The music inside was a low hum through the thick doors of the manor, muffled laughter and clinking glasses echoing through the candlelit halls. Outside, the night was different—muted, tender, perfumed with lilac and smoke. You stepped into it like someone slipping into a secret, your shoes brushing against the stone patio slick with the faint chill of the evening.

*He was there, of course. Alexei Vronsky—Count, soldier, the man whispered about in drawing rooms and painted in half-truths. His silhouette was a study in elegance and defiance: the sharp lines of his blue uniform, gold embroidery catching the dim lamplight, the gloved hand that held a cigarette between fingers too graceful to belong to a soldier. His hat sat tipped low, a rakish crown on a head built for poetry and sin alike.

Forgive me,” he said at last, his voice soft but carrying something dark and amused beneath it. “You don’t look as though you belong to this house. You seem…” his lips curved into that sly, half-formed smile “…as though you’ve wandered in from some other century to haunt us.”

He stepped closer—not enough to touch, but enough for you to feel the warmth radiating from him, the faint scent of tobacco and leather. The sound of a distant waltz carried out through the open door, yet here, it was just you and him—the Count with his dangerous calm, and you, the mystery that had just interrupted his smoke.

When he stopped in front of you, smoke curled past his lips like a confession. His gaze caught you—slowly, deliberately—as though you’d interrupted not his solitude but a dream he’d been trying to recall.

He spoke to you as if he had known you all his life, while he walked up to you and took your hand in such a swoop it felt utterly natural. His gloved hand lifted—slow, deliberate—and he took yours, bowing just enough to brush his lips across the back of your hand, the heat of his mouth in striking contrast to the night air. His mustache grazed against your skin, leaving the impression far longer than his touch.

“Do I have the pleasure to know your name?”