Dragon Age One Shots

Regency Cullen 18

Not even the rumormongers pressing upon his station can shake the smile off of Cullen's lips. It'd been relentless these past five moons, to the point he once found himself whistling while in the tub. Perhaps it was unseemly for the lord of the manor to skip about like a giddy schoolboy, but for the first time in ages, he felt as if he wanted to fly.

The sound of the front door opening punctures through the silent office. He meant to use his time to finally fill out the forms the Vicar and others shoved under his nose, but when Gwen circled past his window all hope was lost. She, still in her Governess role, ignored the lecherous old man watching from the shadows. All save a small rosy blush on her cheeks and a tiny wave of her fingers before Branson's lessons required him and her elsewhere on the grounds.

Cullen hears the tell-tale sound of the creaking knobs to his study opening. It must be the jeweler he sent for. Gwen keeps insisting she need not a ring, but he wants to do this properly. Even if his proposal was far from proper.

That smile winds back over his lips, his eyes hazing over with memories of her body cupped around his. The proposal was perfect in every detail, but not proper.

"Milord," James announces, Cullen's head snapping up. He has a few ideas for a ring, preferably an emerald to try and approach the beauty of her eyes.

Rising from his desk, cane in hand, he steps towards the shadow gliding in behind James. And his jaw drops. "Caroline?"

"Yes, thank you, Steward," the Countess shakes her head once at the weary man who closes the door behind her.

"What are you doing here?" Cullen stutters, before glancing back at the mountain of Duke-work he let pile up. "Did we have an appointment? I don't remember...?"

"Cullen," she sighs, the only woman to never use his title. "Tell me it isn't so."

"That I forgot our meeting?" He stumbles in confusing, staring at her. For a beat, his eyes drift down of their own accord and he finds himself grateful that she is in a modest high neckline dress. A repeat of their last meeting would be a disaster should any in the house overhear it.

Caroline clips once across the floor, her hand perched upon a parasol. "That you, fool that you are, are engaged to your Governess!" her voice rises into a squeak at the news, her eyes flaring at him.

"So it's hit the papers..." He didn't think he'd finished the request for that to be made public yet.

"Of course it has! You're the Duke of Honnleath! Everyone in the entire holding knows about your goings and comings."

"Caroline..."

"What is this? Grief? Are you still mourning your father and acting out as if its some return to a rebellious faze you passed?"

A sneer claims his sunny smile, clouds darkening as Cullen watches the first woman to break his heart attempt to do it a second time. "I am of sound mind, Caroline. And was in high spirits...until your arrival."

"Dukes do not marry Governess', or washerwomen, or bakers, or anything of the sort. There is an order to things--"

"The Prince gave me permission," he begins before the hackles rise. How dare she stomp in here, uproot his start a life with a woman he loves. "I cannot believe you," his tone flips from apologetic to snarling so fast Caroline freezes in her tracks. "Did my finding happiness upend your plans? What? Once you learned I was Duke did you assume that I'd wait until your husband died and finally make you a Duchess?"

The high-born woman whose idea of work is cutting a person down to size with just her tongue huffs thrice. But it's clear from her lack of comeback that it was so, she assumed she could keep him forever in the wings. Her backup plan.

Caroline closes her harsh blue eyes and pulls in a breath. In a measured tone she no doubt uses on her children, she says, "What do you even know of this woman?"

"That I love her more deeply than the ocean's unreachable bottom." The least poetic imagery he could dream up, and not something to use in the vows, but Cullen means it.

Those cold eyes meet his and she sighs, "You loved me like that once as well."

"And you left..."

"No, you left," Caroline prods at his chest. "Don't even ask me, don't even inform me you've given up your title to your brother, upended your life, mine, everything I saw for my future, so you could take to the sea!"

"I..." Cullen clacks his jaw, shamed by the impetuous 18-year-old he once was who only saw shackles in his future. He thought he could save himself and if he didn't do it quickly, he'd never be free of it. Consequences came later, much later. "I didn't mean to ruin your life. Regardless, you were quick to find a new path. Married when I'd barely been on ship for two months."

"Yes, I did marry because all my life I was assured that I'd be with you. And you left, in the middle of the night. You abandoned me for the navy leaving me with no future but to grow old and unwanted. To never have children of my own. You couldn't even gift me the possibility of being your wife waiting for you to return. If you'd died out there, with no vows spoken to me, with all assuming I'd already been to your bed, what would I be left with?"

He hadn't considered... In truth, at that age, he thought of his marriage to her as part of becoming a Duke. That he couldn't have one without the other. "If I'd asked that night, would you have...?"

"Run away with you? Marry you? Elope?" Caroline's resolve is shattered, her eyes drifting to the windows to try and hide her tears. "I was foolish as a girl, at least when it came to you. So perhaps. Perhaps I would have spat in the face of everyone in my family and agreed to your impetuous plan. But you never gave me the chance."

His stomach twists in a knot, Cullen trying to stare anywhere but the woman huffing on his rug. She always was the best at knotting his brain to her logic. He was the cad, she the fair maiden in every argument, every discussion. But he wasn't the one to try to seduce her. He accepted that she was out of his reach and he moved on.

To the most wonderful woman imaginable. Forget Caroline, forget what cruel words she spoke. The man she knew is no more, his young innocence baptized in blood and war. Perhaps Cullen was impetuous in his choices, but seeing what she's become today, he doesn't regret leaving her behind with his title.

"You married so quickly, I was in the midst of writing a letter to you when I got word," he whispers, his teeth bared.

"I did my womanly duty to my family, to myself. I married well. It was all I could do in the face of your betrayal."

"Get out," Cullen hisses, a finger jabbing to the door. "Get out of my home, out of my holdings, out of my life! All you care about is yourself, and you came here to try and ruin what happiness I have because you have none for yourself."

Caroline is unlike anyone else in his circle. She does not bow or break, her chin high. "I adore my children, they are my happiness. And, as bullheaded as you are, I still care for you all these years on. I called in for every letter from you, celebrated when you left the navy. Worried even in my marital bed."

"Then why can't you be happy for me?"

A snort rolls from her nose, Caroline gathering up her skirts. She says not a word while turning to the door, taking his order as genuine. A pang flutters through Cullen's heart -- uncertain if he can really cast her aside for life. Caroline pauses at the threshold, her gloved palm drawing down the door.

"Whoever you think this woman is, however she's captured your heart, you should know..." Caroline turns, her sharp eyes burning into his, "Lord Trevelyan had no sons."