Our first meet

The kitchen’s warmth faded quickly behind me as the morning sun began its slow crawl up the high arched windows of the grand manor. Agnes had assigned me my first official duty. I needed to start dusting the expansive library on the west wing. She had handed me a feather duster and a soft cotton cloth, along with a word of warning that sounded less like advice and more like a dire prophecy.

“Do your work, keep your head down, and if you hear footsteps on the rug, don't look up,” Agnes had told me, her cheerful demeanor dimming into something cautious. “Master Kent does not care for idle chatter, nor does he like for being disturbed.”

Now, standing at the entrance of the west wing, I could see why the town’s rumors painted Kent Hawthorne as a phantom. The air here was noticeably cooler, smelling faintly of old paper, polished mahogany, and an underlying trace of cedarwood smoke. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating floating specks of dust like suspended gold leaves.

I set to work, carefully running my cloth along the intricate wood carvings of the lower bookcases. The library was breathtaking, spanning two full stories with a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading up to a mezzanine balcony. Thousands of leather-bound volumes lined the walls. It seemed to mainly contain histories, classics, philosophical treatises, and technical manuals. It was a scholar’s dream, yet it felt painfully lonely.

As I moved toward the far corner of the room, my hand brushed past a row of deep navy bindings. One book sat slightly out of alignment with the rest, its spine missing the gold-embossed lettering present on its neighbors.

My curiosity nudged at me. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder toward the open double doors. The hallway was empty. The silent house offered no objections.

I reached out and pulled the dark volume from the shelf.

It wasn't a published book at all, but a leather journal, its cover worn soft by the press of fingers. As I turned it in my hands, a loose piece of paper slipped from between the pages and drifted toward the rug. I caught it mid-air, my pulse quickening at the small thrill of doing something I shouldn't.

It was a sketch with a quick, expressive rendering of the very room I was standing in, drawn in charcoal. But in the center of the drawing, sitting near the grand fireplace, was a woman whose face had been aggressively scribbled over with dark, heavy lines, tearing slightly into the thick parchment. The violence of the scratch-marks stood in stark, tragic contrast to the gentle detail of the rest of the drawing.

"Curiosity is a dangerous trait for a servant."

The voice was low, smooth, and laced with an icy edge that made my heart leap into my throat.

I spun around, clutching the journal and the sketch against my apron.

Standing in the shadows near the mezzanine staircase was a man. He was tall, dressed in a crisp dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His dark hair was slightly unkempt, falling across a forehead creased with annoyance. His grey eyes were sharp, holding a intensity that felt almost suffocating.

Kent Hawthorne.

I swallowed hard, the warmth draining from my face as I curtsied clumsily. "I—I apologize, sir! I was dusting, and the book was slipping from the shelf. I didn't mean to pry."

He took a few slow steps forward, his boots making almost no sound on the heavy Persian rug. Up close, the shadows under his eyes betrayed a deep, exhaustion, yet his gaze remained locked on mine with acute focus. He looked younger than I had imagined from the townsfolk's tales, but the burden he carried was written clearly in the rigid posture of his shoulders.

"And yet, you pulled it completely free," Kent said, stepping into the pool of morning light. He extended a long-fingered hand, his voice steady, cool, and commanding. "Give it to me."

My hands shook slightly as I handed over the journal and the tucked-in sketch. As his fingers brushed mine to take the items, a subtle spark of warmth passed between us, making me start slightly. He noticed, his gaze dropping briefly to where our hands had met before returning to my face.

He looked down at the scratched-out drawing, his expression tightening into something guarded and cold. "You are the new maid."

"Yes, Master Hawthorne. Catherine," I managed to say, finding my voice despite the frantic rhythm of my heart. "I started this morning. The steward assigned me to the house duties."

"Then Vance should have instructed you on the primary rule of this household, as his job is to keep this household in line when I'm unavailable," Kent said softly, though his tone carried the weight of an absolute command. "You are paid to clean, not to examine my personal effects. What happens in this wing remains untouched. Is that understood?"

A smarter servant would have bowed her head, apologized again, and hurried back to the safety of the kitchen. But as I looked at him... standing alone in this vast, quiet library, holding a memory he had tried so fiercely to blot out, I didn't just see an intimidating employer. I saw a man locked inside his own sanctuary, guarding his pain like treasure.

"It is understood, sir," I said quietly, holding his gaze for a second longer than was strictly polite. "Though... it seems a shame to leave such fine art hidden away in the dark."

Kent froze, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his features before his brow furrowed deeper. He stared at me as if I had spoken in a foreign language. No servant, and likely very few people, dared to question his mood or remark on his past.

"You have work to attend to, Catherine," he said, his voice dropping an octave, quieter now, but no less firm.

"Of course, sir," I replied softly. I gathered my cloth and duster, giving him a respectful nod before turning toward the exit.

As I reached the grand wooden doors, I couldn't resist pausing to look back over my shoulder. Kent hadn't moved. He was still standing in the beam of sunlight, holding the charcoal drawing in his hand, his eyes fixed not on the paper, but on the doorway where I stood.

I stepped out into the bright corridor, my hands still trembling slightly, but the lingering cold of the estate no longer felt quite as daunting.