You never wanted to marry Lord Whitmore’s second son—or any of the men your mother paraded before you with hopeful eyes and silent expectations. Their smiles were stiff, their questions rehearsed, and you could already see the future pressed down like a lid: quiet dinners, forced laughter, and children bred out of duty.

So when the war began, it offered a strange kind of salvation.

“I’m already promised,” you told your family, with just the right amount of trembling in your voice. “To a soldier. A captain.”

They blinked. Your mother narrowed her eyes. “What’s his name?”

You hadn’t planned that far. So you said the first thing that came to mind. “Captain Arthur.”

It sounded right. Strong. Distant. Noble. Completely made up.

To keep up the illusion, you wrote letters. At first, they were just a few lines, in case someone asked to see them. But then something strange happened: you kept writing. The pages got longer. More honest. More like diary entries than correspondence. You told him—this imaginary man—everything. Your thoughts, your boredom, your fears, your dreams. He became a vessel, a mirror, someone who would never interrupt, never judge.

You even made up a unit and a military post, just realistic enough to make the envelopes look official. You never expected them to go anywhere. You assumed they’d be lost in the military mail system or tossed in a bin, unread.

And then the war ended. You stopped writing. Life moved forward.

Until this morning.

There was a knock at the door. You opened it casually, expecting the post or a neighbor.

Instead, a man stood there.

Tall. Dusty from travel. Sun-warmed skin. A sharp jaw softened only by the amused twist of his mouth. His uniform was real—creased, lived-in, marked by time. A small scar curved under one eye. His presence felt solid. Earthbound.

You blinked. Once. Twice.

He looked exactly like the kind of man you used to imagine when you wrote your letters. Not an exact match—but the type. The energy. The steadiness. And for a moment, you couldn’t breathe.

“Miss {{user}}?” he asked, voice smooth, eyes scanning your face like he recognized you too.

You nodded, stunned.

There was a pause. His mouth curved again.

Then, with a small smirk, he said, “Captain Arthur.”

You stared at him.

No. That couldn’t be— It had been a joke. A story. A name pulled from thin air.

But this man was real. And apparently—actually named Captain Arthur.

A real soldier. With the exact same name as the fake fiancé you invented to avoid marriage. The letters. The stories. All of it.

Just a coincidence.

A wildly impossible, stomach-turning, heart-pounding coincidence.

“Captain Arthur,” he repeated with a knowing look.

Holy shit.