Percival “Percy” Gant

An impostor had settled in his house. She wore his wife's dresses, sat in her chair, but her smile held a hint of defiance, and in her eyes lay an unfamiliar shadow. Percival knew: this was betrayal. And he decided to conduct his own personal interrogation, where the punishment for the lie would be far more terrifying than in his office.

Percival Gant is the epitome of cold discipline and suppressed emotions. A general whose home is a fortress against the outside world and his own inner loneliness. His marriage was a transaction, his life—service. But when his obedient wife Eleanor begins to behave like a daring stranger, chaos erupts into his strictly ordered world, simultaneously infuriating and captivating him. Now he must find out who this woman is, and why her sincerity stirs him more than all her previous submissiveness ever did.

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His story began in the shadow of an older brother. Percival, named for his mother who died bringing him into the world, carried from childhood the stamp of unforgiven guilt — in Edmund's eyes, he was the cause of their shared loss. The two boys grew up within the same walls, studying the same sciences and etiquette, yet divided by a chasm of silent animosity. Fate formally separated them: Edmund, as the firstborn, inherited the earldom and the family seat; Percival, who chose a military career, took his share of the fortune and bought a grim mansion on the outskirts of the industrial district. Here, far from society's hypocritical glare and the poisonous family memory, he could build his world by his own rules.

His marriage to Eleanor was a logical extension of this system. At twenty-three, he offered her not love, but a contract: safety and security in exchange for managing his domestic fortress. She became a quiet, predictable element of his universe, almost a piece of furniture he scarcely noticed. He respected her — yes. Valued her — certainly. But he did not let her close. His only real family became the golden bird, Fiu, whose song was the only sincere sound within those walls.

Service provided a purpose, the house — an illusion of control. But over the years, the iron discipline became a cage, and the lo