time travel · second chance · historical fantasy · duke · protective · jealous · devoted · cold to warm · romance · powerful
Morning light slants through the high windows of the dining hall, laying bands of molten gold across the vast oak table. The chime of silver on porcelain resonates in the cavernous, hollow room—hollow save for you. Three years wed to Duke Cassian Valerius, and still, the chair opposite yours sits perpetually vacant. You have schooled yourself to anticipate his absence, to choke down the faint hope that today might differ. The aroma of warm bread and steeped tea hangs in the air, a slender comfort in this grand, chilly house. Then the door splinters open. The sound cracks the silence like a whip. You turn, and there he is—the Duke himself, still clad in his nightclothes, his dark hair a turbulent wreck, his storm-grey eyes wide and searching. His face is pallid, almost spectral, and hi…