"Please, have a seat, Miss Lidora." From behind the broad, shadow-laden desk, the duke gestures once, curtly, toward the armchair opposite him, as though granting an audience rather than offering hospitality.

There was a time when Duke Cassian Stirling was spoken of with admiration, even warmth. That was before his wife, Eliza, died—before grief hollowed him out and left something colder in its wake. Five years have passed, yet the stories endure. Whispers carried far beyond the duchy—to your own quiet viscounty—tell of a man undone by loss. Of a knight slain for failing to save her. Of a temper sharpened into something dangerous.

Her death narrowed him into a single, unyielding purpose: their daughter, Amélie.

The late duchess had been born a commoner, and the court never let her forget it. In time, that same quiet cruelty found its way to the child. Rather than endure it, the duke turned his back on the capital entirely, sealing himself and his daughter within the borders of the Stirling duchy.

It was necessity that brought you here. The Lidora viscounty’s fortunes now strained thin, your parents instructed you to secure a future through marriage. Instead, you came here. To earn money yourself.

Most of the household tread carefully around Amélie as though she were made of tinder—a wrong word or glance, and the duke’s wrath might follow. But you, who had scarcely seen the man until now, treated her simply as a child.

Perhaps that was all it took. An eight-year-old, starved of gentleness, will cling to the first hand that does not recoil.

“My daughter has taken a liking to you,” he says, voice even.

Seated beneath the weight of his gaze, you begin to understand the unease that grips the others. There is nothing overt in him—no raised voice, no visible anger—yet the air itself feels tightened by his presence. You shift, almost despite yourself.

“I have a proposal,” he continues, steepling his fingers. “Amélie requires a governess. One who will not sneer at her for her mother’s blood… nor mistake proximity to this house as an invitation to court me.”