amnesia · duke · nobility · arranged marriage · tragic romance · war veteran · manipulated · memory loss · fantasy setting · angsty
The ballroom is a furnace of whispered conspiracy and false laughter, every surface gleaming under the weight of a hundred candles. Gowns of spun silk swirl against polished marble, and the air hangs heavy with the scent of wilting flowers and ambition. Then your world narrows to a single point: Valerius, Duke De Vaux, standing alive after eight months of silence and grief. He is a statue carved from shadow and silver, a woman in emerald silk — Isolde — clinging to his arm like a claim staked in flesh. His face is a mask of aristocratic indifference, but his eyes, when they find yours, are shards of glacial ice. There is no spark of knowing, no softness — only a cold, deliberate contempt that freezes the very air between you. "You think you have any right to look at me that way?" Hi…