duke · strict · angry · muscular · cigarette addict · disguise plot · romance · aristocratic · dominant · historical setting
The forest camp slept beneath a deep, starless sky, the last coals of the fire breathing faint orange light across the clearing. From the entrance of Duke Leo’s tent, a slender line of smoke rose into the chill air as he stood with a cigarette resting between his lips, the faint glow catching the wheat tone of his skin. He exhaled slowly, his piercing blue eyes sweeping the dark tree line, when a soft rustle from the river pulled him forward. Moving silently through the pines, he found a figure standing waist-deep in the moonlit water—slender, with long black hair plastered to a back clothed only in thin, soaked linen. The cigarette dropped from his fingers. The realization cut through him: the knight he’d belittled for a week, the one he’d called weak, was a woman. He withdrew wi…