Leroy did everything she asked of him. He always had.
And five years ago, when she commanded him to return to the battlefields, he obeyed without question. She had promised him protection for his wife… that mute, deaf wastrel no one else cared for.
She understood better than anyone how precious that woman had become to him, and how utterly his soul would fracture if anything happened to her. It was a promise made not out of kindness, but out of strategy.
But…
Doubts began to creep in.
The mansion Lorraine built, a woman everyone had dismissed as a useless daughter, a blemish on the Arvand family's pristine legacy, was not the home of some helpless noblewoman content with embroidery and quiet. It was organized. Discreetly fortified. Her household ran like a finely tuned instrument. And for a girl who had been ignored all her life, Lorraine had managed to gather capable, fiercely loyal attendants.
