CAELAN
Dawn bled through the heavy velvet curtains of his chambers, a sickly gray light that Caelan usually slept through with profound indifference. Today, however, sleep was a distant country to which he had lost his passport.
He lay awake, staring at the canopy of his massive, cold bed, a place he had shared with no one since Ysennia's slow, quiet departure from the world. For the first time in a century, the silence of Mirewood Hall felt… empty. It was an unsettling sensation, an itch beneath the skin of his immortality that he could not scratch.
His thoughts were a chaotic, undisciplined mess, circling a single, infuriating point of light: a girl in a lavender dress.
He could still feel the impossible warmth of her hand through his glove. He could still smell her scent—not the cloying florals of the court, but something clean and alive, like sunshine and rain and defiance. It clung to his senses, a ghost in his memory that refused to be exorcised. He had been a creature of dust and duty, and she had made him feel… solid. Real. It was an infuriating, intoxicating novelty.
The cufflink. He pictured it now, resting in its velvet box, a silver wolf's head making its way through the waking streets of Bellmere. What would she do? A sensible girl would throw it in the river. A terrified girl would hide it and pray he forgot her existence.
But the girl who had met his gaze across a crowded ballroom, who had challenged him during their dance with a wit as sharp as it was surprising… he had a feeling she was neither sensible nor easily terrified.
He found himself hoping she would be foolish. He found himself hoping she would come. The realization that he, Caelan Virellion, was hoping for anything at all was the most disturbing part of the entire affair.
A soft, deferential knock came at the door, followed by its slow, creaking opening. Mrs. Elsbeth Blight, his head housekeeper, glided in, her posture as stiff and unyielding as the ancient portraits that lined the halls. She looked, as she always did, like a woman who had attended her own funeral and found it dreadfully boring. She was followed by two young maids, their faces a mixture of terror and awe.
"Your Grace," Mrs. Blight said, her voice the dry rustle of dead leaves. "You are awake. You did not ring. The Council is set to convene in less than an hour."
Her words were a statement of fact, but the underlying question was clear: What is wrong with you?
Caelan pushed himself into a sitting position, the silk sheets pooling around his waist. "I will not be attending the Council today, Elsbeth."
Mrs. Blight's composure, usually as unshakeable as the foundations of the hall itself, wavered for a fraction of a second. Her eyebrow, a thin, skeptical line, twitched. Caelan had not missed a Council meeting in his entire tenure as Duke. Not for plagues, nor wars, nor the death of his own wife.
"I am expecting a visitor," he added, the words feeling foreign on his tongue.
Now both of Mrs. Blight's eyebrows rose. "A visitor, Your Grace? Here? After the… commotion last night?" The word 'scandal' hung unspoken in the air between them. "The whispers are already reaching the kitchens. A commoner at the masquerade. A dance. It is unwise to fan the flames by bringing the girl herself into the heart of the fire."
Caelan met her gaze, his own cool and impassive. "The opinions of this household, and indeed this entire town, are of less consequence to me than the dust on my boots. Let them whisper. Let the flames burn the whole bloody country to the ground for all I care." His voice was quiet, but it held the unyielding weight of his authority. "My visitor will be received."
Mrs. Blight held his gaze for a moment longer, then gave a short, sharp nod. The debate was over. "Very good, Your Grace." She turned to the maids, who were frozen in place, trying to make themselves as small as possible. "Well? Don't stand there like startled poultry. His Grace requires his bath."
He rose from the bed and let the silk sheets fall, standing before them with the casual indifference of a man who has not known shame or modesty for centuries. He was used to the effect he had on mortals. The two maids, barely older than the girl he couldn't stop thinking about, turned a shade of crimson that clashed violently with their drab gray uniforms. Their eyes widened, their breathing hitched, and their gazes dropped to a point somewhere south of his navel with the gravitational pull of a dying star.
He walked toward the bathing chamber, a cavernous room of black marble and silver fixtures, leaving the maids to scurry after him with towels and oils.
"I will fetch His Grace's morning refreshment," Mrs. Blight announced to the empty room, her tone laced with a weary resignation that suggested this was a battle she had fought and lost a thousand times.
The bath was, as always, an exercise in managed ineptitude. The water was hot, scented with sandalwood and clove, but the maids' hands trembled as they went about their work. One scrubbed his shoulder with all the force of a drowsy kitten, her eyes glued to the hard planes of his abdomen. The other fumbled with a sponge, her gaze fixed on the length of him, half-submerged in the steaming water, with a look of pure, unadulterated fascination. They had seen him like this hundreds of times. The novelty, it seemed, never wore off.
He simply endured it, his mind elsewhere, tracing the memory of mist-gray eyes and a defiant chin.
Mrs. Blight returned, holding a delicate crystal goblet filled with a dark, ruby-red liquid. She stopped at the threshold of the bathing chamber, taking in the scene with a withering glare.
"Girls," she said, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "Are you bathing the Duke, or attempting to memorize him for a future sculpture? He has not grown a second head since yesterday. I promise you, it is the same anatomy you have failed to properly wash for the last two years. Finish the task before the water grows cold and His Grace decides to find replacements who can manage to look at his face."
The maids jumped, blushing furiously, and redoubled their efforts with a sudden, frantic energy.
Once he was dried and robed in a dressing gown of black silk, he took the goblet from Mrs. Blight. The blood was warm, fresh, with the faint, metallic tang of fear from the donor—a captured highwayman Gustave kept in the dungeons for just such occasions. Caelan found the flavor profile… adequate.
He drank, the liquid a familiar fire in his veins. "The household report," he said, handing the empty goblet back to her.
"As you wish," she replied, her face a mask of grim efficiency. "Lady Seraphyne's pet boy, Finnian, attempted to flee again last night. He was found near the stables trying to bribe a groom with one of her ladyship's ruby earrings. The groom reported him, and Finnian is now locked in his chambers. Lady Seraphyne was… displeased. The west wing is to be avoided today."
Caelan felt a flicker of something akin to amusement. His sister's theatrics were a constant, reliable feature of his existence.
"Lord Valerius's middle daughter, Livia, has written another chapter of her dreadful romance novel. She left a draft on your desk. The hero is a brooding, misunderstood Duke named 'Lord Caelan,' and he has apparently fallen for a barmaid with a heart of gold and, I quote, 'bosoms like ripe melons.' I took the liberty of burning it."
"A wise decision," Caelan murmured as the maids helped him into a pair of black trousers and a crisp white shirt.
"And Lord Lucien," she continued, her voice heavy with disapproval, "returned at dawn smelling of cheap wine and banshee musk. He came through a kitchen window and attempted to seduce one of the new scullery maids before Chef Gustave chased him out with a meat cleaver."
"Standard procedure, then," Caelan said, allowing a maid to fasten the buttons on his waistcoat. Her fingers trembled as they brushed against his chest.
"Indeed, Your Grace," Mrs. Blight finished. "And Baron Meowsblood III has taken up residence atop your first-edition copy of De Occulta Philosophia. He hissed at me when I attempted to move him."
"Leave him be," Caelan said. "The Baron has better taste in literature than most of my family." He was now fully dressed, immaculate in black from head to toe. The man of duty. The Iron Duke. But beneath the facade, an unfamiliar current of anticipation hummed.
He turned from the mirror and walked toward the door of his chambers, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet. It was time for the morning ritual. It was time for breakfast with his dysfunctional, immortal, utterly infuriating family.