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Regency England, 1816
The great ballroom glittered beneath a thousand candles. Crystal chandeliers swayed gently, scattering fractured light across silk gowns and polished uniforms. A string quartet played a waltz that felt almost too sweet for the weight of the evening.
Crown Prince Micheal stood near the tall windows, half-hidden behind a marble column. His simple black domino mask did little to conceal him; everyone knew the prince’s quiet posture and the way he carried his shoulders as though the entire kingdom rested there. At three-and-twenty he was already weary of the endless parade of eligible princesses and ambitious lords.
From a shadowed alcove across the room, Captain Edward Holt watched him.
Eddie’s own mask was plain and severe, matching the dark green of his guard uniform. The scar along his jaw was hidden tonight, but the tension in his stance was not. He had served as head of the Prince’s personal guard for three years now — a position granted after a past no one spoke of aloud. His duty was simple: keep the Prince safe.
His heart had never learned simplicity.
Across the ballroom, Lady Louise Donve — the sharp-tongued American cousin who had arrived six months earlier as a companion to the court — caught Eddie’s eye. She arched one brow behind her silver half-mask, the corner of her mouth lifting in dry amusement. She knew. She always knew.
She drifted closer to Micheal first, the soft rustle of her deep-blue gown announcing her.
“Your Highness,” she said, her faint Southern lilt threading through the words, “if you hide behind that column any longer, people will begin to think you are plotting a revolution rather than merely avoiding another waltz with Lady Harrington.”
Micheal smiled, small and tired. “I fear I have danced with every eligible lady in the room twice over. My feet are begging for mercy.”
Louise’s gaze flicked toward Eddie’s alcove for half a second. “Then perhaps you should grant them some. The gardens are quiet tonight.”
Micheal hesitated, then gave a grateful nod. “Will you walk with me?”
Louise’s eyes lingered once more on the shadowed alcove. “I believe your shadow would prefer that honor.”
She curtsied lightly and slipped away before he could protest.
The formal gardens were silvered by moonlight. Gravel paths crunched softly beneath their boots as Micheal and Eddie walked in silence. The air smelled of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. Eddie kept the proper three paces behind, hand resting on the hilt of his sword out of long habit.
Micheal finally slowed. “You need not stand on ceremony tonight, Eddie. Not out here.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened. He stepped forward until they walked side by side, though he still kept his hands clasped behind his back.
“You looked… weary in there,” Eddie said quietly. His London accent was low, rough at the edges. “Like the weight of the crown was pressing on your shoulders again.”
Micheal let out a soft breath that clouded in the cool night air. “It always does. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever meant for anything beyond duty and expectation.”
Eddie’s fingers flexed behind his back. He had a thousand things he wanted to say — things he had swallowed for three long years. That he would carry the crown for Micheal if he could. That he would burn half the kingdom if it meant the Prince could have one single night of peace. That every time Micheal smiled at him, something inside Eddie’s chest twisted like an old wound that refused to heal.
Instead he said only, “You carry it better than most men ever could.”
Micheal turned to look at him. For a moment the mask of the Crown Prince slipped, revealing the tired young man beneath.
“And you?” Micheal asked gently. “You carry more than your share as well. I know what they whisper about your past. I have never asked you to speak of it… but I hope you know you do not have to carry it alone.”
Eddie’s breath caught. The words landed like a blade between his ribs — kind, honest, and utterly unaware of how deeply they cut. He looked away toward the dark line of hedges, throat working.
“I chose this post,” he said at last, voice low. “Chose to stand at your side. That is enough.”
It wasn’t. It had never been enough. But it was all he would allow himself.
Later, long after the last guests had departed, Micheal stood on the private balcony of his apartments. The palace was quiet now, only the distant hoot of an owl breaking the stillness.
Eddie stood a respectful distance away, ever the guard, even when no one else was watching.
Micheal spoke without turning. “You may stand at ease, Eddie. There is no one here but us.”
Eddie hesitated, then stepped closer until he was beside the Prince at the stone railing. Moonlight caught the faint scar along his jaw.
They stood in silence for a long while.
Finally Eddie said, very quietly, “I would follow you anywhere, Your Highness. Even if the path led nowhere at all.”
Micheal turned his head. Their eyes met — one gaze open and kind, the other guarded and burning with everything he would never say aloud.
Micheal smiled, small and genuine. “Then I am glad to have you beside me, Captain.”
Eddie looked away first, swallowing hard against the ache in his chest.
Somewhere below in the garden, a woman’s soft laughter drifted up — Louise, no doubt, teasing one of the night guards about something trivial. The sound was light and familiar, a small reminder that the world continued on.
Eddie allowed himself one last glance at Micheal’s profile in the moonlight.
It would have to be enough.
The following morning the palace felt heavier than usual, as though the very stones had absorbed the tension of the previous night’s ball and refused to release it. Sunlight poured through the tall mullioned windows of the royal study, but it brought no warmth. It only illuminated the stack of betrothal documents spread across the mahogany desk like an accusation. Each page bore the heavy wax seals of neighboring kingdoms and the neat, merciless handwriting of the royal advisors.
Crown Prince Micheal sat with his elbows braced on the desk, head bowed, fingers pressed to his temples. He was twenty-three years old and already felt ancient. The names of three princesses stared up at him — all suitable, all politically advantageous, all completely devoid of any spark that might make a marriage feel like something other than another duty to be endured.
A soft knock sounded at the door. Before Micheal could answer, it opened.
Captain Edward Holt stepped inside, uniform immaculate, sword belted at his hip, expression carefully blank. The scar along his jaw was hidden beneath the high collar, but the tension in his shoulders was unmistakable.
“Your Highness,” Eddie said, voice low and steady. “The council is waiting in the Blue Salon.”
Micheal did not lift his head. “Let them wait.”
Eddie closed the door behind him but did not leave. He took up his usual position just inside the room — hands clasped behind his back, feet planted at parade rest — the silent sentinel he had become over the past three years. The silence between them felt different today, thicker, charged with everything Eddie refused to speak aloud.
After a long moment Micheal finally looked up. His eyes were tired, the kind of tired that came from carrying an entire kingdom on young shoulders.
“They want me married by spring, Eddie,” he said quietly. “They say the line must be secured. They say the kingdom needs stability after the war.” A bitter, fleeting smile touched his lips. “They do not ask what I need.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened, the scar pulling taut. Inside his chest something twisted hard. He wanted to say a thousand things. That he would stand beside Micheal through any marriage, any duty, any life that was forced upon him. That the thought of watching the Prince bind himself to someone else carved a fresh wound in his chest every single day. That he would rather burn every betrothal document himself than see Micheal unhappy for even one hour.
Instead he said, voice rough but steady, “You have carried heavier burdens, Your Highness. You will carry this one too.”
Micheal studied him for a long moment, hazel eyes searching Eddie’s face as though looking for something he could not quite name.
“And what of you, Captain?” he asked gently. “How long will you stand in the shadows watching me carry them?”
Eddie looked away toward the window, throat working. The morning light caught the faint scar along his jaw again.
“As long as you need me,” he answered.
The words were honest.
They were also a lie.
He needed Micheal far more than the Prince would ever need him.
That night, long after the palace had gone quiet, Eddie stood alone on the small balcony of the guard quarters. The same balcony where, three years earlier, he had knelt in blood-soaked clothes and offered his life to the young prince he had once been hired to kill.
The memory came unbidden, sharp as a blade.
He had been twenty-six then, already a ghost in the shadows of the long war. A paid blade. A man with no name and no future. The contract had been simple and lucrative: eliminate the Crown Prince before the peace negotiations could solidify his father’s alliances. Eddie had accepted without hesitation.
He had tracked the prince’s traveling party through the borderlands for three days. On a moonlit clearing he had raised his rifle, finger steady on the trigger, the crosshairs centered on the back of Micheal’s head.
And then the Prince had stepped into view.
Not the distant, untouchable royal figure Eddie had imagined, but a tired young man staring up at the stars with the weight of an entire kingdom already pressing on his shoulders. For one heartbeat Micheal had looked… human. Lonely. Kind.
Eddie’s finger had frozen on the trigger.
When the real assassins struck moments later, Eddie turned on them instead. He killed every last one with the cold, efficient brutality he had perfected over years of bloodshed. When the clearing fell silent, he dropped to one knee in the blood-soaked grass and said the only thing he could think of:
“I failed my orders tonight, Your Highness. If you wish to execute me for it, I won’t stop you.”
Micheal — shaken, exhausted, but still impossibly kind — had looked at the dangerous stranger kneeling before him and seen something no one else ever had.
He offered Eddie a pardon and a place at his side.
Eddie had accepted, not for redemption, but because for the first time in his violent life, someone had chosen mercy instead of fear.
He still woke some nights tasting blood and hearing the voice of the man who had once paid him to end Micheal’s life.
Eddie gripped the stone railing until his knuckles whitened. The scar on his jaw pulled tight. He closed his eyes and whispered into the night air, voice barely audible:
“I chose you that night. I choose you every night since.”
The words dissolved into the darkness, unanswered.
Two weeks later the whispers began.
They spread through the court like smoke from a hidden fire: the Prince’s guard captain had a violent past. Some said he was a deserter. Others whispered he had once been a hired killer. A few bolder voices suggested the Prince was foolish to keep such a dangerous man so close to the throne.
Louise heard the rumors first. She always did.
She found Eddie in the stables one grey afternoon, brushing down his horse with short, angry strokes. The big bay stallion stamped restlessly, sensing the tension in his master’s hands. Louise leaned against the stall door, arms crossed, her silver locket glinting at her throat.
“You’re the talk of the court again,” she said without preamble. “They’re calling you the Prince’s wolf. Some are even saying you’re dangerous.”
Eddie didn’t look up. His brush moved in steady, forceful strokes. “They’re not wrong.”
Louise’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re not wrong either. But I also know you’d cut your own throat before letting anyone harm him. So tell me, Captain — why do you look like a man waiting for the axe to fall?”
Eddie’s hand stilled on the horse’s flank. For a long moment he said nothing. Then, voice low and rough:
“Because some debts can never be paid. And some sins can never be forgiven.”
Louise studied him, the sharp edge in her gaze softening just a fraction. She had seen the way Eddie looked at Micheal when he thought no one was watching. She had also seen the darkness that clung to him like a second shadow.
“Whatever you’re carrying, Eddie… it’s poisoning you. And if it poisons him too, I will not stand by and watch.”
She turned to leave, then paused at the stall door.
“Protect him. That’s all I ask. The rest… is between you and whatever ghosts you keep feeding.”
The attack came three nights later.
A small group of masked men slipped over the palace walls during the changing of the guard. Their target was clear: the Crown Prince.
Eddie was the first to reach Micheal’s chambers. He moved like the killer he used to be — silent, ruthless, efficient. Two assassins fell before they even drew their blades. The third managed to graze Eddie’s side with a dagger before Eddie drove his own blade home with cold precision.
When the last man lay dead on the carpet, Eddie stood over Micheal, blood on his hands and soaking the white shirt beneath his open coat. Micheal stared at him, wide-eyed, the mask of the prince gone completely.
“You… you saved me,” Micheal whispered.
Eddie’s voice was hoarse, almost broken. “I always will.”
Later, in the quiet of Micheal’s private sitting room, the fire crackled low. Eddie sat with his shirt open, a fresh bandage wrapped tightly around his ribs. Micheal knelt beside him, changing the dressing with careful, scholarly hands.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Micheal said softly. “You could have called the guard.”
Eddie looked down at the prince’s bent head, the ache in his chest sharper than the wound itself.
“I couldn’t risk it,” he said. “Not with you.”
Micheal looked up, eyes searching Eddie’s face. “Why do you protect me like this? Why do you look at me the way you do?”
Eddie’s throat worked. The words he had buried for three years rose, burning.
“Because the first time I saw you, I was supposed to kill you. And instead… I chose you. I have chosen you every day since.”
The silence that followed was heavy, sacred.
Micheal’s hand stilled on the bandage. His voice was quiet, almost wondering.
“I never knew.”
Eddie gave a small, broken smile. “You weren’t meant to.”
The next morning the palace gardens were quiet. Dew clung to the grass like scattered diamonds. Louise found Eddie standing alone beneath the same jasmine hedge where he and Micheal had walked weeks earlier.
She stopped a few paces away, arms crossed, the Southern lilt in her voice gentle but firm.
“You’re in love with him,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Eddie didn’t deny it. He simply looked out over the dew-covered lawns and said, very quietly,
“Yes.”
Louise studied him for a long moment. The sharp edge she usually carried softened, just a fraction.
“He cares for you too, you know. In his own way. But he is a prince. And you… you are what you are.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
She stepped closer, voice dropping.
“Then let that be enough, Captain. Love him the only way you can. Protect him. Stand beside him. And never ask for more than he can give.”
Eddie swallowed hard. The ache in his chest was still there — raw, unending — but for the first time it felt… bearable.
He looked toward the palace, where Micheal’s silhouette could be seen at the window of his study, head bent over yet another stack of documents.
“It will have to be enough,” Eddie said at last.
Louise nodded once, satisfied.
“Then we understand each other.”
She turned to leave, then paused.
“And Eddie?”
He looked at her.
“If you ever hurt him… I will be the one holding the knife next time.”
Eddie’s mouth twitched — the ghost of a smile.
“I’d expect nothing less, Lady Donve.”
The End.