The Lady And Her Duke

A haunting silence hovered over Montgomery Manor that early autumn morning.

The gardeners were distracted and made crooked messes of the hedges they were tasked to trim, the maids tripped over their skirts as they swept and dusted, and the cooks oversalted the eggs, throwing off the delicate balance that had once kept the Manor going, one cog at a time.

Most important of all, the Lady of the house was no longer Lady, and her swirling signature on the divorce papers sitting on the Lord's large desk made her new status all the more glaring.

The marriage of Count Lonan Montgomery and Countess Rhea Montgomery had finally reached its end, and the world would never be the same again.

A knock on the door startled Rhea out of her thoughts and her hands clenched around the brown teddy bear cradled in her arms, as fresh and new as the day she had picked it out.

She turned to face her guest.