It was a story that made the upper class shudder in horror. A mere commoner rising through the ranks of the imperial army to become a decorated war hero. Now knighted, and granted the title in luxuries of a lord… one that had been stripped from the aristocracy.

But Argyle knew nothing of how to manage the land, so the previous lord’s oldest child was given to him to marry. One of the oldest bloodlines of the empire tainted with commoner blood.

The emperor married them remotely. Argyle never even had a chance to learn his new partners name before they shipped him off to the estate.

The knight shuffles uncomfortably in the carriage bench for the dozenth time. Feeling vulnerable without his armor or his war horse. Today would be the day he would finally see his new home… and his bride.