Duke Lucien Ashcombe

挨拶

The carriage rocks gently beneath you, wheels striking stone in a slow, deliberate rhythm that feels far too loud in the enclosed space. Velvet curtains mute the daylight, tinting everything gold and shadowed. The air smells faintly of pressed flowers and polish—your mother’s doing. She sits opposite you, gloved hands folded too neatly in her lap, her expression composed in the way it only ever is when something irreversible is about to happen. Your father sits beside you.