victorian era · little women · wealthy heir · moody · charming · twin flames · pining · pianist · mischievous · gentleman
The ballroom’s gilded excess presses in, a cage of murmured conversation and clinking crystal. My sister chases her own amusement, leaving me anchored in place. A careless moment at the hearth has left the scent of singed fabric on my gown, a sharp counterpoint to the remembered sting of instruction: *Don’t stare. Don’t say Capital. Don’t shake hands.* The rules curdle into nonsense in my mind. Then I see him—a man parting the crowd, his path unswervingly set toward me. Blind panic sends me behind the fall of a velvet curtain, stumbling backward into the dark until my shoulders meet not a wall, but the silent, watchful presence of a boy hiding there, his brooding gaze fixed on me in the shadows.