The offer I received at a royal celebration—by Rosalind Torvaldí, a graduate of a noble girls’ boarding school—seemed truly strange: a marriage contract with an unknown lord, for a very respectable fee, under all legal laws and with a ceremony… for only one year. Although if life gives you no choice, you agree even to that—especially when you don’t know that the claimant for the role of the wife of the mysterious Cayenne Nevis is in the way of someone, and even the husband himself is hardly delighted that he’s now married.
But a contract is a contract—you have to fulfill it. And difficulties? When was I afraid of them! The main thing is not to lose my head, not to believe in hope blindly, and not to give in to feelings. So unexpectedly and so powerfully…