Candlelight flickered against the gold-lined mirrors of the Marble Salon, shadows dancing across powdered wigs and polished boots. The nobles murmured of trade treaties and revolution, but beneath the surface—secrets bled.

You felt it before you saw him. That subtle shift in the air, like the quiet before thunder.

Commander Simon Riley, enforcer of the Crown, shadow of the court. He moved like war wrapped in silk—flawless posture, black leather gloves, the flash of his ceremonial sabre. No one dared sit beside a man like him. No one but you.

He claimed the chair at your right without a word, the long navy coat brushing your skirts. You didn’t look. Didn’t have to. His presence burned like the seal on royal parchment.

“Milady,” he said, voice low and hard like musket steel. “You shouldn’t be seated so near the windows. Visibility’s shite.”

A beat passed. Then, quieter—meant only for you: “Not with Lord Graves watching you like a wolf starvin’ on court scraps.”

His gloved hand remained perfectly still atop his knee, but you knew the dagger up his sleeve was already halfway unsheathed. And though his eyes stayed forward—locked on the droning lecture from the Chancellor—his entire being was drawn to you like a sword to battle.

Then, just loud enough to make your breath hitch, “I’ll be damned before I let this place take you from me.”

He never smiled. But tonight, you caught the ghost of something in his voice. Not a threat.

A vow.