His Broken Luna From The Shadows

"You can go now, Eleanor." Agnes, the scullery matron, wiped her hands on a stained apron.

Her voice was flat, devoid of any warmth. "Your family is here for you." Eleanor didn't stop scrubbing. The rough stone floor was cold against her chapped knuckles.

The motion was automatic, a rhythm her body had known for three years. Only the words registered, slowly, like a distant bell. Family. She paused.

The dripping of a leaky faucet filled the silence. "Which family?" she asked. Her voice was raspy from disuse. Agnes blinked, thrown by the question. "Your brother, of course.

Julian Montgomery." Eleanor's breath hitched for a single, imperceptible moment. Then, it was gone. She pushed herself up.

Her knees screamed in protest, joints stiff and swollen from years of kneeling on cold stone. The pain was a familiar friend. She didn't change.

The coarse, gray servant's dress, washed so many times it was nearly white, hung on her thin frame. It was her skin now. She followed Agnes out of the damp, moldscented scullery.

The sudden sunlight was a physical blow. Eleanor raised a hand to shield her eyes.

For a flash, the light caught a lattice of old, silvery scars on her forearm before she let her hand drop. A carriage, gleaming and impossibly ornate, stood in the muddy courtyard.

The Montgomery family crest was emblazoned on the door, a proud griffin that seemed to mock the surrounding filth. The door swung open.

Julian Montgomery stepped out, a silk handkerchief pressed to his nose. His polished boots hesitated before touching the grimy ground.

His eyes swept the area with undisguised disgust. Then his gaze landed on her. His brow furrowed. "Get in the carriage. Quickly.

Don't let anyone see you looking like that." Eleanor didn't answer. She simply dipped into a perfect, shallow curtsy. The curtsy of a servant.

Then she walked toward the carriage, her back ramrod straight. Her obedience seemed to frustrate him more than any argument would have. A vein pulsed in his temple.

He let out an exasperated breath and followed her inside, slamming the door shut. The interior was a shock of plush velvet and soft leather.

It smelled of money and a life she had almost forgotten. The carriage lurched forward.

The driver, Frank, glanced back through the small window, a flicker of pity in his eyes before he quickly looked away. The silence inside was heavy, suffocating.

Only the rattle of the wheels on the stone path broke the tension. Finally, Julian couldn't stand it. "Mother has had new clothes prepared for you. A room has been made ready.

When we get back to the manor, you will forget this place." He waited for a response. None came. "And you will not cause any more trouble.

No more stunts to embarrass the family." Eleanor's gaze was fixed on the bleak, passing landscape outside the window. As if he hadn't spoken.

His patience snapped. "Eleanor, I am talking to you!" She turned her head slowly. Her green eyes, once bright and full of life, were now like still, deep water.

Empty. "Thank you for your concern, Young Master," she said. Her tone was eerily calm. The title hit him like a slap.

His face flushed with anger. "What did you call me?" Eleanor tilted her head, a picture of polite confusion. "You are the Marquis's heir. I am a servant of the estate.

Is my form of address incorrect?" Her words were not a weapon.

They were a scalpel, sliding between his ribs with surgical precision. "Stop this pathetic act!" He grabbed her shoulder, his fingers digging into the thin fabric of her dress.

She didn't flinch. She didn't resist. She simply let him shake her. "This is not an act, Young Master.

It is my station." She looked directly into his furious eyes, her own gaze unwavering. "A servant who has worked in the scullery for three years," she said, her voice a soft, chilling whisper, "Eleanor." She deliberately left off the name Montgomery.

He froze, his hand still on her shoulder. The absolute calm in her eyes, the utter lack of feeling, was more unnerving than any screaming match. It was like striking a ghost.

All his anger, his superiority, it found no purchase. It simply passed through her. Julian snatched his hand back as if burned.

The only sound in the carriage was his own ragged breathing. Eleanor turned her head and looked out the window again, as if the confrontation had never happened.

Julian's rage, denied a target, boiled over. He lunged for the carriage door and threw it open with a crash.

Cold wind whipped into the luxurious cabin. "If you want to be a servant so badly," he roared, his face a mask of fury, "then you can go back to the manor like one!" He grabbed her arm, his grip brutal.

He was stronger. He had always been stronger. Eleanor's body, frail from years of malnutrition, offered no resistance.

He dragged her across the velvet seat and hauled her out of the carriage. She landed hard on the dirt road. Sharp gravel bit into her knees, a searing, immediate pain.

Julian loomed in the carriage doorway, looking down at her. His eyes were cold, merciless. "Walk.

And reflect on your place." The driver, Frank, a man who had known her since she was a child, turned pale. "Young Master, perhaps..." Julian shot him a look that could curdle milk.

Frank's mouth snapped shut. The carriage door slammed. With a lurch, it sped away, kicking up a spray of mud that splattered across Eleanor's worn dress.

She lay there for a moment, the pain in her knee a hot, pulsing thing. She didn't cry. Tears were a luxury she had unlearned. This was just the beginning.

The Montgomery family's welcome home. Slowly, she pushed herself up. The movement sent a fresh wave of agony through her right knee, aggravating an old injury.

Each shift of weight was a trial. She looked toward the distant, magnificent silhouette of Montgomery Manor. Her expression was terrifyingly serene. Then, she began to walk.

Her limp was pronounced, but her steps were steady. One foot in front of the other. She ignored the curious, pitying stares of farmers passing in their carts.

The pain was a grounding force. It reminded her of worse things. A beating in the dark. A burn from a careless cook. Compared to that, this was nothing.

The sound of hoofbeats approached from behind, heavier and more powerful than Julian's carriage. Eleanor's body tensed instinctively.

A flicker of a desperate, childish impulse to turn, to ask for help, rose in her throat. She swallowed it down. She had no expectations of anyone anymore. She kept her eyes forward.

A carriage, stark black and trimmed in silver, pulled alongside her, slowing to match her painful pace.

The emblem on its door was a wolf's head, rendered in stark, intimidating lines. It was less ostentatious than Julian's, but it radiated a far greater sense of power.

A hand in a black leather glove pushed open the window. A face appeared, handsome and forged from ice. Platinum blond hair, eyes the color of a frozen sea. Duke Alistair Sinclair.

Eleanor's breathing stopped for a single, sharp second. The man she had once looked up to. The man who was now her sister Iris's fiancé.

His gaze swept over her pathetic state, lingering for a fraction of a second on her bleeding knee.

His expression was a blank slate, as if he were looking at a stray dog on the side of the road. Three years ago, it was his silence, his quiet agreement, that had sealed her fate.

She quickly crushed the bitter taste in her mouth, lowered her eyes, and dipped her head in a gesture of deference.

His voice was as cold as his eyes. "Get in." It was not a request. It was a command.

Eleanor didn't move. "Thank you, Your Grace," she said softly, her voice steady. "But my station is low. I would not wish to soil your carriage." She used her identity as a shield.

A refusal he couldn't argue with without appearing unreasonable. Alistair's brow twitched, a barely perceptible tightening.

The temperature inside the carriage seemed to drop several degrees.

Alistair's iceblue eyes watched her for ten full seconds. The silence was a physical weight.

Eleanor held her subservient pose, every muscle in her body coiled tight with vigilance. Suddenly, he pushed his door open and stepped out of the carriage.

He stood before her, his tall frame blocking the sun. His shadow fell over her, a cloak of immense pressure. Eleanor took an involuntary halfstep back.

The tiny movement did not escape his notice. His eyes seemed to grow colder. He didn't touch her. "Iris would be worried to see you like this," he said.

The words were a clever maneuver. He had created a reason for his actions that had nothing to do with her, everything to do with his fiancée.

It was a perfect, socially acceptable excuse. Eleanor's gaze dropped to the dusty road.

She couldn't tell if his words stemmed from genuine concern for Iris or from the hollow chivalry of a nobleman toward his fiancée's sister.

Either way, it had nothing to do with her. This concern was not for her. The realization swept away all other emotions, leaving only a cold, hard wall of caution.

She looked up, her face a mask of polite, distant pleasantry. "If it is for Miss Iris, then I should not refuse." She accepted his excuse, but in doing so, she made it clear: she was getting in the carriage because of Iris, not because of him.

Biting back a gasp of pain from her knee, she moved toward the door herself, refusing any offer of a helping hand.

Alistair watched her stubborn, limping form, his gloved hands clenching into tight fists at his sides.

Inside, Eleanor pressed herself into the far corner, creating as much distance as the space would allow.

The air was thick with the scent of cedar and cold winter air that clung to him, a scent that had once made her heart race. Now it only made her feel suffocated.

Alistair entered, and the small space seemed to shrink. He reached into a hidden compartment and produced a small, elegant firstaid box. He opened it.

Inside lay clean bandages and a small pot of ointment. "Treat your wound," he said, holding the box out to her. His tone left no room for argument.

Eleanor looked at the delicate porcelain pot, then back at his face. She did not take it. "Thank you, Your Grace. But a servant cannot use something so valuable." The third refusal.

The third time she had thrown her new identity in his face. Alistair's patience finally broke. He snatched the pot, twisted the lid off with a sharp crack, and leaned toward her.

He was going to do it himself. Eleanor's body went rigid.

A switch flipped in her mind, and she reacted like a cornered animal. "Your Grace, I must ask you to maintain your decorum!" she snapped, scrambling back into the corner, her voice sharp with panic and revulsion.

Her reaction was so violent it stopped him cold. His hand froze in midair. He stared at her, at the genuine fear and disgust in her eyes.

A flicker of something—hurt, confusion—passed through his own icy gaze. Slowly, he retracted his hand.

He placed the pot of ointment on the seat beside her with a hard thud. "As you wish," he bit out. He turned his head to stare out the window, his profile a hard, unforgiving line.

He did not look at her again. The silence that followed was a thousand times more tense than before.

The carriage finally rolled to a stop before the grand entrance of Montgomery Manor. For Eleanor, it felt like a pardon.

She moved to get out before the footman could even open the door.