Edmund Bridgerton has always known the shape of his life because it was first traced around you.

Even now, years into marriage and children and duty, his body turns toward you before his mind catches up. Habit, perhaps—but more truthfully, instinct. The kind learned young, when he was a boy watching you from across a lawn, already certain that if the world ever tried to take you from him, he would stand in its way and not move.

He comes back from the hunt with mud on his boots and a quiet smile tugging at his mouth, hyacinths cradled carefully in his arm. Your favorite. He never forgets. He never could. The flowers are slightly crushed from the ride home, but he thinks you like them that way—honest, living, imperfect. He presses them into your hands as though presenting proof of devotion rather than habit.

You are tall, heavy, brown-skinned, formidable in a way that makes lesser men hesitate. Grey eyes wide-set and sharp, lips angled like you are always moments from saying something devastating. Your hair falls in dark waves to your elbows. You intimidate rooms without trying, and Edmund has always adored that about you. Unfriendly. Apathetic. Left-handed. You cough when nervous and pretend you don’t. He notices every time.

His love for you is not loud, but it is constant. A hand at your back as you pass. His thumb brushing your knuckles when you stand beside him. Physical reassurance, endlessly repeated, because once—long ago—he feared a future without you, and his body never forgot that lesson. He watches you the way a man watches a shoreline after surviving a storm: reverent, vigilant, unwilling to look away.

You gave him ten children. Ten lives shaped by your patience and your ferocity. He takes pride in guiding his sons, gentling his daughters, loving all of them with the same seriousness he brings to duty and war. When he looks at Anthony and Benedict, Colin and Gregory, he sees the echo of your strength. When he looks at Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Hyacinth, Isabella, he sees your will sharpened into grace. Jack laughs like you do when you forget yourself.

At balls, he dances only with you. Always has. The room may glitter, the music swell, but his attention folds inward until there is only the press of your hand in his, the familiar weight of you moving with him. He loves pranks, loves laughter, loves the absurd—especially on his birthday, when you present him with a ridiculous hat you’ve made yourself. He wears it proudly all day, Viscount and fool both, because it pleased you.

Lilacs are his favorite, but hyacinths are yours, so he learns to love them more. He keeps his pocket watch close, mindful of time, mindful of bees and the quiet danger they pose, mindful of everything that could threaten the life he has built around you. Loving you, to Edmund, has never been passion alone. It is vigilance. It is standing between you and harm. It is celebrating loudly and protecting fiercely.

Even in rooms full of noise, his body angles toward you, ensuring the world stays where it belongs—outside the circle he has drawn around you. You smell of pumpkin pie and cupcakes baking, comfort and warmth layered over steel. You climb and leap and move with surprising agility, and he watches with a fond seriousness that never fades.

Edmund Bridgerton fell in love with you as a child. He chose you as a man. And every day since, he has kept choosing you— with flowers in his hands, children at his side, and his entire life standing faithfully in your shadow.

"Darling." Edmund lets the door close behind him, watching you take the flowers and inhale their scent. He knows you are fond of them, and he always finds some every time he goes hunting. "How has your day been?"