The silver candelabra on Scarlett's mahogany desk flickered, casting long, dancing shadows against the floral wallpaper of her bedroom. Outside, the winds of Pembroke whispered through the trees, but inside, the air was still and heavy with the scent of old paper.
Scarlett sat in her nightgown, her red curls spilling over her shoulders as she pored over Sorel's latest letter. She marveled at his handwriting; it was exquisite, with sharp, elegant loops that spoke of a prince's education. The chess board was drawn at the bottom as usual-she had already moved her ivory queen on the physical board by the window to match his strategy.
Everything seemed the same, yet as she lifted the parchment to read his words about the horse one more time, something shifted.
A scent drifted up from the paper-something she had never truly noticed until this quiet, midnight hour. It wasn't the smell of the English dust or the floral ink she used. It was deep and intoxicating. She pulled the letter closer, taking a long, slow breath.
It smelled of musty cedarwood and aged leather, with a sharp, smoky top note of fine tobacco. It was the smell of a man's study, of sun-warmed earth and Spanish stone.
Is this him? she wondered, her heart giving a strange, fluttery hop. Is this the cologne he wears in Casa Lava?
The scent made him feel real in a way the ink never could. It made her ache to know him-not just as a name on a page, but as a person. How did he truly feel about her? Was she just a duty to him, or did he breathe in her letters the same way she was currently clutching his?
Determined to find out, she dipped her quill into the inkwell. But as the nib touched the paper to write her reply, the scratch of the pen pulled her mind backward, tumbling through time to the very first time she had held a letter with that purple wax seal.
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Twelve-year-old Scarlett had been hiding in the garden maze, trying to avoid her lessons, when Reginald's voice echoed across the lawn.
"Scarlett! Inside, at once!"
She had dragged her feet into her father's study, expecting a scolding for her dirt-stained hem. Instead, she found him sitting behind his desk, looking more serious than she had ever seen him. Resting on the green blotter was a thick, cream-colored envelope.
"This arrived from Spain," Reginald said, his voice hushed. "From the House of De la Vega. Their son, Prince Sorel, has sent a message. It is for you, Scarlett."
"For me? Why would a Prince write to me?" she had asked, her eyes wide.
"Because," Reginald replied, sliding the letter toward her, "they have decided you are very important. One day, you are to be his wife. This is the beginning of your future."
Scarlett's small hands had trembled as she broke the seal. The letter wasn't a romantic poem; it was a list of curiosities.
"To Ms. Scarlett Vandean," it began. "I am told we are to be wed one day. I am currently sixteen and find my piano lessons dreadfully dull, though the violin is worse-it sounds like a cat in distress. Do you play? Also, I am told English girls are very clever. Prove it to me. Below is a chess board. I have moved my pawn to E4. It is your move."
Standing in her father's study, the twelve-year-old Scarlett didn't know about marriage or crowns. But she knew a challenge when she saw one. She felt a spark of something she couldn't name-a sense of being chosen.
She had run straight to her room, demanded a chess set, and spent three hours studying the board before she wrote her very first "Love, Scarlett" on the back of a small sketch of herself.
How does that feel for the opening of the flashback? I love the detail of him calling her out on her "cleverness" right from the start!
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Scarlett hovered her quill over the parchment, her heart hammering. A dozen questions sat on the tip of her tongue: Do you think of me when the sun sets over Casa Lava? Do you look at my portrait and wonder if my voice is as curly as my hair? She shook her head, the red ringlets brushing against her shoulders. No. She didn't want to seem standoffish, or worse, naggy. She didn't want to be a bother to a Prince who was busy learning the weight of a crown. Instead, she decided to let him into her world-the quiet, hidden parts of Pembroke that no one else truly saw.
"Dear Sorel," she began, her script becoming more fluid as she found her rhythm. "I am glad to hear you have conquered your fear of horses, though I am sorry the ground was the first thing to greet you. I have a horse of my own, a gentle soul named Marigold. I have been riding her since I was ten, and I promise you, once you learn the sway of the saddle, there is no greater freedom."
She paused, looking toward her vanity where the new red-haired doll sat next to her older companions.
"I spent my afternoon in town today. I still collect dolls-I have a new one that looks remarkably like me-though I suppose when I turn eighteen, I shall have to retire the collection. I plan to save them for my first child, should I be blessed with a daughter one day. She will need friends to tea, just as I did."
Scarlett's gaze drifted toward the window, imagining the garden maze shrouded in the early morning light.
"When the world feels too loud, I take sanctuary in the backyard maze. The morning is best-it is so serene when the fog still clings to the hedges and the dew drops jewel the grass. I often bring a book out there; I will read anything as long as the words have a story to tell. I am also practicing the piano, though I must confess, the violin is my true love. Perhaps when we finally meet, I can teach you a few tricks so your violin no longer sounds like a distressed cat."
She finished the letter with her usual, elegant "Love, Scarlett," but before she folded the paper, she reached for a small, crystal bottle on her vanity. She pressed the atomizer, sending a fine mist of crushed roses and light floral notes over the parchment. It was a piece of her garden, a piece of her heart, sent across the sea.
Finally, she looked down at the hand-drawn chess board at the bottom of the page. With a small, knowing smile, she sketched her move: Queen to H5.
"Your move, my Prince," she whispered into the quiet room.As the ink dried, Scarlett looked down at the parchment. For years, their letters had been a playground of childish news-sketches of horses, complaints about tutors, and the endless, steady march of their chess pieces. But this letter felt different. It felt like she was handing him a key to the gate of her private garden.
She wasn't just his pen pal anymore; she was becoming his future.
A spark of daring flared in her chest. She picked up the quill one last time. Love, Scarlett felt too safe, too much like the twelve-year-old girl who had first opened that purple seal. She wanted to be more. In two years, she would be eighteen-a woman, a bride, a Queen. She needed to show him that she was ready for the weight of his world.
Below her name, she added a final, flirtatious line:
"I wonder, my Prince, if the roses in Casa Lava smell as sweet as the ones I've sent you tonight. I shall be counting the days until I can compare them in person."
She folded the paper with trembling fingers, the scent of crushed roses blooming in the warm air of her room.
The next morning, the mansion was quiet, save for the distant clatter of the servants in the kitchen. Scarlett crept down the grand staircase, her letter tucked deep into the pocket of her morning robe. She knew her mother would be in the breakfast room soon, ready to inspect any outgoing mail.
"Don't make it too personal, honey," Marcella's voice echoed in her head, a constant, chilling reminder. "Stay poised. Stay distant. If you show too much of your soul, he might find it a burden and stop writing altogether."
But Scarlett didn't believe that anymore. She didn't want to be a poised statue; she wanted to be a living, breathing woman that Sorel actually desired.
She saw the postman approaching the front gates through the foyer window. Heart racing, she slipped out the side door, her bare feet pressing into the damp, dew-covered grass.
"Mr. Miller!" she called out in a hushed whisper, waving the envelope as she reached the gate.
The postman tipped his cap, surprised to see the young Vandean mistress out so early. "Morning, Miss Scarlett. Bit early for the post, isn't it?"
"It's urgent," she said, pressing the letter into his hand along with a small silver coin. "Please, ensure this makes the first ship to Spain. And... there's no need to mention it to my mother. She's quite busy with her embroidery this morning."
Mr. Miller gave a knowing nod and tucked the rose-scented letter into his bag.
As Scarlett watched him walk away, she felt a strange sense of relief mixed with terror. She had broken the rules. She had been mature, flirtatious, and-most importantly-honest. She wasn't the little girl in the garden anymore.
She turned back toward the house, but as she reached the porch, she saw a figure standing in the shadows of the library window. It was Marcella, holding a pair of shears, her eyes fixed directly on her daughter.
Scarlett kept her pace steady as she walked back toward the porch, her expression a mask of morning calm.
"Just getting a head start on the post, Mother," she said, offering a small, practiced smile as she brushed past the library window. "I didn't want Sorel to worry if the English weather delayed his reply."
Marcella lingered in the shadows for a heartbeat, her shears poised over a stray thread on the velvet curtains. Then, she gave a slow, graceful nod. "A thoughtful gesture, Scarlett. Consistency is a virtue in a future Queen."
Scarlett felt a surge of triumph as she stepped back into the warmth of the mansion. She had done it. The "dangerous" letter was gone, tucked safely in Mr. Miller's bag, full of the flirtatious sparks her mother would have surely censored. She felt a delicious sense of accomplishment as she made her way to the sun-dretched breakfast nook.
Cornelius and Heathrow were already there, tearing into thick slices of toasted bread and jam. A moment later, Reginald stepped into the room, his tall boots clicking against the floor.
"Boys," Reginald announced, his eyes bright with the morning air. "The mist is clearing and the laws are in our favor today. It is a fine morning for a hunt."
"Finally!" Heathrow cheered, nearly dropping his fork. "I've been itching to get into the woods behind the estate. The deer have been mocks us from the tree line all week."
Cornelius closed his book with a satisfied thud. "I suppose I could be persuaded to leave my studies for a trophy buck."
As the men hurried off to the mudroom to gather their gear and hounds, the house settled into a different kind of quiet-the kind that belonged to the women.
"Finish your breakfast, Scarlett," Marcella said, her voice returning to its instructional tone. "We have your final violin lesson this morning. Once you master this piece, you shall have no more formal lessons to worry about. You will be ready for the parlors of Europe."
Scarlett nodded, but as she picked up her bow an hour later, her mind was miles away from the sheet music. As she pulled the horsehair across the strings, the music she played was haunting and intense, reflecting the new, "humane" ache in her chest.
She had never felt this way before. It wasn't just the playful excitement of a pen pal anymore; it was a deep, pulsing longing-a kind of "lust" for a life and a man she had only ever seen in ink and paint. Every vibration of the violin felt like a message sent to Sorel.
Will he be shocked? she wondered, her fingers dancing over the strings. Or will he breathe in the scent of my roses and realize that I am no longer the little girl he started a chess game with?
She was 16, trapped in a drawing room in Pembroke, but her soul was already crossing the Atlantic, eager for the words that would tell her she wasn't alone in this feeling.
The sheet music on the stand-a dry, technical concerto-began to blur before Scarlett's eyes. As her bow moved, the rigid classical notes felt like a cage she was desperate to break out of.
In her mind's eye, the small painted portrait of Sorel began to breathe. She could see the sharp, chiseled line of his jaw and that sun-kissed, Spanish complexion that seemed to hold the warmth of a thousand summer days. She imagined her fingers tangling in the dark, thick waves of his hair, feeling the solid strength of his chest against her palms. A wave of heat washed over her, a "spell" she couldn't break, and suddenly, the violin was no longer playing a concerto.
The music shifted. It dropped into a deep, vibrating register, becoming sensual and heavy. The tempo slowed, dragging like a heartbeat in a fever dream. The sound felt like it was about to explode off the strings, filling the room with an intensity that was almost scandalous for a Pembroke afternoon. Scarlett was lost in it, her eyes closed, her body swaying as she poured her "humane" hunger into the wood and horsehair.
Meanwhile, in the deep shadows of the forest...
The silence of the woods was shattered by the frantic baying of hounds. Reginald, Heathrow, and Cornelius were a blur of tweed and steel, crashing through the undergrowth. Ahead of them, a massive buck-wild and desperate-leaped over fallen logs, its breath coming in ragged white puffs.
"There!" Heathrow shouted, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Reginald leveled his rifle, his eye tracking the powerful muscles of the deer. It was a chase of pure adrenaline, a mirroring of the invisible pursuit happening back at the mansion.
Back in the parlor...
Scarlett's music reached a shattering crescendo, a high, haunting note that sounded like a cry for help. She was desperate. She was starving for a man she had never touched, her soul reaching out across the ocean to find him.
BANG.
The rifle cracked in the woods, the sound echoing through the trees as the great buck finally faltered, its strength failing as it tumbled to the forest floor.
At that exact microsecond, Scarlett's bow scraped across the strings in one final, guttural moan of music. Her knees gave out, the silk of her skirts billowing around her as she collapsed to the floor in a heap of blue fabric and trembling limbs. The violin lay beside her, still humming with the ghost of that intense melody.
She pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the floor, her chest heaving. She felt hunted. She felt caught. She felt completely and utterly consumed by Sorel.
Marcella stood frozen by the window, her hand pressed to her mouth. The room was deathly silent, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock and Scarlett's ragged breathing.
"Scarlett..." Marcella whispered, her voice trembling with a rare touch of fear. "What... what was that?"
Scarlett didn't look up. She couldn't. She just clutched the carpet, her mind still trapped in the heat of Casa Lava, wondering if Sorel, miles away, could feel the earthquake she had just created in her father's house. The silence that followed the final, jagged note was suffocating. Marcella stood as if turned to salt, her eyes wide as she stared at her daughter collapsed on the rug. Inside Marcella's mind, a storm was brewing. What in the world did she just play? It hadn't sounded like a single violin; it had sounded like an entire, weeping orchestra. Those notes, that rhythm-they weren't on any sheet music Marcella had ever bought. It was a language Scarlett had never been taught, a primal, heavy sound that seemed to vibrate the very floorboards of the mansion.
Slowly, Scarlett pushed herself up, her breath still hitching in her chest. She sat back in the velvet chair, her face flushed and her hair a wild halo of red curls. She looked at her mother, her eyes dark with the remnants of the trance.
"Mom... I don't know what came over me," Scarlett whispered, her voice trembling. "I'm sorry."
Internally, however, Scarlett's heart was racing with a triumph she had never known. She felt accomplished, as if she had finally broken a seal inside her own soul. It was the best thing she had ever felt-a wild, electric secret-and she already craved the feeling again.
Marcella set her shears down on a side table with a sharp clack. "Honey, I don't know where you learned that music, but it is not to happen again. I think... I think your lessons are officially over. You don't have to do them anymore."
Scarlett let out a shaky, forced laugh, trying to mask the fire still burning in her veins. "Yeah... I don't know. Maybe I heard it somewhere? It just came out of memory, I guess. From a play we saw, perhaps?"
Marcella narrowed her eyes, searching her daughter's face. "That could be true. We did go to the theater last week. I am not as musically inclined as you are, Scarlett, so perhaps you picked it up there." She didn't sound convinced, but she seemed desperate to believe the lie.The heavy thud of boots and the scent of pine and cold air flooded the foyer as the front doors burst open. Heathrow and Cornelius practically tumbled into the house, their faces smeared with dark earth and their eyes dancing with a wild, triumphant light.
"I got the shot! It's mine to claim!" Heathrow shouted, his voice cracking with adrenaline. "I'm having it stuffed and mounted right over the fireplace in the Great Hall for everyone to see!"
"You wouldn't have even seen it if I hadn't tracked the prints through the creek!" Cornelius countered, shoving his brother's shoulder. "It's my trophy, Heathrow. I'm the one who'll decide where it hangs!"
They were practically grappling in the doorway, their muddy coats brushing against the expensive wallpaper, when a shadow fell over them. Reginald stepped forward, his presence silhouetting against the parlor light. He reached out, placing a firm, grounding hand on each of his sons' shoulders, his grip like iron.
"Do not fight like boys," Reginald commanded, his voice low and vibrating with authority. "You are Vandeans. You went out as a pack, and you returned as one. You will work on the trophy together, and you will finish the mounting together. Is that understood?"
The brothers went still, the fire of their argument cooling under their father's stare. "Yes, Father," they muttered in unison, bowing their heads.
As the men dragged their prize toward the cellar to begin their work, Scarlett sat in the fading afternoon light, clutching her silent violin. The hunt was over, the lessons were finished, and across the sea, a rose-scented letter was making its way to a Prince.