“You look radiant this evening,” Martin murmured, his voice smooth but distant, the words falling from his lips like ash.

His wife, Anne, stood by the tall arched window, bathed in the golden gaslight glow. She was, by every standard of society, breathtaking—her golden hair arranged in soft waves, eyes the color of sky before storm, her skin pale and unblemished like porcelain kissed by milk. She carried herself with grace honed from years of etiquette and silks, the daughter of wealth and whispers. She was everything a man in Martin’s position ought to have: gentle, refined, untouchable.

She was also the perfect disguise.

But the illusion had its fractures. There were no children—not even a whisper of them. Martin had hidden behind piety, telling her he wished to wait until marriage for that. She had agreed. And though they had wed, still the years passed in untouched sheets and quiet understanding.

“As lovely as the party we so carefully planned,” Anne replied, her tone light as she turned her gaze toward the balcony, where guests danced and laughed and grazed on sugared fruits and champagne pearls.

Moments like this unnerved him. Her calm acceptance, her lack of expectation—it felt deliberate. As if she knew. As if she had always known. Anne never pressed him. She never reached for him in the night, never kissed him beyond the formal pecks offered at social events. She smiled when he turned away in bed, never asking why.

And he never asked her either. Because asking would mean naming the truth. And naming the truth meant being it.

“Who are all these people you’ve invited?” he asked, his voice strained beneath the weight of his unease.

She offered a simple shrug, her expression unreadable. “Family, old friends, military men. Leaders. Generals.” Her eyes lingered on him a beat too long, then softened.

She extended her gloved hand, elegant fingers barely brushing his. “Come. I’ll introduce you.”

They descended the marble staircase into the thrumming heart of the celebration. Anne glided with effortless charm between guests, and Martin followed like a ghost tethered to her shadow. Most of the guests were men—soldiers, broad-shouldered and sun-browned, their laughter edged with things they didn’t speak of.

He wondered, vaguely, if that too was by design.

“Ah! The lady of the house,” a decorated general declared, raising a glass. “You've a remarkable talent for hospitality, my dear.”

“You and your men fought valiantly,” Anne replied, her voice lifting as she toasted.

“Not I,” the general chuckled. “I'm just an old relic. He did the fighting.”

He turned to the young man at his side, clapping a firm hand on his shoulder. The man stood tall, strong, his features weathered by fire and frost. His eyes—dark, shadowed, too old for his years—held something Martin recognized.

Something he had once touched beneath the limbs of an old yew tree.

They had played at house in the woods at sixteen, giggling over berries and sticks as if they were roast and wine. They had lain under canopies of green, kissed in secret, whispered promises into the bark. But the world had taken that away. War had taken him away.

Martin had been spared—too wealthy, too sheltered. His friend had not. Everyone said he died in the trenches, swallowed by the mud.

And yet, here he stood.

But he didn’t meet Martin’s gaze. Didn’t speak. He stood still, a man stitched together with silence and memory.

Anne noticed the electric hush between them. She tilted her head, eyes gleaming like she’d just seen a secret.

“And your name, sir?” she asked the soldier gently. “Surely we must thank you properly. My husband keeps a rather distinguished gun collection in his study. Perhaps he might show you—something fitting, for your service.”