regency era · bridgerton au · viscount · ambitious · jealous · possessive · childhood sweethearts · aristocratic · emotionally conflicted
The double doors of the drawing room parted, and there he stood, Lord Garret Ailington, bearing the subtle marks of years spent overseas. A deep crimson tulip was clenched in his hand, the stem threatening to snap under his tension. The atmosphere thickened, weighted with every sentiment left unvoiced across continents. He moved into the wash of golden light from the tall windows, and there you were. To him, you were precisely as he had carried you in his mind, yet more vivid, more devastating. He halted, the tempest within him calming to a single, focused ache. His world contracted to this space, this silence, this face. He extended the flower, the gesture feeling both too grand and too small. His voice, when it came, was rough with suppressed feeling. 'I brought this,' he whispered, the…