The scent of old paper and ash hung thick in the air like a heavy fog as Lady Eveline Harrow stepped quietly into the library of her family's Mayfair estate. The rain tapped against the tall arched windows, a rhythm that once soothed her, now, only deepened the unrest tightening in her chest. She crossed the room with the intent of losing herself within the comfort of ink and parchmentโbut instead, it was memory her mind decided to drift away in...
Her fingers trailed over the spines of forgotten histories and faded epics, but it wasn't pages she saw.
It was him.
Sornen...
The name alone felt like an echo of a wound that hadn't quite closed. She hadn't spoken it aloud in a year, but it had lived beneath her skin all the same. Since his 'exile' from polite society, his name had returned to her in whispersโa brawl in Whitechapel, a duel behind the iron gates of Briar Lane, a man in the shadows with eyes that once looked at her like she was something holy.
She had told herself he was no longer that boy...
That she had done what she must...
That she had no choice...
She was protecting her heart... and her soul...
Scandal she could have survived, but to have his cousin's words in her ear of what he had said of her, she had made the hardest decision of her young life to simply, walk away.
But now... Sebastian.
Her brother, her only remaining sibling, stood at the edge of ruin, dragged into scandal by a duel that had drawn the wrong eyes. Since Sebastian lay abed, still unconscious from the near-death beating he had received, there was only one weapon left
And it wore a ruined noble's face.
Sornen's cousin, Mara, a thin-lipped girl with quick hands and eyes too sharp for service, had said he might listenโif she went to him. She only needed to meet with him. The price would come later, she was sure of that.
But standing now, in the hush of the Harrow library, her thoughts betrayed her...
Not of deals or strategy, but of the boy who had once pressed a stolen kiss to her palm like a secret too dangerous to speak.
And of the words his cousin had claimed he had said, the cruel and final words that had made her walk away.
"She's only good for her coin....not really my type, but once she's wedded bedded there's no reason I can't peruse the lovelies more suited to my tastes..."
And then, right after Harold's accident that took her entire family by surprise, his final words cut her the most...
"I've no use for women who speak of love and run at the first stain of ruin."
She had never asked him if it was true.
Now, she might have to.
And what terrified her most wasn't his sword, nor the price he might name โ but the way her heart still beat harder at the thought of his voice in the dark.
She had reached for Lycidas, not for comfort, but for rhythm, something in its meter that might steady the disquiet in her bones. But her eyes glazed over the verse. Instead, her mind, traitorous and unrelenting, led her backward.
It had been an autumn fรชte at Harrow Hall, when the air still clung to warmth and lanterns glowed golden across the garden hedges. She'd worn blue silkโnothing too daringโbut she remembered the ribbon tied at her throat, soft and careless, fluttering as she moved. Her mother had fussed about propriety. Her brother had teased her about catching the eye of the wrong sort.
And then he hadโSornen Gaitling.
Not the eldest, nor even the favoured son, but he had moved through the gathering like someone who belonged nowhere and yet owned every space he stepped into. His eyesโsharp, almost cruel in their precisionโhad landed on her with something akin to mischief, possibly something more like awe. When the ribbon slipped from her neck as she turned too quickly, it was he who stepped forward.
No servant. No whispered call. Sornen had bent and picked it up himself.
"M'lady, your armour's come loose. You shouldn't wear something that might take flight," he'd said, voice low, smooth, almost teasing. "It might find someone braver."
He'd said it with a smirk, but his fingers had brushed hers as he passed it back. A trace of contact, a spark that burned longer than it should have. The blush that had bloomed on her cheeks then was the kind that stayed, even in memory. And his eyesโGod, those eyesโstorm-dark and sincere, like they could see past the pleats in her gown and into something quieter, something truer.
And when she'd glanced back that night over her shoulderโhe had already been watching her.
From then on, it had been stolen glancesโlong, smouldering ones when no one was watching, through ballroom crowds, garden tea parties and the like. Notes passed under the edge of tea saucers or tucked between the pages of books. His cousin, always a step ahead, had ferried them between rooms like a silent accomplice.
"You look lovely today. Your frown is cruel to the morning light."
"You looked like the storm tonight."
"If I could duel the stars to give you peace, I would."
"I'd suffer damnation for another minute in your presence."
"Say the word, Eveline..."
She had kept every single one. Locked in a little brass box beneath her vanity.
But the past was a haunting place, and the presentโฆ colder.[/FONT]
A quiet knock broke through the memory shattering the moment.
"M'lady?"
The voice was soft, and Eveline turned to see the Gaitling cousin, Mara, standing in the half-light beyond the shelves, her dark dress making her near-invisible among the shadows, though one could see her apron was dusted with ash from the hearths she'd seen to, but her dark eyes were alert, her tone hushed as she approached. Sharp of cheek and quicker with her tongue than most servants dared, Mara had proven far more useful than any lady's maid. She was also loyalโto coin and to blood.
"Forgive the intrusion. Your father's gone to bed for the night. He took the laudanum, so he'll sleep deeply. The staff has turned in. You won't be missed for some hours," Mara said, glancing around before stepping closer. "He'll see you, but you'll have to come alone. And cloaked. The placeโฆ" her mouth twisted, "It's no rose garden. If they see a Harrow crest, it'll be gossip by sunrise."
Eveline nodded, then rose, smoothing the creases from her skirt with practised grace. "You're certain?"
"I poured the glass myself, but... no," Mara replied, her eyes narrowing with something almost like pity. "You're desperate. That's worse."
"But you'll need to go alone."
Eveline stilled. "Alone?"
Mara nodded. "He made it clear. No guards. No footmen. You go cloaked. You speak with him, or you don't. But he'll not come to Harrow, not unless it's by swordpoint."
A moment passed. The words hung heavy, yet Eveline only nodded. She turned to the coat rack by the hearth, selecting the darkest cloak she ownedโ thick wool, hooded, lined with velvet.
"I suppose he hasn't changed," she murmured, fastenings clicking beneath her fingers. "Still proud. Still impossible."
Mara gave her a sidelong look. "Still yours, if you ask me."
She said nothing, only turned and moved to the back door โ the one that opened out into the hedged garden where no one would see a cloaked figure vanish into the night. Her heart beat hard against her ribs as she tucked the coin-laden reticule into the inside pocket of her cloak. Enough for a sword, if not a crown. Enough to tempt a duelist with debts and demons.
But would it be enough for him?
The wind had turned colder by the time she stepped from the hired carriage, the driver instructed to wait three streets away. The alley reeked of smoke, spirits, and the grime of desperation. Eveline moved swiftly, her cloak drawn close, riding boots soft against the cobblestones slick with recent rain.
Ahead, the low amber glow of lanterns flickered above the warped sign of a place known only in whispers: The Hollow Hartโwhere rakes and ruin met in drink and blood. It was a drinking hell, the kind of place no lady of her name should ever walk into. The door to the hellhouse opened with a push that groaned like a dying man. Heat, sweat, and the sour reek of gin poured out. Inside, laughter cracked like whips. Men with stained gloves and broken noses sat in heavy smoke, wagering coin and teeth on blood and bile.
With her hood pulled low. No one looked twiceโnot yet.
But she wasn't here as Lady Eveline Harrow.
She was here for the man behind the name she still whispered in the dark.
And whatever price he askedโฆ she would listen.
Even if it cost her more than coin.
She didn't need to ask where he was. She felt it.
There, in the back, seated like a king among ruinsโSornen, with a glass in one hand, the shadow of a fight on his knuckles, and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
He looked up.
And their eyes metโfor the first time in a very long time.
His father's wall, in the study, where he collected wax seals from houses and castles that had asked for a Gaitling blade to spill blood in their names. A short-fingered little Sornen used to take breaks from wooden swords and invisible foes to touch the faded rainbow of symbols that had been carefully broken around calling scrolls. Growing up, he knew what the dust on those collections meant, but as a dumb son of a doomed house, he thought it was glory in the mounted shelves that struggled to keep all the rolled parchments. The pictures were of knights from tales and real soldiers, too. Given to the Duelist family when their caste had been hailed among those fighters. Gladiators of an new age. His mother had protested when his father filled his head up with all those legends, but Artem Gaitling would have his sons raised on glory.
But glory is bitter, when it's not yours.
He subsisted off those stories when his older brother, Camden, lectured him on form, using a switch meant for horses, and when he had to tackle boys twice his size to keep them off Cecil, his youngest, and littlest. There was no reason a pipsqueak Sornen's height should best three upper classmates like that, but he had Duelist blood in his veins, even when it was running down his knuckles, and more than that, he believed it. He believed it like the sisters outside of church believed whatever they were whispering into their braided hands when they knelt. He believed it more than the butcher believed in his cleaver. He believed he had to fight, and fight well, so he could be like those
pictures on the wall.
It made him formidable. It was Camden's turn to be bitter. Perfect adherence to textbooks and trainers only took you that far, father concluded, when Sornen's dual wielding could best Camden's rapier. They were still friends, but it stung the oldest that the middle son could stand on his own legs in the pantheon of swordsmen sleeping in their mausoleum. Sornen didn't know if Cam had convinced father to send him away on the traditional routes that would make Gaitling boys into men so Cam could see him leave, or because he believed in his first younger brother. But it was hard to think too much on the inevitable, when the possible was so distracting.
Mara had made it happen. She'd said it like a joke, he was sure. During a family dinner, when she stood by her mother, his aunt, and both called him in. Dark as always, which was her charm, she'd sent her mother away and twirled for him so the green embroidery in her black dress made verdant stars in a lace tail. He thought she looked like a magpie, with her pale face and chest added on those other colors. She asked if she was beautiful, and he told her she was, just like a bird. A magpie. Not like those peacocks in the royal houses she worked in. Father had offered to take them in on every meeting, but his aunt had insisted Mara follow her father's footsteps, and become the head of staff, one day. Make their own way in the world. Sornen admired that, but he still caught Mara touching the pretty things his mother collected, sometimes, like they were old friends that had left her. And then she'd look at him with a new smile, like she did that night, and told him he should meet one of these peacocks, and make up his mind about them. See who's the best bird.
He had come to the ball with confidence, and though the blue ribbon looked like a banner. He chased it when it fell and Evelyn shone exactly like a the triumph he had always wanted. He wanted to put his lips where the azure band had been tied around her. All he had was his confidence, and a house constantly bombarded with challenges instead of work. He pestered Bella, Mara's mother, for her tailoring, so she could sew his coats and vests up better, every time he knew Eveline was attending. He thought he could shoulder being a modern Atlas then, Camden be damned.
In secret, when she thought she may only be getting roses and perhaps another kiss stolen from her underneath a tree, behind three thorny bushes in a tucked away corner of her estate, he offered her a cameo, and she took it. A promise. Something that'd wait with her when he was away to learn secrets about war.
So it was for her he fought, when he was out of blood, sweat and tears. I damn near killed him, putting all that mettle into his bones, but in the end he'd won the praise of his masters, and drank from faraway rivers and been burnt by foreign suns. He learned the origins of the Gaitling black hair, and ate himself sick on new fauna. It grew him large in shadows, but his ideals were taller, still.
He returned home with powers in him, the kind that had once saved a kingdom and its king. But all of it went out of him, and he fell to his knees in front of the stone house dedicated to Duelist's bodies, in his family cemetery. They'd all gone while he was away. Illness for Cecil, and father and Camden died in impossible challenges. Cam had been buried with his rapier.
He visited Eveline next, but that only served to smear the remains of his crushed heart thinner on his ribcage. He learned he shouldn't have relied on her, so he chose not to believe in the glitter in her eyes when she wouldn't even talk to him. He lost his fortune in a campaign trying to petition for his earldom back, unsuccessfully fighting snaking legislation. Duelist houses with only one, unproven sword had no friends. It was as though something from higher up the social chain had damned him.
He fought more men in a week than his ancestors did in months. He was tested in the same fires that cremated the other males with his last name. He lived but he drank about it. And fucked about it. And brought home what silver he could to maintain the properties that were his by law, and its waning staff - maintaining his own kingdom of rubble and cheap cognac and cheaper belles. He lived in it until he loved it. This strife was glorious too. What did he need with storied honor and fickle glory? And with aristocrat daughters who smelled like candlewax and new books? He could kiss the cobblestone in the slums whenever he was drunk enough to sleep on it, instead. Even in the rain, they weren't as cold as Harrow hearts.
And then Mara came. He envied her then, for her steady work and convenient life as staff at the Harrow house. She kissed him on his temple and made him tea. And told him to be at the Hart that evening. She even gave him silver to start drinking. She only said it to be a good cousin, and a good friend to a bad woman. But he never said no to drinks anymore.
He was three deep, wearing the same coat Eveline had seen in him last time. It had been mended beautifully a few times since, by Bella. His black hair was tied back and voluminous over his head, as was all the rage among the drunkard scum lately. She wore a coat that drank up the shadows in here, too rich and too black to belong. He saw the lining wave at him when she moved. Who did she think she was fooling? Her face was as it had been, back then, when she let him kiss it. But there was no lively blush or upturned lips. He finished his glass with a swipe and set it down. He didn't pull the chair out from across his little table in the booth, but from where he sat, he could push it with his boot from underneath. It slid into her view, all the same. They were passed the times when he owed her courtesy. His youth stitched his skin to the bones of his face. His upper lip was broken on the right side from the same fight that colored his knuckles. He had his fathers strong details but his mother's blood had made him more elegant. But there was very little elegance in the dragon waiting for her now.
"You missed high tea, Lady Harrow." Sornen said and put his elbows on the table. He stuck a black cigarette in the corner that didn't have the split lip. He didn't light it. He thought about the things they said about her. Her brother, her father. They had kinship. But he didn't have any bridges to burn, like her. "Maybe I could have them cook you up some brandy-drowned pigeon? Do you take it with cranberries or truffles?" he leaned back, off the table. His neck was exposed a long way, since his black shirt was comfortably unbuttoned around a silver chain and its pendant, matched by one earring. Only a waistcoat stopped the divide of the shirt, eventually. He liked to be able to breathe when he killed other men for enough silver to keep his family estate.
In the beginning of his downfall, when he was getting used to drinking himself to death, he'd sometimes find himself close to their tucked away garden corner, and asking the tree why. That rushing melancholy ran through his sternum now, and it chased away some of the stupor in his blood. She was beautiful.
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