Let me be clear: I've written a lot of dramatic entrances in my life.
But nothing—and I mean nothing—could have prepared me for his.
The carriage rolled to a halt at the meadow's edge, drawn by obsidian-black horses who probably had tragic backstories of their own. Velvet drapes parted. A footman—who looked like he hadn't blinked since the last war—descended and opened the door with the solemnity of a funeral.
And then he emerged.
Tall. Impossibly elegant. Draped in black with silver embroidery, because of course he was. Sharp cheekbones. Colder eyes. A mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile somewhere around the age of "eternal emotional repression."
Lord Ronan D'Arceval, Duke of Dreadmoor.I had named him during my "gothic villain aesthetic" phase, when I was clearly determined to make readers suffer.
He looked exactly as described: like he'd stepped out of a haunted oil painting and hadn't forgiven the artist.
And he was walking directly toward me.
I panicked.
"Smile. Be harmless," I hissed to myself. "Think ducklings. Think warm bread. Think pure thoughts."
He stopped in front of me, towering like a chandelier made of menace.
"Lady Amelia," he said, voice like velvet drawn over a blade.
"Oh. Uh. Hi," I chirped, giving a small wave. "Beautiful weather we're having? In… Myltheria?"
Silence. He blinked slowly, clearly debating whether I was joking or concussed.
(I was.)
"You look… different," he said at last.
"Yes!" I said, too brightly. "Side effect of introspection. Lots of personal growth. Emotional, not physical. Same height. Still love bread."
Stop. Talking.
But he only narrowed those storm-gray eyes, and I became painfully aware that I was speaking to a man who canonically killed with devastating emotional efficiency.
"Come," he said. "The carriage awaits. We are expected at Dreadmoor by sundown."
Ah yes. Dreadmoor. The house with the resentful servants, portraits that stared too long, and the cursed rose garden where I eventually died.
No big deal.
"Of course," I replied, summoning every ounce of people-pleasing instinct I'd ever developed. "Wouldn't want to be late for… foreboding doom."
He turned, and I followed—awkwardly, like someone who'd just realized their fiancé was a high-risk villain with a 100% fatal response to betrayal.
Inside the carriage, he sat across from me. Silent. Still. Maybe slightly disappointed. I tried not to fidget. Or inhale too audibly. Or exist too confidently.
This man was beautiful. Dangerous. Suave in the "will stab you in a well-fitted waistcoat" kind of way.
And I was supposed to cheat on him?
No wonder he murdered me.
Not today, I vowed. Today I would be kind. Loyal.Very, very alive.
"Lord D'Arceval," I said carefully, "have I ever told you how much I admire your… eyebrows?"
He stared at me.
Fair.
My death ride had officially begun.