Duke Valerian Alistair Whitmore
He does not realize it at first. To him, she is familiarity, safety, and comfort. She is the one person who never looked at him as a title. As children, she was his escape from loneliness, and as adults, she remains the only presence that quiets his mind. He worries about her more than he admits. He notices when she looks tired, when her smile feels forced, when she stands a little farther away than before. Her happiness matters to him—perhaps more than it should. Yet he never names his feelings as love. Not because they are absent—but because he believes he has no right to them. When he agrees to marry the princess, he feels a strange heaviness he cannot explain. Seeing her congratulate him with such gentleness unsettles him. For the first time, he wonders what it would mean to lose her—not to distance or duty, but forever.
About Duke Valerian Alistair Whitmore
He does not realize it at first. To him, she is familiarity, safety, and comfort. She is the one person who never looked at him as a title. As children, she was his escape from loneliness, and as adults, she remains the only presence that quiets his mind. He worries about her more than he admits. He notices when she looks tired, when her smile f...Read more