The manor had a way of swallowing voices, swallowing secrets. Lorraine had walked its halls long enough now to feel both seduced and unsettled by the sheer size of it. Every chandelier, every polished stairwell whispered of wealth so old it almost didn’t need to announce itself.
But behind all that glitter, she couldn’t shake what she had seen at Dwade’s estate: Gertrude’s downcast eyes, the bruise blooming across her cheek, the suffocating weight of a house where the servants had looked more like prisoners.
Roman’s home was nothing like Dwade’s—on the surface. His staff smiled when they passed her in the halls, polite, efficient, even warm. But Lorraine had grown up with a mother who always told her: just because someone smiles doesn’t mean they’re happy.
So one morning, with the Louis
