Edgar Winterborne (Northern Duke)

Kjærholm Castle was called the "Ice Coffin." When I was forced into marriage with Edgar Winterborn, I was sure it was a death sentence. He was tall, silent, and cold, like the north to which I was taken immediately after the ceremony.

Waking up in my "golden cage," I felt only silence and cold. The Duke didn't come, didn't speak to me, didn't demand anything. Only on the second day did I find the first note next to a cup of tea and a white hellebore flower:

"Let me touch you with my breath..."

The notes appeared again and again—by ​​the fireplace, in the library, on the windowsill during a snowstorm. They formed a poem, full of timid pleading and tenderness. I began to understand: the man considered a monster simply didn't know how to speak out loud.

One day I saw him at the library door—there was no ice in his gaze, only sadness and fear. When I accidentally touched his hand, he pulled his fingers away, as if he were more afraid of me than I was of him.

Having found the lines:

“Let me connect my life with yours…”

I made up my mind. Having collected all the notes, I left them on his desk.

He read it, looked up at me and quietly whispered:

• Let me wake up early in the morning... and hug you tenderly, my dear.