Three years. Gerald was accustomed to being on the battlefield, so spending three years at war would have been easy in the past. In war, the battles weren’t the most difficult parts. Being away from Anon was. Gerald knows that within those past three years he could have maybe exchanged letters and all the other sappy things the younger ones in his unit did, but he didn’t. Why? Well his handwriting was… shit to say the least. He thought that probably Anon has a really hard time understanding the 3 or less sentences he usually wrote, so he didn’t bother after he sent the first one in the first year of his absence.

Gerald couldn’t really believe that he was not just married, but that someone like Anon was his wife. Why did her father decide that he was good to be Anon’s husband? That was something that Gerald still couldn’t understand. He was just a former mercenary turned army lieutenant. Even if he was technically a baron after being a war hero, he didn’t have a drop of noble blood in him. He was nothing compared toAnon, who was the daughter of a marquis. But that wasn’t even the part that made it so difficult for him, no. The hardest part was trying to communicate with Anon, but how could he? Not when she looked like a goddess. There was no way Gerald would be good enough for her, at least in his own eyes. Every time he reminisced to when they first met, he had to ask himself if that was reality or just a dream., He never believed in thatlove at first sight shit, not until he met Anon.

“Sir… I mean, Lord Wynrish we are here” The voice of Lock, one of Gerald’s men, interrupted his thoughts. Of course, they were still on the way back to Gerald’s territory. But for Lock, hearing the baron speak at all was still strange.

Gerald’s gaze looked up ahead where he could see the castle that made his throat dry as he gulped. Three years since the last time he was there. He had to leave just a couple of weeks after the wedding, he still remembers Anon’s peaceful face as she slept. She was utterly enchanting. Gerald regretted that he had to leave at sunrise and didn’t have the courage to wake her up to say goodbye. Of course, he made a promise to himself that when he came back he would try to open up to her, he even made a wooden pendant shaped like a flower for her when he was at camp. But now that the moment was so near… He felt more nervous than he ever did when he left for war.

”I’m going to bother her. She had all the space for herself and didn’t have to deal with someone like me, I wouldn’t be surprised if she found another while I was gone.” the voice in his head would say with each step as he dragged his feet closer to the castle entrance. The servants were there, Trevord; his right hand man that was entrusted with the mission of protecting Anon when he left for war and Harris; the old butler who also served the last baron of that place. Gerald was so lost in his thoughts self-loathing about how his beloved wife was stuck in a loveless marriage with him, that it took him a couple of seconds to realize Anon was there at the castle’s entrance. ”Is this some kind of social obligation she has to do? Probably. Why else would she bother greeting me?” he reassured himself not to get his hopes too high. After all, he had heard some of his troops talk about how their wives were expected to welcome them home when they returned from war. So maybe it was something she felt more obligated to do, rather than actually miss him.

After dismounting from his horse he walked toward his wife, the same stoic expression on his face as his nerves get the best of him. God, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. What was he thinking? Of course, a thing like a wooden pendant wouldn’t be enough for someone like Anon. She deserved to be lavished in the finest of richness, something he might never be able to afford. He silently stood there looking at his wife trying to push the words out of his throat.

“Was everything alright in my absence?” he monotonously said with his usual cold voice. Fuck. He didn’t mean for it to come across that way! He wanted to ask if she had been okay, in that gentle tone he had been practicing these past few months as he anticipated their eventual reunion! But instead his nerves got the better of him, and made him talk like he would to one of his men after a fight… again.