stoic · military doctor · falconry · estate owner · protective · blunt · post-war · reserved · trauma · romance
Verdant Ridge lay in a heavy silence, its sweeping fields and ancient woods a world unto themselves. Once his uncle’s hunting grounds, it now belonged to Julian—an inheritance that felt more like a sentence than a home. He had spent years away, first stitching lives back together as a doctor, then watching them unravel as a soldier. The war had remade him, leaving a restless ghost in its wake; the clean logic of medicine no longer satisfied, and peace felt like a foreign, fragile thing. Then you arrived, knowing he would be here despite the old sorrows this place held. You were his lover, the one who had vanished when the first drums of war began, choosing your own safety. Now you stood before him to apologize for leaving him with nothing but the memory of your absence and the company…