The return to her room offered Amelie both shelter and confinement. She closed the door behind her; the sound was barely more than a sigh, the latch settling in with the quiet certainty of a chapel bell, gentle and precise. All appeared undisturbed—the tray from breakfast had vanished, and only a faint scatter of water drops marked the carpet where Maggy had paused. But it was the letter on the desk that claimed her attention, silent and commanding, a sovereign presence around which her thoughts circled endlessly from the moment she first saw it.
She circled the desk, picking up the infant-development book as though its pages might hold some fortifying wisdom. She leafed through diagrams of skeletal structures and tables of recommended feedings, but the words blurred together and slid off the slope of her attention. She tried, next, to gather her writing kit and compose a letter home—a cheery note, perhaps, to assure her family that all was well, that she was looking forward to their visit, and that her own baby was growing strong. But each time her pen hovered above the page, her thoughts snagged on the waiting envelope, and the emptiness in her chest echoed the Emperor's red wax seal.
Amelie sank onto the edge of the settee, restless energy coiling within her. She rose almost at once, crossing the room with measured steps, only to halt again, fingers fluttering to the lace at her throat. She loosened her collar, retied the sash at her waist, then let her gaze sweep over the scattered toys that littered the rug. With careful deliberation, she stooped to gather them, arranging each in its proper place, then turned her attention to the patchwork quilt, smoothing its seams and corners with practiced hands.
Yet always, inexorably, her steps circled back to the desk, and to the letter that lay upon it—a silent sentinel, waiting. Again her slender fingers hovered over the envelope's edge, the faintest tremor betraying her reluctance. Each time she reached for it, some invisible current drew her back, as though the paper itself radiated a warning heat.
She hesitated in that private limbo, suspended between resolve and retreat. The room, too, seemed to hold its breath, bearing witness to her uncertainty. In every careful movement, in every aborted gesture, Amelie sought a courage that remained just out of reach, her attention always returning to the missive that demanded so much from her trembling hands.
At last, the futility of her resistance became unbearable. She sat before the desk, her posture rigid with guilt, and drew the letter into the flat of her palm. The paper was cool and brittle, and the creases in it were so deeply set that it threatened to crack as she unfolded it. She worked carefully, smoothing the surface along the grain, and the words—written in a hand both precise and imperious—leapt out with frightening clarity.
She read the message once, then a second time, and finally a third, as though repetition itself might soften its edges, dulling the sting that had first drawn her breath short. The words were brief, mercilessly so, lacking even the courtesy of a gentle preamble, as if the sender could not spare more than a handful of moments on her employer's fate. Each reading left her with the same hollow ache, yet she persisted, hoping the pain might dissipate through sheer familiarity.
Since you don't answer or even read my letters I will keep it short. If you do not intend to follow my orders and come to the victory celebration by yourself, I will have to force you by sending my man.
There was no signature, only a heavy scrawl and the impression of the imperial seal at the bottom, the red wax already beginning to flake at the edges. Amelie's hands trembled; the cold of the paper seeped into her skin and thence to her bones. The words "my man" echoed, black and sharp, in the quiet room.
She pressed the letter flat, staring at it as though the ink might rearrange itself into something less damning. In all her years of reading, of bookish absorption and idle study, Amelie had never encountered a message so bald in its threat, so absolute in its intent. The Emperor—her Emperor, the distant and untouchable figure who had shaped the borders of her world since childhood—had issued a direct and terrifying ultimatum. And the Duke, for all his silence and stoicism, had chosen to defy it.
Amelie's mouth was dry. She looked to the window, where the cold sun was climbing now, illuminating the rooftops of the outbuildings and drawing harsh shadows across the yard. She imagined, for a moment, the long road from the capital, and the men who might soon travel it at the Emperor's command. She thought of the duke, of the weight he carried, and of how he had never spoken of the world outside the manor except as a thing that could not be trusted.
A realization unfolded within her, silent yet as stark as the letter in her hands: she had transgressed. Not merely by breaking the seal on the Duke's private words, but by allowing herself, if only for a heartbeat, to shoulder the weight of his defiance. What would he make of her trespass? Would he find a measure of gratitude in her curiosity, or would he coolly place her alongside all those women men termed liabilities, witnesses to be managed or erased?
She steadied herself, breathing in the faint sweetness of new linen and the trace of infant skin that lingered in the chamber. With deliberate care, she smoothed the letter's creases and folded it along its original lines. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she slipped it back into its envelope, weighing whether to restore it at once to its place, or let it lie a while longer on the desk, gathering the quiet tension of secrets unreturned.
The paralysis of indecision was, itself, a kind of torture. She wanted to act—to warn the duke, to beg him to reconsider, to find some clever solution that would shield them all from the world's brutality. But she was, in the end, only Amelie Huber, the wet nurse and mother of a fatherless child, adrift in the machinery of nobility. There was no cleverness, no stratagem, that could shield them from the Emperor's reach.
She set the letter atop the book, smoothing its edges so that it might pass, at a glance, as an innocent part of her reading pile. She stood, gathering herself to make the bed or check the water jug, anything to slow the racing of her heart. But her mind was a storm, and the only clear thought within it was the question that would not let her go: What now? What could she do, and what would it cost her if she did?
She resolved, then, to devise a method—a seamless way to return the letter, to slip it back into its rightful place, and to move through the halls as though nothing had transpired. No one would divine that her hands had ever touched the missive, or that the knowledge of its contents nestled now within her. Fortune, in its subtle workings, had granted her some familiarity with the Duke's patterns. Long months of service, of orchestrating his meetings with Adrian, had made her keen to the rhythms of his days. She knew: in the hush of early evening, the Duke was seldom to be found in his office, lingering instead over a drink with Heinrich, their low voices threading through the hours after dinner. That would be her moment.
Adrian, too, would be deep in sleep at such an hour, his mind adrift and unlikely to stir. The plan, then, assembled itself in her mind—a tapestry of timing and silence. She would slip in, unseen, and restore the letter. All would remain as it had been, nothing amiss to betray her trespass.
Time twisted itself into knots as the evening wore on, each hour threading both too swiftly and too slow for her comfort. The ache of nerves pressed in, sharpening her impatience—the minutes seeming to slip away when she most needed them, then stretching interminably as she waited for Adrian to surrender to sleep and for Maggy to finally depart her chambers. Each step in the routine dragged, as if the very walls conspired to delay her resolve. And yet, when at last the clock tolled the appointed hour, she found her readiness lacking, her resolve brittle. Still, with a reluctant hand, she tucked the letter deep into her pocket and, after lingering one last time to be certain of Adrian's peaceful breathing, she slipped into the hush of the corridor and made her way toward the office, her plan quivering at the threshold of action.
In the office, she might have had the leisure to linger; at this hour, the rooms were mostly deserted, the hush interrupted only by the faint hush of distant footfalls and the methodical ticking of the wall clock. Yet urgency pressed at her ribs, a restless thrum beneath her composure, driving her to complete her task with haste. Scanning the desk, her gaze landed on a disorderly mound of correspondence—a scatter of envelopes and pale sheets, guardians of mundane secrets. Without pause, she slid the letter among them, nestling it so seamlessly that it seemed to vanish, subsumed by the daily tide of paperwork. Relief fluttered through her then; the plan, so hastily conceived, was executed. But before the satisfaction could settle, the handle turned, and Anna stepped into the threshold, her presence slicing through the fragile veil of accomplishment.