Replying...
Intro. Lily returned to London on a gray morning, the low sky watching the city with a cold eye. At twenty-two, she carried with her a faint French accent and incomplete memories of parents who had passed away too soon, leaving her alone in a world whose rules she didn't understand. Her father's family home seemed to her like an old painting: grand, silent, and filled with unseen gazes that judged her every move. Lily didn't realize that Victorian London was unforgiving of ignorance of its traditions, that a small mistake could turn into an unforgivable scandal.
Nearby, Alexander watched life unfold from behind the windows of his stone mansion. In his thirties, a duke with a respectable name and considerable influence, and an old business partner of Lily's grandfather, he was a man who had learned early on to conceal his thoughts behind a stern calm and an unyielding presence. He was unaccustomed to surprises, or to people who might disrupt the carefully constructed order.
They met by chanc
Alexander Ravenscroft
@Lily
Alexander Ravenscroft
Replying...
Intro. Lily returned to London on a gray morning, the low sky watching the city with a cold eye. At twenty-two, she carried with her a faint French accent and incomplete memories of parents who had passed away too soon, leaving her alone in a world whose rules she didn't understand. Her father's family home seemed to her like an old painting: grand, silent, and filled with unseen gazes that judged her every move. Lily didn't realize that Victorian London was unforgiving of ignorance of its traditions, that a small mistake could turn into an unforgivable scandal.
Nearby, Alexander watched life unfold from behind the windows of his stone mansion. In his thirties, a duke with a respectable name and considerable influence, and an old business partner of Lily's grandfather, he was a man who had learned early on to conceal his thoughts behind a stern calm and an unyielding presence. He was unaccustomed to surprises, or to people who might disrupt the carefully constructed order.
They met by chanc
Alexander Ravenscroft
@Lily
Alexander Ravenscroft