Chapter 1
The evening light cast a warm glow through the corridors of St. Bartholomew's Medical College as I hurried toward Edmund's private study.
Tomorrow we would finalize the arrangements for our wedding next month, and I could hardly contain my excitement about discussing the floral arrangements and musical selections.
I pushed open the door to his study with barely contained enthusiasm, already speaking before I'd fully entered the room.
"Edmund, darling! I've had the most wonderful ideas about white roses paired with violets, and perhaps we might consider Mozart for the ceremony—"
However, my words died in my throat—the door opened to reveal an empty room shrouded in darkness.
Where would he go?
The library. Edmund often sought solace there when troubled, particularly in the classical literature section where he claimed the poetry helped him think clearly. That must be where he'd gone.
The library's classical literature section was bathed in ethereal moonlight filtering through stained glass windows.
At that moment, a familiar voice resonating from the depths of the bookshelf caused me to halt abruptly.
Edmund's voice, but not as I had ever heard it before. It was low, tender, filled with an emotion so raw it made my chest tighten with unnamed dread.
I found myself moving toward the sound. Through a gap between towering shelves, I witnessed a scene that shattered my world completely.
Edmund stood embracing a woman—holding her as though she were the most precious thing in existence. Golden curls spilled over his shoulder, and I recognized the delicate frame immediately.
Cordelia.
His dear adopted sister, sweet innocent Cordelia Gray, who always seemed so fragile and in need of protection.
"I cannot pretend to be merely your sister when you love me as a woman loves a man!" Cordelia's voice was choked with tears, her face turned up to his with desperate longing.
I gripped the bookshelf to steady myself, my knuckles white with the force of my hold. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
"Cordelia, you are everything to me, but society would never..." Edmund's voice broke with emotion as his hand caressed her cheek with infinite tenderness—tenderness I had never seen him show me.
Everything to him. The words echoed in my mind like a death knell.
"Then why are you marrying her? Why torment us both?" Cordelia's anguished cry pierced through me like a blade.
Edmund replied, "Because I am a coward. Because it's what's expected."
Expected. I was merely an expectation. A duty to be fulfilled. A convenient arrangement to disguise their forbidden love.
I watched, transfixed in horror, as Edmund pressed his lips to hers with a passion that spoke of deep, abiding love. The kind of love I had dreamed he felt for me. The kind of love that apparently belonged entirely to another.
"Edmund..." Cordelia whispered against his mouth, "I cannot bear to see you with her. Every time you touch her hand, every time you smile at her..."
"Shh, my darling girl," he murmured, pulling her closer. "The wedding is merely a formality. You know where my heart truly lies."
A formality. Our entire engagement, our planned future together—nothing more than an elaborate charade.
I don't remember how I managed to leave the library without collapsing.
I only know that when I found myself standing outside Edmund's study once more, my hands were shaking and my heart felt as though it had been carved from my chest with a surgical blade.
Edmund looked up as I entered, attempting a smile that now seemed grotesquely false.
"Seraphina. Perfect timing. About those floral arrangements you mentioned—"
"Edmund." My voice cut through his pleasantries like ice.
I looked down at my left hand, at the engagement ring that had been placed there with such ceremony months ago. The ring that had never quite fit properly, always sliding loose on my finger, requiring constant adjustment.
Too large. The realization hit me with stunning force.
Memory flooded back: the jeweler's shop, my preference for the simple, elegant solitaire design. But Edmund had insisted on this elaborate vintage setting with its intricate filigree work.
"This suits you better, my dear," he had said, though I had seen confusion in my own reflection.
Suits me? Or suits someone else entirely?
I thought of Cordelia's delicate hands, her well-known preference for ornate antiques and classical designs. This ring—its size, its style, its very essence—had never been chosen for me at all.
"A ring chosen for another woman's finger, in another woman's taste," I whispered, the words falling like stones into still water. "How perfectly it symbolizes this entire charade."
Edmund's brow furrowed in apparent confusion.
Without drama or flourish, I slipped the ring from my finger. It came away easily—as it always had.
I walked to his desk with measured steps and placed it gently on the polished surface. The soft click of metal against wood seemed to echo through eternity.
"I believe this belongs to someone else, Edmund." I met his eyes directly. "It never truly fit me anyway."
His face went ashen. "Seraphina, what are you saying? Has something happened? I don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." I turned toward the door, each step deliberate and final. "I understand exactly who this ring was intended for."
"Seraphina! Wait, please!" Edmund rose from his chair, but I had already reached the threshold.
I paused and looked back at him one final time. In that moment, I felt no anger, no tears, no desperate pleas for explanation. Only a crystalline clarity that cut through every illusion I had ever harbored about our relationship.
"Edmund, when you do give this ring to its intended recipient, I suggest you ensure the size is correct."
I stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind me, the sound reverberating through the empty hallway like the closing of a book.
They thought me a fool. A convenient, naive little woman to be used and discarded.
I was training to wield a scalpel.
But I had just learned exactly where the deepest cuts would hurt the most.