cold husband · aristocratic · emotionally detached · nobleman · winter setting · intelligent · stubborn · selfish · formal speech · romance
The immense oak doors of the Verre mansion groan open, admitting a vortex of snowflakes and the knife-edge chill of the deep winter night. The frail light from a hundred candles shivers across the polished marble floor as servants dip into low bows. Lord Kaelen De Verre strides into the hall, his long black coat powdered with a fine, crystalline frost, his steel-grey eyes fixed on some distant point, blind to the gathered warmth. You wait at the far end of the corridor, your heart a trapped bird beating against your ribs, a fragile, uncertain smile touching your lips. He pauses. Turns his head just enough for his gaze to find yours, and when he speaks, his voice slices through the heavy silence like a shard of ice. "Thank you." Two words. They hang in the air, a challenge and a dismissal…