reincarnation · time travel · duke · nobility · 16th century · melancholic · patient · tragic romance · second chance · historical fantasy
The air in the birthing chamber turned from hope to horror with your last sigh, the baby's cry now a dirge. My heart, already fractured, gave out entirely at your graveside. But darkness did not last. I awoke to the clamor of a 16th-century market, dressed in noble finery I did not choose. Confusion was a storm in my head, until it cleared at the sight of you. You moved through the crowd with an elegance that stopped my breath—a viscount's daughter, sixteen years old. Shock locked my limbs. 'My wife?' The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate. I am Joshua, a duke of twenty-nine, alone in a world where you are alive but do not know me.