to spend time on second glances. Cecily’s fingers twist lightly in her gloves.

Lady Halstead notices—because Lady Halstead notices everything. “Stay with me,” she tells Cecily, as if it’s the most natural thing. “We’ll let them exhaust themselves chasing fireworks. Someone will eventually notice the stars.” Cecily’s lips part in a small, uncertain smile. “Yes, Lady Halstead.” You should feel relief. You do—some. Cecily has protection. Someone steady at her side. A woman who will not let her be swallowed by the room. You watch Georgina’s set end. She returns flushed and triumphant, accepting her second partner’s arm with delight as if she’s already learned to breathe in applause. Cecily remains beside Lady Halstead.

You stand between them in spirit even when you cannot in body—tracking Georgina’s brightness, guarding Cecily’s softness, holding the whole of it together with the kind of composure that costs you more than anyone will ever see. For the first time since stepping through the Ashbourne gates, you allow yourself to want air. Not a dramatic escape. Just a moment of quiet. “Go,” Lady Halstead says under her breath, not looking at you. “Five minutes. I’ll keep Cecily beside me, and I have eyes for Georgina as well. I may be old, but I still know how to stare down a man.”

“I cannot leave them,” you begin automatically. Her fan snaps open with an assertive flick. “You can,” she says. “And if you do not, you will crack in a way that will be far more inconvenient.” The permission feels strange. Like stepping off a ledge. You take it anyway. You slip from the ballroom—neither hurried nor lingering—through a side door left slightly ajar, into the cooler quiet beyond.

The corridor is dimmer, the sound muted. You pass a footman carrying a tray, a maid adjusting a sconce, a butler moving as if he belongs to the walls. No one stops you. A chaperone stepping out for air is not scandal. Outside, the garden air hits your lungs clean and cool. You welcome it. Your boots find the gravel path, lanterns casting soft pools of light across clipped hedges. Somewhere, water moves—a fountain or a stream—quiet enough to feel like a secret. The muffled music follows you through the walls, distant now, like a life you once might have wanted. You walk—only far enough to loosen the tightness in your ribs. Only far enough to remember what it feels like to be alone inside your own skin. You stop near a stone bench, one hand braced lightly against its cold edge. You draw in a breath. Let it out.

And then you hear voices. Two men, close by—emerge from the shadow of a clipped yew. One is tall, familiar, moving like controlled weather. Viscount Ashbourne. The other walks beside him with a different kind of presence—lighter, gentle. Joshua. They are close enough that their voices reach you easily, carried by air and the false privacy of gardens. They do not see you.

You should step back. You should announce yourself. You should not eavesdrop. But your body holds still. Joshua’s voice comes first, lightly teasing, as if attempting to coax a secret out into the open. “You’ve done three rounds. Are any of them suitable?” The Viscount’s reply is immediate and flat, as if the question itself is an inconvenience. “None.” Joshua exhales a faint laugh, half in disbelief. “That is not an answer.”

“It is the only honest one.”

Joshua’s tone shifts, warming gently. “You cannot look at an entire ballroom and feel nothing.” Viscount Ashbourne’s voice remains controlled—too controlled. “I can look at an entire ballroom and see what it is,” he replies. “A parade of over-powdered, over-trained dolls. A market.”

Your hands tighten at your side. Joshua stops walking. You can hear it in the way his breath changes. “Seungcheol—”

The Viscount cuts him off. “All of them,” he says, and you can picture the sweep of his gaze, the same measured verdict you felt earlier. “Smiling like they’ve been instructed where to place their teeth. They speak in rehearsed compliments and wait to be applauded for breathing.”

Joshua’s voice tightens. “They are young women,” he says. “Raised to this. They are not the enemy.” The Viscount answers with a soft, humourless chuckle. “I know they aren’t,” he repeats. “But still, they arrive with expectations as tall as the chandeliers. They want devotion and poetry and a husband who looks at them as if the world ends at their waist.”

You feel heat rise behind your ribs, sudden and furious, because you have stood in that room all night holding your sisters upright, and he speaks as if every young woman there is nothing but a tedious decoration. Joshua tries again, quieter now—because he is trying not to make it a fight. “So what do you expect, then?”

Viscount Ashbourne answers like a man stating terms. “I expect competence,” he says. “I expect sense. I expect a woman who can keep a household from collapsing when the ton decides to tear at it for sport. I expect someone who does not weep at every inconvenience and mistake it for depth.” Your breath catches—not with admiration, but with the sting of recognition. Then he continues, and the sting becomes a cut. “I do not require sweetness,” he says. “I do not require innocence. I do not require a girl who thinks marriage is a fairytale.” His voice drops, colder. “I require someone suitable.”

Suitable. Your stomach turns, not because you do not understand strategy—God, you understand it more than most men in that ballroom—but because of the way he says it, as if women are simply collateral. Joshua’s voice sounds troubled. “And if she wants more than that?” Seungcheol doesn’t hesitate. “Then she will be disappointed.”

There is a silence so sharp you feel it in your toes. Finally, Joshua replies: “And what of your own heart?” Seungcheol’s reply is so calm, it is brutal. “Irrelevant.” Joshua exhales—a sound like defeat, like love, like fear for his sibling. “You are not made of stone, brother. Even if you insist on acting like one.”

Viscount Ashbourne’s response is final, leaving no room for rebuttal. “If I act like stone, it is because this house cannot afford softness, brother.” You don’t hear what Joshua says next, because your pulse is suddenly too loud, because your anger has climbed high enough to blur the edges of the world. Their footsteps shift, moving again down the path, and you remain pressed into shadow. So that is what he is.

A man who can look at a room full of young women and reduce them to dull. A man who thinks marriage is ledger work, wives are requirements, love is irrelevant. You think of Georgina—bright enough to be burned by a man who wants a pretty ornament beside him. You think of Cecily—soft enough to be crushed by a world that mistakes quiet for consent. Something in you hardens. A line draws itself through you, clean and absolute, like a blade dragged across silk. You slip back into the house like a ghost returning to its haunt.

The ballroom is still gleaming, still hungry, but now you can see it for what it truly is: a marketplace with better manners pretending to be celebration. You find your sisters easily. They stand half-turned toward a pair of girls you recognise from earlier: the Northcott sisters. Alice is in full bloom, face animated, fan fluttering like a conductor’s baton as she leads the conversation. Amelia is the softer echo—leaning in at just the right angle, smiling as though she is sharing secrets.

Cecily has her shoulders tucked in, but her eyes are brighter than they were at the start of the evening. She is listening. She is answering. She is present. It is a small thing, yet it nearly undoes you. Georgina, of course, is doing what Georgina does—tilting the air toward herself without appearing to try. She laughs at the right moments, offers little sparks of commentary that make Alice giggle and Amelia widen her eyes, and even from a distance, you can see the rhythm of attention gathering around her like moths around a flame. Lady Halstead stands a short distance behind them, her gaze drifting over the crowd like a hawk that has decided, for tonight, to lend its shadow. When you approach, her eyes meet yours—just once. Not a question. Not permission. Simply acknowledgement. For one brief moment, gratitude loosens something tight in your ribs. They’re with other debutantes. They’re supervised. They’re safe. You take two steps toward them.

Alice brightens the moment she sees you, as if your arrival is the next planned part of her little performance. “Lady Whitlock!” she chirps, her voice perfectly pitched. “We were just telling your sisters that the music tonight is divine—Viscount Ashbourne must have excellent taste.” Amelia nods earnestly. “It feels like something out of a novel,” she adds, eyes glancing toward the dancers. “As though the whole room might turn into a story if one simply stands still long enough.”

Georgina laughs, delighted. “If that is true, then I intend to be the heroine.” Alice claps her hands softly, thrilled by the idea. “You would be,” she declares. “You have the look of it. The confidence. The—oh, the way you move as if the world is obliged to make space.” Georgina preens without shame. Cecily, beside her, gives a small, careful smile. “The music is very fine,” she agrees shyly. Alice’s lashes flutter faster. “And the Viscount, did you see him?” she breathes. “Lord Ashbourne does not smile often, but when he does, it is—”

“Dreadfully handsome,” Amelia supplies, with the sort of sincerity that makes it impossible to mock. Georgina hums, amused. “He did smile. Once.” Cecily’s gaze dips, but you catch the flicker of interest anyway. “He spoke very kindly,” she says. “To everyone.”

Your stomach twists—small, sharp—like a ribbon pulled too tight. Because you can picture him. Picture the calm of his voice. The way he spoke of wives and debutantes as if they are tools meant to fit neatly into the machinery of his house. The Northcott sisters are still floating on their own delight, unguarded in a way that feels almost sacred in this room. You do not want to spoil it. Not here.

You let the moment breathe just long enough to keep it natural—just long enough that it does not feel like you have arrived merely to snatch your sisters away. Then you smile, light and polite, and slide neatly into the conversation as if you have been part of it all along. “Miss Northcott,” you say to Alice, “you must be careful praising a host too loudly. You will convince him he has done his duty perfectly, and then he will stop trying.” Alice giggles, delighted by the tease. “Oh, I should never wish that.”

“Nor should any of us,” you reply pleasantly. Your eyes move to your sisters—one, then the other—softening just enough for them to hear the truth beneath the tone. “But you have both made your entrance, and have made acquaintances, and I think we have stolen all the triumphs we may safely claim from one evening.”

Cecily blinks, surprised. “Already?” she murmurs, then quickly, as if the fault must be hers, “Did I—did we do something wrong?” You reach up and tuck a flyaway strand behind her ear. “Nothing wrong,” you tell her. “You were excellent. Both of you.” Georgina’s face collapses, as if you’ve stolen a breath from her lungs. “But I’ve only just begun,” she protests under her breath. “Alice says there is another set soon and—” You catch her wrist gently, the way you might catch a bird before it flings itself at a window. “Georgina,” you say, final. She meets your eyes and glares as if the room itself has turned against her personally. Then, with an exasperated sigh that is half theatre and half surrender, she nods. Alice and Amelia exchange looks, unbothered, already distracted by the next sweep of music and movement. “We will see you at the next ball,” Alice declares eagerly.

“And you must tell us if Lord Ashbourne—” Amelia begins, then stops herself with a bashful little laugh, as though she has caught her own romantic imagination in the act. You interrupt swiftly. “If Lord Ashbourne does anything at all, I suspect all of Mayfair will know before breakfast.” They giggle at that, satisfied, and the moment is done.

You shepherd your sisters through the crowd—through laughter, through swirling skirts, through men who step aside and men who don’t until they must, all while keeping your expression neutral enough to invite no further conversation. The entry hall feels cooler. Serener. The world narrows again into marble and candle smoke and the muted hum of the ballroom behind you. A servant brings your cloaks. Another fetches Cecily’s shawl. Georgina snatches hers with the impatience of a girl who doesn’t yet understand the mercy of leaving, who still believes the night might reward her if she stays long enough. A footman bows as your carriage is called.

As you turn toward the doors, your gaze cuts back once—instinct more than choice. And there, through the open archway, near the edge of the dancers, where the light is strongest and the faces are thickest, stands Lord Ashbourne. His head is angled as if he is listening to someone speak, but his attention is elsewhere—elsewhere being you, now, as his eyes lift at the exact moment yours do. As if he sensed your departure. Your eyes lock. The room collapses into a thin line between you and him—nothing else exists but the fact of his gaze, the weight of it, the way it found you, as if you are a point on a map he’s already marked. You feel your mouth tighten, not from fear, but from certainty. Whatever he is—brilliant, ruthless, burdened, beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—he is not a man you will allow near what you love. You turn away, because you refuse to be held by anyone’s attention, least of all his.

Outside, the air clears the last clinging sweetness of the evening from your lungs. Your carriage waits with its lanterns glowing, horses stamping impatiently against the stone. Cecily climbs in without hesitation, grateful for the cocoon of velvet and shadow. Georgina pauses on the step as if to mourn the loss of a night she is convinced could have changed everything. You touch her elbow—gentle, unyielding. “Another night,” you murmur. Georgina exhales a long, suffering sigh and ducks into the carriage with a sulk that is half performance. You follow, settling opposite them. The door shuts. The world becomes velvet-lined again.

For a few moments, only the sound of wheels and the soft shift of fabric fills the space. Cecily sits with her hands folded in her lap. Georgina stares out the window, jaw set, watching Ashbourne Hall retreat into glittering distance. “You cannot snatch me away every time the night becomes interesting,” Georgina finally mutters, still facing the frosted glass. You keep your voice light, because you refuse to turn your fear into her burden. “If you wish to stay until dawn, you may do so when you are married and your husband is obliged to suffer it with you.”

Georgina turns, eyes flashing. “I would not inflict that on any man.” Cecily’s mouth twitches, the smallest hint of amusement. “You would,” she whispers, almost too quiet to hear. “You would enjoy it, too.” Georgina looks briefly startled—then delighted, as if Cecily has delivered a punchline. “See?” she says triumphantly. “Even Cecily is learning wickedness.” Cecily ducks her head, but the faint pink in her cheeks remains. You watch them both, and the familiar ache settles in—tender and heavy. You have brought them here to find happiness. You have brought them here to be seen. And you will not let the cost be paid in pieces of them.

The carriage rocks over the cobbles. Ashbourne Hall recedes behind the frosted glass, a bright mouth of light in the dark, glittering as if it can outshine consequence. Georgina watches it fade with restless resentment. Cecily watches the window. You let the motion lull you into stillness—the kind of calm you can only find when your sisters are contained, when the world cannot reach for them without reaching through you first.

Ashbourne’s chandeliers can glitter until dawn. Its name can shine until it blinds the ton. But Viscount Ashbourne has made one thing clear, whether he intended to or not. He wants something. And he will learn, if the Season insists on testing it, that the ladies of Whitlock are never to be taken.

The shopfront of Carat & Co. is a different world—glass cases gleaming, chandeliers softened into an intimate glow, Jeonghan’s voice smooth as poured honey as he tells a lady how light will behave on a throat if the stones are cut correctly. Out there, everything is seduction. Out there, everything sparkles. Back here, nothing sparkles until Seungcheol makes it.

He sits at the long table beneath the high window, sleeves rolled efficiently. Rough stones rest on a velvet pad in neat, ugly piles—unapologetic chunks of earth dragged into London under seal and stamp and bill of lading. Next to them: order sheets, an opened ledger, and a scale so precise it feels almost indecent to watch it decide truth. The shipper stands opposite, hat in hand, his coat still smelling faintly of river and horse. He is the sort of man who knows how to look respectable while lying. He has perfected it. It is how men like him survive.

Seungcheol lifts the first stone between his thumb and forefinger. The cut of it is nothing yet, just promise. He sets it on the scale. The needle settles. He writes the number down without looking away. Second stone. Third. Fourth. By the seventh, the silence has thickened. By the ninth, the shipper’s smile has started to sweat. Seungcheol turns one of the stones, eyes narrowing at the grain. He flips the order sheet once, then the ledger, then back to the order sheet. The numbers line up the way they always do when they are not being manipulated. He reaches for his pen and gently taps the scale, as if it might change. It doesn’t. His gaze lifts to the shipper. “Your weights are short.”

The shipper blinks. “Short?” He laughs softly, the sound meant to be friendly. “Surely not. I weighed them twice before—”

“An eighth,” Seungcheol says, and the room goes colder. The shipper’s throat works. His eyes flick to the stones, then back up—calculating. Deciding whether denial might still win. “My lord,” he tries, “with respect, the stones are rough. Naturally there’s—”

Seungcheol doesn’t raise his voice. He taps the order sheet once with his pen, then the ledger, then the scale. “There is my order.” Tap. “There is what I paid for.” Tap. “There is what you have brought.” Tap. “An eighth short.” The shipper goes still. The sheen of confidence slips. Defensiveness rises in its place. “It could be the scale,” he says quickly, as if Seungcheol is a fool who might be swayed by the suggestion that numbers are subjective. “I can fetch mine from the cart—”

“I have three.” Seungcheol’s eyes do not leave the man’s face. “Would you like to test your honesty against all of them?” Silence. The shipper swallows loudly. “No,” he mutters. Seungcheol returns to the stones as if the conversation is already finished. He places the third stone back on the velvet pad and writes a single line in the ledger—short, final. The shipper shifts, nervous now. “My lord, I—”

Seungcheol cuts him off with the gentlest thing in the room: certainty. “You will bring the remainder by noon,” he says. “Or you will return every piece and forfeit your fee. And you will not bring me another parcel until you learn that Carat & Co. is not a place you test.”

The shipper nods too many times, too eager, as though obedience might erase intent. “Yes, my lord. Yes, of course. By noon.” He backs out the door as if it might bite him. When the latch clicks shut again, Seungcheol remains where he is, eyes on the stones.

An eighth. It is a small theft, almost delicate. Not enough to trigger outrage from a man too busy to count properly. Not enough to be obvious without attention. A theft designed for a man who does not have time. Seungcheol’s mouth tightens. He has time. Not because he is fortunate. Because he makes it. Because he bleeds it out of his hours, trims it from sleep, carves it from anything that might feel like softness and calls it duty instead. He closes the ledger carefully and ties the string around it with a neatness that suggests ritual. Then he reaches for the next order sheet. There is always a next one.

A row of commissions, names written in hands that never shake because the people who write them have never had to fear being refused. A bracelet requested “for the Duchess’s dinner” as if a jewel is as necessary as air. A pair of earrings for a bride whose mother insists they must outshine the groom’s gift. A repair—urgent—on an heirloom brooch that has survived three generations but cannot survive one careless maid. On paper, all of it looks manageable. On paper, his life is tidy lines and sums. In reality, the weight sits on his shoulders in ways ledgers do not record. He hears it in the footfalls around him—Jeonghan’s easy drift in the shopfront, the bell over the door announcing another client, another demand. He hears it in the steady scratch of his own pen, in the steadying rhythm of numbers that do not care whether his mother or father is dead. He thinks, briefly, of the ball—of how the chandeliers at Ashbourne Hall glittered too brightly for a house in mourning, and how the ton’s condolences were followed by a pause long enough for speculation to slip in. He does not allow himself to linger there. He returns to the stones. The scale. The truth.

By noon, the remainder arrives. The shipper brings it himself, cheeks flushed, eyes too humble. He does not attempt another smile. Seungcheol checks the weight anyway. He does not say well done. He does not reward compliance with warmth. Warmth is how men begin to believe they can bargain with you again. He gives a single nod and turns back to his work. The shipper leaves like a man released from a sentence. Seungcheol continues as if nothing happened. But in his mind, the ledger entry sits like a splinter.

It is not the eighth that troubles him. It is the instinct behind it—someone thinking Carat & Co. is distracted enough now to be tested. Distracted. As though grief is not merely another weight he has learned to carry without dropping. As though the death of the Viscountess has loosened the seams of the house. If that is what the world believes, then the world will keep pulling.

On the second morning after the ball, Bond Street continues its elegant churn: carriage wheels over cobbles, the flash of parasols, the faint bark of a coachman, the slow glide of women past shopfronts as if the street belongs to them. Inside Carat & Co., the air is cool and expensive.

Jeonghan is in his position behind the counter, elbows resting on the glass with the lazy entitlement of a man who knows the room will orbit him. His hair is perfectly arranged. His smile is faintly bored. Seungcheol moves behind him without being seen. That, too, has become a skill—how to exist in the back while ensuring everything in the front remains flawless. He takes the stairs down to the office again, where the walls close in and the work becomes honest. A clerk is waiting with a stack of correspondence. “My lord,” the clerk says, bowing too deeply. “The customs office has sent notice.”

Seungcheol takes the paper. His eyes scan. A parcel held at the docks. A fee “reassessed.” A delay imposed “for verification of provenance.” The phrasing is polite. The intent is not. He feels the familiar tightening in his chest. Not panic. Not anger. Recognition. They are not satisfied with what he pays. They want to see whether he will pay more just to make the problem disappear. A bribe dressed as bureaucracy. He hands the notice back. “Send Hargreaves to the docks,” he says. “Have him bring the manifest and copies of our previous clearances. If they claim confusion, we will educate them.”

The clerk hesitates. “They—ah—mentioned the Viscountess’s name,” he admits quietly. “As though the approvals were… personal.” Seungcheol pauses. His mother’s signature used to open doors without question. The Viscountess Ashbourne. Patroness. The kind of woman who could make a man’s career live or die with a single invitation—or lack of one. She is gone, and London has noticed. Seungcheol sets the ledger down with care. “Her approvals were earned,” he says simply. “Ours will be, too.” The clerk nods quickly, relieved by direction. He leaves.

Seungcheol sits alone with the ledger, its pages filled with numbers that do not care about grief, do not care about bloodlines, do not care about whispers. Numbers are faithful that way. He inhales slowly, counting the breath the way he counts stones. Then he writes a letter to the customs office with the kind of politeness that cannot be argued with and the kind of precision that cannot be ignored. It is a language his mother taught him well. He seals it with wax. He does not press the signet too hard. A clean impression. A clean declaration. Ashbourne. Carat & Co. Still here.

That evening, Seungcheol returns home and finds the house waiting to be managed as faithfully as the business.

Ashbourne Hall is quieter than it ought to be. The staff moves softly; doors are closed with care; footsteps soften on rugs. Even the fire in the drawing room seems to burn lower, as if it understands restraint. The front door shuts behind him and he stands for a moment in the entry hall, the familiar scent of home filling his lungs. In the mirror above the console table, his reflection looks like a man who has not slept properly in weeks. The butler approaches, deferential, eyes steady in the way servants’ eyes are when they have learned not to be startled. “My lord,” he says, “Mr. Pelham is waiting in your office.”

Pelham. The steward. The man who can turn acres of Kent into columns of ink and speak of tenants’ lives as if they are sums. Seungcheol nods once and crosses the house without pausing in rooms that still feel wrong without his mother in them. He passes the music room and hears nothing. He passes the Viscountess’s sitting room and feels the absence like a stone in his stomach. In his office, Pelham rises quickly. He is a careful man—respectful, tidy, reliable. The kind of man his mother trusted, which is why Seungcheol trusts him too. But tonight Pelham’s face looks slightly strained, as if the paper in his hands is heavier than it should be. “My lord,” Pelham greets. Seungcheol gestures to the chair. “Sit.” Pelham sits, papers aligned on his knee. “Wrotham’s quarterly accounts,” he says. “And correspondence from Kent.”

Seungcheol takes the stack and flips through. Rent lists. Repairs. Notes on harvest stores. A request for funds to mend a section of fence that has begun to lean. A complaint from a neighbouring landowner about “boundaries”—always boundaries, always men who believe land can be shifted simply by insisting. There is also a letter from a magistrate, asking whether the Viscount intends to “confirm” certain arrangements with tenants in light of “recent changes.” Seungcheol’s eyes flick over the words, then lift. “Tell me.” Pelham clears his throat. “There have been… questions, my lord.”

There it is again. Questions. Whispers with manners. “From whom?” Pelham hesitates only a moment. “From the magistrate’s office. From Lord Caversham’s steward. And—” He swallows. “—from some of the tenants.”

Seungcheol’s jaw tightens. “Why would the tenants question anything?” Pelham’s gaze drops, uncomfortable. “They hear what they hear,” he says carefully. “The village hears London. London hears the ton. And the ton…”

The ton makes sport of people’s lives. Seungcheol rubs a hand once over the bridge of his nose. He is tired in a way that makes even anger feel like effort. He looks back down at the papers. A list catches his eye: arrears. Not many, but enough to notice. He recognises several names. Not because he has spent his life wandering fields—he hasn’t—but because his mother made a point of learning them. She would sit with Pelham and ask after families the way other women ask after dresses. She treated tenants as part of the house, not props beneath it. Seungcheol points with his pen. “This.”

Pelham nods. “The winter was harsher than expected,” he says. “Several families lost livestock. One lost a roof beam in the storm. They are struggling.” Seungcheol responds flatly, “And the magistrate thinks this is the time to question arrangements.” Pelham doesn’t deny it. “Some will see an opportunity, my lord.”

Seungcheol flips to the repairs request. The roof beam. The fence. A note about the mill requiring maintenance. All of it money. All of it necessary if he wants Wrotham Castle to remain not just a symbol but a functioning place that does not bleed its people dry. He looks up at Pelham. “We will cover the roof beam.”

Pelham’s eyes widen slightly. “My lord—”

“We will cover it,” Seungcheol repeats, and there is no room in his tone for argument. “We will also reduce rents for those families until harvest. Write it as an adjustment in light of losses. No charity.”

Pelham exhales. He nods quickly, already calculating. “Yes, my lord. Of course.” Seungcheol turns the page again. “And Caversham’s steward.” Pelham’s mouth tightens. “He has sent a ‘courteous inquiry’ about the southern boundary,” he admits. Seungcheol sets the papers down. “Send him our deeds. Send him the map. Invite him to bring a surveyor if he enjoys wasting his own time.”

Pelham nods again, lips pressing into a line. “Yes, my lord.”

Seungcheol leans back in his chair, the leather creaking softly beneath him. For a moment, his eyes catch on the inkstand on his desk—a small thing, silver-edged, used by his mother once. Her hand used to rest right there, fingers ink-stained. He feels something in his chest tighten, not quite grief anymore. Grief has become a structure. A room he lives in. Pelham clears his throat gently. “There is another matter.”

Seungcheol’s gaze returns, steady. “Speak.”

Pelham shifts. “The household expenses. For your brothers.” Pelham produces a second list—tailor bills, club accounts, carriage repairs. One line stands out: damages paid to a host after “an incident” involving one of the younger brothers. Hoshi, likely. Or Jeonghan, if he felt bored enough to make a mess. Seungcheol reads the amount and feels the familiar surge of irritation, immediately pressed down by responsibility. He doesn’t have the luxury of being a brother first. He is Viscount first, always. “Who?” he asks. Pelham hesitates. “Lord Soonyoung,” he admits. Seungcheol closes his eyes. Hoshi’s grief has been loud since the funeral, disguised as laughter and movement. Seungcheol has watched him burn himself out on purpose and called it coping because there were too many other things demanding attention. “Pay it,” Seungcheol whispers. Pelham looks startled. “My lord?”

Seungcheol’s eyes open again. “Pay it,” he repeats. “And remind him that if he wants to break things, he may do so in a rehearsal room where the cost is sweat, not scandal.”

Pelham swallows. He does not push. He gathers his papers, bows, and retreats. When the door clicks shut, Seungcheol remains alone in the quiet. He rubs his thumb once over the edge of the desk where his mother’s wrist used to rest, then stops himself. Sentiment is a loop that drags you under if you let it. He opens Wrotham’s accounts again and forces his mind back into numbers. This is what he does. This is what he is. There is no room for collapse. Not when his brothers still have the luxury of falling apart. Not when the ton has begun to prowl. Not when the house is being tested at every seam.

He works until the candle stubs low and the ink begins to thicken. When he finally stands, his body protests—an ache in his shoulders, a heaviness behind his eyes. He realises, distantly, that he has not eaten since morning. He cannot remember tasting anything all day. He crosses the hallway toward his chambers and pauses when he hears a murmur from the drawing room. Joshua’s voice, low and calm. Another voice responding—one of the housemaids, perhaps. Comfort offered, quietly. The sound of gentleness in a house that has learned to survive without it. Seungcheol stands still for a moment, listening like a man outside a door to a life he cannot afford. Then he turns away and continues down the corridor. Duty is oxygen. He breathes it in.

He goes to bed. He sleeps for three hours. At dawn, he wakes, already counting.

Three days later, a bank manager calls. Not in the way a bank manager calls on a viscount—no rush of servants, no grand bows. Instead: a letter requesting his presence “to review the terms of ongoing arrangements in light of recent changes.” Seungcheol goes, because ignoring a request like that is impossible.

The bank smells of polished wood and old ink and men who believe their money makes them immortal. Seungcheol sits in a high-backed chair across from a desk too large for the man behind it. The bank manager smiles and smiles and smiles, the way men do when they plan to ask for something they have no right to. “Viscount Ashbourne,” he declares, voice thick with false warmth. “Our condolences, of course. Your mother was a woman of considerable—”

“What do you want?” Seungcheol interrupts. The manager’s smile falters, then reassembles a little tighter. “Directness,” he says, chuckling as if they are friends. “Very well. We must ensure stability. For the sake of all parties. You understand.”

Seungcheol does not respond. The manager shuffles papers, the sound too loud in the quiet office. “There have been inquiries,” he says. “Concerns regarding continuity. The title is, of course, secure—” Of course. “—but the business,” the manager continues, “is a different matter. Carat & Co. has expanded considerably under the late Viscountess’s influence. Some of our board members are merely mindful that a household with… unconventional circumstances may face heightened scrutiny this Season.”

Seungcheol watches the man’s fingers twitch on the paper, watches him avoid Seungcheol’s gaze. A man about to insult you always looks everywhere else first, as if the room might absolve him. “Say it,” Seungcheol murmurs. The manager laughs again, weaker. “There are whispers,” he admits, and finally, inevitably: “about lineage.” There it is. Blood. Seed. Womb. As if a family is only real if it is biological.

Seungcheol’s hands rest on his knees. He could crush the man with a title. He could ruin him with influence. He could speak a single name—one of his mother’s friends, one of the duchesses who wears Carat & Co. stones like a crown—and watch the manager beg for forgiveness. He does none of that. Because this is not one man. It is the ton. It is a city that has decided the death of the Viscountess means the sons she chose are unworthy. He leans forward slightly. “Carat & Co. has been stable through wars and recessions and the shifting favour of courts,” he says. “It was stable before my mother, and it will be stable after her. If your board is concerned, they may look at our ledgers. They will find no weakness there.”

The manager’s Adam’s apple bobs. “Naturally, naturally—”

“If their concern is not the ledgers,” Seungcheol continues, “but the story they wish to tell about me, then I suggest they consider whether it is wise to challenge a house that supplies half of London’s throats.” The manager’s eyes widen. There is the briefest, ugliest flicker of fear. Good.

Seungcheol stands. He does not offer his hand. “The terms remain,” he says. “If you wish to renegotiate, you may do so with my solicitor. You may also inform your board that I do not respond well to insinuation disguised as stewardship.” He leaves.

Outside, the air is colder than it was when he entered. The street is busy, oblivious. Seungcheol’s carriage waits. He sits inside it and lets his head fall back once, just once, against the upholstery.

His mother should be here. Not because he cannot do this without her. He can. He has been doing it for years already, even when she was alive—catching problems before they reached her, holding the house steady while she held Society. But he is tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. Society has caught the scent. Rivals are sniffing. Men are testing weights, customs offices are holding parcels, and bank boards are whispering about blood. Carat & Co. is more than a shop. It is a fortress built of light. A fortress his brothers will inherit, whether they deserve it or not.

The decision forms without drama, without emotion, without flourish. A solution. A shield. A Viscountess. Not a romantic dream. Not a bride in white and poetry. Someone who can stand in a room and make people stop trying him. Someone who can handle the household, the invitations, the politics, the subtle war of cups of tea and seating arrangements. Someone competent enough that even the cruellest tongues hesitate before they speak. He will marry. Not because he wants to. Because he must.

The velvet pad is still warm from the last pair of hands that dared to touch it.

Jeonghan stands on the opposite side of the counter, his fingers hovering over the display. Across from him, a gentleman in a dove-grey coat clears his throat for the third time—each sound a plea, each plea an insult. The necklace between them is not merely diamonds. It is proof. It is leverage. It is Carat & Co.

Seungcheol watches the man’s gaze snag on the stones—how it lingers, how it calculates, how it tries to pretend it is not calculating. He watches the pulse at the man’s jaw. The slight dampness at his hairline despite the shop’s chill. A man with nothing to fear does not sweat over a clasp. “The Duchess believes the setting is… bold,” the gentleman says, with the smile of someone delivering bad news on behalf of a woman too powerful to be contradicted. “Perhaps a more delicate mounting would better suit her grace.”

Jeonghan’s mouth twitches. Not quite amusement. More like hunger. “A more delicate mounting,” Jeonghan repeats lightly, as if tasting the words. His eyes do not leave the necklace. “For stones that were cut to throw light across a room.” The gentleman’s smile strains. “Her grace adores subtlety.”

Seungcheol says nothing. He turns the necklace a fraction, letting the diamonds catch the pale spring sun that slants through the shop’s tall windowpanes. The stones flare—brief, undeniable—and the gentleman’s pupils widen like a confession. Subtlety. Yes. Subtlety is what people demand when they want to dull another person’s power into something manageable. “Her grace,” Seungcheol says finally, voice even, “requested the Ashbourne cut.”

The man’s gaze flicks up—sharp, then quickly respectful. “Of course, Viscount Ashbourne. Naturally.” Seungcheol watches the gentleman swallow, watches him choose his next words carefully, like a gambler sliding coins forward without showing his hand. “There is, however,” the man adds, “the matter of provenance.” Jeonghan lifts his gaze then, and something in his eyes turns from idle to bright. “Provenance,” Jeonghan echoes. “For a necklace.”

The gentleman laughs faintly, as if this is only a conversation. “For a name,” he corrects, still smiling. “Her grace is… mindful of appearances this Season.” Seungcheol feels it before he hears it—the shift in the air. This is not about diamonds. This is about them. Jeonghan leans one elbow on the glass case, casual as sin. “If her grace is mindful,” he says pleasantly, “she will be mindful that Carat & Co. has placed stones on the bodies of women who outrank her.”

The gentleman’s nostrils flare. He cannot deny it. He can only pivot. “No one disputes the work,” he says quickly. “It is beyond dispute. But Society is restless. There are whispers.”

Whispers. He heard them everywhere this week. Adopted. Not blood. Chosen child. A Viscount by permission rather than birthright. The gentleman clears his throat again, emboldened by his own insinuation. “Her grace would simply hate to be associated with controversy,” he says. “It is a sensitive time. The late Viscountess’s passing, the new Season—”

Seungcheol’s fingers close around the velvet pad. Not hard enough to crush it, but hard enough to remind himself that restraint is a choice, not a weakness. Jeonghan’s voice stays light, almost bored, and that is what makes it dangerous. “Controversy,” he murmurs. “Do you mean grief? Or do you mean gossip?”

The gentleman’s smile falters. “I mean the ton is watching,” he says, and the truth finally slips out. “Some are uncertain. The name—” Seungcheol sets the velvet pad down. “The name is Ashbourne,” he interrupts. “And the workmanship is Carat & Co.”

The gentleman quiets. Jeonghan’s eyes gleam, delighted in that private way of his—as if he can taste the moment where someone realises they have misjudged their opponent. Seungcheol continues, tone polished as marble. “If her grace wishes for a more ‘delicate’ mounting, she may commission another house. Our stones do not apologise for their presence.”

Pride wars with practicality on the gentleman’s face. He is a messenger, yes—but he is also a man who enjoys being the mouthpiece for power. Being dismissed feels like being unmade. “Viscount Ashbourne,” he begins, attempting a warning, “you will find that Society does not respond well to—”

Jeonghan tilts his head, smiling, the kind of smile that makes people instinctively check their pockets. “To being told no?” he supplies. “Tragic.” The gentleman’s eyes flick to Jeonghan with irritation, then back to Seungcheol, as if hoping the Viscount will be the reasonable one. Seungcheol is not. He watches the man make his choice.

Finally, the gentleman exhales through his nose, a thin surrender. “Very well,” he says, too quickly. “Her grace will consider. She values quality above all, of course.” Quality above all, except the kind that comes from a mother’s love rather than a father’s seed. Seungcheol inclines his head. Courtesy, not concession. “We remain at her service.”

The gentleman takes his hat and leaves with the stiff dignity of a man who has lost and wants the street to believe he has chosen to go. When the door shuts, the quiet rushes back in.

Jeonghan’s shoulders lift in a silent laugh. “That,” he says, voice warm with delight, “was entertaining.” Seungcheol watches the street through the glass—wheels turning, lives moving, people who will never know how close they stand to ruin because their names are old enough to be unquestioned. “That was predictable,” Seungcheol replies. Jeonghan tuts, the sound comical. “Predictable is when the curate faints at the sight of an ankle,” he says. “This was strategy.” Seungcheol reaches for the ledger behind the counter and flips it open. The only truth that doesn’t lie to his face. “This was a warning.”

“They’re circling,” Jeonghan murmurs. “Like they always do when they smell a change.” A Viscount newly seated. A household full of sons without bloodline—sons with wealth, yes, and influence, yes, but also a vulnerability the ton can taste. Jeonghan taps the glass case—three light taps, like a knock on a coffin. “They’ll try to make you prove you belong,” he says again, softer. Not repeating for emphasis—repeating because it needs to be held twice to fully accept. “Over and over.”

Seungcheol looks up, meets Jeonghan’s eyes, and lets the decision exist there—quiet, absolute—without giving it the softness of further words. Seungcheol’s gaze stays on the street, but his voice is certain. “I will choose.” Jeonghan grins wickedly. “God help them,” he murmurs. “And God help you.”

Seungcheol doesn’t believe in God’s help. He believes in action. And if marriage is the only armour the ton will respect, then he will forge it—cold, perfect, and unbreakable.

Rotten Row is a river of display. It flows in both directions at once—carriages gliding like lacquered boats along the gravel, riders sitting tall as if the sun has been hired to shine only on their shoulders, ladies strolling in clusters with their mamas and their parasols and their measured laughter. Everything is motion. Because standing still in Hyde Park is an invitation. An invitation to be approached. To be watched. To be weighed.

Georgina keeps half a step ahead, her body refusing to remember that she is not meant to run, not meant to dart, not meant to look too eager. Her bonnet ribbon flutters with every turn of her head. Cecily stays close on your other side, gloves immaculate, gaze soft. She walks like she is afraid of taking up too much of the path, even though the path is wide and the city would never dare tell a young lady she does not belong on it. Lady Halstead strolls with you—not pressed into your formation like an officer guarding a prisoner, but near enough that her shadow is a comfort and her presence a quiet threat to any gentleman tempted to become bold. Her cane taps lightly against the gravel, the sound a punctuation. “Look at them,” Lady Halstead murmurs, eyes sliding across the river of people. “All pretending they came for the air.”

“They did come for the air,” you reply, keeping your tone mild as you guide Cecily around a puddle with the smallest touch to her elbow. “They simply intend to breathe it while being admired.”

Georgina gives a delighted little hum. “That is the only proper way,” she declares. Lady Halstead’s mouth curves. “You’ll be devoured or crowned, Miss Georgina. Try not to do both in the same hour.” Georgina’s grin widens as if she’s been offered a challenge.

You keep walking because the rule is simple: if you meet someone and wish to speak, you do so while moving. Stopping makes a circle. Circles attract attention. Attention breeds interpretation. Interpretation breeds gossip. Gossip becomes a rope around a girl’s throat the moment she can no longer wriggle free.

The park is crowded with it—examinations disguised as glances, judgments hidden behind fans, conversations turning fractionally quieter when you pass. You do not turn. You learned a long time ago that the quickest way to give a whisper power is to acknowledge it. Georgina, however, is made of matches and curiosity. Her gaze flicks toward the source, her lips parting, ready to bite. You tilt your head toward her without looking. “No mercy,” you murmur. Georgina’s mouth snaps shut. She exhales through her nose like a dragon forced to behave. Lady Halstead’s cane taps once. “Good,” she approves. “Save your teeth for men who deserve them.”

Men who deserve them are everywhere. There—two young lords walking together, laughing too loudly, eyes skimming the crowd. There—a baronet with a belly and a smugness, arm hooked through his daughter’s as if she might run away if he releases her. There—a gentleman with a polished smile and a gaze that lingers too long on hems, as if the measure of a woman’s worth can be found in the cost of her stitching. And then, inevitably, there are the Ashbournes.

A cluster of girls tilt their faces toward them like flowers turning toward light. A small knot of people ahead subtly rearranges itself, not from command, but from habit.

Jeonghan’s presence is the first you register, his smile coaxing little blushes from passing girls. Joshua walks beside him, calm as a steady hand at the small of someone’s back. Hoshi is bright with energy, contained only by the fact that he is being watched. Wonwoo keeps to the edge, as if the crowd is too loud for his liking. And there—at the centre of it, because he always seems to become the centre whether he intends to or not—Lord Ashbourne. He does not smile. He does not perform as easily as other men do. He carries himself with a control that appears calm from afar. You feel your jaw tighten. Lady Halstead notices the shift in you the way she notices everything. Her gaze flicks up, follows yours, and her mouth twitches—fondness, tempered by instinct. “Ah,” she says softly. “There’s your favourite.”

“He is not my favourite,” you reply, too quickly. Georgina’s eyes brighten immediately, delighted. Cecily’s gaze flickers up and away again, shy as a bird. Lady Halstead’s voice remains airy. “Then try not to look at him like you intend to shoot him where he stands.”

You focus on the path. On your sisters. On the way Georgina’s posture straightens as the Ashbournes near—as if her body cannot resist the possibility of being seen by men from their standing. On Cecily’s instinct to shrink. You cannot shrink. Not when you are the hinge that holds them both.

The brothers’ pace slows as they pass close enough for courtesy to become inevitable. Jeonghan’s eyes dart to Lady Halstead, brightening with recognition. He tips his head. “Lady Halstead.” Lady Halstead inclines her chin, and the gesture holds a familiar warmth. “Lord Jeonghan.” Hoshi’s smile flashes. “Good morning.”

Wonwoo gives a small nod. His gaze glances past you, not unkind, simply distant. And then Seungcheol’s eyes land on you. It is not dramatic. It is not lingering. It is the precise way a man looks at something he intends to understand. You feel the irritation rise like heat under your collar. How dare he look at you like a problem he might solve? You do not slow. You do not stop. You do not allow the river to become a pond. Lady Halstead, however, is not governed by your desire to avoid him. She shifts her formation slightly, turning just enough that conversation becomes inevitable. Seungcheol bows his head. “Lady Halstead.”

“Lord Ashbourne.” The exchange is polite, but there is history beneath it—not favouritism, not bias. Simply familiarity earned. He acknowledges that history with the smallest softening—so brief you might think you imagined it—then his gaze slides to your sisters. Georgina curtsies with the sort of grace that still contains fire. Cecily’s curtsy is perfect and quiet. Then his eyes return to you. “You are out early,” he observes. It is a harmless sentence. It is also a test. You can feel it in the way he says it—like he is assessing how you respond to ordinary pressure. You offer the smallest, most neutral smile. “The park does not belong only to those with leisure, my lord.”

His mouth might have twitched. It is impossible to tell with him. “No,” he agrees. “It belongs to those who understand visibility.”

Lady Halstead’s cane taps lightly. “Now that is an honest thing for a man to say.”

Jeonghan laughs under his breath. Seungcheol doesn’t react to Jeonghan’s amusement at all, which is its own kind of control. His gaze flicks, briefly, to Georgina—as though acknowledging the obvious. “Hyde Park suits you, Miss Georgina,” he says to her. Georgina’s cheeks colour. “It suits everyone who knows how to use it, my Lord.” You could pinch her. Gently. Fiercely. You don’t.

Seungcheol’s gaze catches yours, and you swear—just for a breath—you see something like assessment sharpen into interest. “Enjoy your promenade,” he responds, and then he is past—his stride measured, the line of brothers continuing with him, the river swallowing them back into its glittering current as though it never noticed your stone dropped into it. Except you did drop a stone. You can feel the ripples in the glances from nearby debutantes, the quick tilt of a mama’s fan. You keep walking. Your sisters keep walking.

Lady Halstead’s voice slides into your ear. “If you want to keep him away, you must do it with elegance. Anger is a lantern.”

“I am being elegant,” you mutter. Lady Halstead’s eyes shimmer. “You are being obvious.” You inhale. You adjust your posture. You smooth your expression until it becomes again the mask you have worn through funerals and debt notices and nights of quiet panic where you lay awake counting what you owed to the world.

Cecily stumbles on a loose stone in the path. Not visibly. Only a small hitch in her step, a falter. You catch it instantly, your hand steadying her wrist. “Breathe,” you murmur. Cecily nods, cheeks pink. “I am,” she whispers back, as though she is not certain. You shift Cecily slightly closer to the centre—away from the outer edge. Georgina, meanwhile, becomes a beacon. A gentleman reaches her from across the path—young, pleasant, his coat expensive enough to show sense. You lift your chin. “Miss Georgina,” he says, bowing. “I hope I do not intrude.” Georgina’s eyes sparkle. “Only if you are boring.” The gentleman blinks, delighted rather than offended. “Then I shall endeavour to be remarkable.”

Cecily’s mouth twitches faintly, amused despite herself. You step half a pace to the side. You allow the conversation to form, but you remain the gatekeeper. The person who decides how close a man may come, how long he may linger, whether he may call.

“Lord Brampton,” Lady Halstead greets sharply. “Are you going to speak to the young lady, or are you going to flirt with her shadow?” Lord Brampton flushes. Georgina laughs, delighted. He begins, more carefully now, addressing Georgina properly. You watch his posture. His gaze. His eagerness. He is acceptable. For now. You let him walk with you for a few minutes, long enough for Georgina to sparkle, long enough for him to feel successful, long enough for Cecily to be included when Georgina turns and says, brightly, “My sister plays the pianoforte beautifully.”

Lord Brampton turns toward Cecily. “Do you, Miss Cecily?” Cecily’s mouth opens. Closes. Her fingers tighten around her reticule. “I—” she begins, then her voice falters as if it has tripped over its own shoes. “A little.”

Lord Brampton’s smile remains courteous, but his eyes drift away too quickly. He is drawn back to Georgina like a moth to flame. You feel the familiar pang—the quiet ache of watching Cecily be overlooked by men too impatient to see properly. You shift the conversation, gently redirecting. “Lord Brampton, will you be at Lady Dalrymple’s musicale next week? My sister enjoys music immensely.” It is a small push. A rope tossed gently in his direction. If he is worth anything, he will catch it. Lord Brampton hesitates—just a breath too long—before smiling. “If I am fortunate enough to receive an invitation, of course.”

It is not a yes. It is not a no. It is polite cowardice. Georgina’s laughter covers it. Cecily’s eyes dip. You catalogue it, file it away, and move on. Lord Brampton bows eventually, peels away toward another cluster of girls like he is shopping. Georgina watches him go with a grin that is half triumphant, half hungry for the next.

Lady Halstead’s gaze slides to Cecily. “Stars,” she murmurs, soft enough that only you and Cecily hear. “Remember what I told you.” Cecily nods once. She swallows, steadies. You admire her for it. Quiet bravery is still bravery. Then a shadow shifts into your peripheral vision, and a voice enters your river. “Good morning.”

A gentleman marches up to you with effortless ease, coat dove-grey, cravat tied with enough care to suggest he respects himself. His smile is open. Not oily. Not sharp. The sort of smile that makes mamas relax and daughters giggle because it is sincere. Lady Halstead’s eyes narrow immediately—not hostile, simply alert. Georgina brightens. Cecily looks up, startled by the attention of a man who does not look bored already. He bows first to Lady Halstead. “Lady Halstead.” Then to your sisters. “Miss Georgina. Miss Cecily.” His gaze flicks to you last—deliberate—and when it lands, it lingers a fraction longer than propriety demands. Just long enough to feel like choice. “Lady Whitlock,” he greets, and there is a careful respect in the title. “Edmund Hartwell. I hope you’ll forgive the liberty—I’ve wanted to make your acquaintance properly.”

You have heard the name in passing the way you hear most names in Mayfair—floating through drawing rooms, attached to whispers about old money and newer charm, about a gentleman who smiles too easily and somehow never seems to be refused. You have never, until now, been forced into the full weight of his attention. You offer a smile that invites no more. “Mr. Hartwell.”

His eyes brighten, as if hearing his name from you is a victory. “The day is too fine for a drawing room,” he says easily. “And too crowded for anyone to pretend they dislike being seen.”

Georgina’s brows lift, delighted by any whiff of romance. Cecily watches him as if he is a portrait come to life. Mr. Hartwell continues, unbothered by the attention. “May I walk with you?” he asks. “If it would not be unwelcome.” You glance at Lady Halstead, because she has more authority in this world than most men. Her expression is unreadable. She gives the smallest nod. You permit it. Mr. Hartwell steps into alignment with you, matching your pace perfectly. “Do you always choose the cleverest line to stand in,” he asks mischievously, “or is the park simply rearranging itself to make room for you?”

The question is so absurdly flattering you almost choke on your own composure. You feel a laugh threaten—small, traitorous—you press it down. “If the park rearranged itself for me, Mr. Hartwell, I assure you it would do so with far less mud.” He glances at the hem of your skirt, then looks back up. “So you do possess mercy,” he says. “You could have accused me of poor eyesight.”

“I am saving that for later,” you reply, and the laugh you tried to restrain slips out anyway. His gaze catches on your mouth like he’s surprised to have won something so easily. “There it is,” he murmurs, pleased. “I was hoping you could do that.” You lift a brow. “Do what?”

“Laugh,” he says simply, as if it is the most natural desire in the world. Georgina, still walking ahead, tilts her head slightly as if listening without turning. Cecily’s gaze flickers to you, and you see it—the faint relief in her eyes, the small happiness that you are not entirely made of iron. Mr. Hartwell continues, tone easy, as if he is not trying at all while clearly trying very hard. “Do you prefer the park to the ballroom?” he asks. “Ballrooms always feel like rooms where everyone is waiting to be judged.” You reply lightly. “The park judges too, it simply pretends it does so kindly.”

“Then perhaps you prefer honesty.”

“Perhaps I prefer air,” you answer. He gives a small, thoughtful hum. “And what do you do with it,” he asks, “when you have it? When you are not being surrounded by all this?”

The question is angled. You feel a flicker of wariness—quiet, instinctive. You offer him something true that still keeps your door locked. “I read,” you say. “And I drink tea that is never as good as people pretend it is.”

His grin widens. “A woman after my own heart. I despise tea.”

You blink. “Then why is every gentleman always offering it?”

“Because it is socially acceptable to offer,” he says, eyes dancing, “and socially unacceptable to admit one would rather offer brandy at ten in the morning.”

You laugh again, a little louder this time, and feel your cheeks warm with it—annoying, inevitable. Mr. Hartwell watches the colour rise as if it is the prettiest thing in the park. Cecily, beside you, seems to gather courage from the sound. Mr. Hartwell turns his attention to her, gentle in it. “Do you read as well, Miss Cecily?” Cecily’s cheeks flush. “Yes,” she murmurs.

“Then you are both in danger,” Mr. Hartwell says gravely. “London fears a woman with opinions and a library.”

Cecily’s mouth twitches. A small smile, real. Your chest tightens unexpectedly. Because you are not used to watching a man choose to make space for Cecily. Then Mr. Hartwell’s gaze returns to you, and you feel the river shift again. “Tell me one thing,” he says lightly, as though he is asking about the weather. “If you could go anywhere in London right now without being stared at, where would you go?”

The statement is impossible. And yet it makes something loosen in you—some part of yourself that remembers what it is to want something as simple as a walk without being gauged. “Nowhere,” you confess. “That place does not exist.” He doesn’t look disappointed. He looks delighted by the challenge. “Then I’ll amend it,” he says. “Where would you go if you did not care that you were being stared at?”

You glance at him, caught. Your guard tightens. Your honesty does not disappear. It simply becomes careful. “I would go to a bookshop,” you say, “and buy something scandalous.”

“A novel?”

“A pamphlet,” you reply. “One that suggests men are not as clever as they insist.” His laugh boisters with admiration. “Then I should like to see it,” he says. “So I can decide whether to be offended or corrected.”

You almost laugh too loudly. You stop it before it becomes obvious. Somewhere behind you, a carriage rolls past. Somewhere ahead, a game of pall-mall flares. The park continues its elegant performance. And then—like a pin to a balloon—you catch it. A gaze.

Lord Ashbourne has turned on the path further ahead, angled as if he intends to continue on, yet his eyes have landed on you with that same ledger-like focus. His face is unreadable. But his attention is unmistakable. It hits you like cold water. The faint ease Mr. Hartwell has coaxed out of you vanishes, replaced by sharp annoyance so swift it feels instant. You hold Seungcheol’s gaze—one clean, stubborn moment—then look away as if he does not exist.

Mr. Hartwell does not seem to notice the exchange. Or if he does, he is too polite to acknowledge it. Lady Halstead, however, does. “Come,” she announces. “We’ll turn back. The river’s grown crowded.”

You obey because it is sensible, because it is safe, because you cannot afford to let your sisters drift into a current you cannot control. But as you turn, you feel the presence behind your shoulder—the sense of being watched even when you refuse to look. It is infuriating. It is also, you tell yourself firmly, irrelevant.

The stands vibrate before the horses even appear. The announcer’s voice carries across a sea of spectators—calling names, and amounts, and bets. “Final call for wagers—final call!”

Coins clink. Tickets tear. A bookmaker rises from below the stands. The air smells of trampled grass and crushed petals and the faint, metallic tang of excitement—part champagne, part risk, part the simple human desire to win.

You sit with your sisters pressed safely to either side of you on the wooden benches, the crowd packed so tight behind and around that the whole structure feels like it breathes when people shift. Georgina leans forward as if she might will the race into beginning. Cecily keeps her hands folded in her lap, gaze flicking from the track to the crowd as if the crowd is the more dangerous animal. Without Lady Halstead here, the responsibility sits heavier. There is no older woman’s shadow to discourage boldness. There is only you—your posture, your expression, the quiet authority you have learned to manufacture on command. A gentleman in the row below turns around, smiling too widely. Another glances toward Georgina and lingers. You angle your body, not rude, not dramatic—just enough to remind them there is a chaperone with eyes.

The crowd roars as the horses parade into view—sleek bodies, restless heads, hooves biting at the turf like they resent being made to wait. The jockeys sit low and tense, bright silks flashing like exotic birds. The sound is enormous. The world here is louder than any street in Mayfair could ever be. Less polished. Less forgiving.

Mr. Hartwell appears at the edge of your row, somehow unruffled by the crush. “May I?” He inclines his head to the empty seat beside you. He doesn’t hover. He waits—patient, gentle—for the smallest opening. You give him a fraction of it, and he takes the seat swiftly, close enough to be companionable, not close enough to invite comment from the wrong mouths. He bows once he’s settled, the gesture neat even with knees crowded and skirts pressing close. “You see?” he murmurs, as if continuing a thought begun days ago. “The track is louder than a ballroom, but it’s kinder. Everyone’s too busy shouting to listen for whispers.” You keep your eyes on the line of horses, the way they stamp and toss their heads, but you feel his statement settle behind your ribs. “And here I thought you came only to gamble.”

His smile widens. “I came to be wrong about a few things,” he says softly, “and to see whether you would smile at me a second time.” The warmth rises, quick and ridiculous, along your cheeks. You blame the wind. You blame the sun. You do not blame the way he says it, as if it were harmless, when it is not. “It seems your odds are improving.”

“I’ve always been a persistent man,” he replies earnestly, “I simply try to do it without making anyone wish to push me into the tracks.”

Georgina, hearing the tail end, makes a quiet sound of delight that she tries to hide in a cough. Cecily’s mouth twitches—a small smile, like she is pleased for you.

The announcer’s voice swells. The horses move toward the starting line. The crowd rises as one organism, skirts rustling, coats brushing, gloves gripping the rails. You stand too—not because you wish to, but because standing is the only way to see over the heads in front.

A new weight settles behind you on the bench. The Ashbournes have arrived. They take the row behind you as if it has been waiting for them, their presence sliding into the space with the unhurried certainty of men who know they will be accommodated. Behind your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the warmth of breath when he speaks, Viscount Ashbourne takes his seat. You do not look back. You do not give him the satisfaction. But you can feel his gaze—first on your sisters, then on you, and finally—like a deliberate choice—on the space Mr. Hartwell occupies at your side.

The starting bell rings. The horses surge. The sound is thunder—hooves tearing at turf, the crowd roaring as if their voices can push the animals faster. Georgina clutches the rail, shouting something you don’t quite understand. Cecily stiffens, then relaxes when she realises she isn’t required to understand the sport to survive the noise. You watch the race with your face composed, your attention divided three ways—track, sisters, the awareness behind you that refuses to leave.

When the horses flash past the bend, the crowd erupts again. Men slap each other’s backs. A woman gasps as if she has witnessed a proposal. Someone below curses loud enough to make you wince. The winner crosses the line; hats are thrown; laughter breaks like waves. And in the breath of aftermath—before the next race, before the crowd settles—Georgina speaks. “Do you wager, Lord Ashbourne?” she calls up and back before you can stop her, bright with curiosity and a reckless kind of delight.

“No.”

Georgina twists, startled. “No?”

“I don’t enjoy losing money,” Seungcheol says simply, as if the entire world isn’t built on men enjoying risk. Cecily, quiet until now, turns her head slightly, courage slipping out on the tide of noise. “I thought gentlemen enjoyed the risk,” she murmurs. There is a moment—small, deliberate—before he answers, and when he does, his tone is not unkind. “Some do,” he replies, “Those who can afford to.”

Cecily blinks, surprised by the practicality of it. Georgina hums, half impressed, half offended on behalf of her own taste for bedlam. Seungcheol is not finished. His attention—still that ledger-like focus—settles on you, and he speaks again, lower, quiet enough that only you can hear over the shifting crowd. “You’re everywhere,” he observes.

You keep your posture immaculate and your voice light, as if he is nothing more than an inconvenience seated behind you. “It is remarkable how often one finds oneself in public places when one leaves the house.” You can feel the faint pause before his reply, as if he enjoys the shape of your defiance. “Remarkable,” he repeats, “Or strategic.”

You smile as if you are speaking to the air. “I have no interest in strategy, my Lord.” His answer comes too smoothly. “Of course, you simply have an interest in outcomes.” It is too straightforward. Too accurate. It irritates you in a way that feels like being seen.

Then Lord Ashbourne’s voice changes direction—just slightly—addressing the space beside you without raising volume, without making it a scene. “Mr. Hartwell,” he greets politely. “Final call was a moment ago. The book closes quickly if you intend to place a wager.” Mr. Hartwell turns his head. His smile stays intact—pleasant, almost amused—as though the Viscount has merely offered him weather advice. “How considerate,” he replies lightly. “I had nearly forgotten London runs on deadlines as much as it runs on horses.”

“It does,” Seungcheol agrees. “And it is unforgiving to men who hesitate.”

A harmless sentence. A perfectly reasonable one. And yet something in it lands like pressure placed on a bruise. Mr. Hartwell’s gaze flicks to you, as if checking whether you are enjoying the joke, then he inclines his head with a gentleman’s easy surrender. “Then I shall not keep it waiting,” he states, still charming, still unruffled. “Miss Whitlock. Miss Cecily. And you—” his eyes settle on you, longer, warm, private, “—enjoy the next one. I’ll return if the crowd allows it.”

He rises, neat as a man stepping out of a drawing room rather than squeezing past knees and skirts. It doesn’t take long before he is swallowed by the crowd below, disappearing into the sea of men and money. The space beside you feels colder for his absence. You refuse to acknowledge that. Behind you, Seungcheol shifts back slightly, the bench creaking under the redistribution of his weight. The next race is called; the announcer’s voice slices through the stands again. “They’re at the post—prepare yourselves!”

“Enjoy the race,” Seungcheol says, as if granting permission. As if you need it. “How generous,” you murmur, sweet as poison. He does not answer. The horses assemble again. The crowd rises. The world surges back into anticipation, loud and hungry. He turns away. Only then do you realise you have been holding your breath. Georgina exhales a huff. “He is odd,” she whispers.

“He is a Viscount,” you reply evenly. “That explains most oddities.”

Cecily’s mouth curves. “Does it?” she murmurs, and there is something in her tone that suggests she is not entirely convinced. You ignore it. You have too many things to manage.

At home, management does not stop simply because the curtains are drawn. Your house runs on quiet truths—laundry lists, bills, meals, repairs, letters that must be answered with the right words and the right seals. The servants move with the coherence of people who have learned to read your moods the way sailors read the sky. You review the week’s expenses at your desk with ink-stained fingers and an ache behind your eyes.

A request for extra coal that you approve because Cecily’s chest is still delicate in cold weather. A letter from a distant cousin, politely inquiring whether you might consider selling a small parcel of land. You set the letter aside and write a response that says, in careful language, no.

Then you fold Cecily’s ribbon properly because she’s too flustered to do it herself, and you scold Georgina gently because she’s laughing too loudly with the maid in the hallway and forgetting that walls carry noise.

In the late afternoon, when the house is momentarily peaceful, you stand at the window and watch the street outside and feel the exhaustion settle into your bones.

You miss your father in the way you miss a structure you lean on. Not because he would have enjoyed the marriage mart—he would have hated it—but because he would have stood behind you like a wall. You miss your mother in flashes, sharp and sudden: the scent of her gloves, the curve of her handwriting, the memory of her voice saying your name. You do not indulge the grief. It is not a luxury you allow yourself. The next invitation arrives before you can finish your tea.

Lady Dalrymple’s idea of restraint apparently involves only one orchestra instead of two.

You are not so much arriving as being immediately absorbed—drawn into a current of light and noise and movement the moment you pass through the hedged archway that marks the entrance. Lanterns hang in extravagant clusters from tree branches, layered so thickly that the leaves glow from within like stained glass. Silk ribbons—too many, in colours too bright to pretend they’re natural—trail from trellises, fluttering in the breeze. A parquet dance floor has been laid over the lawn, polished to a shine, framed by garlands that look as if they were ordered in bulk.

There are peacocks. Actual peacocks—strutting between guests, feathers dragging like embroidered trains. One pauses near a table of petits fours and looks down at the pastries with the same judgment the ton reserves for debutantes. A young lady squeals delightedly and lifts her skirt a fraction to avoid a trailing feather; her mama hisses something about propriety as if the peacock might be shamed into manners.

Somewhere to your left, a pair of circus performers move through the crowd with impossible balance—one girl in glittering tights on a tightrope strung between two trees; below her, a man juggles burning torches. People gasp and clap and laugh, delighted in the way the ton always is when danger is contained and decorative.

Music drifts from a pavilion dressed in florals. Violins bright, a harp chiming like spilt coins. Footmen glide between clusters with trays of champagne and iced lemonade. There are tables laden with arrangements so high you must crane your neck to see over them, and every few yards another spectacle has been staged—an ice sculpture already sweating into a silver basin, a fountain dyed faintly rose for no reason other than to be remarked upon, a trellis of roses positioned precisely where the light is kindest.

Guests move through it all in lazy circuits: pausing at the performers, drifting toward the dance floor, hovering near the refreshments, migrating toward whatever looks most impressive in the moment. Lady Dalrymple herself floats through her creation like a queen who has mistaken grandeur for taste, laughing too loudly, touching too many arms, showing off her peacocks as if she personally invented feathers.

You keep your sisters close as you navigate the spectacle, Lady Halstead at your side. People talk over the music. People talk through the music. Everyone is determined to be heard.

A peacock strolls past as if escorting you; Georgina whispers something wicked about its arrogance, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. But everything here is staged for collision.

You see Seungcheol before he reaches you—his path aiming toward you. Not rushed. Not eager. Just a gradual narrowing of distance, polite inevitability in the making.

You pivot smoothly, drawing your sisters into a conversation with Lady Something-Important and her bright, giggling daughters, allowing Georgina to charm and Cecily to be included, whether she wishes it or not. Lord Ashbourne passes behind a cluster of men, slowed by a bow demanded of him, and you slip away—toward the refreshments, where a footman offers lemonade and a peacock tries to steal a sugared violet.

A second attempt comes not much later. The same calm inevitability, the same measured approach. This time, you steer Georgina toward the dance floor, where partners are changing in neat patterns, where propriety is disguised as choreography. You allow her to be swept up by a gentleman who asks for her hand. You bring Cecily toward Lady Halstead and place yourself at the edge of a circle of conversation. You become, momentarily, simply another guest—another moving piece in Lady Dalrymple’s glittering board. It works. It also costs.

Because in all your wrangling, Cecily is spoken to by a gentleman. He asks about the music, about whether she plays. Cecily answers softly, and she is fine. Then the conversation dips into silence, and Cecily, nervous, stumbles on a word. The gentleman’s gaze drifts away, drawn toward louder laughter and brighter ribbons. Cecily’s shoulders tighten as if she is bracing for being forgotten.

You feel the rush of guilt and irritation—at the man, at the world, at yourself for having to choose where to place your attention like a shield that cannot cover everyone at once. You turn toward Cecily—

And you collide, abruptly, with another presence. Lord Ashbourne has stepped into your path. “You are avoiding me,” he says, low enough that only you hear. “I have no idea what you mean.”

His gaze does not waver. “You do.”

You let your smile sharpen. “I am busy, my lord. As you can see.”

His eyes flick, briefly, to where Georgina laughs too brightly. To where Cecily stands too quietly. Then back to you. “You are busy,” he agrees. “And yet you find time to steer.”

You feel your irritation flare. “Is that an accusation?”

“An observation,” he replies. Never raising his voice. “You steer everyone.”

“Someone must,” you return, sweetness layered over steel. His gaze shifts, as if he is considering something he has not decided whether to say aloud. “Do you enjoy it?” he asks.

The question hits you off balance, because it is not what men usually ask. Men ask whether you are enjoying the party. Whether you are enjoying the music. Whether you are enjoying the weather. They do not ask whether you enjoy carrying the weight. You refuse to show the impact. “Enjoyment is not the point,” you reply. “We are here to do what must be done.”

His eyes narrow. “Ah.”

The sound is soft. Almost recognising. It infuriates you. “If you’ll excuse me,” you say, turning slightly as if you intend to leave. He does not move out of your way. “I wished to speak with your sister,” he says calmly.

Your spine stiffens. “Which one?” His gaze flicks toward Georgina, then Cecily. His answer is too honest. “Either.”

Either. As if young women are interchangeable. “My sisters are not items on a display table, my lord,” you say lethally. “You cannot simply point and ask to be handed one.”

Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours. He does not flinch. He does not apologise. He simply replies, even softer: “And you cannot simply decide what they are allowed to want.”

The words strike like a slap. You feel heat rise behind your ribs. You keep your face composed anyway. “My sisters are allowed to want happiness,” you say. “They are allowed to want love. They are allowed to want a man who does not treat marriage like a transaction.”

Seungcheol’s eyes darken. Something unreadable passes across his face—too quick to catch fully. “And you,” he asks. “What are you allowed to want?”

You almost laugh. Not because it is funny—because it is absurd. “I am allowed to want silence,” you declare sweetly. “Which you are currently denying me.”

“Then deny me,” he replies.

You stare at him, vexed enough to taste it. Then you step to the side, slipping around him. You leave him standing there as if he is merely another piece of spectacle. Your pulse does not agree with your composure.

You stop near Lady Dalrymple’s coloured fountain. The dusty pink makes space for an electric green. You inhale. You exhale. You tell your shoulders to unhook themselves from your ears. You let yourself be nothing but a woman looking at water.

“You have the look of a woman who is pretending she is not enjoying herself.” Mr. Hartwell arrives at your shoulder as if he has always belonged there. You blink, caught. Then, against your will, you smile. “That is an accusation.”

“A compliment,” he corrects gently. “It takes skill to look unimpressed by lanterns and violins.” You let out an involuntary chuckle. “I am not unimpressed,” you say. “I am simply… cautious.”

His eyes gentle, as if he admires the honesty. “About the lemonade?”

“About gentlemen,” you reply. He places a hand over his heart with theatrical solemnity. “Then I shall endeavour to be the least dangerous one in the garden.”

The fountain shifts colour again—green fading into pale blue. The light catches on the wet stone and throws it back at you, too bright. You keep your gaze on the water because looking at him too directly feels like giving him something. Mr. Hartwell’s voice stays easy, conversational, as if you are not alone in a garden full of watchers and rules. “May I bring you lemonade?” he offers. “Or would you prefer something stronger, if society were not listening?”

“If society were not listening, Mr. Hartwell, I suspect half of these guests would be drinking brandy out of teacups.”

“Then you and I would be the only honest ones.”

You feel your cheeks warm again, absurd and unmistakable. You hate that he can do that—make you blush as if you are a girl with nothing to manage. “Lemonade will do,” you agree lightly. Mr. Hartwell inclines his head—polite, satisfied—and turns away to fetch your drink, disappearing into the flow of guests and ribbons and trays. The moment he leaves, the air changes.

Not because he is gone—because you are aware again of everything around you. Of how the fountain’s coloured water draws eyes. Of how lanternlight makes every face visible. Of how a woman standing alone becomes a question. And then you feel it—sharp, immediate, undeniable.

Lord Ashbourne stands at the far edge of the dance floor’s perimeter, half in the spill of lanternlight, half in shadow, as if even Lady Dalrymple’s grandeur cannot fully claim him. He is not speaking. He is not laughing. He is watching. Your eyes meet his. The world around you fades away: the orchestra, the laughter, the peacock’s shriek, the ridiculous fountain trying to impress God Himself. There is only his gaze. Not warm. Not kind. Not cruel. Assessing. You look away, but the moment does not dissolve simply because you choose to ignore it. It lingers. It clings. As if his eyes have left an imprint.

Mr. Hartwell returns quickly—too quickly for it to be nonchalant—and offers you the glass. “There,” he says. “A small mercy.”

“You are generous with them,” you reply.

“Only with you,” he says, so softly it slips under the music.

Somewhere behind you, you sense movement—perhaps the shift of bodies, perhaps your own awareness sharpening—but you do not turn. You keep your gaze on the lemonade, on the condensation beading along the glass, on anything that is not the fact you can still feel Lord Ashbourne’s eyes in the space you just refused to give him.

Mr. Hartwell shifts closer, just enough to turn the space between you into something that belongs to him for a moment. “May I call on you?” he asks, almost cautiously. “Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the day after. I should like to continue our conversation somewhere less crowded.”

There it is. Not a flirtation that can be laughed away. Not a harmless compliment. A request with shape. With weight.

You keep your response kind, because kindness is how you refuse without humiliation. You lift your glass slightly, as if considering. “You are very attentive,” you say. “But my household’s calendar belongs to two young ladies this Season. They are merciless tyrants.”

His brows lift, as though he enjoys the challenge. “Then I shall appeal to the tyrants,” he says lightly. “Or to their chaperone.”

You meet his gaze. “Appeal to the hostess,” you suggest gently. “If she continues to invite us, you will surely find us again in public. It would be a pity to deprive society of its favourite pastime.”

“And what pastime is that?”

“Watching,” you answer. You think he might push—might press the point harder, insist on a promise. Instead, he only nods his head, smile intact, as if he has accepted your answer while clearly not accepting defeat. “Very well,” he agrees softly. “Public, then. For now.”

The words are mild. The implication is not. You lift your glass in the smallest toast and take a sip to seal the moment. Lemon and sugar flood your tongue. Across the garden, the orchestra swells, the dancers turn, the torch-juggler’s flames flare once more for a cluster of delighted ladies. Lady Dalrymple’s spectacle continues.

And you stand there—between your sisters’ futures and your own exhaustion, between a man who speaks like he sees you and a man who watches as if he is measuring what you are worth—feeling, for the first time this Season, the uncomfortable realisation that the market has noticed you too.

Behind you, through velvet-draped doors and carved arches, Rossini’s notes of La Cenerentola spill like champagne.

The audience’s laughter rises and falls in waves, trained and delighted. Inside, they are all watching a man in a ridiculous dream of power, watching the greedy family preen and posture as if the world cannot possibly humiliate them. You can hear the humiliation coming. Everyone can. That is half the pleasure.

A footman had hovered at your elbow—breathless in that polite way servants have when something is wrong but must not sound wrong. “Begging your pardon, my lady,” he had murmured. “There is… an issue with your carriage.”

Your stomach had tightened with the familiar irritation of inconvenience. In a house, you can command a problem into submission with a glance. In public, everything must be handled without anyone noticing there was ever a problem to begin with. “What issue?” you had asked softly.

“The near wheel,” he had replied. “A loose bolt, it seems. The coachman says it is best tightened before we depart. He fears—”

“—a spectacle,” you had finished for him, because of course he did. The footman’s throat had worked. “Yes, my lady.”

You had drawn a careful breath, smoothing your expression into calm. “Very well,” you had said. “Tell him I will speak with him myself in the carriage passage.”

The bolt had taken longer than expected. The coachman, face apologetic beneath his hat, had insisted he would not risk London streets on a quick tightening. Better to take the carriage straight back to the mansion and set it right properly, no matter the hour, no matter the inconvenience. You had agreed, because responsibility is often nothing more than saying yes to disruption before it becomes a disaster.

Now, with the carriage passage’s air still lingering in your lungs, you walk back alone, your task done. Your sisters are still inside your private box—safe, contained, protected by velvet and gilt and rank. And Lady Halstead. She resides in the box beside yours, close enough that she could lean and speak through the shared partition if she must, close enough to notice if either of your sisters so much as breathed too fast. A reprieve, she called it when she insisted you attend. “Even taskmasters require entertainment,” she had sniggered, as if your responsibility were a vice.

Inside the theatre, Act II is continuing with gleeful cruelty. You had watched, earlier, the moment Dandini’s act dropped. The false prince’s charm disappeared. The audience leaned forward. A lie collapsed. Magnifico’s pride crumpled under the weight of being laughed at, and for a heartbeat, the whole theatre felt like a lesson: greed is always punished—onstage, at least. In the stalls, where real men barter daughters and reputations, greed is simply dressed better.

You press your palm lightly to the wall as you walk. The corridor bends, drawing you nearer again to your seat—past closed doors, sconces that burn low, and past gilded mouldings that look like frozen lace. The sound of the opera sounds muffled and distant, as if the music is taking place in a different life. You are halfway down the hall when you hear a soft step behind you. “Lady Whitlock.”

You stop and find Edmund Hartwell smiling at you as if he has been expecting you. His charm, tonight, is dressed in propriety. You curtsy. “Mr. Hartwell.”

“I hope I am not intruding,” he says, and his tone makes it sound like he is doing you the favour of asking permission instead of taking it. “You are,” you reply pleasantly. “But I am certain you will manage to survive it.” He grins, delighted. “You always do that,” he notes, as if you are private entertainment. “You cut without drawing blood.”

“It is a talent developed out of necessity,” you answer. “Why are you here, Mr. Hartwell?” He spreads his hands in an almost apologetic gesture. “For air,” he says easily, mirroring the excuse you have used a dozen times this Season. “The theatre is magnificent, of course, but it can be stifling.”

“I find the company far more stifling than the air,” you reply calmly. His smile does not waver. “Then perhaps we share a preference,” he says. “I find crowds exhausting. Everyone is always trying to be seen.”

“And you are not?” you ask.

“I prefer to see,” he admits. You reply with continued steadiness. “If you have followed me for a philosophical conversation, I fear you will be disappointed.” He laughs softly, as if charmed by your refusal to soften. “No,” he says. “I followed you because you disappeared.”

“I had an errand,” you state. “I will return to my sisters shortly.”

“Always the dutiful one,” he murmurs. “Always thinking of others.” You do not like the way he says it. As if he has been studying you. “As you should,” you tell him. He tilts his head. “Should I?”

“Yes,” you say. “Because I have no interest in lingering in empty corridors with gentlemen, Mr. Hartwell.”

The corridor is empty in a way you did not notice at first. The constant foot traffic near the boxes is absent here. The theatre’s servants move mostly behind doors, in passages you do not see. The patrons remain in velvet and laughter. Hartwell’s gaze flicks briefly past you, down the corridor behind, as if confirming what you have just confirmed. Then he looks back at you and smiles again. “You speak as though I am a danger,” he says mildly.

“You are a gentleman,” you reply. “That is reason enough for caution.”

“And yet you are alone,” he points out. “Without your sisters. Without Lady Halstead’s cane-tapping warnings.” Your mouth tightens. “Lady Halstead does not require a cane to frighten men.”

“Nor do you,” he says, and there is feeling in his voice that might have been flattering if it did not feel like a hand reaching for your throat. “But you should not have to.”

You hold his gaze. “I am accustomed to what I must do.”

“And what of what you want?” he asks. There it is again—the question he keeps circling like a hound around a rabbit hole. “I want to return to the opera,” you say. He takes a small step closer. “Then let me escort you.”

“No.” His brows lift. “Why not?”

“Because it will be noticed,” you answer. His smile remains, but something shifts behind it—an impatience, a flicker of annoyance quickly re-painted. “You are always speaking of what must be seen,” he says. “What must be avoided. What must be managed.”

“Because that is the world we live in,” you reply.

“And yet,” he says, voice lowering as if sharing a secret, “I have seen you in public. I have watched you steer conversations as if you were born to command a room. You cannot tell me you are frightened of a gentleman walking beside you.”

“I am not frightened,” you correct. “I am careful.”

He takes another step. The corridor seems to narrow, though it has not changed. The sconces throw his face into half-shadow, making his eyes look deeper, darker. Careful,” he repeats softly. “Always careful.” His gaze drops to your gloved hands. “Do you know what careful looks like from the outside?” he asks. You do not answer. “It looks like distance,” he continues, and the warmth in his voice is gone. “Like coldness. Like punishment.”

You feel your spine stiffen. “If you feel punished by my boundaries, Mr. Hartwell, then you are free to seek softer company.”

He laughs again, but there is no humour in it. “Softer company,” he echoes. “That is what you think I want?”

“I think you want what most men want,” you reply. “A girl who smiles and says yes and never has an opinion sharp enough to sting.”

His eyes darken. “And you believe you are not that girl.”

“I know I am not,” you answer.

“You are,” he insists, and his mask slips. “But you are always with your sisters. Always with Lady Halstead. Always in the middle of crowds. It is as though you are determined never to be alone.”

Your pulse picks up. The opera’s muffled laughter sounds too far away. Somewhere, around a corner, you hear voices—two men speaking low, a lady’s laugh—just close enough to remind you that you are not entirely hidden. Just far enough that they will not see you unless you turn the corner with someone’s hands on you. You lift your chin. “If you have followed me here merely to complain that I have chaperones, Mr. Hartwell, then you have wasted both our time.”

“I followed you here because I am tired of being treated like I am asking for something unreasonable.”

You blink once. “You are asking for something unreasonable.”

His jaw tightens. “I am asking for a moment.”

“A moment becomes a scandal,” you reply.

He takes another step closer. It cuts into your space, too forceful, compelling you to either retreat or make contact. You retreat—one measured step back. He follows. Your heart thuds, hard. “Mr. Hartwell,” you say, keeping your voice polite to mask that you are shaken. “Move aside.” He does not. Instead, he reaches out—not to take your hand in the proper way, not to offer his arm, but to touch your forearm. Glove. Fabric. Wrong. You go still. His fingers tighten slightly, as if testing what you will allow. “You have been smiling at me for weeks,” he says, voice low. “You have laughed. You have spoken with me. You have accepted my company. Do you think I do not understand what that means?”

“It means you are pleasant in public,” you reply. “It means nothing else.”

His grip tightens. “You cannot be so naïve.” The word lands like a slap. Heat flares in your chest—anger first, and then, beneath it, something colder. “Let go,” you say quietly. He does not let go. Instead, he steps even closer, and suddenly his body is a barrier between you and the corridor’s open length. He pins you against the wall. “Why are you doing this?” he asks accusingly. “Why are you making it difficult?”

Because difficult is what men call a woman who refuses to be easy. You swallow once, forcing your breath steady. “Because you are behaving improperly,” you say. His mouth twists. “Improperly,” he repeats. “We are in a corridor, not a bed.” Your stomach drops. The words are too close to indecent to be accidental. You feel your skin prickle beneath your gown. “You will step away,” you say, and there is steel now beneath the silk.

His smile is gone. “Or what?” he murmurs. “You will shout? You will call for help? And then the theatre will turn, and someone will look, and they will see you alone with a gentleman, and they will assume the worst.”

Your blood runs colder. He knows. Of course he does. Men like him know exactly where the trap lies. “You would not,” you say, and your voice is softer than you want it to be. He leans in, close enough that you can smell wine on his breath, faint beneath the perfume of the evening. “Wouldn’t I?” he asks. “Do you truly believe I have spent my life being refused by women like you? Do you think I do not know how to make a refusal… costly?”

Your pulse slams hard against your throat. You twist your arm, trying to pull free. His fingers clamp down. “Stop,” you whisper. He moves again, caging you in, and his free hand rises—toward your waist, toward your face, you cannot even register which because panic blurs the edges of the world. His fingers brush your cheek. Your whole body recoils. He catches you, hand at your waist, keeping you from stepping away. The touch is not tender. It is ownership. Your breath stutters.

Around the corner, the voices laugh again. A man says something about the prince’s foolishness. A lady’s fan snaps open. Life continues, bright and secure, while you are trapped in a dim hallway with a man whose smile has become teeth.

“You are frightened,” Hartwell murmurs, pleased, “Good.” and then his face dips, aiming for your mouth. Instinct takes over.

You shove at his chest with both hands. Your palms hit solid muscle beneath his coat. He barely moves. He grabs your wrists—quick, efficient—pinning them together in one hand like you are a child. A sound tries to rise, but is strangled by the terror of what the sound will cause. If you scream, someone will come. If someone comes, they will see. If they see, they will decide for you. And in this world, decisions about women are never made in women’s favour. Hartwell’s mouth is inches from yours. His eyes are dark, intent. “This would be easier,” he breathes, “if you stopped pretending you don’t want to be wanted.”

Rage flares through the fear like a match struck. You jerk your knee upward, aiming for his shin. Your skirt tangles, but the blow lands enough that he hisses, grip loosening for a fraction. You wrench your wrists free. You twist sideways, trying to slide past him into the open corridor. He catches you again, faster than you are, arm hooking around your waist, hauling you back. The sound you make is small and ugly—a gasp turned into something like a sob. His hand clamps over your mouth. The world tilts. Your eyes burn. Your chest heaves against his arm.

He leans in, voice harsh in your ear. “Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t make noise. Don’t ruin yourself.”

Ruin yourself. As if he himself is not your ruination. Your teeth sink into the palm covering your mouth. Hard. Hartwell jerks back, swearing under his breath. His hand pulls away, shaking, and you breathe in fast, greedy gulps of air that taste like dust and terror. “Bitch,” he spits, and the word is the truest thing he has said all evening. He reaches again—

But a hand clamps onto Hartwell’s collar from behind, yanking him back with a force so sudden that he stumbles. Your body lurches forward, freed. Air rushes into your lungs like salvation.

“Touch her again and you’ll leave this theatre in pieces.”

Hartwell turns in the grip, furious, breath sharp with pain and outrage. His face is flushed, his mouth twisted, dignity scrambling. “Oh—so this is how it is?” he spits, voice harsh in the hush. “The righteous Viscount prowling corridors to pull women off men’s hands—”

Seungcheol moves before the sentence can finish. A punch, clean and brutal. Hartwell’s head snaps sideways with it. There is a sickening crack—bone meeting knuckle, cartilage giving way—and Hartwell staggers, half-caught by Seungcheol’s grip before his back hits the wall. For a second, he looks stunned—then blood pours down from his nose, spilling over the line of his mouth. He laughs—hoarse, broken, smiling through the pain.

“There it is,” Hartwell murmurs, voice thick, as if delighted by the proof. He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand and smears the blood across his cheek. His eyes cut to you again. “Did you enjoy that?” he says, and the question is meant to shame you. “Watching him hit for you like you’re worth it?”

Seungcheol’s jaw flexes. He steps in, seizes Hartwell by the lapels, and slams him back into the wall hard enough that the sconce above them trembles. Hartwell’s grin widens. “Go on,” he breathes, taunting. “Everyone will believe whatever you want them to believe. You’re a Viscount—you can bruise anyone and call it justice.”

Seungcheol’s fist drives forward again. Hartwell makes a choking sound as his head jerks back. He spits—thick and red—onto the floor between Seungcheol’s boots. “She’ll still be what she is,” Hartwell rasps, eyes feral with humiliation and spite. “A woman alone in a corridor. A woman who—”

Seungcheol hits him again And again. And again. Hartwell’s knees buckle. Seungcheol’s fist pauses mid-air—because for a fraction of a second it looks like Hartwell might fall. Seungcheol doesn’t let him. He catches him by the collar and holds him upright only to make sure the lesson lands. You see it then—Seungcheol’s restraint isn’t soft. It’s contained. And the container is cracking.

“Stop.” The word tears out of you. You step forward without thinking, breath sharp. “Lord Ashbourne—stop. Please.”

Hartwell coughs, laughing and choking at once, blood dripping from his nose, from the corner of his mouth. His eyes lift toward you—glass-bright, triumphant in his own sickness. “Tell me,” he pants, “do you feel safe now? With him?” His smile splits wider. “You’ll always be safe with a man who can bury your story.”

Seungcheol’s fist twitches again. You can feel the corridor narrowing, the corner voices too near, the risk of witnesses like a blade at your throat. “Stop.” You command once more.

Seungcheol stills. His chest rises and falls like he has been running. His knuckles are bruised. His jaw is clenched so tight it looks painful. Hartwell hangs there, dazed and upright only because Seungcheol’s fist is still in his collar. Seungcheol’s gaze flicks to you for a brief, dangerous moment—fury there, yes, but something else too: a question, a check, a tether.

Then he turns back to Hartwell and drags him closer until Hartwell’s boots scrape, until their faces are inches apart. Seungcheol whispers something in his ear. It is too quiet for you to catch—swallowed by the theatre’s muffled roar, by the blood in your own pulse. But you see the effect. Hartwell’s grin falters. His eyes widen—just slightly, but enough. Something in his face tightens, and for the first time since he cornered you, something like fear crawls across his face and stays there. Seungcheol releases him with a small shove.

Hartwell stumbles two steps, catches himself on the wall, then straightens with shaking hands, wiping his mouth and nose as if he can smear the colour of humiliation away. “You’re both cursed,” he hisses, voice slurred, “Both of you.” His eyes flick to you, and the last of his charm curdles. “Enjoy your saviour.” Then he turns and staggers down the corridor, cursing under his breath, one hand clamped to his bleeding face. He does not look back.

You do not move. Your hands are trembling so badly your gloves whisper against each other. Your breath comes in ragged pulls you cannot smooth. Your heart is banging as if it is trying to escape your chest. Seungcheol turns to you. “Are you hurt?” he asks, and the question is clipped.

You open your mouth. Nothing comes out. Your throat feels like it has been squeezed from the inside. Seungcheol’s gaze drops briefly to your wrists—where Hartwell’s fingers held you too tight—and something in his eyes hardens. His fists curl and unclench once. “Speak,” he says, less harsh than it sounds. “Tell me.”

You swallow. Your voice comes out thin. “No,” you manage. “I—no. I am—” You cannot say fine. The word feels like a lie too large to fit through your teeth.

Seungcheol exhales through his nose. He steps closer—not into your space like Hartwell, but near enough that you can feel the warmth of him, near enough that if someone came around the corner, they would see a man and a woman standing close and assume—God, they would assume.

You flinch, not away from him, but from the idea of being seen. Seungcheol notices instantly. His gaze flicks toward the corner, toward the distant voices. He lowers his head slightly, blocking you with his body in a way that is almost instinctive. A shield. “We cannot be found here,” he says, voice low. “Come.”

You do not move. Your legs feel like they have forgotten how to obey. Seungcheol’s expression tightens, impatience wrestling with something that looks dangerously like tenderness. He reaches out slowly, offering his hand. Not grabbing. Not taking. Offering. “Lady Whitlock,” he says, and the title steadies you. “Take my hand.”

You stare at it for too long, as though it belongs to someone else. Then you put your gloved fingers into his. His grip closes around yours—not gentle, not soft, but firm in a way that says you will not fall, not while he’s holding you. He guides you down the corridor, away from the corner, away from the risk. Your steps are small at first, then steadier as your body remembers motion.

Somewhere behind closed doors, the opera barrels toward its end. Somewhere, the audience cheers at Angelina’s triumph, delighted by forgiveness that costs them nothing.

You and Seungcheol slip into a small antechamber—empty, shadowed, a place meant for servants to wait or patrons to adjust gloves without being seen. Seungcheol releases your hand only once the door is shut. Silence rushes in.

You lean one palm against the wall, steadying your composure. Your other hand rises to your throat as if you can hold your voice there and keep it from breaking. Seungcheol stands a few feet away, rigid. Something is pulsing beneath his restraint, as though the punch he gave Hartwell was the smallest portion of what he wanted to do. “Why were you alone?” he asks.

“I had an errand,” you say, too quickly. “My carriage—”

“You don’t leave your sisters for air unless you have no choice,” he interrupts, and the accuracy of it makes you bristle even through the shock. “So what was it?”

You lift your chin. “A bolt,” you state. “Loose. It needed tightening.”

Seungcheol’s mouth tightens. “And he followed you.”

“Yes,” you say, voice sharp with the anger you can finally afford now that you are not trapped beneath Hartwell’s hand. “He followed me. Like a dog that thinks if it waits long enough, it will be rewarded.”

Seungcheol’s gaze stays fixed on you. He watches you the way he watches ledgers—seeking cracks, seeking truth, seeking exactly where the damage landed. “Did he—” he begins, then stops, jaw working as if the question tastes like poison. You refuse to let the implication become something bigger by naming it. “He tried,” you say, and that is enough.

Seungcheol’s hands curl at his sides again. He turns away sharply, one step, as if he must move the rage somewhere or it will burn through his skin. “He will not try again,” he says, voice like steel. You laugh bitterly. “You sound very confident.”

Seungcheol’s expression doesn’t change. “I am.” The certainty in his tone does not comfort you. Because certainty is a man’s privilege in this world. Your ruin is always closer than his.

“How convenient,” you say, and the words come out with a tremor you hate.

“It was not convenience,” he replies. You stare at him. “Then what was it?” He holds your gaze. Then he answers, and the answer is not what you expect. “It was inevitable.”

The word makes your temper flare because it sounds like fate, and fate is just another excuse men use to do what they want. “I do not believe in inevitability,” you say.

“You believe in outcomes,” he counters smoothly. “And in preventing them before they happen.”

He continues, not allowing you to cut him down with your pride because he is doing something rare for a man like him: he is moving directly toward the problem rather than circling it. “Hartwell will not be the last, you know that.”

Your spine stiffens. “I can handle myself.”

“You bit him,” Seungcheol remarks, and the bluntness of the observation shocks a small, ugly laugh out of you. You hate that he saw it. Hate that it’s now part of the story between you. “I did,” you admit. “And if he had not let go, I would have done worse.”

Seungcheol’s mouth twitches—approval, dark and brief. “Good,” he says, and then his tone shifts again. “But it won’t stop them.” You narrow your eyes. “Opportunists,” he clarifies. “Men who sniff out a weakness and think they can take.”

“And you have decided I am weak,” you snap. Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours, unflinching. “No,” he says firmly. “I have decided you are visible.” You swallow hard.

“Lady Whitlock,” he says, and your title sounds different in his mouth now. “You are the gatekeeper of two debutantes. You are an heiress in your own right. You are alone without a father’s wall behind you, and you move through the ton like a woman who refuses to bend.” He steps closer.

“That draws attention. Good attention. Bad attention. Hungry attention.” You hate him for being right. “Tonight,” he continues, voice dropping, “it almost cost you everything.” Your throat burns. You lift your chin anyway. “I did not ask you to rescue me.”

“I didn’t do it because you asked,” he replies.

Seungcheol breathes in once, restrained, as if he is about to say something he is already regretting. “We need a solution. Not comfort. Not apologies. A solution.”

You let out a small, humourless laugh. He doesn’t react. “You can be furious with me later,” he states calmly. “Right now, listen.”

You fold your arms, hugging yourself without meaning to. “Speak, then.”

Seungcheol’s gaze flicks briefly toward the door, toward the distant swell of applause. The crowd will spill into the grand hall soon—champagne, conversation, judgment dressed as merriment. Time is short. “I will court you,” he says.

The room seems to tilt, as if the world cannot quite believe what it has heard. “You will—” you begin, and your voice cracks with disbelief. You clear your throat, forcing it steady. “You will not.”

“I will.”

You feel heat flare in your cheeks. “Absolutely not.”

“It will stop men like Hartwell,” he says, as if you have objected to a business proposal rather than an insult to your pride. “It will stop most of them, at least. Because the ton respects ownership more than it respects a woman’s refusal.”

Your stomach twists. “I am not property.”

“I know,” he says, and there is a strange sharpness in his tone, as if he is angry at the world for forcing you to speak this way. “But they do not.” You take a step back, needing space. “And why,” you demand, “would I agree to let you parade me around as—what? A shield?”

Seungcheol’s eyes darken. “Because your shield is currently a set of gloves and a sharp tongue, and it nearly wasn’t enough.”

Your hands curl. “You are presuming a great deal.”

“I am stating what happened,” he replies.

The applause in the distance swells—finale near. The audience is beginning to stir. Time is shrinking. You stare at him, trying to find the angle. “And what do you gain?” you ask, because nothing in this world is offered without cost. Seungcheol doesn’t pretend otherwise. “I gain jealousy,” he says evenly. “Speculation. Interest.” You blink.

“Debutantes want what another woman has,” he confesses bluntly. “If they see me paying attention to you, they will assume you are worth competing for.”

It’s so cold you almost laugh again. “So I am bait,” you say, voice sharpened to a point. Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours, and something flares there—annoyance, yes, but also a kind of reluctant respect for how quickly you understand the ugliness of the mechanism. “You are not bait,” he says. “You are armour. For yourself. For your sisters. And—” he pauses, jaw tightening, “for me.”

“For you,” you echo.

Seungcheol’s voice stays calm, but the words are edged. “My household is being tested,” he says. “My name is being weighed. People are waiting for weakness. A courtship—visible, respectable—reminds them I am anchored. It reminds them Ashbourne is stable.”

He’s not asking you to marry him. He’s asking you to stand beside him. To be seen. To be used. To be protected. To be trapped in his orbit in a way you have been trying to avoid since the first night you heard him speak of suitability. “No,” you say again, because your pride must say it even if your mind is beginning to see the bars of the alternative.

“Then Hartwell will try again,” Seungcheol says softly. “Not in a corridor, perhaps. He will wait. He will follow. He will find a moment where you are tired, where your sisters are distracted, where Lady Halstead is speaking to someone else. He will trap you again, and he will make sure there are witnesses next time.”

“And the ton will not ask whether you wanted it. They will ask why you were alone.”

You swallow, eyes burning. “You are cruel,” you whisper.

“I am honest.” You hate him for it. You hate that the honesty feels like a hand under your chin, forcing you to look at reality. “What about my sisters?” you demand. “What about their prospects? What if—what if people think—”

“They will think you are respectable,” Seungcheol interrupts. “They will think you are protected. And by extension, your sisters will be protected too.”

You shake your head, anger and fear tangled. “You speak like a contract.” Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. “Because that is what this is.”

You want to refuse. Your whole body wants to refuse. You can feel the stubbornness rising like a wall. And then, like a ghost with teeth, the memory of Hartwell’s hand over your mouth returns. The noose of scandal. The corner voices. The trap. Your hands tremble. Seungcheol sees it. His expression softens—barely. “I am not asking you to like me,” he says quietly. “I know you don’t.”

Your lips part, ready to deny it—

He cuts you off. “I’m asking you to survive the Season without being ruined by a man who thinks he can take what he wants.”

The theatre beyond the walls erupts in applause—curtain falls, the whole audience rising in delighted approval. Act II ends with the greedy being humiliated. Real life ends with women being punished.

You close your eyes, feeling the tremor in your hands, the aching strain in your ribs where panic still sits like a lodged stone. When you open them again, Seungcheol is watching you as if he has already decided what you will do. You hate him for that, too. “What are your terms?” you ask, because if you must step into the trap, you will at least choose the shape of the cage. Seungcheol is alert now, as if he respects you more when you negotiate than when you refuse.

“We appear together,” he says. “We speak politely. We allow people to speculate. We do not give them anything improper to feast on.”

“And my sisters?” you press.

“I will not interfere with their suitors,” he says. “Unless a suitor becomes a threat.”

“And you will not speak of them as if they are interchangeable.”

He nods once. “Fine.”

“And you will not—” You force the words out. “You will not touch me without permission.”

Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours. The pause is only a mere second, but it feels heavy. Then, very quietly, he whispers, “I’m not Hartwell.”

You nod. “Then we are agreed.”

Seungcheol’s gaze flicks to the door. The applause has faded into the rumble of movement—people leaving, drifting toward the grand hall. Time is up. “We need to return,” he says. He steps closer again and offers his arm. The gesture is so ordinary that it is almost obscene after what happened. His forearm is solid beneath the fabric of his coat. A structure. A public signal. You stare at it too long.

Seungcheol’s voice drops, low enough to feel like a private thread between you. “If you hesitate,” he murmurs, “they will notice.”

You place your hand on his arm. The contact is immediate, startling—not because it is intimate, but because it is easy. Because your body knows the shape of propriety as instinctively as it knows panic. Seungcheol’s hand rises briefly to cover yours—a shielded gesture of possession that makes your stomach twist and your spine straighten in equal measure. Then he drops it again, guiding you toward the door.

The grand entrance hall is filled when you step back into it. Champagne trays glide past. Fans flutter. Men laugh too loudly, voices warmed by music and brandy. Ladies tilt their heads together like conspirators. Everywhere the ton swarms—hungry, alive, eager for new stories to chew.

You and Seungcheol move into it as if you have always belonged like this—your hand on his arm, his pace measured to yours, his posture calm and assured. Nobody turns at first. Then the attention shifts—like clouds rolling in. A mama’s fan pauses mid-flutter. A gentleman’s laugh stutters. A debutante’s eyes widen. You feel the ripple of recognition catch and spread. Lord Ashbourne. Lady Whitlock. Together. It is astonishing how quickly a room can rewrite a narrative the moment two people offer it a new shape.

Seungcheol guides you through clusters with the familiar confidence of a man who compels every room he enters. His gaze stays forward, but his awareness is everywhere. He is watching for danger, for gossip, for the sharpness in someone’s smile. You are watching too—because you have always watched. Ahead, near the edge of the hall where the light is softer, you spot Lady Halstead with Georgina and Cecily.

Georgina looks flushed with the opera’s energy, eyes bright, cheeks warm. Cecily looks calmer than she has in weeks—her shoulders less tense, her gaze softer, as if the music has soothed something raw inside her. Lady Halstead stands between them like a fortress, her cane resting lightly against the marble. Her eyes lift and catch on you. Her expression barely changes. Only the smallest lift of her brows. A question asked without words. You cannot answer it here.

Seungcheol’s mouth drops close to your ear. “Smile,” he murmurs. “If you look hunted, they’ll scent blood.” Your stomach twists, but you obey. You curve your mouth into something that could pass for ease. Seungcheol’s breath brushes your hair as he continues, lower still, a whisper only you are meant to hear. “Let them be confused,” he says. “Confusion buys us time.”

Us. The word lands strangely, unwanted yet undeniable. You keep walking. You reach Lady Halstead, and she steps forward with an immediate, perfectly pleasant smile. “Lord Ashbourne,” she greets. Seungcheol bows his head. “Lady Halstead.”

Georgina’s eyes flick from him to you to your hand on his arm, and her expression blooms with curiosity so bright it is almost dangerous. Cecily looks at you first—not at him. She watches your face, as if searching for a crack, a signal, a truth. You give her none. Georgina is the first to cut through the moment—innocent in its boldness. “Why were you gone so long?”

“The carriage took longer than expected,” you say lightly. “The coachman would not risk it—he’s taken it back to the mansion to have it set properly.”

Georgina’s brows jump. Cecily’s eyes widen slightly, already thinking ahead—how you will all return, what you will do without your own carriage waiting. Seungcheol steps in smoothly, the lie fitting his mouth like a well-worn glove. “I came upon Lady Whitlock in the passage,” he announces. “She mentioned the trouble. I offered my assistance—and my carriage, of course. It would be improper to leave the ladies inconvenienced.”

Lady Halstead’s gaze flicks between you, then softens just enough to signal she understands more than she will ever say aloud in a hall full of listeners. “How fortunate that you were nearby, my lord,” she expresses.

“Yes,” he agrees.

You feel Seungcheol’s arm shift slightly beneath your hand, a subtle adjustment that draws you closer by the smallest degree—protective, possessive, correct. Your fingers tighten slightly on his sleeve. Seungcheol’s voice brushes your ear again, almost gentle in its direction. “Breathe,” he murmurs. “And keep your hand where it is.”

The hall continues to watch. It is terrifying how easily the performance fits. It is even more terrifying how quickly the ton accepts it as truth. And you are suddenly, horribly aware that you are standing on a stage without having chosen to step onto it.

The housekeeper has been speaking for three corridors. Her voice is dutiful and so perfectly measured it begins to feel like another layer of stone—part of the castle itself, as fixed and unyielding as the cold plaster beneath your fingertips when you trail them along the wall. Mrs. Wilson walks as if she has been built for this place, not simply employed by it. Her keys jingle at her hip with every step she takes. “—and the third Viscount had the gallery extended after the French scare of 1793,” she announces, “He believed a longer corridor made intruders easier to spot.”

You hum politely, because you have learned the art of listening while your mind ticks elsewhere. Behind you, Cecily makes a sound in agreement. Her gaze keeps catching on the carved moulding, the tall windows, the tapestries that hang like frozen scenes of hunting and conquest. She looks as if she isn’t sure whether she is allowed to stare. You don’t tell her not to. This is not your house. You are, in every possible sense, a guest. It is the first thing you remind yourself every time your instinct tries to correct a servant’s angle or smooth a crease that is not yours to smooth.

The corridor opens into the portrait gallery. Mrs. Wilson slows, pleased—this is the part of the tour she enjoys. Here, history is framed and varnished. Oil-painted eyes follow you as you walk. long-dead men with proud chins and indifferent eyes; women in stiff gowns and softer expressions that still somehow look like they would judge you for breathing too loudly. There is a rhythm to them, to the lineage: the same restraint in different generations, the same ownership repeated like an inheritance.You stop before a portrait of a Viscountess with a gaze like polished ice. “Her Ladyship was not born an Ashbourne,” Mrs. Wilson says. “Married in. Kept this house in order during the old Viscount’s… difficulties.”

The word ‘difficulties’ can hide anything. You glance at the painted woman’s hands—folded, composed, rings glinting. You imagine those hands signing letters, balancing accounts, choosing who to bless and who to ruin with a single invitation. You wonder, briefly, what it must feel like to be the kind of woman who can afford to be revered.

Mrs. Wilson moves on to the next portrait without waiting for your thoughts. “And this was the seventh Viscount, and that was his first wife, and this is—” She doesn’t point at the absence. But you notice it anyway. Between two portraits—one a Viscount in a red sash, one a woman in a pale gown—there is a space in the line that has been made ready. Not empty. Prepared. The wall has been measured, the hooks are there, the panelling looks slightly newer, slightly cleaner, as if it has been maintained in anticipation. A place for someone who is not yet there.

As the tour continues, more rooms unfold: the morning room with its embroidered chairs and flawless symmetry; the blue drawing room, colder than it looks; the long dining room, where the table seems to stretch on. Mrs. Wilson points out wainscoting, hearths, renovations, the view from each window as if the landscape has been curated for inspection.

Your attention drifts, despite yourself, toward the living details—the way the servants move like they have perfected not being in the way, the way the house smells faintly of old wood and something mineral from the stone itself. You notice the small signs of modern life that no tour mentions: a pair of muddy boots placed neatly on a tray near a back entrance; a half-forgotten riding crop by the hall table; a shawl draped over a chair like someone abandoned it in haste. There are brothers here. Young men. Lives that do not sit still for portraiture.

Mrs. Wilson leads you up a gently spiralling staircase. “The guest rooms are on this floor,” she informs you. “We keep them aired, of course. No damp. No drafts. The Viscount insists.”

“Mrs. Wilson,” a voice announces behind you, “that will do. I’ll steal them from you now.” Jeonghan appears as if he has been conjured by boredom. London’s stiffness has slipped off him somewhere between the gates and the country. He is dressed for ease but still looks unreasonably polished, sunlight slanting through the leaded panes and catching in his hair like pale thread.

Mrs. Wilson stops in her tracks. “Lord Jeonghan,” she says, disapproving by habit rather than truth. “I am giving a tour.”

“Yes,” Jeonghan replies brightly, “I can tell. Lady Whitlock looks like she’s being marched into a sermon.” You lift a brow, amused despite yourself. “If this is a sermon, it is exceptionally long.”

Jeonghan’s eyes flick to you, satisfied. “She has that effect,” he confides, and then he steps closer to Mrs. Wilson with the easy affection of a man who has survived her discipline since childhood. “You’ve done your duty. You’ve spoken for—what—five corridors? Six? Give the poor women air.”

Mrs. Wilson makes a disapproving sound, but it lacks conviction. “The young ladies must learn the house.”

“They will,” Jeonghan promises. “But if you keep them trapped inside much longer, Miss Georgina will come in through a window out of spite.”

As if on cue, laughter cracks through the glass somewhere around you—bright, unruly, unmistakably Georgina. It drifts down the corridor, followed by a second sound: a man’s shout, delighted, unmistakably Soonyoung’s. Cecily’s mouth twitches. Mrs. Wilson’s lips press together as though fighting a smile. She loses. “Very well,” she relents. “But do not break anything.”

Jeonghan’s grin widens. “We never break anything.” Mrs. Wilson’s gaze is pointed. “That is a lie.” Jeonghan places a hand over his heart, offended only for performance. “Not a lie,” he says. “A belief.”

Mrs. Wilson gives you a curt nod. “The ladies’ rooms are at the end of the corridor. A maid will assist. Dinner at seven.” Then she is gone, keys chiming away with every step. Jeonghan turns back to you, sweeping into a bow that is too playful to be proper. “Come,” he says. “Before she changes her mind and locks you into the portrait gallery until you can recite every Viscount by name.”

“That would be a cruel fate,” you answer.

“We are a cruel family,” Jeonghan replies lightly. “But only to each other.”

He offers his arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world. You hesitate—habit tugging your hand toward independence—then you remind yourself: you are here because of an arrangement that requires visibility. Warmth. Ease. You place your hand on his arm. Jeonghan immediately guides you down the staircase, his pace matching yours as though he has done this a thousand times. Cecily follows, a little less tightly wound now that Mrs. Wilson’s voice has been removed from her ears.

The moment you step outside, the world changes. The lawns stretch wide and impossibly green, sloping gently toward a line of trees that sway with the wind. A tent has been erected near the terrace—white canvas, poles lacquered, chairs arranged beneath like a little pocket of calm. Someone has dragged out a basket of mallets and wooden balls, and the grass near it is already scarred with play. And in the middle of it—spinning like a comet—Georgina. She is flushed with motion, her cheeks bright, her hair slightly loosened beneath her bonnet. Her skirts are lifted just enough to run without tripping, and her laughter is unrestrained. Soonyoung is chasing her in a half-serious, half-theatrical lunge, his sleeves rolled, his grin feral with delight. “You’re cheating!” Georgina shrieks, darting away.

“I am winning!” Soonyoung shouts back, as if those are synonyms. Jeonghan calls out, voice carrying over the field. “Miss Georgina, if you cripple my brother before dinner, Seungcheol will make you repair him.” Georgina skids to a stop and turns. “I would,” she declares shamelessly. Soonyoung throws a hand to his chest as though wounded. “See?” he complains. “She has no mercy.”

“We already knew that,” Jeonghan says. “It’s practically her hobby.”

Georgina finally spots you, and her grin softens into something like triumph. She runs toward you, then remembers herself at the last moment and slows into a walk, attempting composure. She fails. She bounces on her toes like she cannot keep the joy contained. “You were taking forever,” she complains immediately, as if you have been doing something frivolous rather than enduring corridors of history. “I was being educated,” you reply. Soonyoung reaches you and bows dramatically. “I attempted to rescue her,” he announces, gesturing grandly to Georgina. “But she is feral.” Georgina flicks her wrist. “You like it.”

Soonyoung beams. “I do.” There is no flirtation in it. Only the pure, childish thrill of having found someone who matches your speed. Georgina looks at him like she has found a brother made of fire instead of obligation. Jeonghan leans closer to you, murmuring as if sharing a secret. “He hasn’t laughed like that since the funeral.”

The words land softly, yet heavier than their tone suggests. You glance at Soonyoung again—at the bright motion, the gleeful chaos—and you suddenly see the edges beneath it: the way his laughter is slightly too loud, the way his hands never quite go still. You know that costume. You’ve worn a quieter version of it for years.

Jeonghan straightens, clapping his hands once. “Now,” he declares, “we are going to play. Because if Seungcheol finds out we have guests and we did not provide entertainment, he will create an itinerary.”

Georgina makes a dramatic choking sound. Cecily’s eyes widen, amused. “He does that?” she asks quietly. Jeonghan’s smile turns wicked. “He does worse.” Soonyoung grabs a mallet and holds it out to Georgina like a sword. “My lady, your weapon.” Georgina snatches it with a grin.

Cecily hangs back at the edge of the grass, uncertain. She watches the mallets, the hoops, the balls. She watches the brothers with a softness that is less fear and more curiosity now. You touch her elbow lightly. “You don’t have to play,” you murmur. Cecily shakes her head quickly. “No, I— I can,” she says, as if the fact that you offered her an out has made her want to refuse it. Before she can be swallowed by doubt, a quiet figure shifts beneath the shade of the tent. Wonwoo. He is seated in a chair angled away from the chaos, a book open in his hands. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes are alert, watching without demanding to be included. When Cecily’s gaze flicks toward him, he lifts his head slightly, raising the book as if offering it. Cecily’s shoulders loosen. She drifts toward the tent like someone stepping toward safer air. Wonwoo doesn’t stand. He doesn’t bow. He simply makes space—shifts his chair slightly, and sets a second chair at an angle. Cecily sits.

Wonwoo turns a page, then tilts the book toward her so she can see the illustration. Cecily leans in, and the movement is so small, so natural, that your chest tightens unexpectedly. This is what she needs: not pursuit, not performance. A quiet place to exist without being evaluated. Jeonghan notices too. His grin softens. Then Soonyoung shouts something about rules that no one listens to, and Georgina smacks a ball so hard it shoots through a hoop by force. “That was not a proper stroke,” Jeonghan calls.

“It went through!” Georgina yells back. Jeonghan spreads his hands. “Force is not skill.”

“It’s my favourite kind of skill,” Georgina declares.

You pick up a mallet. It’s heavier than you expect. Solid. Jeonghan’s smile brightens when he sees you take it. “Oh,” he announces. “You’re going to be good.”

“I’m not going to be anything,” you reply, already measuring the distance, the angle, the grass. Soonyoung points at you dramatically. “If she wins, I will accuse her of witchcraft.”

“If I win,” you correct calmly, “you will accept it.”

Jeonghan laughs sharply. “She speaks like Seungcheol.”

As if summoned by the mention, a door opens on the terrace above. Seungcheol steps out. He appears the way he always seems to: suddenly, inevitably, like the house itself has decided to give him shape. He is dressed less formally than you have seen him in London—no severe black, no hard structure. His sleeves are not starched to perfection. His hair is slightly tousled, as if the wind has dared to go through it. He stands at the top of the steps, gaze sweeping the lawn: Soonyoung shouting, Jeonghan grinning, Georgina in her element, Cecily under the tent with Wonwoo, and you holding a mallet like you might use it as a weapon. His eyes meet yours. The contact is brief. But something shifts in your stomach anyway, irritating and unwanted. He descends the steps with his hands behind his back. Jeonghan calls up, “We’re corrupting our guests, brother.” Seungcheol’s gaze flicks to Jeonghan, then to you. “I can see that.”

Georgina curtsies quickly. “My lord!” Cecily rises under the tent and curtsies softly. Wonwoo doesn’t stand—he simply dips his chin. Seungcheol gives him a look that is not reprimand, just acknowledgement. Then Seungcheol’s gaze returns to you. He steps onto the grass, stopping at a respectful distance. He bows. “Lady Whitlock.”

The way he says it is different here. Less like a title being tested in a room full of predators. More like a name being placed carefully on the tongue. Your fingers tighten on the mallet. You force your voice steady. “My lord.”

Jeonghan’s grin turns feral again. “We were just beginning. Will you play?” Seungcheol’s eyes narrow faintly. “I wasn’t aware I was invited.” Soonyoung scoffs loudly. “You live here.”

“That doesn’t mean I enjoy being hit by wooden balls,” Seungcheol replies. Georgina lifts her mallet. “Then don’t stand in the way.”

Jeonghan laughs. “She speaks our language, Seungcheol.”

Seungcheol’s gaze slides back to you. His mouth might—might—have curved. “Are you playing?” he asks you directly. It’s a simple question. It shouldn’t feel like a dare. It does anyway. “Yes,” you reply.

He studies you as if measuring whether this is performative or true. Then he reaches for a mallet. The movement is unexpected enough that Jeonghan’s brows lift in surprise. Soonyoung cheers. Georgina claps like a child. Your competitive instinct stirs, quick and sharp. And then the game begins.

Soonyoung swings too hard and sends his ball skittering into the flowerbed. Georgina hits hers clean through two hoops in a row. Joshua appears from nowhere—as if he’s been watching the madness like a fond spectator—and takes a mallet. You take your turn. You line up your stroke the way you line up your life: measured, careful, unromantic. The mallet connects with a satisfying thud. The ball rolls straight and true through the hoop. Jeonghan makes an appreciative sound. Soonyoung groans theatrically. Georgina looks offended that you are so competent. Seungcheol watches intently. Then it is his turn. He steps forward and adjusts the ball with his foot. He swings. The ball shoots forward with force, arcing through the hoop with aggression. He looks up at you and raises his eyebrow. Jeonghan claps slowly. “Oh, he’s decided to enjoy himself.”

“I’m not enjoying anything,” Seungcheol says.

“You are lying,” Jeonghan replies instantly.

The game turns, slowly, into a battle between you. Not declared. Not announced. Just inevitable. You hit clean, and he answers cleaner. You take a risky angle; he counters with one more precise. You steal a point by sliding your ball through a hoop that should have been impossible; he responds by knocking yours slightly off course. “That was improper,” you remark, voice mildly murderous. Seungcheol’s eyes flick to you. “It was strategic.”

“You could have warned me.”

“Then you would have avoided it.”

You stare at him, incredulous, and the absurdity of it—this Viscount arguing over a game like a boy—tugs a laugh out of you before you can stop it. The laugh is small. But it’s real. Seungcheol freezes, as if he isn’t sure he was allowed to hear it. His gaze returns to the game, but something has shifted. Something like pride, quickly extinguished.

Soonyoung declares you both tyrants. Jeonghan claims he is a victim. Joshua tries to keep score and fails because everyone argues over what counts. At one point, Seungcheol leans slightly toward you as you line up a difficult shot. His voice is low in your ear. “You’re angling too far left.” You don’t look at him. “Are you trying to help me, my lord?”

“No,” he says smoothly. “I’m trying to make sure you fail properly.”

You smirk without permission. “How generous.” You swing. The ball shoots forward and hits the hoop dead centre, rolling through with obedience. Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. “Damn.” The word is quiet. It shouldn’t be as satisfying as it is. You turn, lifting your chin. “Was that improper?”

The game continues until the sun dips low enough to make the grass glow gold. Georgina ends up with grass stains and doesn’t care. Soonyoung attempts a victory dance and nearly trips over a hoop. Wonwoo closes his book to watch the final shots, and Cecily leans forward in her chair.

When it ends—when someone declares a winner and someone else declares it invalid—it doesn’t matter who “won.” Not really. What matters is the strange, startling feeling that settles in your ribs when you look around and see your sisters… lighter. Georgina, laughing as if her lungs had been starved for it. Cecily, speaking more than she has in days, quietly answering Wonwoo’s gentle questions. Even you, with your hands aching from swinging a mallet, feel something like breath return to your chest.

Seungcheol steps away from the lawn as if suddenly remembering himself. As if he has allowed too much crack in the structure and now must rebuild. Jeonghan calls after him, “Don’t disappear into your office, brother.” Seungcheol doesn’t look back. “I have work.”

“You always have work,” Jeonghan sings. Seungcheol pauses at the bottom of the terrace steps. His gaze flicks to you again—quick, intense, as if checking something. Then he goes inside. The shift is immediate: the game disperses, the servants appear to gather equipment, and Mrs. Wilson re-emerges to shepherd everyone inside for tea with the authority of a woman who can outlast chaos.

Joshua finds you in the hour between daylight and candlelight.

It is the softest hour at Wrotham Castle—the sky turning lavender at the edges, the wind cooling, the house glowing from within like a beacon. The servants move faster now, preparing. Somewhere above, you hear footsteps, doors closing, water being poured into basins. You are near the small sitting room Mrs. Wilson designated for “lady’s use,” mostly because you needed somewhere to stand without being in anyone’s way. Cecily has gone to change, her cheeks still warm from the afternoon. Georgina has vanished with Soonyoung—likely to commit some final act of mischief before being forced into supper. You can already imagine her bursting into the dining room with a grin and hair undone.

“Lady Whitlock,” Joshua greets softly. “May I steal you for a moment?” You incline your head. “If it is not a trap.”

Joshua’s smile deepens. “We’re Ashbournes,” he says. “Everything is a trap. But this one isn’t. I promise.”

He gestures toward a door you hadn’t noticed—half-hidden behind a tapestry. You follow him through, down a short corridor, into a smaller room that smells faintly of cedar and lavender. Glass-fronted display cases line the walls, lamps turned low and angled so the light falls exactly where it is meant to fall. Velvet trays rest beneath the panes—deep jewel tones, carefully chosen. You step in slowly. Your footsteps soften on the rug. For a moment, you don’t speak. You simply take it in. Because you recognise some of it. Not from Bond Street, not from town gossip, but from oil paint and varnish—the pieces you glimpsed earlier in the portrait gallery, caught on pale throats and gloved hands. A pendant at a collarbone. A brooch pinning silk. Earrings like small moons. Seeing them here, close enough to cast a shadow, makes the portraits feel suddenly less like history and more like memory preserved. You drift along the cases, unhurried. Joshua stays near the door, letting you take your time, the way London never allows.

At the far end, set apart not for lack of splendour but for gravity, one display case is broader than the others. Its velvet is darker, its lamp angled lower. And inside it—arranged together, as if they are meant to be seen as a set rather than separate temptations—six pieces sit in quiet formation. A ruby cravat pin—too red, too alive. A sapphire watch-seal, colder, deeper than ink, meant for a palm or a pocket. A diamond pendant that seems modest until it tilts and turns bright enough to throw fractured light. An amber brooch holds warmth as if it stored the sun for years. An emerald locket, forest green, the sort of thing that could hide a portrait or a lock of hair. And beside them—darkest of all, simplest of all—an onyx ring. A smooth, heavy stone set into gold, the surface so polished it drinks the lamplight instead of throwing it back. It should be the least interesting thing in the case.

And yet, you find yourself—without meaning to—leaning closer. You cannot explain why your chest tightens. Then you can, and you dislike yourself for it. Because it isn’t merely a ring. It is responsibility made physical. A thing that doesn’t glitter because it doesn’t need to. A thing meant to be felt, not admired. A mark.

Behind you, Joshua takes a few steps into the room, stopping at your shoulder. His gaze moves over the velvet, over the spread of heirlooms, then he looks to the onyx. His voice reaches you gently, as if he’s careful not to snap the thread of your attention. “It’s his.” You don’t look back at him. You keep your attention on the ring as you hear your own voice come out quietly. “Why doesn’t he wear it?” Joshua’s breath leaves him slowly. “Because if he puts it on,” Joshua murmurs, “it becomes… a statement.”

You tilt your head. “Everything about him is a statement.” Joshua’s mouth curves faintly. “Yes.” The agreement is gentle. “That’s exactly the problem.”

“So he keeps it behind glass.”

Joshua’s voice lowers another fraction. “He keeps everything behind glass,” he admits, and then—seeing your expression tighten—he corrects himself. “Well, not everything. Not the house. Not the business. Not the rest of us.”

You can hear it in his tone: affection you only earn by being loved long enough to frustrate someone safely. Your fingers hover near the glass, stopping short. The case is closed. And still the onyx feels like it might absorb everything around it and give nothing back.

“He wears duty instead,” you say, sharper than you mean. Joshua’s eyes lift to yours. “He wears responsibility,” he corrects gently. “Every day. Where everyone can see it.”

“And these?” you ask, gesturing faintly toward the spread—ruby, sapphire, diamond, amber, emerald. “They’re meant to be seen.”

Joshua’s gaze slides over the pieces again, fondness flickering, then settling. “They’re meant to exist,” he says. “Whether we’re brave enough to claim them or not.”

There’s your answer without being an answer. You don’t say the obvious—that none of the pieces looks warmed by skin, none of them have the careless scuffs of daily wear. They sit too perfectly, too untouched, like relics awaiting hands that keep refusing.

You let the silence stretch, and in it you hear the castle beyond the door: distant movement, a muffled call, the soft rush of servants preparing the next scene of the evening. Joshua speaks again, carefully, as if he’s choosing how much truth to set down. “Our mother chose these,” he says, and the word mother changes the room, no matter how steady his voice remains. “Years ago. Not for mourning. Not as some lesson.” His gaze traces the line of velvet. “She liked certainty. She liked things that held their shape.”

You keep your eyes on the case. “Then why these?”

Joshua’s mouth quirks, almost reluctant. “Because she believed each of us should have one thing that was ours,” he says simply. “Not a toy. Not a reward. Something that could sit on a body and say who you are before you speak.” He nods toward the jewels—his attention passing over them the way someone passes over scripture. “A signature for each son.”

Your throat tightens unexpectedly. “And now?” you ask, because the now is what presses. Joshua’s eyes lift. “Now she isn’t here to see them worn, so they stay where she left them.”

He doesn’t launch into a story. He gives you what you asked for, the truth—plain, direct—because it’s kinder that way. “Soonyoung keeps his feet busy,” he says, gaze flicking toward the door as if he can hear the movement outside. “If his legs aren’t moving, he ends up in here staring at the glass like it might open for him.” His eyes drift to the sapphire. “Wonwoo disappears into pages. If he’s reading, he doesn’t have to look at anything that’s missing.” The diamond catches as he speaks, flashing once as if it resents being ignored. Joshua’s gaze touches it—brief, betraying. “Jeonghan fills rooms,” he says drily. “Noise, charm, trouble. Anything but quiet. Quiet makes you hear the house.” You’ve seen enough of Jeonghan already to believe it without effort. Joshua exhales. “And I…” His fingers flex once at his side, a restrained tell. “I keep things in order. Because if I move them, if I put one on, it stops being a heirloom and becomes a conversation with someone who can’t answer.”

Joshua’s gaze shifts, as if acknowledging the brother-shaped absence. “Mingyu couldn’t stand being watched while it happened,” he says simply. “So he left. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s always done.”

Flight as survival. You understand that, too.

Then his eyes return—inevitably—to the onyx. His tone gentles, not lower, but heavier. Like the floor settling. “And Seungcheol...” Joshua exhales, “He didn’t have the luxury of any of it. He became what was needed. Structure. Schedule. Answers.”

You stare at the ring again, and suddenly you don’t see only cold strategy. You see a boy—once—being handed keys and ledgers and expectations heavy enough to cripple. You see a man who learned to swallow grief because someone had to keep the walls standing. Joshua watches your face the way kind people do—without prying, but without pretending not to notice the shift.

“Dinner will be… lively,” he says at last. “Jeonghan will make sport of everyone. Soonyoung will knock something over and pretend it was the furniture’s fault. Seungcheol will pretend he is not listening.”

You breathe in. “And you?”

Joshua’s smile warms. “I’ll make sure no one burns down the house,” he says, and the emotion in it makes your chest tighten in that unpleasantly human way again. He bows slightly. “Thank you for coming,” he adds. “Whatever the reasons.”

You don’t answer that. You can’t. So you nod once and follow him out, leaving the jewel room behind like a secret you weren’t meant to see.

Dinner at Wrotham is not the battle you expected.

It is warm. Not simply in temperature—though the candles burn steady and plentiful, and the hearth along the far wall keeps the edges of the room heated—but in the way the house holds its people. The long dining table is set with precision: silver cutlery, crystal glasses, linens pressed tightly. Food arrives in swells—soup steaming, bread warm enough to fog the air when it’s torn, different cuts of meat carved and cured and roasted, sauces rich and fragrant. It smells like comfort. The noise arrives too. It comes alive the moment everyone gathers. Chairs scrape, laughter bursts too loud then settles into something continuous, the kind of sound that fills a room and makes it harder for fear to find anchors.

Seungcheol stands at the head of the table as the others take their places, hands behind his back, gaze tracking the room the way he tracked the lawn earlier—counting bodies, counting comfort, counting what needs adjusting before it becomes a problem.

Soonyoung is already talking, too loud and animated, as if his voice exists to prove the day was real. Georgina matches him without effort, her laughter skipping between sentences like sparks. Jeonghan slips into his chair with an easy elegance, watching the entire room as if he’s been handed a match and is deciding where to set the first fire. Wonwoo is quiet, attention angled toward Cecily with the kind of gentleness that doesn’t demand anything. Cecily sits nearer to him, and she looks less small here. Not loud. Not suddenly bold. Like she understood the castle’s vastness gives her permission to take up an inch more space without apologising for it. Mrs. Wilson stands at the edge of the room, supervising the servants with eyes that dare anyone to spill.

You take your seat to Seungcheol’s right. He watches you pull your chair out. He doesn’t reach in front of you. Doesn’t perform. He simply steps closer as you begin to sit, one hand coming to the chair back—steadying it, guiding it in once you’re settled, as if the smallest discomfort would be unacceptable on his watch. The gesture is subtle enough to pass as ordinary courtesy. But you feel it anyway. He waits until your skirt is arranged and your hands have found your napkin. Only then does he take his own seat. Conversation surges again immediately, loud enough to drown out most things.

Soonyoung begins telling a story about a cricket match that devolves into an accusation that Jeonghan cheats at everything. Jeonghan agrees with a smile and claims cheating is simply “creative strategy.” Georgina adds fuel to the fire. “If cheating is creative, then Soonyoung is an artist,” she declares. Soonyoung clutches his chest. “Miss Georgina, you wound me.”

“Good,” she replies cheerfully. “Now you’ll remember it.”

Jeonghan lifts his glass. “To remembering wounds,” he says. “It’s the only way we learn.” Joshua makes a soft warning sound. “Jeonghan.” Jeonghan’s smile turns innocent. “What? It’s wisdom.”

Wonwoo murmurs something to Cecily that you don’t catch—quiet enough to be theirs alone. Cecily’s mouth curves, small and real, and she answers in a voice that doesn’t tremble. Joshua leans slightly, listening, offering a comment that makes Cecily’s eyes brighten again. The table has split itself into currents: loud and bright on one side, quiet and steady on the other. It leaves a pocket of space—strangely private—in the centre of all that noise, right where you sit.

Seungcheol fills your glass without asking. He pours a measured amount—enough to warm, not enough to loosen. Then, without drawing attention, he shifts a dish closer to you so you don’t have to reach. He sets your bread plate within an easier distance. He doesn’t hover. He doesn’t make a show of care. He simply notices. You keep your gaze on your plate as you accept the small accommodations like they’re nothing. Like they don’t make your heartbeat falter.

It’s in the brief lull—between Hoshi’s next proclamation and Georgina’s next provocation—that Seungcheol leans the slightest bit toward you, voice low enough to be lost under your sibling’s theatrics. “Is your room comfortable?” The question is simple. Practical. It shouldn’t feel like anything. And yet it lands with a quiet intimacy you don’t want to name. “Yes,” you answer evenly, cutting into your dinner. “Very.”

Seungcheol’s gaze stays on you a moment longer, as if he doesn’t trust one-word answers. “No drafts?” You glance up, meeting his eyes. Candlelight makes them look darker than they do in daylight. “No drafts.” His jaw eases—barely. He takes a sip of his wine, and you can tell he’s filing it away like a checked box.

Soonyoung’s voice erupts again. “And then—listen—then she hit it so hard it flew into the roses. The roses!” Georgina slaps the table lightly with delight. “It was an excellent shot.”

“It was violence,” Jeonghan corrects, amused. “We should all be afraid.”

You try very hard to focus on the food and not the way Seungcheol keeps glancing at your glass to measure whether it needs refilling. Then his voice comes again. “Do you sleep well in new places?”

You pause, fork hovering in the air. “Not always,” you admit softly. “New beds are… loud.” His brow lifts faintly. “Loud?”

“Different,” you correct, the corner of your mouth tugging despite yourself. “The mattress feels unfamiliar. The sheets sit wrong. The air smells like someone else’s house.” Seungcheol’s gaze holds yours. “And the silence.” You blink. He’s guessed too easily. You look down again, cutting a carrot with measured care. “The silence, too,” you concede.

A pause. Then, “If it’s too loud, ring.” You nod once, because refusing would be more noticeable than accepting.

On the far end of the table, Georgina and Soonyoung have begun whispering like conspirators. Their shoulders are too close. Their eyes gleam with that particular cleverness that means trouble has already been decided. You feel it before it happens. So does Seungcheol. Georgina has a roll in her hand. Soonyoung has a grape. Jeonghan is leaning back in his chair, watching them with the indulgent smirk of a man about to enjoy the consequences. Georgina whispers something, and Soonyoung snorts, laughter trapped behind his teeth. Then—because they are incapable of restraint—Soonyoung flicks the grape. It arcs through candlelight and bounces off Jeonghan’s shoulder.

“Georgina.”

“Soonyoung.”

Georgina freezes mid-grin, caught red-handed. Soonyoung sits up straighter as if posture could retroactively undo a launched grape. Their eyes go wide with the shock of being reprimanded by the same kind of voice at the same time. Jeonghan’s gaze flicks from Seungcheol to you, his smirk deepening into something wickedly pleased—as if he’s just witnessed a trick he intends to remember. Mrs. Wilson takes one step forward, expression stern. “Miss Georgina.” Georgina straightens instantly. “Yes, Mrs. Wilson?” Mrs. Wilson’s eyes cut to Soonyoung. “Lord Soonyoung.” Soonyoung attempts dignity. He fails. “Yes, Mrs. Wilson.”

Mrs. Wilson doesn’t raise her voice. “If anything else flies across this table, I will remove the tray myself and you may eat in the kitchens.” Soonyoung looks appalled. Georgina looks delighted by the concept. Jeonghan lifts his glass in silent applause for Mrs. Wilson’s restraint. The room settles back into food and laughter, but Jeonghan has shifted his attention—like a cat deciding it wants a different toy. He tilts his head towards you. “So,” he says, voice light as lace, “should we pretend we’re not all curious?”

Seungcheol doesn’t move. He doesn’t tense visibly. But you feel a quiet change beside you—the way he becomes a fraction more still, a fraction more prepared. Jeonghan’s smile stays sweet. “When did this begin?” he asks. “I mean, our brother doesn’t pursue. He strategises.” He looks at you openly now. “And you, you don’t strike me as a woman easily persuaded.”

Joshua makes the same warning sound as before. “Jeonghan.” Jeonghan ignores him. Georgina adds, far too cheerfully, “I didn’t expect it.” The words aren’t unkind. They’re simply honest—bright, blunt, Georgina’s nature. “I thought you had no interest in marriage.” Your throat tightens. You keep your expression composed, the way you always do when the world tries to corner you with truth. Seungcheol speaks before you can. “I didn’t pursue her because she wants marriage,” he says, and every head at the table turns to him. “I pursued her because she does not.”

Jeonghan’s brows lift, intrigued. Soonyoung looks confused. Joshua’s expression shifts—surprised, thoughtful. Cecily’s eyes widen. Georgina blinks, giddy. Your pulse stutters. Seungcheol turns his head toward you, gaze heavy. It pins you—not unkindly, but completely. Like he is forcing you to stay present for the story he is telling. “She doesn’t need saving,” he continues. “She doesn’t need to be dazzled. She doesn’t need a man to tell her what her life should be.” A pause. “She already holds her world together.”

Your cheeks warm so fast it is infuriating. Because that sentence—spoken in this room, in front of these people—sounds dangerously like affection. And the worst part is that it sounds sincere.

Jeonghan leans forward slightly, “That,” he murmurs, “is far more tender than I expected from you, brother.” Seungcheol doesn’t look away from you. “It’s honest.”

You can feel your control slipping—just a fraction—under the weight of being looked at like this. Seen like this. You force yourself to breathe. You recover fast. You have to. You lift your chin, letting a small smile curve your mouth. “Lord Ashbourne is correct,” you confirm, meeting Jeonghan’s gaze. “I don’t require dazzling.” You turn your gaze toward Seungcheol now, because you must. Because you cannot let him hold the narrative alone. “He didn’t try to convince me I should want something I don’t,” you confess, and the candlelight suddenly feels too close to your skin. “He simply… met me where I already was.”

The admission hangs in the air. You remind yourself—firmly—that this is performance. That he is saying what he must. That you are responding because the table is watching and Jeonghan is baiting and Georgina is too delighted to be careful. Still, Seungcheol’s expression holds something you can’t name, and it makes you feel oddly unbalanced.

Then he reaches and places his hand over yours on the table. The contact is simple. Proper. Barely anything. And yet it sends a strange heat up your arm. Seungcheol’s thumb passes once over the fabric of your glove. A grounding touch, subtle enough no one can accuse, but present enough that you feel it. He doesn’t squeeze. He doesn’t trap. He simply holds.

Jeonghan lifts his glass again. “Well,” he says lightly, “if our brother is going to be honest, we may as well all try it.”

Dinner ends with laughter and a mild argument about whether Soonyoung should be allowed to host games unsupervised. Mrs. Wilson’s look implies the answer is no, and the table agrees with the solemnity of men who have been threatened with kitchens before. As chairs scrape back and servants move in, Seungcheol stands when you stand. He offers his arm. You don’t hesitate before placing your hand on it. The gesture is easy now. Too easy. Jeonghan watches with a satisfied grin, like he’s seen exactly what he wanted.

You guide your sisters toward the staircase, your hand still on Seungcheol’s arm. Georgina chatters, still energised, describing some ridiculous plan involving Soonyoung and a lantern. Cecily indulges her, surprisingly, her steps lighter than they ever were in London. At your door, Seungcheol pauses. He inclines his head. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” you reply. His gaze lingers on you longer than propriety allows. Then he steps back—releasing you without fuss. You close the door behind you and exhale. Only then do you realise your shoulders have been tense all evening.

You cannot sleep. The storm makes sure of it.

Rain lashes the windows in heavy sheets, the sound relentless, like the sky is trying to scrub the earth clean. Wind pounds against the glass hard enough to make the panes tremble in their frames. Every so often, a gust shoves at the castle as if it is testing whether the walls will yield.

It is not your room. It is not your mattress. It is not cold. It is not a solvable problem. It is simply the weather. Loud. Wild. Uncontrollable. And it reminds you of nights when you were younger, when thunder made Georgina cry, and you held her until she stopped shaking, when Cecily clung to your sleeve, and you pretended you weren’t afraid, too. It reminds you of being awake in a house that was once full and is now missing the two people who should have made storms feel smaller. You stare at the candle until your eyes blur. It doesn’t work. Eventually, you rise.

Your robe is soft, tied at the waist. Beneath it, your chemise clings lightly to your skin, thin enough that you feel the chill the moment you step into the corridor. You take your candle, shielding the flame with your hand.

The hallway outside your room is dim, lit by occasional sconces that throw pools of light on the carpet. The castle is quieter now, the day’s warmth folded away. Somewhere far off, a door clicks. Somewhere else, a floorboard creaks in the old way houses do. The library is where your feet take you without debate. You don’t know why until you arrive. Perhaps because libraries feel like places where sound is punished. Where storms can rage outside, and still you are surrounded by paper and silence and order—things that do not shout. You push the door open and step inside.

The room is enormous. Shelves climb to the ceiling, packed with spines that look like they have been touched by generations. Ladders rest on rails, ready to slide. A fire burns low in the hearth, banked but not dead, throwing a faint orange glow that fights the storm’s cold. Your candle adds a smaller, trembling light, making the shadows of books stretch long and strange. You move toward the shelves, scanning titles. You don’t know what you’re looking for until you see it. Gulliver’s Travels. The spine is worn. Loved. The leather softened at the edges from hands that returned to it again and again, like a habit, like a comfort. You reach for it, fingers brushing the cracked gold lettering. The book slides free with a soft sigh. You hold the candle high, the storm’s wind making the flame twitch and bow, and find a quieter corner near a window. You open the book.

Your thumb falls naturally where the pages loosen most, where it has been opened the most. Then, as if you have been caught doing something intimate, you flip back to the first page. There is a note. A woman’s writing—neat, elegant, affectionate. Just a few lines, penned with care. A private blessing disguised as ink. Your breath catches.

“Who left a candle burning?” a voice murmurs behind you, edged with practical annoyance. “Wilson will—” The door opens with a soft click. Footsteps enter the library. Seungcheol stands in the doorway.

He is not dressed like he was at dinner. No coat. No stiff formality. His shirt is loosened at the throat, collar open as if he stopped caring the moment he closed his office door. His hair is slightly curled at the edges, as if he ran a hand through it too many times. His sleeves are rolled up towards his elbows, exposing his forearms. He looks like a man caught off duty—and briefly uncertain what to do with himself. His gaze lands on you. His eyes narrow—first in confusion, then in something like immediate calculation. “Lady Whitlock,” he greets, voice level, but not entirely masked. You swallow. “My lord.”

He steps closer slowly, carefully, as if he doesn’t want to startle you into bolting. “I saw light,” he explains. “I thought one of my brothers—”

“I couldn’t sleep,” you interrupt. Seungcheol’s gaze flicks to the window, where rain smears the glass. The wind booms again, rattling the frame, and his expression softens. “Your room,” he says immediately. “Is it cold? Drafty?” There it is again. The instinctive solution. You almost smile. “It’s not my room,” you say gently. “It’s… the rain.”

Seungcheol’s jaw tightens faintly, as if irritated by problems he cannot fix. “I can move you,” he offers anyway, because he cannot help himself. “There are rooms farther from the west windows. Less wind. Less noise.”

You stare at him, and the candlelight makes his face look sharper, more carved. It also makes him look… younger. Less invincible. Less like the Viscount and more like the man beneath the title. “Why do you always do that?” you ask quietly. His gaze flicks up. “Do what?”

You take a step forward. “Offer solutions,” you say. “Even when there isn’t a problem to solve.”

“There is a problem. You cannot sleep.”

“Yes,” you agree softly. “And the rain will still exist even if you change my room.”

Seungcheol’s eyes hold yours, and you see something flicker there—something like being caught. Like being seen. He looks away, gaze sliding to the shelves as if books are safer than your face. “It’s habit,” he says finally.

“Habit,” you repeat, stepping forward until you’re close enough that the heat from the hearth brushes your shins. Seungcheol’s voice is almost reluctant. “If you solve things quickly,” he says, “they don’t become larger.”

The words land like the kind of confession that slips out when you are tired, and the room is dim, and the storm is loud enough to swallow pride. The candle flickers between you like a fragile boundary. “And if they become larger?” you whisper. Seungcheol’s gaze returns. He looks at you the way he looked at Hartwell in that corridor—like he can destroy something if he chooses. But the thing he wants to destroy now is not you. It is helplessness. “Then you build something strong enough to hold them,” he says.

Outside, the wind hammers the window again, unforgiving. A log shifts in the hearth, making the fire flare briefly. The light dances over Seungcheol’s hands. His knuckles are stained with ink. You don’t comment. Instead, your gaze drops to the book. Seungcheol’s eyes follow it. “Gulliver,” he murmurs, and the word is not said like a title. It’s said like a boyhood. You lift it slightly. “Is it yours?”

His mouth tightens. Then he gives a small nod. “It was my favourite.” The admission is so simple it nearly steals your breath. Not ours. Not the house’s. His.

“You don’t sound like a man who had favourites,” you say before you can stop yourself. Seungcheol’s gaze flicks up to yours, and something almost warm moves through his eyes. “I was a boy,” he answers, as if that is explanation enough. Then, more quietly, as if he’s surprised the truth still exists: “I liked… how it laughed at everything.”

Your eyes flick to the first page again, to the note in his mother’s handwriting. You don’t point at it, but you think he sees you see it. He steps closer. He reaches out, not for you, but for the book. His fingers hover, as if asking permission without asking. You hand it to him. Your fingers brush his for the briefest instant. Seungcheol stills, as if his body registers the feel of your bare skin before his mind does. Then he takes the book fully, thumb sliding over the worn leather with an almost unconscious tenderness. “Our mother read it to us,” he states. The confession loosens something in you that has been tight since the opera. Since Hartwell. Since the Season began. “All of you?” you ask softly.

Seungcheol nods. “Yes,” he says. “Even Jeonghan. Even Mingyu.” A flicker of amusement shadows his mouth. “Soonyoung never listened,” he admits. “He’d act it out instead. Climb furniture. Pretend to be giants. She’d scold him without scolding him.”

You can picture it too easily: a boy with too much energy, a stern housekeeper somewhere in the distance, and a woman laughing as if laughter is a kind of protection. Seungcheol’s gaze drops to the first page. His thumb brushes the note there, careful—reverent without making it a shrine. “She wrote little things like that,” he says quietly. “For each of us. As if ink could… stay.”

The storm rolls another gust into the window. The glass rattles, but inside the library, the air feels suddenly still, listening. Seungcheol’s voice softens further, and the hardness you’ve associated with him unspools at the edges. “She had a voice for every character,” he adds, the memory taking over. “And she’d pause at the worst parts—right before the cruelty landed—so we’d all groan and beg her to continue.”

Your mouth tugs. “Did you?” His eyes lift to you. In the firelight, he looks almost startled by his own honesty. “Yes,” he admits. “Every time.” You tilt your head. “Why did she pause?”

He hesitates, then exhales in surrender. “Because she wanted us to learn that the world can be ridiculous and cruel at the same time,” he says. “And that if you can still laugh, you haven’t been swallowed.”

The words hang between you. You realise, suddenly, that you have never heard him speak of his mother as if she were alive in the room. Not a title. Not a loss. A person—laughing, teasing, pausing on purpose. You step closer without meaning to. The candlelight catches the loosened strands of your hair—hair you didn’t pin properly because you were too tired to care. Seungcheol’s gaze lifts, quick and instinctive, and lands there. On the softness you forgot to hide. His expression changes. Not outright desire. Awareness. As if he has been seeing you in armour for weeks, and only now registers what it looks like when you are not strapped into it. “I like your hair loose,” he confesses, and the words are so unguarded they feel like they don’t belong to him. Your breath catches.

You should step back. You don’t. Seungcheol shifts closer, still holding the book. He looks at you like he’s about to say something practical to cover the intimacy of what slipped out. Instead, he does nothing practical at all. He lifts a hand and slowly tucks a strand behind your ear. The touch is gentle. An instinct that surprises you both. Your skin prickles where his fingers brushed. Your pulse stutters, then races as if it has decided to ruin you all on its own. Seungcheol’s hand lingers too long. Then his fingers slide—almost without thought—to your cheek. He cups it. Your breath stops. His thumb rests near the corner of your mouth as if he is holding the fact that you exist. The library shrinks. The storm becomes distant. The crackle of the hearth quiets.

Seungcheol’s gaze drops to your lips, then back to your eyes. You don’t move. You can’t. You are suddenly too aware of your own breathing, of the thin fabric beneath your robe, of how close you’ve drifted. He leans in. Not rushed. Not aggressive. Like gravity. Your lips are millimetres apart. So close you can feel the warmth of his breath, the faintest tremor of it, as if even he is not entirely steady. As if he’s measuring something he wasn’t meant to want. Your hand—traitorous—lifts slightly, hovering near his wrist, not pushing away. Not pulling closer. Caught between impulse and fear. And then—

A violent gust slams the window. The glass rattles hard enough to make you flinch. The candle flame bows, sputters, and dims. The spell breaks. You jerk back, the sudden movement making your robe gape open—your chemise, your bare collarbone, the scandal of being undressed in the wrong kind of company. Heat floods your face so fast it makes you dizzy. You tighten your robe, fingers fumbling at the tie. Your hands shake, ridiculous and disobedient, as you knot it too tight.

Seungcheol stills, his hand falling away as if it never touched you. His jaw flexes once—shock, restraint, something he’s swallowing hard. The book is still in his other hand. He looks down at it as if it might save him. Then he extends it toward you, an offering, a correction, a way back to sanity. You take it quickly, clutching it to your chest like proof you came here for ink and paper and not—whatever that was. Your voice comes out too fast. “I should— I should go.”

Seungcheol’s mouth opens as if to say it’s fine or I’m sorry or something sensible that would make the moment less dangerous. You don’t let him. You step backwards toward the door, already turning, already escaping yourself. “Goodnight,” you blurt. You don’t wait for his reply. You leave the library with the candle trembling in your grip, the book pressed tight to your sternum, your heart pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise you from the inside.

When you reach your door, you slip inside and shut it behind you with shaking hands—too quietly at first, like you are trying to pretend you were never there at all—then, because you are human and furious and mortified, you slam it hard enough that the frame rattles. You lean your back against the wood, breath ragged, robe tied too tight, cheeks burning. In the storm beyond the glass, the wind howls again.

And you stand there in the dark, clutching a childhood book, trying to understand why your mouth still feels like it remembers the heat of a kiss that never happened.

Tea has been poured three times before the first name is even spoken. “Lord Brampton calling on Miss Georgina,” Mrs. Wilson announces, voice ringing with the crisp finality of a bell.

The Wrotham drawing room has been arranged to look effortless, which means it has been arranged with near-military precision. Chairs are angled so no one can corner a girl against the wall. Tables are placed so teacups remain within reach but never become an excuse to linger too close. The windows are thrown open just enough to let spring air soften the room—fresh grass and budding leaves slipping in beneath the perfume of bergamot and polished wood. Even the curtains look disciplined, gathered back as if they’ve been instructed not to flutter too theatrically.

Your sisters sit together on the settee, as they have been instructed, as they must—Georgina with her spine too straight and her eyes too alive, Cecily with her hands folded neatly and her lashes lowered. You sit a little apart, positioned to be a chaperone without being a warden, the way you’ve always been this Season: present, watchful, never interrupting unless the world gives you no other choice. You tell yourself, as Mrs. Wilson’s announcement echoes through the room, that this is only a tea. It is never only a tea.

Across the room, the Ashbourne brothers have arranged themselves. Not in a line, not in formation—nothing so obvious that it would look like guarding. Joshua is by the fireplace with his hands folded behind his back. Wonwoo sits near the shelves, a book open in his palm, eyes up more often than down. Jeonghan is perched on the arm of a chair as if a seat exists only as a suggestion. Soonyoung hovers near the windows, restless energy barely leashed by the knowledge that Mrs. Wilson is watching and that this is, in fact, a room meant for respectable courtship and not competitive shouting.

And Seungcheol—Viscount Ashbourne himself—is no longer merely a hinge at the doorway. Today, he is everywhere without being anywhere: a quiet presence that shifts, repositions, and becomes suddenly beside the tea table when a man leans too far forward, becomes suddenly behind Cecily’s chair when a suitor’s gaze lingers too long. He sits when it suits him. He stands when it suits him. His attention is the sort that doesn’t need to declare itself to be felt. You don’t look at him. You do. You don’t. If you look, you will remember last night. The library. The warmth of his breath. The way his thumb hovered at the corner of your mouth like it belonged there. The way your own body leaned in before your mind had time to veto it. You lift your teacup and pretend you care deeply about the temperature.

Mrs. Wilson steps aside as Lord Brampton is shown in. He is exactly what his name sounds like: respectable, well-fed, confident in the way that tells you he never had to wonder whether he would be welcomed in a room. His coat is a shade too loud for your taste—fashionable, yes, but eager. His hair is too perfectly arranged, as if a valet has combed through it at the door. He bows, and his gaze goes immediately to Georgina, drawn there like every suitor is, because Georgina is a lighthouse and men in the marriage mart are ships with questionable navigation. Georgina rises. Curtsies. Smiles. The smile is sweet. It is also a warning, if one knows how to read her.

“Miss Georgina Whitlock,” Lord Brampton greets. “You are even more—” he pauses, searching for the right flattering word as if selecting fruit, “—radiant in daylight.” Georgina tilts her head. “Radiant is what one calls a hearth. I prefer to be called dangerous.”

Silence falls, the sort that makes you feel every inch of carpet beneath your shoes. Then Soonyoung makes a delighted choking sound from the windows, and Jeonghan laughs openly into his hand like an unrepentant sinner in church. Lord Brampton blinks, as though he has been struck by a gust. “Dangerous,” he repeats, trying to make it flirtation, trying to turn it into praise rather than challenge. “A charming quality.”

“Is it?” Georgina asks brightly. “Or is it simply inconvenient?” Lord Brampton’s smile wobbles. He glances at you, as if expecting the eldest sister to rein her in like a horse. You lift your teacup and take a sip you don’t taste. Joshua drifts forward with a cup in hand, the perfect gentlemanly interruption. “Lord Brampton,” he says warmly, “we’re honoured. Tea?”

Brampton turns, grateful for a safer target. “Ah—yes. Thank you.” Joshua pours as if this is a sacrament. Then, as if making light conversation, he asks, “How is Kent treating you this spring? I heard your tenants had trouble with flooding.”

Lord Brampton’s face shifts, caught. The question is polite. The implication is not. Georgina watches with growing interest. Lord Brampton clears his throat. “Yes, well. A nuisance. But these things happen.”

“They do,” Joshua agrees pleasantly. “And what is your approach when they do?”

Brampton glances—inevitably—toward Seungcheol, as if searching for rescue. Seungcheol doesn’t move. He simply lifts his cup, takes one measured sip, and watches as if he’s listening to a man recite his own character under oath. Lord Brampton gives a vague answer about stewardship and responsibility that sounds well-rehearsed and means nothing. Georgina’s eyes narrow with boredom. He tries to pivot back to compliments—your sister’s hair, her gown, the way she “brightens the room”—and Jeonghan slides in with a grin as if summoned by the scent of dullness. “Do you hunt, Lord Brampton?” Jeonghan asks, as if curious. “I—yes,” Brampton answers, a little too eager. “Of course.” Jeonghan nods thoughtfully. “Then you must tell Miss Georgina about your favourite kill.” Georgina’s brows lift. “His favourite kill?” Jeonghan looks at her with sweet sincerity. “You said you prefer to be called dangerous. I assumed you’d want to compare notes.”

Soonyoung loses the war against his own laughter and makes a sound so undignified Mrs. Wilson’s eyebrow twitches in the corner. Lord Brampton flushes. Georgina smiles wickedly. You should step in. Smooth it. Rescue him. This is your sister’s future, after all. But you don’t. Because Georgina is not cruel. She is simply frank. And men who can’t survive frankness will never survive her. Brampton tries anyway. He straightens, clinging to dignity like a lifeboat. “I favour pheasant,” he states. “A noble bird.” Georgina’s words are almost tender. “How tragic.” “Tragic?”

“Yes,” Georgina replies. “Imagine being born noble only to be shot by a man who calls himself sporting.” Jeonghan presses a hand to his chest. “Miss Georgina,” he breathes, as if scandalised. “That’s nearly a thought.”

Soonyoung cackles. Cecily’s lips part in a faint, shocked smile. Brampton’s gaze darts to Seungcheol again, now clearly panicked. Seungcheol finally speaks. “Lord Brampton,” he asks, “do you prefer your wives noble birds as well?” Brampton’s mouth opens. Closes.

“Just curiosity,” Seungcheol adds, tone unchanged. He rotates his cup slightly in his hand, thumb gliding along the rim with absent-minded control. It’s such a small movement. It shouldn’t mean anything. Your mind betrays you anyway—his breath on your lips; his hand on your cheek; the pause before he leaned in. Your stomach tightens. Your breath stutters once, traitorous, and you stare at the floor as if it’s suddenly fascinating.

Brampton fumbles into a speech about “cherishing” and “protecting” and “providing,” and Georgina listens as if she’s watching a play she already knows the ending of. He stays ten minutes. Fifteen. Long enough to recover his dignity, to try again, to fail again. He leaves with a bow that is a fraction too stiff.

The moment the door closes, Georgina exhales. “I liked him,” she announces cheerfully. You blink. “You terrified him.” Georgina shrugs. “That’s how I decide if I like them.” Jeonghan claps softly. “Excellent system.” You lift your cup again, this time to hide your smile—and to hide the fact you are still watching Seungcheol’s hand on that teacup like it’s an indecent thing.

Mrs. Wilson returns with the next suitor before Georgina can fully bask in her first victory. “Mr. Pritchard calling on Miss Cecily,” she announces—same tone, same precision. Cecily’s fingers tighten around her teacup.

Mr. Pritchard arrives looking as though he has been dressed by his mother and frightened by the act of walking into a room at all. He is young—too young, almost. His ears are pink. His eyes keep flicking to the floor as if he fears stumbling. He bows so low he nearly loses his balance. “M-miss Whitlock,” he stammers, then corrects, panicking, “Miss Cecily Whitlock.” Cecily rises. Curtsies. Her voice is soft. “Good afternoon.” Mr. Pritchard looks as though he’s been granted mercy by an angel.

He sits on the edge of his chair. His hands grip his hat like it might fly away. He tries to speak about the opera from last and ends up praising the weather, then apologising for praising the weather. Cecily listens with gentle patience, which is the most dangerous kindness in the world because it makes timid men believe they are safe. Wonwoo, from his chair by the shelves, turns a page in his book and says without looking up, “It rained last night.” Mr. Pritchard startles. “Yes! It did! Terrible. I mean, beautiful for the crops. Not terrible. Not—”

Soonyoung bites his knuckles to keep from laughing. Jeonghan looks as if he’s about to burst. Cecily’s mouth twitches faintly. A smile, small and real, tries to happen. It does. Mr. Pritchard sees it and brightens as if he’s found the sun. “You—you smile,” he blurts, immediately horrified by what he’s said. “Forgive me. That sounded—”

“It’s all right,” Cecily says softly. “You said nothing wrong.”

Mr. Pritchard swallows, visibly relieved. Then, with the courage of a man who has decided to try again, he begins to speak about books—about how he was made to read sermons as a child and rebelled by reading poetry instead. “My mother says poetry is frivolous,” he confesses, voice lowering as if he’s admitting a crime. “But I—well, I think it’s… It’s useful.” Cecily tilts her head, interest flickering. “Useful?”

“Yes,” he says. “It gives you words for things you cannot say properly. Or things you shouldn’t say properly.” That line—unexpectedly clever—lands like a small spark. Cecily’s eyes brighten. “What do you read?” she asks, and the question is so natural, so steady, that your chest tightens with pride. Mr. Pritchard fumbles the name of a poet—stammers, shakes his head, embarrassed—

Wonwoo murmurs, still not looking up, “Cowper.” Mr. Pritchard latches onto it. “Yes! Cowper. Exactly. And—” he exhales, laughing at himself, “forgive me, I’m not usually this—”

“Human?” Jeonghan supplies. Mr. Pritchard turns toward him, eyes wide. Jeonghan smiles like a cat. “You look like you’re awaiting execution,” he says conversationally. “It’s making everyone nervous.” Mr. Pritchard’s face goes scarlet. He opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. “I—my apologies—”

Seungcheol lifts his gaze and speaks calmly. “Mr. Pritchard,” he says. Mr. Pritchard nearly levitates. “Continue,” Seungcheol adds evenly. “Miss Cecily asked you a question.” The order is not cruel. It’s simply firm. It gives Mr. Pritchard rails to hold on to. Mr. Pritchard inhales, steadies, and turns back to Cecily. “I—yes. I also read Swift.”

You feel the name land inside you with a ripple. Swift. Last night. The book. The note. His mother’s handwriting. Seungcheol’s voice: "Our mother read it to us." Your mind flashes an image of his thumb sliding along the page, careful as prayer. Your cheeks warm before you can stop them. You glance up without meaning to. Seungcheol is watching you. Not Cecily. Not Pritchard. You. His gaze drifts to your mouth, as if the curve of it has become a problem he can’t solve. You turn away so fast you nearly spill your tea.

Mr. Pritchard continues, talking about his favourite books with earnest passion, and Cecily—Cecily answers. Not stumbling. Not shrinking. She laughs softly when he confesses he cried over a poem and then apologised for it. “You needn’t apologise for feeling,” Cecily says.

Mr. Pritchard stays longer than Brampton did. He forgets to be afraid. He becomes, for a little while, simply a young man speaking to a young woman who doesn’t require him to perform. And then—inevitably—his gaze flicks again to Seungcheol. Seungcheol’s expression hasn’t changed. Mr. Pritchard’s spine goes rigid. He rises too quickly, knocks his teacup slightly, catches it before it spills. “I—I shall not keep you longer,” he stutters, bowing to Cecily. “Miss Whitlock. Thank you. Thank you for your time.” Cecily curtsies, still polite. “Of course.” He flees. The door shuts.

Cecily’s cheeks are pink with a mixture of embarrassment and the strange thrill of having been engaged with, truly, and then complimented for something other than her quietness. Wonwoo looks up and says softly, “He’ll recover.” Cecily glances toward him, and her smile grows by half an inch. You sit back, tea cooling in your hands, and realise—slowly—that you have not spoken in several minutes. Not once. No one has needed you. It is unsettling. It is also relief, sharp enough to make your ribs ache.

“Lord Ellison calling,” Mrs. Wilson announces next, and you feel the room tighten before the man even arrives. Even Georgina stills a fraction.

Lord Ellison enters like he has been born for a stage—handsome, sure, too comfortable with attention. He carries his charm like a weapon he enjoys polishing. His eyes sweep the room, take in both sisters, take in you, and pause with quick calculation. He bows. “Miss Georgina. Miss Cecily.” Then, because he knows precisely who holds the gate: “Lady Whitlock.” You incline your head. His gaze flicks toward Seungcheol, assessing. “Lord Ashbourne.” Seungcheol nods once. Ellison smiles as if unfazed. “A fine house.”

“It is,” Seungcheol replies, and the simplicity of the words makes Ellison’s smile tighten. He takes the seat offered and begins with Georgina first—because it is easiest. He tells a story about a man at White’s who tried to charm a duchess by comparing her eyes to brandy. Georgina laughs, delighted, then says she would have poured the brandy into his lap for insolence. Ellison brightens, pleased by her fire. “You’d have ruined him.”

“Ruination is so fashionable,” Georgina replies. Ellison turns to Cecily. “And you, Miss Cecily—do you enjoy spectacle?” Cecily hesitates. You feel her reflex to disappear. Seungcheol’s voice cuts in smoothly. “She enjoys sincerity,” he says. Cecily blinks, startled—then her mouth curves. “Yes,” she says softly. “That.”

Ellison’s smile doesn’t falter, but his eyes sharpen. He pivots, sliding compliments like cards. “And you, Lady Whitlock,” he says, gaze landing on you like he’s decided you’re the true prize. “I’ve heard you are formidable.”

“How unfortunate,” you reply. Jeonghan makes a delighted sound. Soonyoung grins. Joshua’s gaze flicks to Seungcheol, as if checking whether Seungcheol is enjoying this. Seungcheol is not smiling. He is watching Ellison like a hawk watches a mouse from a bell tower.

Ellison’s gaze flicks between you and your sisters with a faint, careless hunger. He asks Georgina what she wants in a husband. Georgina says, “A man who doesn’t expect me to be quiet.” Ellison laughs. “Then you’ll die unmarried.” Georgina’s smile turns sour. “Then I shall die happier than many wives.”

Ellison’s eyes glitter. He likes the fight. He likes the heat. And that—somehow—makes you dislike him more. He shifts his gaze to Cecily again. “And you, Miss Cecily—would you be content with a quiet life?” Cecily opens her mouth, then closes it. Her fingers tighten in her lap. Seungcheol’s cup touches the saucer—soft, controlled, but the sound lands like finality. “Lord Ellison,” he asks, “what are you looking for in a wife?” Ellison leans back, amused. “A wife?”

“Yes,” Seungcheol replies. “A wife.”

Ellison smiles. “Beauty. Temperament. A pleasant household.” Seungcheol’s gaze remains steady. “And what do you offer?” Ellison blinks. A man like him is used to being asked what he wants, not what he provides. “My name,” Ellison says lightly. “My title. My—”

“Temperament,” Seungcheol repeats. “And your household. And your expectations.” Ellison’s smile falters. His eyes flick to you, as if hoping you’ll intervene. You don’t. You sip your tea, letting it glide down your throat while your pulse continues to misbehave for entirely different reasons. Seungcheol continues. “Miss Georgina is not a trinket for a bored man’s mantle. Miss Cecily is not a quiet thing to be ignored until convenient. If you’re here to collect either of them for sport, you’ve mistaken the house.”

Ellison’s jaw flexes. He forces a laugh. “My lord, you speak as though I’ve insulted them.” Seungcheol shakes his head. “You have not,” he says. “Yet. I’m preventing the opportunity.” Jeonghan, ecstatic, cannot resist. “Lord Ellison,” he says, “do you cheat at cards?” Ellison turns, startled by the abrupt shift. Jeonghan’s grin widens. “If you do, I’d like to know in advance. I prefer to lose only by skill.”

Ellison takes the escape. He rises with polished grace, bowing. “A pleasure,” he says, voice a fraction too tight, “to be… enlightened.” He leaves. When the door shuts, Georgina turns to Seungcheol with open admiration. “That was exquisite.” Seungcheol looks at her, expression softening. “It was necessary.” Georgina hums. “Necessary can be exquisite.”

Your cheeks warm unexpectedly, and you hate yourself for it. Because your mind, traitorous, repeats: Necessary. Outcome. Preventing. His language. Your language. You tighten your grip until your knuckles whiten beneath the glove. You are fighting for your life today and no one in the room knows it. Not because of the suitors. Because Seungcheol is a distraction made flesh.

By the fourth caller, you feel as if you can breathe.

Not because you trust this. Because the Ashbournes—strange, infuriating, chaotic—become a wall at your back, not because they owe you, but because they understand predators. They understand appetite. They understand the way people test what they think is weak. And you understand, with reluctant clarity, that you have been holding your household alone for so long you forgot what it feels like to have someone else lift a weight.

Mrs. Wilson announces the next name. “Lord Halbrook calling on Miss Georgina.” Georgina’s posture changes immediately—less fire-for-the-sake-of-fire, more interest. You notice.

Lord Halbrook enters with confidence that isn’t loud. Younger than Brampton, older than Pritchard. His coat is well cut but not eager. His smile is easy in a way that suggests he isn’t afraid of being refused.

He bows. “Miss Georgina.” He turns to Cecily. “Miss Cecily.” He acknowledges you properly. “My lady.” Then, with a respectful nod: “Lord Ashbourne.” Seungcheol returns it, gaze already measuring. Halbrook doesn’t fidget under it. That alone makes you sit up.

He takes his seat and begins not with compliment, but with honesty. “I was told,” he says to Georgina, “that you are difficult.” Georgina’s grin flashes. “I was told you were brave.” Halbrook’s eyes brighten. “Then perhaps we’ve both been warned properly.”

Georgina leans forward. “Do you fear difficult women?” Halbrook lifts a brow. “I fear bored ones.” Georgina laughs, bright as a match struck. They speak of horses. Of travel. Of ridiculous incidents in the park. Halbrook tells a story about nearly being thrown into a lake as a boy; Georgina declares she’d have pushed him in just to see if he could swim. Halbrook says he’d have deserved it. Then, because Georgina cannot help herself, she tilts her head and asks sweetly, “And what do you do when a woman refuses you?”

The question is a trap. You hold your breath. Halbrook doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t laugh it off. He answers simply. “I leave,” he says. “Because refusal is a kind of honesty. And I prefer honest company.”

The room goes subtly quiet—not fully, not dramatically, but enough that you feel the shift. Cecily’s gaze lifts, surprised. Joshua’s eyes soften. Even Jeonghan’s grin stills, interested. Seungcheol’s voice enters quietly. “Lord Halbrook,” he asks, “what do you consider a partnership?”

Halbrook turns, surprised, but not defensive. He thinks. Actually thinks. “A person who doesn’t become smaller beside you,” he answers at last. “Someone who grows. Someone you’d rather be honest with than impressive for.” Georgina blinks, then smiles in a way that looks softer than you’ve seen on her in a long time. You swallow. Seungcheol holds Halbrook’s gaze, then nods once. Not approval, exactly. Permission to continue.

Halbrook speaks a little longer, asking Georgina questions that aren’t about her looks: what she reads, what she hates, what she’d do if she were born a man. Georgina answers with gleeful wickedness. “I’d duel,” she says. “Frequently.” Halbrook’s smile widens. “And win?”

“Obviously,” she replies. “I don’t do anything halfway.”

When Halbrook finally leaves, Georgina watches the closed door like she’s just been offered a life that might actually fit her shape. “That one,” she murmurs, almost to herself. Your chest loosens, relief flooding in so hard it nearly makes you dizzy. Because if Georgina chooses, she will be safe. And if Georgina is safe, maybe—maybe—you can stop bracing for catastrophe at every turn.

“Sir Lionel Hartmere calling on Miss Cecily,” Mrs. Wilson announces next, and you know immediately this will be unpleasant.

Not because Cecily cannot handle unpleasantness. Because men like Sir Lionel are the ones who don’t notice a woman’s discomfort until it inconveniences them. His smile is too wide. His eyes travel too quickly. He bows to Cecily, but his gaze keeps darting to Georgina as if checking whether the “brighter option” is available. Cecily sits with her hands folded and her chin lifted—quiet courage, held like a candle against the wind.

Sir Lionel begins by complimenting Cecily’s gown, then compliments Georgina’s laugh, then—without even noticing what he’s doing—compliments you. “And you, my lady,” he says, eyes lingering too long, “you look as though you could run a parliament.”

You smile thinly. “How kind.” Sir Lionel chuckles. “Yes, well, some women have that air.”

Cecily’s cheeks flush. She carefully answers a question about music. Sir Lionel nods once, not truly listening. Then he asks, cheerfully, “Which of you ladies prefers the countryside?”

Cecily blinks. Georgina cocks her head. You see it—how he doesn’t care which answer belongs to which girl. How he’s shopping. Jeonghan, who has been silent out of sheer boredom, perks up. “Sir Lionel,” he says, “a question.” Sir Lionel smiles, flattered to be addressed. “Of course.”

Jeonghan’s tone stays fair. “Are you here for Miss Cecily or Miss Georgina?” The room goes so still you can hear the soft tick of the mantel clock. Sir Lionel laughs, thinking it’s a joke. “Oh, now—does it matter?”

Cecily’s fingers tighten around her glove. Seungcheol moves for the first time in several minutes. He shifts forward—not looming, but inescapable. He doesn’t raise his voice. “It matters,” he says simply.

Sir Lionel’s words stutter out. “My lord—”

“Miss Cecily and Miss Georgina are not interchangeable,” Seungcheol continues. “If you don’t know which one you came to court, you may leave.” Sir Lionel flushes, offended. “This is high-handed.”

Jeonghan tuts softly. “And yet, here you are,” he murmurs. “Still standing.”

Cecily lifts her chin a fraction higher. Her voice, when she speaks, is soft, but it doesn’t tremble. “I think,” she says gently, “that if you cannot decide, Sir Lionel, you are not suited to either of us.”

Sir Lionel splutters. “I—well—”

Mrs. Wilson, from the edge of the room, clears her throat. Sir Lionel stands abruptly, bowing too stiffly. “My apologies,” he says, not apologising at all. “Good day.”

Cecily sits very still for a moment. Then she exhales slowly, as if she’s just stepped out of deep water. You want to go to her. Touch her shoulder. Praise her. But you don’t—because she’s done it. She’s found her own spine in front of an entire room. And it is extraordinary.

Wonwoo murmurs, delighted, “Butterfly,” as if he’s witnessed something rare hatch in real time. Cecily looks down, cheeks pink, but her mouth tugs into a smile. You look away too quickly, pulse skittering. You tell yourself you’re simply tired. You tell yourself you’re simply relieved. You tell yourself you’re not being ridiculous. You are.

By the time the final caller is shown out, the drawing room looks faintly ransacked.

Teacup rings bloom across polished wood like pale ghosts. Half-bitten cakes sit abandoned on plates. Lemon peels curl in silver dishes. The air is sweet with jam and warm pastry, but underneath it all lingers the sharper scent of male cologne and performance.

Mrs. Wilson claps her hands. At once, the maids appear like clockwork. Cups are collected. Plates lifted. Napkins are whisked away. One maid bends at your elbow for your saucer and cup; you surrender both with a distracted nod. The room exhales.

Georgina springs upright before Mrs. Wilson has fully turned her back, immediately talking over herself as she turns toward Soonyoung—who is already half out of the door, delighted by the mere fact that men came, spoke, stumbled, and survived. He launches into an exaggerated imitation of one suitor’s bow; Georgina nearly folds in half laughing before she swats his arm and attempts it herself, making it even worse on purpose.

Jeonghan, sprawled elegance a moment ago, straightens only enough to fall into conversation with Joshua near the hearth—something practical, by the sound of it, though Jeonghan keeps interrupting with lines that make Joshua close his eyes as if asking heaven for patience.

Wonwoo closes the book he has been pretending not to read and turns—quietly, as he always does—toward Cecily. “Miss Cecily,” he asks, “would you care to see the library?” Cecily stills, then blinks up at him. “The library?” Wonwoo nods once. “If you like. It is quieter than this room. And there are illustrations in one of the travel volumes I thought you might enjoy.” Cecily’s mouth parts slightly. It is not often one sees her want something quickly enough for it to show before she has time to school it away.

Your mind betrays you with images: leather worn soft at the edges, a low fire, rain on the windows, his hand reaching for the book, his thumb brushing the page. Without thinking, you look up. Seungcheol is watching you again.

He is standing upright, no cup in hand, no excuse left. There is no crowd to hide behind. No gentleman to interrogate. No sisters to shield. Just you, and the thing neither of you has named.

Something in his eyes shifts when he sees your expression—recognition, immediate and unnervingly exact. The library. Last night. The fact that you both went there in your heads the moment Cecily spoke. He starts toward you. “Lady Whitlock—” he begins lowly, private even in a crowded room. You are on your feet before the sentence is finished.

“I need some air,” you say, too quickly and yet perfectly smooth, because panic has made you excellent at sounding composed. You turn to no one and everyone at once. “Excuse me.”

Before he can step into your path—before he can say something sensible, or dangerous, or kind—you move past him, past the remnants of tea and conversation, past the drawing room threshold and into the corridor like a woman escaping a house fire with her dignity pinned in place. You do not run. Running would be noticed. You simply walk quickly enough that no one can call it fleeing unless they know you well. And he does.

Wortham Gardens takes you in at once.

You keep walking, down the terrace steps and along the path, not looking back, not allowing yourself to think about whether he follows. The late afternoon has softened into that golden hour the castle seems to wear too well. You should feel calmer. You do not.

Your hand rises to your cheek, fingertips pressing the heated skin, as if the memory of his thumb has left an imprint there. You drag your hand down to your throat, then lower, flattening your palm against your bodice where your heart is behaving like a frightened bird. Your other hand presses to your stomach, as though you might force your body back into order by sheer insistence. Breathe. You draw in air. It catches. You try again. You take the long way on purpose.

Past the rose walk, where the first blooms are unfurling pale and pearlescent. Past the yew hedge clipped into geometry. Past a stone bench warmed by the sun and half-shadowed by a willow. You pause once at a narrow path lined with lavender, close your eyes, and try to let the scent pull you into yourself. Instead, it drags up his voice.

In the drawing room: asking a suitor what he offered, not what he wanted. In the library: “It’s habit.” Just now, starting your name before you fled. You keep walking.

By the time the pavilion comes into view—white-painted, half-veiled in climbing ivy, tucked beyond a curve of hedges like a secret too pretty to trust—your pulse has steadied only enough to make room for anger. At him. At yourself. At the unbearable fact that both feel the same in your body.

You step inside the pavilion and stop in the centre, breathing through your nose. Sunlight slants through the lattice and lays patterned shadows across the floorboards. The bench along the side is smooth with years of use. A breeze stirs the ivy at the entrance, making the leaves whisper against painted wood. “Running to ground, Lady Whitlock?” His voice cuts through the quiet behind you.

You startle hard enough that your breath catches, spinning toward the entrance. Seungcheol stands there, one hand braced on the post, expression composed in that way that only makes the strain underneath more visible. He has followed you, then. You lift your chin on instinct. “If you came to mock me, my lord, your timing is poor.”

He steps inside, eyes not leaving your face. “I came because you left the room as though it were burning.”

“It was warm,” you retort. His mouth tightens. “You fled from me.”

“Do men of your station always flatter themselves so thoroughly?”

A flicker of his temper sparks in his gaze. Good. Let him feel what he keeps stirring in you. “I am not here to fight,” he says.

“No?” You fold your arms, because if you leave them at your sides, you may do something foolish with them. “Then you have chosen a curious expression.”

He exhales, short and heavy. “I came to apologise.”

“For which offence?” you ask coolly. “Today’s? Last night’s? The general burden of your existence?”

“Don’t,” he says sharply. You hold his gaze. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t pretend it meant nothing.” The words come out hard, as if dragged up against his will. “Not after the way you have looked everywhere but at me since this morning.” Heat flares under your skin. “You mistake me for a woman who arranges her day around your notice.”

“Do I?” he returns, stepping closer. Not enough to trap you. Enough to make the air change. “You flinched every time I spoke. You answered everyone but me. And the moment I addressed you without spectators, you vanished.”

Your pulse jumps, furious at being seen so clearly. “I was occupied,” you say.

“So was I,” he replies, the edge in his voice cutting cleaner. “And yet I managed to do my duty in that room.” The implication lands exactly where he intends it to. You laugh once, brittle. “Yes. Duty. You do wear it beautifully. Forgive me for failing to meet your standards, my lord. I know how very high they are.”

His brows draw together. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You tell me.” You step to one side, needing movement. He tracks it instantly. “I have spent two days learning the rules of your house, your arrangement, your expectations. It seems I was remiss in learning the rules of your moods as well.” His jaw flexes. “Speak plainly.”

You stop moving. “I heard you,” you say. “At your first ball.” The quiet in the pavilion thickens. “In the gardens. Speaking to your brother,” you continue. Something ugly flickers across his face—anger first, quick and defensive, and beneath it something darker, something like shame. “You were listening,” he says.

“You were talking,” you reply.

“That conversation was not meant for—”

“For women to hear?” You cut across him, venomous and cutting. “How noble.” His eyes flash. “For anyone beyond my family.”

“And yet it was about women.” You snap. “Women like merchandise. Suitability. Convenience. As if we are all simply pieces to be selected and arranged.”

“I was speaking of the ton.”

“The ton includes my sisters.”

His voice darkens. “Your sisters are not what I was describing.”

“Not what?” you demand, stepping toward him. “Not trainable? Not decorative? Not interchangeable?” For the first time since you have known him, he hesitates. Then, very quietly: “Not interchangeable.”

You hate how your body reacts to the truth when you are trying so hard to hold onto anger. You take a breath and force the emotion back into your voice. “Then why did you make yourself sound exactly like every man I have spent years protecting them from?” His face hardens. “Because you wanted me to be that man.”

Rage blooms hot and immediate. “How dare you.”

“How dare you,” he fires back, control cracking, “hear one bitter conversation and build an entire man out of it.”

“I built him from your own words.”

“I spoke like a man drowning.”

The sentence stops you. You stare. “Drowning?”

His nostrils flare, as if he regrets the word yet refuses to take it back. “Grieving,” he enunciates. “Being watched from every side. Carrying a title I had no time to prepare for while society waited to see whether I fail.”

You scoff because if you do not, sympathy will ruin you. “Grief is not a license for contempt.” His breath leaves him unevenly—the mask slipping from the man who has built himself on control.

“Do you think I do not know that?” he asks. “Do you think I have not replayed that night? Do you think I have not despised myself for sounding like him?”

“Him” hangs between you without a name. Hartwell. Men who take. Men who smile and press and assume. You feel your anger falter. You seize the safer part. “So you admit it was cruel.”

“I admit I was angry.”

“And arrogant.”

“Yes.”

“And afraid?” you press, because he said it and you still do not know what to do with it. His eyes lock onto yours. “Afraid of failing,” he admits quietly. “Afraid of needing what I cannot afford to lose.”

You know that language. Not the words, perhaps—but the shape of it. The private exhaustion of being the structure everyone leans on. The panic of imagining one weak point and watching the whole house come down. Recognition flickers. You hate that he sees it happen. He takes another step closer. “That night, I was trying to convince myself I did not need anyone.” You force your chin up. “Then be comforted. You do not. Especially not me.”

His breath catches so faintly you might have missed it if the space between you were any larger.

“Is that what you believe?” he asks.

Not mocking. Not triumphant. It is far worse. Humiliated.

You mean to say yes. You mean to say, of course. You mean to say something sharp enough to end this. Nothing comes out.

His eyes change when he hears your silence. He comes closer. You take one step back and hit the pavilion wall with your shoulder blades. Cool painted wood. No more room. His voice drops, every word forced out against his restraint. “Say it, then. Say you hate me.”

You shake your head, breath shortening. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you an exit.” His gaze drops to your mouth and returns. “Tell me you feel nothing. Say it plainly, and I will leave you.”

Your heart beats so hard it hurts. “You are impossible.”

“Say it.”

You inhale. Exhale. Try again. “I cannot,” you whisper, and the truth sounds like surrender.

Seungcheol falters. Then something in him gives way. Not temper. Not violence. Need. Bare and immediate and devastating. “You say you hate me,” he murmurs, stepping into the last breath of distance. “And yet you cannot say you feel nothing.” Your throat tightens. “I do hate you.”

The lie is thin. You both hear it. His hand lifts, pauses near your face. His fingers settle along your jaw, thumb against your cheek. The gentleness of it nearly undoes you. It is so unlike being taken it feels more dangerous than force.

He studies your face with a kind of fierce disbelief. “What do you do to me,” he says, words fraying, “that I cannot think when you look at me like this?” Your pulse stumbles. “Then stop looking.”

His mouth curves, but there is no humour in it. Only heat. “You first.”

You should push him away. You should remind him of propriety and scandal and the fact that the house is not far, and voices travel, and this is how women ruin themselves. Instead, your hands fist in his coat. That is all the permission he needs.

Your lips crash together.

It is not tentative. It is not careful. It is two people who have been holding themselves like walls finally deciding to collapse. Your head tips back with the force of it. His hand slides behind your head, fingers into your hair, holding you steady. You kiss him back with equal fury, because anger and wanting have become impossible to separate.

He moans against your mouth—low, rough, half relief, half desperation—and deepens the kiss until your lungs forget their work. You grip him harder. He breaks from your lips only to drag his mouth along your jaw. Your breath stutters. “Seungcheol—” His name leaves your lips, and the sound seems to strike straight through him.

He kisses the sensitive skin beneath your ear. Slow. Then again. And then lower—to your throat, where your pulse is wild and betraying you. His lips press there, deliberate, learning. His tongue flicks once at the spot beneath your jaw, and a gasp tears out of you before your pride can catch it. The sound is indecent in the quiet pavilion. You know it. He knows it. Neither of you stops.

His free hand finds your waist and pulls you in until your bodies align, until the shape of him against you makes your mind go white at the edges. He is breathing hard against your skin, control hanging by a thread.

“Tell me again,” he murmurs against your throat, “how much you hate me.”

A broken laugh catches in your chest and turns into something softer, stranger. “I—” you start, but he kisses your skin again and the sentence dies unborn.

Your hands slide up, over his shoulders, the back of his neck, and into his hair. He shudders at the contact, and the reaction is so immediate, so unguarded, it sends another wave of heat through you. He lifts his head and looks at you. God. He looks ruined.

Not weak. Not insecure. Ruined in the way men look when they have finally allowed themselves to want something and realised precisely what they have been missing. It should frighten you. It does. And still you pull him back in. The second kiss is worse. Wilder. Hungrier.

Somewhere beyond the hedges, a voice rises. Footsteps scrape faintly across gravel. Reality returns like a dose of cold water.

You wrench back with a sharp breath, fingers flying to your mouth. Your lips feel swollen. Your chest is heaving. The world is suddenly too bright, too open, too close to witness. Seungcheol freezes where you left him, breathing hard, eyes fixed on you as if he cannot quite believe you were the one to stop.

“You—” you begin, but there are too many endings to the sentence and none of them safe. He steps toward you, something urgent rising in his face—as if he is about to say something that could change everything or make it worse. You do not let him. You run.

Skirts gathered in your fists, gravel spitting beneath your shoes. You do not care how it looks. You do not care who might see. You do not care that your steps are loud, uneven, unbeautiful.

The hedges blur at the edges of your vision. Your mouth burns, your tongue remembers him, your body feels the shape of his hands as if you have carried the whole pavilion away under your skin. You do not look back. You cannot.

At the edge of the path, you falter just enough to betray yourself. You turn your head. He is still in the pavilion, one hand braced against the post, head slightly bowed before he lifts it and finds you. His mouth is parted. His eyes are dark and far too full. The whole garden seems to hold its breath with you. And you know—cold and certain and far too late—that whatever was supposed to be between you has slipped beyond recall.

You wrench your gaze away and run on. But your mouth still burns. And the taste of him follows you back to the house like a secret you will not be able to pray out of your body.

Bond Street wakes in pewter.

Mist clings to lamps and windowpanes, turning every shopfront softened —gold behind glass, silks behind velvet, jewels behind the kind of locks that imply someone is always watching. Carat & Co. glows as always. Even before the shutters come down, the place holds its own light. Seungcheol is there before the first clerk.

He likes the quiet hour when the counters are bare and the cases are still empty of hands. When the only sounds are the building settling into itself, the faint tick of the clock, and the careful work of men who understand that beauty is made with patience and sharp tools. He hangs his coat, rolls his cuffs back, and opens the ledger. Ink, numbers, inventory—his holy trinity. The neatness of columns. The honesty of sums. The relief of problems that have solutions. He tells himself this, repeatedly.

Because the moment the pen touches paper, his mind slips—just a hairline crack—and ivy appears. A white pavilion. Sunlight in lattice shadows. Your mouth, hot and furious, colliding with his like the world had finally stopped pretending. He presses harder with the pen, as if pressure can pin a memory to the page until it behaves. It does not.

A jeweller’s loupe sits beside his inkstand. He picks it up without thinking, turns it between his fingers. The glass catches a stripe of morning light and fractures it into pale colour. It reminds him of you pulling away—breathless, eyes bright with shock—as if you’d startled yourself by wanting. And then you ran. He’d stood there like a man struck. His mouth still tasting you, his whole body demanding he follow—now, now, now—as if the world would end if he let you get too far away. He hadn’t moved. He thinks about that more than he thinks about the kiss.

He thinks about stillness. About restraint. About how he has built his entire life around control—and how easily you unmade it with the simple, impossible truth of your mouth against his. He sets the loupe down as if it has burned him.

A door opens. “Morning, my lord.” Mr. Everett, the senior clerk, enters with a bundle of post. “We’ve had three notes delivered at dawn. And Mrs. Dalloway’s man insists she’ll be in today for the sapphire reset.” Seungcheol nods his head. “Put the notes on my desk.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Everett hesitates—barely—but Seungcheol sees everything. “And… there’s a gentleman waiting. Says he requires a word. A Mr. Hartwell.”

The name falls flat in the silence of his office.

Seungcheol’s expression doesn’t change. It cannot. His face is a kind of armour—built in the same way Carat & Co. is built: carefully, with intention, without flaws anyone can hook a finger into. “Send him in,” he says. Everett bows and leaves.

Seungcheol doesn’t rise. He doesn’t pace. He doesn’t prepare a speech. He simply sits, his hands folded over the ledger, and waits. Hartwell enters with a new nose and an old smile. The bruising is gone, but the memory of blood is not. Hartwell’s eyes flick to Seungcheol’s hands, as if he’s checking whether the knuckles remember him. “Lord Ashbourne,” Hartwell greets, voice slick as oil. “How industrious. I always find it fascinating when men of title pretend to be men of trade.”

Seungcheol looks at him. Lets the silence do the work. Hartwell clears his throat. “Of course. Forgive me. Carat & Co. It must be gratifying. Playing at legacy.”

Seungcheol’s gaze drops—briefly—to Hartwell’s collar. He remembers hauling him back in that opera corridor like a misbehaving dog. He remembers the sound of your breath when Hartwell’s hand covered your mouth. His voice stays level. “Why are you here?” Hartwell spreads his hands, the picture of injured innocence. “A social call.”

“This is a jeweller.”

“It’s also Bond Street.” Hartwell’s eyes gleam with that bright, intrusive interest. “And you are quite… fascinating.”

Hartwell paces one step, just enough to show he believes himself untouchable in a room full of glass and gold. “You hit me,” he says lightly—too lightly, like he’s trying to pretend it was nothing. “In public. In a theatre. You broke my nose for a misunderstanding.”

Seungcheol doesn’t correct him. There was no misunderstanding.

Hartwell’s smile thins. “Then, very conveniently, you begin a courtship with the very woman I—” His eyes flicker, as if the memory of his hand on you still pleases him. “—admired. How swift you are, my lord. How… decisive.”

Seungcheol’s fingers tighten on the ledger. Hartwell leans in, voice dropping as though sharing a confidence between gentlemen. “I confess, I wondered.”

“Wondered what.”

Hartwell’s gaze slides toward the front windows, where the street beyond is misty and awake, where anyone might walk past and glance in and think of safety and luxury and permanence. “How the courtship was progressing,” he says. “If Lady Whitlock was enjoying being claimed.”

Seungcheol’s jaw hardens. Hartwell’s smile brightens, cruel with pleasure at having struck a nerve. “Or if she still enjoys empty corridors.”

Seungcheol’s gaze narrows. “Be very careful.”

Hartwell’s lips part in a soft laugh. “Oh, do forgive me. It’s only that Mayfair is… attentive. And Lady Whitlock—your lady with her resolve of steel—has been seen in curious circumstances.”

He lifts a finger, as if counting. “Once, alone in a theatre passage with me.” Another finger. “And again—so I hear—in a library corridor, late at night, with you.”

Seungcheol’s blood goes cold. The library. Wrotham. Who talked? Hartwell watches Seungcheol’s face like a man studying a lock for weakness. “It would be a shame,” Hartwell murmurs, “if anyone began to ask why the eldest Whitlock sister wanders empty halls and meets men when she believes herself unseen.”

Seungcheol does not move. His restraint becomes something vicious and calculated. Hartwell’s voice becomes venomous. “A woman’s reputation is such a fragile thing. And the Whitlocks’ position is already… delicate, is it not?” His eyes sparkle. “No father. No mother. Just an inheritance and three unmarried ladies.”

Seungcheol’s spine goes rigid. Hartwell continues, enjoying the way each word feels like a thumb pressed into a bruise. “If the ton thought Lady Whitlock’s virtue was—how shall I phrase it—careless…” He makes a vague gesture, like he’s wiping dust from a sleeve. “Suitors might vanish. Not only for her.” Seungcheol’s gaze turns razor-sharp. “For the sisters as well. Such a pity. An entire household punished for one woman’s little… strolls.”

Seungcheol finally speaks. “Say it plainly.”

“I want my pride restored.”

There it is. Not morality. Not justice. Not concern. Just ego bruised and hungry. “You embarrassed me,” Hartwell says, and now the civility disappears to show the snarling thing beneath. “You took what I wanted and turned it into your trophy. And now everyone is whispering about you, about her, about how quickly she folded. I want the whisper to change.”

Seungcheol’s fingers uncurl from the ledger. “You’re threatening a woman because a man struck you.”

“No, my lord. I’m reminding you how the world works.” Hartwell’s gaze sweeps the counters, the cases, the jewels. “You have so much to lose.”

Seungcheol pushes to his feet and steps into Hartwell’s space, bringing them face to face. He doesn’t lunge or posture—he simply stands, broad and solid and suddenly far too close, and Hartwell’s bravado flickers. “You will not speak of her.” Hartwell’s brows lift. “Or what?”

Seungcheol’s voice lowers. “Or you will learn the difference between a broken nose and a ruined life.” Hartwell falters—then recovers, brittle. “Ah.” He exhales. “There’s the animal beneath the Viscount.” Seungcheol doesn’t blink. “Get out.”

Hartwell’s face turns insolent because insolence is what men use when they sense danger but refuse to show fear. “Mayfair will talk,” he states softly. “And you can’t punch a whisper.”

Seungcheol doesn’t back down. Hartwell holds his stare for one last moment—two men measuring which one will break first. Then Hartwell bows, mockingly correct. “Enjoy your courtship, my lord.” He turns toward the doors. “Let’s see what survives when people remember where you came from.”

Hartwell walks out. The bell over the door gives a polite chime as it closes behind him, like the shop itself is unaware it has just hosted poison. Seungcheol stays standing until his breathing steadies. Then he turns to Everett—who has reappeared like a ghost, trying desperately to look as though he heard nothing. “Double the men at the door,” Seungcheol demands calmly. “And if anyone asks after me, they wait.” Everett swallows. “Yes, my lord.”

“And send for Jeonghan.” Everett blinks. “Lord Jeonghan?”

“Now.”

Everett goes. Seungcheol sits again, picks up his pen, and stares at the ledger until the columns blur. He thinks of Hartwell’s words like fingers around your throat. He thinks of your sisters—Cecily’s quiet bloom, Georgina’s fire—both of them vulnerable to the ton’s appetite for punishment. He thinks of you, always the wall, always the shield. And he feels something shift in him that he does not like. Because Hartwell came for you. And Seungcheol did not feel strategic. He felt protective. He felt possessive. He felt the raw, ruinous impulse to burn the whole world down for the crime of imagining you ruined.

The first tremor arrives in the form of a note with too much perfume. Everett brings it on a silver tray. “From Lady Dalloway, my lord.” Seungcheol breaks the seal. Lady Dalloway’s handwriting is elegant. Her words are polite. “Regretfully,” she writes, “I must postpone today’s appointment. There is conversation in my circle, and my husband insists we avoid anything that might appear imprudent until the Season settles.”

It is an excuse in the form of a compliment. The sapphire reset has been in commission for months. Lady Dalloway is not the sort of woman who postpones jewels unless her fear is sharper than her vanity. Seungcheol folds the letter once. Twice. Places it aside. “Send her my respects,” he says evenly. “And let her know her stone will be held safely until she chooses to be brave.” Everett flinches at the words but bows. “Yes, my lord.”

The second tremor arrives in the form of absence. The shop is not empty—never truly. Foot traffic remains. The curious remain. But there is a difference between a crowded street and a room full of buyers. Three ladies enter together late afternoon—veiled, gloved, expensive. They pause at the cases. Their eyes skim the pieces. One of them laughs softly behind her fan. They do not ask to see anything. They leave without buying a single stone. Everett looks ready to weep with frustration. Seungcheol stands behind the counter and feels something cold settle between his shoulder blades. This is the ton’s language. Not refusal. Not accusation. Just the slow withdrawal of comfort, like a hand pulling a blanket away inch by inch until you are shivering and pretending you are not.

Jeonghan arrives an hour later, looking as though he has been insulted by the concept of urgency. He takes one look at Seungcheol’s face and stops. “Someone died,” Jeonghan states. “Or you want them to.”

Seungcheol doesn’t answer. Jeonghan wanders behind the counter and picks up the note from Lady Dalloway with two fingers. “Mm.” Jeonghan scans it. “She’s afraid.”

“She’s vapid,” Seungcheol declares.

“Both can be true.” Jeonghan folds the letter and sets it back down. His gaze flicks toward the street, toward the people who drift past the windows without stopping. “Hartwell?” Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. “How do you know?” Jeonghan’s mouth curves. “Because his type never loses quietly. And because the air in Mayfair tastes different today.”

Jeonghan leans closer, voice dropping steadier beneath the flippancy. “What did he say?” Seungcheol’s fingers curl. “He threatened her.”

Jeonghan’s smile vanishes so quickly it’s almost frightening. “How.” Seungcheol stares at the ledger. The columns. The numbers. The neatness. The lie that any of this can be controlled with ink. “He suggested,” Seungcheol speaks slowly, “that Lady Whitlock’s refusal could be… corrected. Publicly.” Seungcheol’s words grow colder. “Hartwell’s pride is bruised. He wants to punish her for not accepting what he thought he was entitled to.”

Jeonghan’s hands curl into fists at his sides. He inhales, then exhales like a man forcing himself not to shatter something expensive. “He wants you to react,” Jeonghan says finally.

“He wants her ruined,” Seungcheol answers quietly.

“He wants you to blame her.” Jeonghan steps closer, blunt in that brotherly way that doesn’t soften.“Don’t let his poison make you treat her like she’s the problem.”

Seungcheol’s throat tightens. He thinks of you—stiff-backed at the Opera, perfect, controlled, still placing your hand on his arm like you are not trembling inside. You are not the problem. Hartwell is. Mayfair is. And Seungcheol—Seungcheol is becoming something he didn’t intend to become.

Jeonghan picks up a stack of invoices and flips through them like he’s looking for something to stab. “All right,” he says briskly. “We’ll play.” Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. “We?” Jeonghan glances up, grin returning like a blade sliding back into its sheath. “You dragged me here. I assume you want my charming face to reassure the frightened little lambs.”

Seungcheol doesn’t have the patience for Jeonghan’s theatrics today. Jeonghan doesn’t care. He steps out from behind the counter and begins greeting the next patron with warmth bright enough to make the sun envious. He flatters. He smiles. He makes a countess laugh. He is good at this—better than Seungcheol—because Jeonghan looks like ease, and Mayfair always trusts ease more than it trusts competence. Seungcheol watches Jeonghan work and feels something else twist in him: gratitude he doesn’t know how to express without making it uncomfortable.

And beneath it—still, always—you. Because even while he talks of stones and settings and commissions, his mind keeps turning to the pavilion, to the way your hands fisted in his coat like you meant to ruin him. He had thought work would be refuge. Work is only another place your name follows him.

By the time he goes to White’s, the rumours have gained shape. He hears it in the way men greet him now—smiles a fraction too bright, bows a fraction too deep, as if they are trying to prove they are not thinking the thing they are thinking. He tastes it in the small hesitations—doorways held open too long, a whisper clipped short when he turns his head, a laugh that stutters and then recovers as if nothing happened. Hartwell said it: you can’t punch a whisper.

Seungcheol takes a seat with a glass he doesn’t want. He listens to a conversation he doesn’t respect. He waits for something useful.

Lord Haversham—loose around the mouth—leans forward with a grin like he’s about to share a joke. “Ashbourne,” Haversham says, “you sly devil.” Seungcheol regards him. “Pardon?” Haversham explains. “The Whitlock sister. I didn’t think anyone could catch her, and you’ve done it in a week.” Another man—Sir Dalrymple—chimes in, eyes filled with envy. “The ice queen,” he says appreciatively, as if describing a rare horse. “Steel composure, sharp tongue, makes grown men sweat and calls it sport.”

Haversham continues. “And the inheritance.” He lifts his glass slightly, toasting. “Well played.”

Seungcheol’s jaw tightens. “She’s not a card to be played.”

Haversham waves a hand. “Oh, don’t sulk. We’re admiring you.” His eyes gleam. “Truly—how did you do it?” Dalrymple leans forward. “Did you corner her? Was it a scandal? Did you frighten her into it?”

Haversham chortles. “I’d wager he simply promised security. A woman like that must be exhausted. Offer her relief and she’ll sign any contract.”

The words twist in Seungcheol’s gut because they’re not entirely wrong—and that truth makes him want to break something. Because yes: he offered you protection. Yes: he offered you a shield. Yes: he built a plan. And then you kissed him like you could not bear the lie anymore. And now these men sit here and call you a prize and ask him which method worked best, as if your mouth isn’t yours. Seungcheol sets his glass down carefully. Then he looks at Haversham. “You’re speaking of Lady Whitlock as if she doesn’t have ears.”

Haversham blinks. “What?” Seungcheol’s voice stays level, which is worse than shouting. “As if she isn’t human. As if you’re entitled to discuss her like she’s meat on a table.”

Dalrymple laughs uncertainly. “Come now—”

Seungcheol’s gaze cuts to him. “Stop.” Haversham’s grin falters, annoyance creeping in. “All right, all right. We meant no disrespect.”

“You meant envy.”

Haversham’s eyes flash. “Of course we envy you. Do you think men don’t notice a fortune?” Seungcheol leans forward slightly. “If fortune is all you see when you look at her, you are unfit to speak her name.” Haversham scoffs, trying to recover his humour. “Listen to him. The adopted Viscount lecturing us on virtue.”

The room changes. Not everyone laughs. Some of them go quiet, because even here—especially here—the rumour becomes truth. Seungcheol’s spine goes rigid. He feels, all at once, Hartwell’s smirk in a shop full of diamonds. Blood. Not legitimate. Puppy story. Title. Haversham thinks he’s won. “Strange, isn’t it?” he muses. “A man without Ashbourne blood guarding Ashbourne jewels. Makes one wonder how long the ton will tolerate it.”

Seungcheol watches him. He watches Haversham’s mouth move and thinks of his brothers—six men bound by different blood and the same name, the same house, the same grief, a bond stronger than most men ever earn. He thinks of his parents. He thinks of loss, of the shape it carved into him, of everything he had to become before he was ready. He thinks of the scrutiny now turning toward his lineage—cold, entitled, eager to question his right to stand where he stands. And then he thinks of you. Of what that scrutiny will cost you if it sharpens. Of how quickly Mayfair takes a man’s uncertainty and lays the punishment at a woman’s feet. He thinks of Hartwell’s threat: no suitor will go for either of her sisters. And he feels something in him tilt—dangerously, irrevocably—away from diplomacy.

“Say that again,” Seungcheol murmurs. “Say that I do not belong.” Dalrymple clears his throat. Someone else shifts in their seat. The air tightens, thick with the knowledge that Seungcheol does not bluff. Haversham swallows, tries to laugh it off. “Come now, Ashbourne, don’t be—”

Seungcheol rises. “You want to know how I did it?” Seungcheol asks. Haversham’s eyes flicker. Seungcheol steps closer, just enough to intimidate. “I didn’t.” Haversham blinks. “What—”

“She wasn’t caught,” Seungcheol says. “She wasn’t cornered. She wasn’t frightened into anything.” His throat tightens around the next truth because it tastes like surrender. “She chose.” Haversham’s mouth opens, then closes.

“And if any of you speak of her like property again, if any of you so much as imply she can be purchased with a dowry or a rumour, I will make it my personal pleasure to ensure you never enjoy another Season.”

Seungcheol turns and leaves. Not because he fears them—because he cannot stand breathing the same air as men who think you’re a ledger entry. Outside, the night hits his lungs like retribution. He walks. Away from their laughter, their entitlement, their smug certainty that women exist to be discussed and acquired, the ease with which they assume they are entitled to you. He hates that. He hates that he understands it.

Ashbourne Hall is lit when he returns. Seungcheol gives his coat to a footman and takes the stairs without slowing. He tells himself he wants silence. He reaches his study, shuts the door, and stands in the dark with one hand still on the latch, breathing like he has outrun something only to find it waiting inside him.

The door opens again. Joshua steps in with a bottle of brandy in one hand and two glasses in the other, which means he already knows enough. “Jeonghan talked.”

Seungcheol turns his head. “He always does.”

Joshua sets the bottle down on the desk and fills the glasses without asking. “White’s?”

“Yes.”

Joshua offers one. Seungcheol takes it and downs it in one swallow. Joshua watches him. Seungcheol reaches for the bottle, refills, and drinks the second just as fast. When he tips the bottle for a third, Joshua catches his wrist lightly and eases it from his hand. “No,” Joshua says, gentle but firm. “You don’t get to disappear into this.”

Seungcheol’s jaw hardens. For a moment, he looks like he might argue simply because he hates being managed. Then he drops into the chair behind the desk instead. Joshua sits opposite him with his own untouched glass. “What happened that has you looking like you’d cheerfully break your hand on brick?” Seungcheol stares at the desk. “They spoke about her.” Joshua’s brows lift. “You mean Lady Whitlock.”

Seungcheol answers too quickly. “I mean us.” Joshua leans back slightly, studying him. “They were needling you.”

“They were vile.”

“Yes.” Joshua nods. “But it got under your skin.”

Seungcheol’s gaze goes distant—Haversham grinning into his glass, the word inheritance tossed across the table like bait, men speaking about you as if you were a purchase with a pulse. “They congratulated me,” he says at last. “As if I’d cornered her.” Seungcheol gives a humourless exhale. “Then they wanted details. How I ‘managed it.’”

Joshua inhales slowly. “Cheol.” Seungcheol’s eyes cut to him. “What?” “I believed this arrangement was duty.” Seungcheol’s face hardens on instinct. “It is.”

“Then why is Hartwell’s rumour eating through you by the hour?” Seungcheol stills. The rumour is not only after his name. It is after the business. The house. The legitimacy of both. It wants Ashbourne to look borrowed. It wants Carat & Co. to look precarious. It wants your courtship to look like calculation made desperate. Seungcheol leans forward. “He threatened her.”

“That’s the game,” Joshua says quietly. “Make you furious. Make you rash. Make her panic.”

“I’ll ruin him.” Joshua does not flinch at Seungcheol’s vow. “You probably can.” He pauses. “But don’t confuse punishing him with protecting her.”

“There’s a difference?”

“A very large one.” Joshua supplies. “One soothes your temper. The other keeps her safe.”

The words hit harder than Seungcheol wants them to. Because the truth is uglier than his anger. He does not only want Hartwell chastened. He wants him erased. He wants the world taught not to put its hands on your name. He wants, somewhere dark and ungoverned in himself, to close his fist around every room you enter and decide who breathes. Joshua watches the silence work through him. He has known Seungcheol too long to mistake that silence for peace. “Look at me,” Joshua whispers. Seungcheol does. “Tell me this is still only a plan.”

“It is.” Clipped. Instant. Joshua’s gaze drops to Seungcheol’s hand on the armrest. “Then why are you shaking?” Seungcheol looks down. A tremor, slight but there, runs through his fingers. He tightens his hand until it stops by force. Joshua exhales through his nose. “Cheol.”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?”

Seungcheol’s voice catches and comes out sharper because of it. “Looking at me like I’ve gone soft.” Joshua’s expression shifts—fond, tired, too perceptive. “I don’t think you’ve gone soft.” Seungcheol’s jaw clenches. “Then what is it?” Joshua holds his gaze. “I think you’re attached.”

Seungcheol looks away at the confession. He wants to scoff. Deny it. Turn it into annoyance and move on. But denial feels idiotic with the memory of your lips still living under his skin. Attachment. Not duty. Not optics. Not strategy. Attachment is how men get careless. He has built his life on never being careless.

Joshua lets the silence stretch before speaking again. “If this turns messy, it won’t be because you care. It’ll be because you lie to yourself about caring.” Seungcheol’s mouth tightens. “If I lose control, she pays.”

“Not if you choose where the control goes.”

That lands, too. God, he hates how cleanly Joshua says things. Seungcheol looks at the desk—the bottle, the glasses, the papers stacked in exact lines like order is a spell that still works if he arranges it neatly enough. Joshua studies him for a long while, then says it with infuriating kindness: “You’re falling, brother.” A beat. “And harder than you meant to.”

Recognition moves through Seungcheol. He does not deny it. How could he? It is everywhere—in how quickly his temper rises when men speak of you, in how his eyes find exits and doorways when you’re in a room, in how Hartwell’s threat narrowed his vision to a point.

Joshua stands, finally taking his own drink and finishing it. He sets the glass down with a soft clink. “All right,” he says, moving toward the door. “Call it a plan if that helps you stand upright.” Seungcheol stays seated, gaze fixed on the desk. Joshua pauses with his hand on the knob and looks back. “Just remember,” he says softly, “plans do not keep men awake.” Then he leaves.

Seungcheol sits in the dim study long after the door closes. The house settles around him. Pipes, boards, distant footsteps, then quiet. He listens to his own breathing and tries, for once, to picture you without the poise, without the gloves, without Mayfair looking on. He cannot. Every attempt drags him back to that kiss. He grips the desk edge until the wood bites into his palm. The truth is brutal in its simplicity: Seungcheol is becoming reckless in the one way that matters most—emotionally—because the lie of the courtship no longer feels like a lie inside him.

He reaches for his pen. Tries to return to figures, orders, stone weights, and delivery dates. But the first word his mind offers is not a number. Not duty. Not strategy. You. And the worst part—the part he cannot file, cannot master, cannot discipline away—is that he is no longer certain he wants to.

By the third quadrille, your smile has become a discipline. Lady Halstead’s ballroom is all light and scrutiny—mirrors multiplying every glance, chandeliers making everyone appear a fraction brighter and a fraction more false, the floor crowded with silk and moving in measured patterns while the room itself hums with that particular kind of excitement that means society has scented something and has not yet decided whether it is scandal or sport. The Whitlocks and the Ashbournes are placed on opposite sides of the room as if by accident. It is not an accident. You arranged it so in the first ten minutes.

Not with anything so crude as a command. A pause here, a turn there, a gracious acceptance of Lady Halstead’s suggestion that you stand nearer the second row of pillars where the widowed countesses like to collect, and a gentle redirection of Georgina toward Lord Halbrook before she could drift too near the Ashbourne side of the floor. Cecily was easier. Cecily goes where she is invited if the invitation is kind. You have become very good at architecture.

It’s been two weeks since Wrotham. Two weeks since the pavilion. Two weeks since the library before it, and the storm, and the almost-kiss that became a real one the following day in sunlight and ivy and ruin. Two weeks since you last saw Seungcheol. Not a call. Not a note. Not a chance encounter so much as a carriage glimpsed through rain.

Only whispers with no bones yet—his name in passing, Bond Street mentioned beside the phrase conversation in town, someone at tea remarking that Carat & Co. seemed busy and not busy at once in that irritating way people use when they know half of something and want credit for the whole. Nothing direct. Nothing you can take hold of. Nothing that lets you ask. So you do not ask.

Across the room, the Ashbournes stand in a loose, gleaming knot beneath one of the mirrored panels. Jeonghan is cornered by two mamas and appears to be enjoying himself far too much for a man being interrogated about siblings and prospects. Soonyoung is pretending to listen to a countess while making faces over her shoulder at Georgina whenever he thinks no one sees. Joshua is speaking to an older gentleman, and Wonwoo is at the edge of the group, seemingly trying to blend in with the wallpaper. And Seungcheol— You do not look at him. You do.

He is doing exactly what a viscount should do: standing where he can be seen, speaking when required, bowing to the right women, allowing himself to be surrounded by debutantes and ambitious mothers. His face gives little away. It always did less than yours. That used to comfort you. Now it only infuriates. Because he is speaking to other women with perfect courtesy, and every time one of them tips her head up at him and smiles as though she has been singled out by fate, something mean and hot twists under your ribs. Because he has barely spared you a glance all evening—if that. Because it has been two weeks.

A turn of the set takes you farther along the room. When the figure ends, you step back beside one of the gilt chairs and let your gloved fingers rest lightly on its carved edge. For the first time in longer than you know how to measure, your sisters do not need rescuing.

Georgina is across the room with Lord Halbrook and looks, infuriatingly, like herself and like a woman discovering she can be adored without being reduced. Their courtship has not become quieter since Wrotham; if anything, it has become more dangerous in the best possible way. He laughs when she startles a room. He asks follow-up questions when she says something outrageous. She says something to him now—chin tipped, eyes filled with wickedness—and Halbrook throws his head back laughing instead of attempting to tame her. She looks pleased. Not triumphant. Pleased. There is a difference. You notice because you have spent years watching for the opposite.

Cecily, miracle of miracles, is not fading into shadow. She stands half-turned beneath the long mirror near Lady Halstead’s fern stands, speaking with Lord Marlowe, grandson to the Duke of Marlowe, who began calling a week after Wrotham and has not once made her look as though he expects gratitude for being kind. He is not loud. He is not dazzling. He is, perhaps most importantly, attentive in the right direction. He listens when she answers. He does not interrupt to improve the shape of her thoughts. When she speaks, he leans in—not because he cannot hear, but because he wants to. Tonight, he has somehow coaxed her into discussing astronomy with a seriousness that makes her forget to be afraid. Cecily’s hands have come alive while she speaks. Her shoulders are lower. Her eyes lift and stay lifted. At one point, she even laughs—not into her glove, not apologetically, but openly, a soft, bright sound that carries farther than it should. Marlowe smiles like a man who knows better than to touch the moment with praise.

Your burden has not vanished. Burdens like yours do not vanish. They settle. They redistribute. For one suspended stretch of time, you are only the eldest sister standing alone at a ball while both your girls are occupied by men who appear, astonishingly, to deserve the time. The relief is so sharp it almost feels like salvation.

“Lady Whitlock.” Lord Haversham bows over your hand with polish. You know him by sight, of course. One always knows men like Haversham by sight before one knows their names: unearned confidence, expensive boredom. He smiles as if you are old allies in a private joke. “You are unclaimed for the set,” he says, glancing toward the floor, where couples are reforming in lines. “Will you allow me the honour?”

There is a pause in which you could refuse. You feel—without looking—where Seungcheol is in the room. You hate that you can. You have spent the better part of the evening proving distance. To everyone. To him. To yourself most of all. And here is a gentleman of acceptable standing, asking in full view of Lady Halstead’s chandeliers and half of Mayfair. You smile. “Of course, Lord Haversham.”

His satisfaction is almost imperceptible. Almost. He leads you into the set with impeccable manners and a grip just this side of presumptuous. You do not like him, but you have danced with worse men and smiled through worse reasons. Around you, the room rearranges. Silk turns. Gloves brush. Partners bow and cross. At the edge of the next figure, your gaze betrays you and finds Seungcheol.

Three young ladies have formed a crescent around him, with two mamas behind them like artillery. One of the girls says something earnest. Another laughs too quickly at nothing. Seungcheol inclines his head, answers, and then—because God is cruel—looks up at exactly the moment your hands join Haversham’s for the turn. His expression does not change. The change is in you.

Something defensive and defiant lifts in your chest, and before you can reason with it, you are dancing more brightly than the figure requires, answering Haversham with crisp wit, allowing your smile to appear as though you are enjoying yourself immensely instead of staging a demonstration no one asked for. Haversham leans slightly closer in the next pass. “You dance like a woman making a point.”

“Do I?” you reply smoothly.

“Most certainly.” His gaze slides, not subtly enough, toward the Ashbourne side of the room before returning to you. “I admire clarity.” You look at Haversham then and think, with sudden bitterness, that it is absurd. Seungcheol on the sidelines with women he does not want. You in the middle of the floor with a man you would never choose. The ton, no doubt, questioning your courtship. You continue on.

The set breaks and reforms. Lady Halstead, who treats choreography like warfare, has chosen a cotillion that delights her precisely because it trades partners every few turns and leaves everyone pretending not to care where they end up. The room shifts into fresh lines. Across the floor, a small ripple passes through the mamas near Seungcheol. One of them wins. You do not mean to watch. You watch him take the hand of a lady in pale blue. She is lovely in the way the ton rewards—fair, polished, delicate without looking fragile. She smiles up at him, and he gives her the kind of perfectly proper attention that makes older women nod approvingly into their fans. He bends his head to hear her over the music. His hand settles at her waist. He turns her through the figure. It hurts. You look away too late. Haversham notices it. Men like him always do when they think it will be useful. “Ah,” he says lightly as the figure moves you apart and back again, “now there is an instructive arrangement.”

You meet his eyes. “If you intend to spend this dance discussing other people, my lord, you may return me to the wall.” He laughs and lifts both hands in surrender. “Forgive me. I am chastened.” You do not believe him, which at least gives you something steady to stand on.

The music drives on. Partners trade. A gentleman bows, a lady curtsies; hands touch and release, and touch again, according to rules strict enough to survive the chaos. You move where the dance demands. Once to the left. Once forward. Once away. Haversham is replaced by a baronet’s son with damp palms. Then by a married colonel who smells of starch and certainty. Then by—

A hand you know before it closes around yours. You look up. Seungcheol bows as though this is an ordinary turn in an ordinary set and not the first time his body has been this close to yours since he kissed you in a pavilion. “Lady Whitlock.” Your curtsy is flawless. “Lord Ashbourne.”

He leads you into the next figure with devastating precision. Not too close. Never too close. Not in public. His fingers at yours are steady and impersonal and impossible. “You’ve been avoiding me.” You keep your smile for the watching room. “Have I? I thought we were both attending the same ball.”

“For the ton, perhaps.” His gaze doesn’t waver. “Not for me.” You turn under an arch of joined hands, another couple briefly passing between you. When you face him again, your heart is thudding so hard you can feel it in your ears. “Then you should not have spent two weeks proving absence suits you.”

Something flickers in his face. Regret, maybe. Anger, certainly—though not, you think, at you. The figure pulls you apart and returns you. When Seungcheol takes your hand again, his voice drops a fraction beneath the music. “I was handling what followed Wrotham.” That lands badly. You hear business. Damage. Consequences. A mess to be contained. You hear yourself, somehow, included in a ledger. You lift your chin. “How diligent.” His jaw tightens. “Do not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Turn every word into a weapon before I can finish it.” Your laugh is small and bright and entirely false. “You mistake me, my lord. I am merely trying to follow the plan.” The word hits him. You see it. For one raw moment, his composure slips enough to show the man underneath—the one in the library, collar open, voice tired; the one in the pavilion with your name breaking in his throat.

The next figure brings you closer. Too close for safety. Not close enough for honesty. Seungcheol’s hand closes around yours for the crossing turn. “That is exactly what I have been trying to do,” he says, each word forced through his locked jaw. “Put duty back where it belongs. What happened at Wrotham…” he continues, and his gaze flicks to your mouth, then away again. “…was not part of our arrangement.”

The ballroom does not change. The chandeliers still burn. The strings still play. Lady Halstead still smiles from her chair like a queen surveying crops. And yet, all you can hear is the echo of that line inside your own skull. Not part of our arrangement. He means to continue. You see it in the way his mouth parts, in the urgency that flashes too late through his eyes. Perhaps there is more. Perhaps there is some explanation buried beneath that brutal, tidy phrasing. You do not let him reach for it. Because shame is quicker than patience, and pride is a better shield than hope. “Of course,” you say.

The figure ends. You curtsy before he can stop you. A beautiful, correct curtsy that gives nothing away except, perhaps, the speed with which you rise. Then you turn and leave the set before the next exchange is called. You move through the room with your spine straight and your breath gone thin, past Lady Halstead’s circle of seated matrons, past a knot of gentlemen pretending not to stare, past the mirrored wall that throws your face back at you, too pale, the mask slipping. Behind you, the music stumbles on. You hear your name once—low, cut short by the crowd. Then, you hear what you knew you would. His footsteps, leaving the floor.

You do not stop walking until the corridor gives way to the rear of the house, then to the glass-lit hush of Lady Halstead’s orangerie. You slip inside and let the door fall shut behind you. Moonlight and house-light catch in the panes and iron ribs overhead, turning the rows of citrus trees into shadow. Marble urns stand pale at the edges. Leaves whisper faintly in the draught. The tiled floor gleams in broken strips of light. Your chest rises sharply under your stays. Not part of our arrangement. You press your hand flat to your sternum as though you might quiet the line where it lodged. It does not move.

The door opens again. You close your eyes before you turn. Seungcheol stands just inside, one hand still on the latch, the ballroom’s light framing him before the door settles and leaves him in the same dim silver you stand in. His expression is held together by effort. His eyes are not. Neither of you speaks.

Then, low and rough—more exhausted than angry, though the anger is there too—he asks, “Why do you always run from me?” You laugh, breathless. “Why do you always come after me?”

“Because you leave before I can finish a sentence.”

“You finished enough of one.” The words leave you too fast. “Quite clearly.” Something flickers across his face—frustration, then immediate regret for it. He takes one step closer, stopping well short of you. “I know what I said.”

“Do you?” You fold your arms because your hands are unsteady and you refuse to let him see that. “In there, you looked me in the face and called Wrotham a mistake in better tailoring.”

“I did not call it a mistake.”

“No,” you say, voice thinning at the edges despite your best efforts. “You called it outside the terms. How much kinder.” He inhales slowly, visibly, like a man trying not to break something fragile with the force of his own temper. “That is not what I meant.”

“Then perhaps you should stop speaking in duty when you mean to address me.”

His mouth hardens, but not at you. At himself. At the truth of it. “You think I do not know that?” he asks quietly. “I have spent two weeks knowing it.” You blink. The hurt in you does not lessen. It sharpens. “Two weeks,” you repeat. “And still you chose that.”

“I chose control,” he snaps, then checks himself instantly, lowering his voice. “Because I have been losing it everywhere else.” The words hang between you, abrupt and too honest for the room they are in. You lift your chin. “And I am what suffers when you decide to recover it?”

His gaze cuts to yours. “No.” Immediate. Certain. “That is exactly what I have been trying to prevent.”

You do not answer. The silence pushes him. Seungcheol steps closer, and when he speaks, the anger in him has gone silent—made raw by emotion. “What happened at Wrotham was not part of our arrangement,” he says, and for one blinding second the wound opens fresh—until he continues, voice frayed at the edges, “because what happened at Wrotham had nothing to do with the arrangement at all.”

You go still. He looks at you like the confession hurts. “I said it badly in there. God, I know I did. I was trying to say I cannot keep pretending that what is between us sits neatly inside anything I planned.” Seunghceol takes another step. Close enough that you can see how tightly he is holding his hands at his sides. “I have tried,” he says. “For two weeks. Duty. Work. Business. Every sensible thing I know how to bury myself in. And every time I think I have managed it, I remember your mouth and I stop being sensible.”

Your throat tightens so suddenly you hate him for it. “Do not say things like that when you have just spent an entire night making me feel like an embarrassment you must tidy away.”

“Is that what you thought?”

“What else should I think?” you fire back, finally losing the carefulness you have worn all Season. “You avoid me for two weeks, then speak of duty and arrangement and control as if I am some error in your schedule. You dance with another woman. You—” Your voice catches. You hate that too. “You looked at me as if you were forcing yourself to.”

He stares at you for too long. Then, very softly: “I looked at you like a man trying not to drag you out of the room.” The air leaves your lungs. Seungcheol closes his eyes, as if he did not intend to say that either. When he opens them, he does not look away. “I danced with her because if I stood still any longer while you let that fool put his hands on you, I would have caused a scene Lady Halstead would dine out on for years.”

Something hot and helpless turns in your chest. You hate the relief. You hate how quickly your body believes him. “You do not get to speak as if I belong to you,” you whisper.

“I know.” An exhale. “And still I cannot seem to watch another man touch you and feel anything I am proud of.”

You should leave. Right now. While the floor still feels steady beneath you, and your heart is merely loud instead of reckless. Instead, you ask, because you are as doomed by honesty as he is, “Then what is it you feel?” He comes closer. This time he does not stop until there is only breath between you. His hand lifts, hesitates near your cheek, and falls back to his side—not from disinterest, but because he is waiting. It is the waiting that nearly ruins you. “Everything I was not supposed to,” Seungcheol says. You shake your head as if you can physically shake sense back into the moment. “You are impossible.”

“You have said that before.”

“Because it remains true.” Your voice is thin, breath-frayed. “You anger me. You command rooms as if you own the air in them. You speak in rules and then break them yourself. You make me feel—”

He leans a fraction closer. “What?” You swallow. Hard. “Unsteady.” Something in him softens so visibly it is almost unbearable. “You make me unsteady, too.”

You stare at him. He looks tired. Beautiful. Undone in a way only you can see because everyone else gets the Viscount, the stonework, the precision. You get the man standing in an orangery asking for words he has no practice saying. Your anger is still there. So is the hurt. So is the bruised pride. But underneath all of it, something older and more honest rises and reaches for him. You grab his lapel. “I should hate you,” you whisper. His gaze drops to your mouth. “I know.” He murmurs. “And if you kiss me anyway, I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for your poor judgment.” A broken sound—half laugh, half sob—leaves you. Then you pull him down and kiss him.

He answers like he has been starving. Hunger held in careful hands until you open your mouth to him and he makes a low, wrecked sound into the kiss and gives up the pretence of restraint. His hand comes to your waist, firm and warm, drawing you in as though he is afraid you might disappear again if he does not keep hold of you. You kiss him harder.

He turns you gently, guiding rather than pressing, until the backs of your knees meet the edge of a low stone border near one of the planters. He breaks from your mouth only to kiss your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your lips again, as if he cannot quite decide where he wants to begin now that he is allowed. “You are shaking,” he murmurs against your skin. “So are you.” Seungcheol’s mouth curves against your throat. “Yes.”

The admission is so soft it feels intimate all on its own. You slide your hands up his chest, over the broad line of his shoulders, to his cravat. Your fingers work at the knot and he stills for you, eyes on your face while you tug the fabric loose. When it slackens, he exhales as if something in him unclenches with it. He catches your hand and kisses your knuckles. Then your wrist. Then the pulse there, slow and intentional, eyes never leaving yours. “Seungcheol…”

He answers by touching your face—finally—his palm warm along your cheek, thumb brushing once beneath your eye. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” You stare at him, heart pounding. Then you shake your head and kiss him again. Whatever remains of his restraint melts. He sinks with you to the floor, careful of your skirts, your limbs, the hard tile beneath. His coat comes off and he folds it under you without thought, the same maddening instinct to make comfort where he can. You should laugh at him for it. Instead, your heart aches.

Your gloves are worked free and set aside. Seungcheol kisses the inside of your palms when he bares them. You undo his waistcoat with impatient fingers while he nuzzles beneath your jaw, mouthing soft, open kisses that make your head fall back against the dark wool of his coat. His hands find the back of your gown. He pauses. You nod once, already breathless.

He opens your dress with reverence that borders on worship—hooks eased loose, ribbons drawn through, layers parted only as needed, every shift of fabric accompanied by a glance to your face as if he would rather burn alive than miss the moment you hesitate. The room seems to narrow to his hands and your breathing. When he loosens your stays enough for you to inhale fully, the relief steals a moan from you. He freezes, searching your face. “Too tight?”

You catch his wrist and guide his hand lower, beneath the loosened edge of your bodice, over the heat of your skin. “No.” Your voice comes out soft, unsteady, far more yielding than either of you expected. “Just… don’t stop.” His eyes darken with something that is not triumph but awe. He kisses you again—slow, deep, almost careful until you arch into him and the care roughens into need. Your hands move inside his shirt, pushing linen apart, palms sliding over the hard planes of his chest and the heat of him. He shudders when your nails drag lightly over his skin. “You undo me too easily,” he breathes against your mouth. “Good.” The word is barely more than a whisper, but it makes him kiss you even harder.

When his hand slips beneath your skirts, you part your legs for him instinctively. The first touch of his thumb against your clit pulls a helpless cry from your throat. He stills just long enough to look at you, a silent question in the pause. You answer by lifting your hips toward his hand. “That’s my girl,” he murmurs, and the words are so soft, so devastatingly fond, that your whole body melts. He touches you again.

His fingers slide through the slick heat between your folds, circling your entrance in slow, precise strokes, before dipping in. He learns you in real time—what makes your breath catch, what makes your thighs tense around his wrist, what makes your mouth fall open on his name. “God, look at you,” he breathes, eyes fixed as much on your face as on his hand between your legs. Seungcheol curls his digits, drawing each upwards stroke out until you’re almost shaking with it; when your hips jerk up in protest, he huffs a soft, frayed laugh and does it again, watching you fall apart. You clutch at his shoulders, then his hair, then the back of his neck, losing track of where to hold because the pleasure keeps building, flooding, pulling you under in warm, rolling waves. “Seungcheol—” you gasp, the syllables breaking. “Please, I—”

“I know, sweetheart.” His mouth is everywhere—your throat, your cheek, the top of your breasts—words brushing your skin as soft as his kisses. “Let go for me. I have you.” You do. Your body seizes and then releases for him almost instinctively, the fight draining out of your limbs as your orgasm crests hard and hot. It rushes through you in a sharp, blinding sensation; your thighs clamp around his arm, and a high, broken whine spills from you, impossible to swallow back. He keeps you there, his fingers working you gently through it, praising you under his breath, his hand never leaving your soaked core until your breathing turns ragged and your inner muscles spasm around him. You cling to him, dazed, pulse thundering against his mouth where he kisses the spot just below your ear.

When you finally manage to focus, you realise he’s shaking—subtle tremors running through his arms and shoulders with effort, with his own need held in check for your sake—and something in you melts completely. Your hands go to his face, thumbs brushing the flush along his cheekbones. “Come here,” you whisper, voice breathless, invitation threaded through every quiet word. He looks wrecked by the invitation alone, pupils blown wide, lips parted like the air has been punched from him. You undo more of his shirt with unsteady fingers, pushing it aside to bare the heat of his chest, and he helps you in silence, clumsy in his urgency. He kisses you between each hurried movement as if he cannot bear to let more than a heartbeat pass without touching you somewhere. When your hand slips lower, over the hard line of his stomach to the ridge of his cock straining beneath his trousers, he exhales your name like a prayer. The sound is rough, wrecked, dragged from somewhere deep, and it runs straight through you. His hips jerk once, instinctive, a helpless push into your palm before he catches himself. He grabs your wrist gently, brings your fingers to his mouth and presses a kiss against your digits, then guides your hand back to his chest. “Later,” he breathes. “If we start that now, I won’t be patient with you the way I should.” You feel the shiver that goes through him as he says it, the hard, undeniable proof of how much he wants you, and your whole body answers with a fresh, helpless ache. He settles between your legs, caging you against the floor. His weight is a comfort, his warmth a shield. “Look at me,” he whispers. You do. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, thumb sweeping once along your skin. “If anything feels wrong, you tell me. Anything at all.” You nod, drawing him down by the nape of his neck. “I will,” you breathe. “I promise.”

There’s a brief, fumbling shift of his weight; you feel the subtle drag of fabric as he reaches between your bodies, the muted clink of buttons, the quick, unsteady exhale against your mouth as he frees himself from the last barrier between you. Then he’s there again, closer than before, the head of his cock nudging against your slick, sensitive centre with no more cloth in the way. The first careful thrust of him inside steals the air from both your lungs. He pushes forward slowly, his eyes searching your face even as his own composure frays. You are warm and open and aching for him, and he moves with a gentleness that makes your throat tighten.

When he finally sinks fully into you, filling you with a deep, slow thrust, your mouth opens on a sound you cannot soften. It’s half-gasp, half-moan, the kind of desperate little cry that sounds like you’ve been holding it in for years. His eyes slam shut. A strained, reverent groan leaves him at the same time, low in his chest, torn straight from somewhere under his ribs, and the sound of it—so unguarded, so full of feeling—makes your hands fly to the back of his neck to hold him there, as if you could keep him from slipping away. He kisses you through the first roll of his hips, all softness and heat and impossible patience. His free hand lands at your waist, braced just where you need it as he rocks into you, letting your body learn the girth of him. “There,” he murmurs when some deep, clenched part of you finally yields to the size of him, when the sharp edge of stretch gives way to something molten and unbearably good. “That’s it. Just like that.” You moan into his shoulder, fingers digging into his back, no longer caring how loud you might be, no longer caring about the walls or the glass or the woman who owns this house. The world narrows until there is only the glide of his cock within your walls, the weight of his body on top of yours, and the heat of his breath against your ear.

Your knees fall wider, skirts bunched around your midriff, and your hips rise to meet each slow thrust. The effect is instant—his breath shatters on a curse against your throat, his next thrust losing its perfect control as he follows your lead. “God,” Seungcheol whispers against your lips, already half-lost. “You feel…” The sentence breaks on a groan when you move with him just right, and he laughs softly, helplessly, kissing you again like he can’t help himself. “No. I cannot speak and survive this.” You smile against his mouth, drunk on him, and then the smile melts into a whimper when he slides the hand that was around your waist under your backside to haul you up, the new angle lighting up every nerve. Your thighs straddle his, and the position allows him to thrust deeper, faster, driving any coherent thought from your mind. His hand slides between your bodies, and his fingers find your aching clit again. The combination is devastating. It’s like being pulled in two directions at once—sharp and soft, pressure and release—until your whole body feels like a live wire, every nerve tuned to the rhythm he sets. A cry spills from you before you can stop it, high and unrestrained.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Let me hear you.” Another deep thrust, another circling stroke of his thumb. “Don’t hide from me.” You don’t. You can’t. You can’t. Your moans turn softer, then higher, breaking apart around his name in a way that makes his jaw clench, and his rhythm falter.

The pleasure builds fast—too much and not enough, tight and trembling, a sharp, coiling pull low in your belly that will not let you go. Your thighs shake around his, your fingers slip in the fabric of his shirt, trying to hold onto something solid as the room seems to tilt. “Seungcheol, I—” The rest breaks off on a choked moan as his thumb circles more tightly, and the head of his cock brushes against the most sensitive part inside you. “I know, love.” The words slip out of him instinctively while his hips keep their rhythm. “Take it. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Your orgasm breaks over you all at once. Your core locks around his cock and then releases in a shudder that tears a full, desperate cry from your throat. It rips through you in waves—sharp, dissolving, too much—and you feel yourself come, fingers clawing at his shoulders. He follows not long after—one, two, three thrusts—before his body stutters and then surges. Your name leaves him in a shattered whisper into the space between your lips as he comes and his seed fills you.

The orangerie settles around you again—leaf-rustle, distant music through walls, the thin hush of night at the glass. You look at his profile in the moonlight, hair disordered, mouth reddened from your kisses, shirt open, and the truth arrives with terrible clarity. You love him.

Wrotham is quieter in the morning than any church he has ever entered. Not because the house is empty—it never is, not truly. But this quiet is older than sound. It sits in the walls. It waits in the rails polished by generations of hands. It lingers in the portrait gallery, where men in oil and gilt look out as though blood alone could keep a house from breaking. Seungcheol moves through it alone. He has not come to inspect accounts. He has not come to review tenants’ letters. He has not come because a steward requires correction or a roofline needs repair. He has come because he is out of excuses.

The key to the jewel room turns with familiar resistance. He enters, closes the door behind him, and stands for a moment without moving while the lamps throw their careful light over velvet and glass. Ruby. Sapphire. Diamond. Amber. Emerald. And the onyx. The ring sits where it sat the last time he saw it, dark and patient, as though it knew he would eventually return once he had finished pretending not to understand himself. He unlocks the case. The click sounds indecently loud. When he lifts the ring, the weight of it lands in his palm. Cool gold. Smooth stone. No shimmer. No plea to be admired. It does not flash. His mother chose it for him for a reason, and he has spent years resenting how precisely she knew him. Beside the ring, tucked beneath the velvet lip, lies a sealed letter. His name is written on the front in her hand. Not Viscount Ashbourne. Not my eldest son. Just his name, as if she knew titles would be the first place he hid. He breaks the seal. The paper opens with that soft sound old letters make, like breath released after being held too long. He reads.

My dearest Seungcheol, If you are opening this, then either you have chosen someone at last—or you are about to make a noble mess of a woman’s life in the name of duty. If it is the second, go wash your face in cold water and begin again. You have always mistaken endurance for virtue and restraint for wisdom. Sometimes you are right. Just as often, you are frightened and call it discipline. If you have found a woman worth standing beside, do not insult her by offering only the useful parts of yourself. A title is not tenderness. Protection is not devotion. Duty may build a house, but it does not warm one. The onyx was chosen for you because it holds its depth in bright rooms. Let it remind you of this: if you place it on her hand, it is not a claim. It is a vow. That she will not become smaller beside you. That your strength will never be used to cage what you love. If you are afraid, good. Men who feel nothing are never afraid to lose. Tell the truth, my son. And for once, let devotion be the braver thing. Your mother

He reads it twice. The first time like a son being scolded by a ghost. The second like a man being handed his own reflection and told, with motherly precision, to stop lying to himself. By the end, a short, disbelieving laugh escapes him. Grief is still grief, even when it comes dressed in affection. He folds the letter carefully and slips it inside his coat. The ring remains in his palm, heavy and unignorable. A vow. Not a shield. He closes his fingers around it and exhales. For the first time in weeks, the path ahead does not feel like strategy. It feels like terror and certainty walking side by side.

He leaves Wrotham before noon. By the time he reaches Whitlock House, he is dressed for a proper call and breathing like a man headed for execution. The footman opens the door, sees him, and goes instantly formal in the way servants do when they are about to lie. “Lord Ashbourne.” Seungcheol inclines his head. “I am here to call upon Lady Whitlock.” The footman does not blink. “I am afraid Lady Whitlock is unwell, my lord. She is not receiving callers.” He studies the man’s face. Admirable composure. “What is the nature of her illness?” he asks. A fractional pause. “A headache, my lord.”

“When did it begin?” The footman holds his breath too long. “This morning, my lord.” Seungcheol’s mouth nearly twitches despite the war in his chest. “Of course.”

Before the footman can attempt another defence, Georgina appears. She is bright-eyed, unbothered, and assessing him with unnerving accuracy. She takes one look at his face and understands enough to become, for once, efficient instead of theatrical. “Thomas,” she says sweetly to the footman, “you are a dreadful liar. Kindly stop suffering for our household’s honour.” The footman bows and retreats with the expression of a man who has survived many Whitlock women and expects no reward for it. Georgina turns back to Seungcheol. “She is not ill. She is hiding.” He nods his head. “I gathered as much.”

Georgina steps closer, lowering her voice. There is no mockery in it—only sharp, sisterly warning. “Back garden. Near the old rose wall.” Her gaze flicks once to his coat pocket, then back to his face. “I am telling you because I am tired of watching two intelligent people behave like wounded aristocrats from a novel.” A pause. “If you upset her, I shall make Halbrook shoot very badly in your direction.”

Seungcheol almost smiles. “I will do my best to avoid being shot.” Georgina steps aside, something approving flashing in her expression. “Do better than that, my lord.”

He goes through the house, past a corridor lined with family miniatures, through a side door opened by a maid who pretends not to stare, and out into the back garden where late spring has begun. You are exactly where your sister said you would be. Near the old rose wall, armed with pruning shears you are not currently using, standing very still in front of a rosebush that does not need your attention. You hear the door before you hear him. Your shoulders tense. You do not turn. He stops several feet away. For a moment, neither of you moves. Then you turn. And there, all at once, Seunghceol feels the thing that has been chasing him since Lady Halstead’s orangery: not simply wanting you, not simply missing you, not simply anger at himself for what he said—fear. Fear that he has made you believe the wrong story about him and about what passed between you. Fear that he is already too late.

You knew he would come eventually. That is the most humiliating part. Not that he is here. Not that Georgina betrayed you in all of five minutes. Not even that your stomach dropped so fast when you heard his voice in the hall that you had to grip the stone edge of the rose wall to remain upright. The humiliating part is that some vicious, hopeful piece of you has been listening for him since the orangery. You turn and find him standing in your garden as if he belongs there. Perfectly dressed, of course. Coat immaculate. Hair neat. Gloves in one hand. The other close to his coat pocket, like he has come holding on to something he does not trust himself to reveal too quickly. Your pulse gives one hard, traitorous beat. You refuse to let your voice do the same. “My lord. You were told I am very ill.”

Warmth flickers at the corner of his mouth. “Indeed, I was informed.”

“You should not approach me, then.” You tilt your chin. “Contagion.” He exhales through what might have been a laugh in a kinder universe. “If wit were contagious, all of London would be unsafe.”

You hate that the line sounds like him again—the man from Wrotham, from the library and the pavilion, not the one in Lady Halstead’s ballroom who cut you open with one sentence. You set the shears down because your fingers are too tight around them and because stabbing a viscount in your mother’s rose garden is probably poor form. “Why are you here?” you ask. His gaze does not leave your face. “To speak properly.”

You decide to strike first, because fear has always worn precision best in your body. “If you’ve come to propose because of what happened at Lady Halstead’s, do not.” He goes very still. You keep going before courage can fail. “I know what the world expects after that kind of intimacy. I know what men call ‘honour’ when they are trying to cover up guilt. I know what duty looks like. I have spent years arranging my life around other people’s versions of it.” Your throat tightens. “You do not owe me a rescue from my own choices.” His jaw flexes. “If this is guilt, I will not take it. If it is protection, I will not be purchased by it. If it is scandal management, choose a better strategy than me.” He closes his eyes. When he opens them, there is no anger there. No distance. Only a kind of fierce, exhausted resolve that makes your breath catch in your lungs. “Are you quite finished?” he asks quietly. The question should offend you. It does not. It sounds like a man asking whether he may stop bleeding through his teeth and finally tell the truth. “No,” you say, because pride is a sickness and you are apparently violently ill. “But continue.”

That earns a short, helpless laugh from him. He reaches into his coat. He draws out the onyx ring. You recognise it at once. Old gold. Dark stone. The ring you saw at Wrotham behind glass, untouched and waiting. Your mouth goes dry. He looks at the ring in his hand, then back at you. “I went to Wrotham this morning.” You swallow. “I opened my mother’s letter.”

Something in your face must change, because his expression softens—not in triumph, but in recognition. He knows exactly what that admission costs him. He comes closer. Another step. Then another. You do not move. “You were right to be angry,” he says. “At the first ball. At Wrotham. At Halstead’s. I have hidden behind duty so long I speak it even when it is the wrong language for the truth.” His fingers close around the ring, hard enough to whiten at the knuckles. “So I will not use that language now.”

Your pulse is loud enough that you are convinced he can hear it. He stops in front of you, close enough that the roses at your back brush your skirts when the wind moves. “I am not here because of guilt,” he declares. “I am not here because you need saving. I am not here because of gossip, or the ton, or what happened at Halstead’s, though I will answer for all of it if I must.” He inhales deeply. “I am here because I love you.”

You forget to breathe. The garden remains. The house remains. Somewhere inside, Georgina is almost certainly restraining herself from storming outdoors and demanding progress. The world around you does not stop turning.

He keeps going, because of course he does. Because once Seungcheol chooses honesty, he does not do it by halves. “I love your temper. I love the way you hold a room without begging it to notice. I love the way you steady your sisters and think no one sees what it costs you. I love that you challenge me when I deserve it and when I do not. I love that you make me a worse strategist and a better man in the same breath.”

Heat floods your face so quickly it hurts. Your eyes sting. You hate that too. He glances down at the ring, then back to you, and for the first time since you have known him, there is no armour left between you—only a man standing upright inside his hope. “Duty built the arrangement,” he says. “It may have brought me to your door. But duty means nothing to me now if you are not beside me.” His voice catches, then steadies. “I do not want a wife I can protect from a distance. I want you. In my house. In my days. In all the difficult years after society grows bored and turns its attention elsewhere.”

You hear your own voice come out thin, disbelieving, and far more wounded than you meant it to sound. “At Halstead’s, you said what happened at Wrotham was not part of the arrangement.” He nods immediately. “It was not.” He steps close enough now that if you lifted your hand, it would find him without effort. “I said it badly because I was trying to speak like a careful man in a crowded room when I was one breath from saying too much. What happened at Wrotham was not part of any plan I made.” His gaze drops to your mouth and returns, open and wrecked. “That is exactly why it mattered.”

He opens his hand and lifts the ring between thumb and forefinger. The onyx catches nothing. It drinks the daylight. “This is not a claim,” he whispers. “It is not a leash. It is not me asking you to become smaller so I can feel stronger. It is a vow, if you want it. If you choose me. That I will stand with you—and ask you to stand with me.”

There it is. Not belong to me. Not let me save you. Not be sensible. Stand with me. Your throat closes around a hundred answers. Most of them impossible. One of them true enough to terrify you. You look at the ring. You look at his hand, steady only because he is forcing it so. You look at his face and see him without title or plan standing between you: the man from the library, the pavilion, the orangery floor—the man who can be severe as a blade and gentle as prayer at the same time.

You think of Georgina laughing at Wrotham. Of Cecily unfolding, slowly, into herself. Of the weight in your spine easing for the first time in years because someone strong enough to carry the burden offered to share it—and then had the decency to ask instead of assume. You lift your hand. It trembles. “You are still impossible,” you whisper. His mouth curves, shaky and helpless. “I know.”

You take one more breath and give him the answer that feels like stepping off a cliff and landing on solid ground. “Yes.”

He goes utterly still. For one absurd moment, you think he has not heard. Then his eyes close, and the relief in his face is so naked it nearly undoes you on the spot. When he opens them again, they are bright in a way that has nothing to do with sunlight. “Yes?” he repeats, afraid to trust good news while it is still warm. You almost laugh through the tears you are refusing to let fall. “Yes, Seungcheol. Though if you make me repeat myself, I shall change my mind on principle.”

A real laugh breaks from him then—low, startled, alive. He takes your hand with such care your knees weaken. When the onyx ring slides onto your finger, it is cool and heavy and startlingly right. Not possession. Promise. His thumb brushes your knuckles. Then again, as if checking the ring and hand are both real. You stare at it. Then at him. “It’s very severe,” you murmur, because if you do not say something dry, you may cry, and Georgina will never let you live. His gaze follows yours to the ring. “It suits you.” You lift your brows slowly. “That sounds like an insult.”

“It’s a compliment.”

You do the only sensible thing left to do. You step into him. His exhale leaves him hard from the impact. Then his arms are around you—careful for one second, then not careful at all, pulling you in with an urgency that says he has imagined this and feared it and now cannot quite believe his hands are allowed the reality of it. You press your face to his shoulder and close your eyes. He feels like steadiness and surrender all at once. He feels like home. His mouth brushes your hair, then your temple. “I love you,” he says against your skin. This time, you do not hide behind silence. You pull back just enough to see him. Your hand lifts to his face. His eyes close briefly as your fingers touch his cheek. Your throat feels dry, but you force the words through it because this is something you refuse to keep. “I love you too.” The sentence shakes on the way out. It is still the truest thing you have ever said.

His eyes open. Then his forehead comes to yours, and he laughs under his breath—half relief, half disbelief. “Say it again,” he murmurs. You narrow your eyes through tears and a smile that betrays you completely. “Absolutely not. You heard me the first time.”

His mouth curves. “Cruel.”

“You chose me.”

“Gladly.”

He kisses you then. Not with the desperate, incendiary hunger of the pavilion. Not with the wrecking urgency of the orangery. This kiss is slower. Fuller. No less devastating for it. It feels like a vow learning your name. When he lifts his head, your lips are warm and your breath unsteady and the world looks altered around the edges. He rests his hand over yours, over the onyx on your finger. “Stand with me,” he repeats. You look at the ring. At his hand covering yours. “I will.”

He keeps your hand in his as you turn toward the house together, and for the first time in a very long time, the future does not feel like a burden braced across your shoulders. It feels like something you are walking toward—side by side.

“Sister!” Georgina’s voice barrels down the corridor with all the restraint of a thunderstorm. “If you are still in bed, I will personally drag you out by your ankles—We have been waiting ages—Mingyu is arriving!”

You make a strangled sound that is half laughter, half panic, and lift your head just enough for the world to tilt. Linen. Warmth. The dim gold of morning filtered through heavy curtains. And Seungcheol—decidedly, scandalously—under the blankets, as if the concept of interruption is something that happens to other people. You turn your face into your pillow to muffle a laugh, then call back, voice pitched deliberately bright. “I’m coming!”

You feel Seungcheol shift below you, slow as a cat stretching in the sun. Then his head appears from under the sheets—hair mussed, eyes dark with wicked, lazy satisfaction—and the sight of him like this still does something to your lungs that is profoundly unfair. He looks up at you as though you are the only thing in the world worth devoting time to. “So soon, Viscountess?” he murmurs, voice rough with amusement. “I’ve only just started.”

You swat his shoulder, light but scolding, and he catches your wrist, pressing a kiss to the inside of it that steals the edge right out of your outrage. “We have duties,” you warn him, trying—trying—to sound stern. He blinks up at you with feigned innocence that would fool no one who has ever lived under this roof. “We do,” he agrees.

You slide out from under the blankets on sheer determination and the knowledge that Georgina will, in fact, break down your door. Cool air skims your naked skin. You reach for your shift and your stays. Behind you, Seungcheol turns onto his back, utterly unbothered, and watches you dress as if it is a sacred painting and he is the only man alive who understands it. His ring—his pinky ring—catches the light when he lifts his hand, onyx gleaming darkly. Your own wedding ring, the matching half set into gold, sits heavy and familiar on your finger—proof and promise and the quietest kind of devotion. He makes an appreciative sound that you pretend not to hear. “If you keep looking at me like that,” you mutter, struggling with a ribbon that suddenly feels determined to ruin you, “we will never leave this room.”

“That,” he says calmly, “is not a tragedy.” You shoot him a look over your shoulder. He smiles like a man with no intention of behaving. “There are, however, other duties I’m much more concerned with,” he adds, voice softening into something more dangerous. You huff, tugging your gown into place. “Oh?” You try to walk around the bed.

He catches you by the wrist and pulls—gentle, unyielding—and you stumble back toward him with an undignified little gasp, landing on the mattress beside his hip. His hand slides to your waist as if it has always lived there. You glare at him, breathless with annoyance you do not feel in any useful way. “And what duties might those be, my lord?” you ask, daring. Seungcheol’s gaze drops to the place where your ribs rise and fall beneath fabric. His hand follows, settling flat against your stomach with an intimacy so simple it makes your throat tighten. He leans in, close enough that his breath brushes your skin. “Making an heir,” he whispers.

Your mouth betrays you into a smile. Because the words should feel like pressure. Expectation. The world’s oldest demand dressed up as romance. But with him—here, like this—they feel like an exciting premise. A vow spoken in laughter and heat and the knowledge that you chose each other. You cup his jaw and pull him into a kiss that tastes like mischief and the life you built in the wreckage of what society expected. When you pull back, you rest your forehead against his and let your breath mingle with his. “Well,” you murmur, voice gone soft and treacherous, “you know how particularly important duty is to me.”

His laugh is delighted. “I do,” he says. And then he tugs you down into the sheets again—utterly shameless—while outside your door, Georgina continues to shout about the scandal of lateness and the triumph of Mingyu’s return, and the whole castle carries on as if it hasn’t just been handed its favourite sort of truth: that this is what you always meant when you insisted duty mattered.

A/N: Hello mes chéries, with this, book 1 of my new series is finished! It took a bit longer than expected because I did feel some (positive) pressure, but I'm pleased with the results. As always, I hope you enjoyed it! 💟

Taglist: @igetcarriedawaywithyou - @amazinggraxia - @eskoupe - @dumbestchaos - @twixxxpie - @darjeelinglemontea - @hoshisliltiger - @sojuxxi

Send me your thoughts - feedback/fangirling is always welcome. Want to be tagged in future works? Let me know.

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