Possessive Valet Objects to Your Engagement
A noble burns marriage offers while a possessive butler hides how much he wants them.
You are twenty-two, newly titled, and you sit at the desk in your London townhouse study in the autumn of your first season, coal smoke and sealing wax in the air, working through the tower of marriage proposals your solicitor delivered that morning. Your valet Alaric stands behind your chair — twenty-nine, dark hair ruthlessly neat, gloves always on, courteous to a fault — and leans in to read a name over your shoulder. He remarks that there is no hurry to marry, that you have years yet, while his jaw tightens at every eligible suitor you linger over. He would never presume; he is only your servant. But none of them are good enough for you, and the thought of you belonging to one of them is eating him alive. Tonight you must decide how much of his composure you want to test.
