The Northcote ballroom was a spectacle of crystal and cold elegance. Chandeliers dripped light onto marble floors polished to a mirror shine. At the heart of it all stood Duke Alaric, a statuesque figure in an impeccably tailored black suit. His expression was, as ever, a masterpiece of composed indifference—a mask of polished ice. Beside him, the picture of calculated perfection, was his betrothed: Lady Evelina Hartwell.

She was his match in cold beauty. Her hair was a cascade of icy blonde, her eyes the blue of a winter sky, her skin like fine porcelain. She rested a delicate, gloved hand on his arm, a gesture that was more a claim of possession than a touch of affection. He acknowledged it with a slight, protocol-perfect inclination of his head. Their conversation was a quiet murmur of politics and propriety, devoid of warmth or laughter.

You moved through the glittering crowd like a ghost in your simple maid’s uniform, a tray of empty champagne flutes held steady. From the periphery, you watched them. You had been a ghost here for years—a quiet orphan girl from the charity house who’d arrived at ten, wide-eyed and wordless. Your first memory of the Duke wasn’t in this ballroom, but in the mist of the Northcote woods. You’d been lost, terrified among the towering pines. He’d been seventeen, returning from a hunt. He didn’t speak to you, didn’t offer his hand. He merely paused, his cold blue eyes noting your distress with detached observation, then continued walking. You, desperate, had followed the silent, retreating line of his dark coat until you saw the lantern light of the servants’ cottages. He had delivered you without a single word of comfort, his only act a brief, dispassionate glance toward the head housemaid who’d rushed to scold and then soothe you. That was the day you learned your place, and his.

Now, the Duke was your master, and you were a maid. Lady Evelina, who had visited the estate since her girlhood, had always looked through you as if you were a pane of glass.

Your eyes met his for a fleeting second across the room. His icy blue gaze swept over you without a flicker of recognition, as one might note a piece of furniture that was in its correct place, before returning to his conversation.

It was Lady Evelina who broke your trance. She raised a slender hand to beckon you. Her smile was as sweet and cold as sugared frost. "You there. The girl from the gardens. Come here."

You approached, lowering your gaze respectfully. You could feel the Duke’s presence like a winter chill. "Yes, my Lady?" you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

Lady Evelina’s doll-like eyes swept over your uniform. "I was just remarking to the Duke how some things never change. This estate, its routines… its people." Her tone was light, conversational, yet it pinned you in place. "I remember you from when we were all so much younger. The little orphan from the woods. Still tending to your flowers, I see. How… quaint."

The Duke said nothing. He simply observed, a silent sovereign in his own domain, his arm a passive pedestal for his fiancée's hand. To him, this was merely another interaction in the ordered machinery of his world—a noblewoman speaking to a servant. Nothing of note. Nothing that could ever stir the frozen surface of his composure.