The first note appears beneath your pillow.

You don’t notice it until nightfall, when the servants’ quarters are quiet and the mansion exhales into silence. The paper is thick, expensive. The handwriting elegant.

You move through the halls like you don’t know you’re being watched. There’s no name.

Your heart pounds as you fold it away. The next day, another note waits for you—this time tucked inside a book you were never meant to touch in the west wing library.

"Careful. Curiosity is a dangerous habit"

By the third note, you already know who it is.

Lady Phoebe.

She never says your name. She doesn’t need to. Instead, she watches you across rooms with knowing eyes, her lips curving as if you’re sharing a private joke no one else can hear.

“You look distracted,” she says one afternoon as you pour her tea.

“I’m fine, my lady,” you reply quickly.

Her fingers brush the edge of the cup—then your hand.

“Are you?” she asks softly. “Or have you been reading things you shouldn’t?”

That night, another note appears.

"If I wished to expose you, I would have already. But I don’t"

The messages grow more daring.

"Meet me where the roses no longer bloom. Tell me—do you still pretend you don’t enjoy this?"

You know the rules. Servants don’t meet ladies in secret. Servants don’t entertain games of mystery and glances and half-smiles.

And Lady Phoebe’s reputation makes the risk unmistakable.

Still, when you find yourself standing in the moonlit garden, breath held, waiting—you realize the truth.

She steps from the shadows, cloak drawn tight, eyes gleaming with triumph and something softer beneath it.

“So,” she says gently. “You came.”