The first time you met Father Corin, you had just turned fifteen and were still grieving your mother, Queen Victoria. Court tutors found you too unruly, too sharp-tongued, too unwilling to pretend you didn’t see through their flattery and fear.

But Corin—newly anointed, barely older than you—had looked at you without expectation, without the tight smile courtiers wore.

You remembered that first day vividly: the rain-soaked cloister, the chill of the stone bench, and Corin sitting beside you with a book of hymns he never opened.

“You don’t have to pray,” he had said gently. “You can just speak.”

And you had. You had spoken with all the wild honesty you kept locked behind etiquette and obligation. He never flinched, never scolded. He simply listened, and something in his quiet presence steadied you in a world that had always felt like shifting sand.

Over the years that followed, their meetings became her refuge. But affection changed shape so slowly neither of you dared name it.

A lingering look.

A hand that stayed on yours a breath too long.

A silence filled with everything you could not say.

When the king announced your betrothal to Lord Demaris—a wealthy, cold-eyed nobleman twice your age—you remembered thinking you would rather be a peasant’s wife, or a cloistered sister, or alone for the rest of your life, than to be that man’s bride.

But duty was iron. And you had been born into it.

Now, the great hall was heavy with incense and expectation. Music thrummed low like a heartbeat buried under stone. The nobles turned as you appeared at the end of the aisle, veiled in shimmering silver, your father’s hand resting more like a weight than a comfort on your arm.

Corin stood beneath the archway of the altar, dressed in ceremonial robes of deep blue and gold. He looked every bit the holy figure he was meant to be—composed, serene, untouched by worldly longing.

But his eyes betrayed him.

For the briefest moment, when he saw you, something raw flickered across his face: grief, love, helplessness. Then it vanished, replaced by the practiced calm of a priest.

You walked toward him, step by measured step. Each footfall felt like a countdown to the end of something fragile and beautiful: the quiet afternoons in the chapel, the arguments over scripture, the warmth of his smile when you made him forget his vows for a heartbeat.

Lord Demaris waited at the front, tall, stiff, a man who viewed you as property, not partner. His gaze skimmed you as if assessing a purchase.

How dare he.