The door opened, and Lydia von Rosenfeld entered.
She was exactly as Cassian remembered—tall, poised, with dark hair swept back from a face that was lovely but guarded.
She wore a simple gown of deep blue, high at the throat, and her hands were folded in front of her as if she were walking into a negotiation rather than a meeting with her former fiancé.
Which, Cassian supposed, she was.
“Your Grace,” she said, and her voice was exactly as he remembered: cool, musical, and utterly controlled.
“You requested a meeting.
I am here.” Cassian turned from the window.
He met her eyes and held them, not with the old arrogance, but with a quiet sincerity that he had learned in a world where pretension meant nothing.
“Lady Lydia,” he said.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me.” She paused, as if expecting him to say more.
When he didn’t, she gestured to a chair.
“Will you sit?” “Only if you will.” She sat.
He sat across from her.
A small table stood between them, bearing a porcelain teapot and two cups, steam still rising.
Someone had anticipated that this conversation might need tea.
Lydia did not touch it.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Lydia’s eyes studied him with open suspicion, and Cassian let her look.
He had nothing to hide.
“You look different,” she said finally.
“Different?” “Yes.” She tilted her head slightly.
“I cannot explain it.
Your face is the same.
Your voice is the same.
But something in the way you hold yourself…
it’s not what I remember.” Cassian considered his answer.
He had known this question would come.
He had prepared a dozen versions of the truth, each one less unbelievable than the last.
None of them would work.
So he chose the simplest lie he could manage.
“I have been ill,” he said.
“A collapse, some weeks ago.
The physicians could not explain it.
When I woke, I found myself…
re-evaluating many things.” “Re-evaluating?” Her tone was polite but razor-edged.
“Men like you do not re-evaluate, Your Grace.
They conquer.
They command.
They do not change.” “Then perhaps I am not the man you thought I was.” She stared at him.
The guarded look in her eyes did not waver, but something shifted beneath it—a flicker of confusion, quickly suppressed.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Truly?” Cassian took a breath.
This was the moment.
He had rehearsed the words a hundred times on the road south, and now they came to him with the ease of something long practiced.
“I am here to release you.” Lydia went very still.
“Release me?” “From our engagement.” He spoke calmly, clearly, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
“I know you did not choose it.
I know your family pressured you into it, for the sake of trade and alliance.
I know that you have dreaded the day you would have to stand beside me and call yourself my wife.” Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“I am not here to hold you to a promise you never wanted to make,” Cassian continued.
“I will dissolve the betrothal.
Publicly.
I will take whatever blame is necessary to preserve your reputation.
The trade agreements between our houses will remain intact.
Your family will not suffer for this.
You will not suffer for this.” He paused.
The firelight danced across Lydia’s frozen expression.
“You are free.” For a long moment, the only sound was the crackling of the flames.
Then Lydia spoke, and her voice was very quiet.
“Why?” “Because I do not want a wife who cannot bear to look at me,” Cassian said.
“And because…” He hesitated.
The old Cassian would have stopped there.
The new Cassian pressed on.
“Because I was not kind to you.
In the years since our betrothal, I treated you as a formality.
An inconvenience.
I never asked what you wanted.
I never considered your happiness.
That was wrong.” Lydia blinked.
“You are…
apologizing?” “Yes.” “The Wolf of the North is apologizing.” “The Wolf of the North,” Cassian said quietly, “has learned that he has much to apologize for.” She stood up abruptly and walked to the window.
Her back was to him, her shoulders rigid.
When she spoke again, her voice was carefully controlled.
“Do you know how many nights I spent dreading this marriage?
How many times I begged my father to find another way?
I have hated you for years, Your Grace.
Silently, from a distance.
I have imagined this conversation so many times, and in every version, I was the one begging, and you were the one refusing.” She turned.
Her eyes were bright, but no tears fell.
“And now you sit here, calm and quiet, and you give me everything I wanted.
Just like that.
Without a fight.
Without a price.” She shook her head slowly.
“Who are you?” Cassian rose from his chair.
“I am a man who is trying to be better than he was,” he said.
“That is all.
I don’t expect your forgiveness.
I don’t expect your gratitude.
I only wanted to do the right thing, for once.” Lydia stared at him.
The silence stretched.
Then, very quietly, she said: “You have changed.” “Yes.” “I don’t understand it.” “You don’t have to.” She took a step toward him, then stopped.
“The ball,” she said.
“You will attend?” “Yes.” “Then we will see each other there.
I will…
I will need time to process this.” Cassian nodded.
“Take all the time you need.
The official annulment can be filed whenever you wish.
I will not rush you.” He moved toward the door, but her voice stopped him.
“Your Grace?” He turned.
Lydia was still standing by the window, the winter light framing her silhouette.
For the first time, her expression was not guarded or cold or wary.
It was simply open.
“Thank you,” she said.
Cassian inclined his head.
“It was the least I could do.” He left the drawing room, walked through the rose-scented garden, and passed through the iron gates into the streets of the capital.
Behind him, Lydia von Rosenfeld stood at the window and watched him go, her hand pressed against the glass, her mind full of questions she had never thought to ask.