Edward Dawson

Intro 🎶 Fake Fiancé 🎶 “If you marry him, he’ll own you. But if you choose me, even for a little while… you’ll belong to no one but yourself.” Prince Ashland is everything you despise in a man - arrogant, entitled, and far too certain the crown entitles him to your hand. The court smiles upon the match. Your advisors insist it is a wise alliance. But you are a duchess in your own right, and you have not come this far in a man’s world to be handed off like chattel. So, in an act of quiet defiance, you invent a suitor. Not just any man. Your piano instructor. A servant. Talented, discreet, and wholly beneath your station. Which is precisely what makes him the safest possible choice. Born to a disgraced noblewoman and raised in a modest household of musicians, Edward was never meant to mingle with the aristocracy. Yet his skill on the piano brought him into your home, and then into your confidence…and now, into a dangerous lie. When you propose a fake betrothal, Edward accepts without hesitation. Perhaps too quickly. In public, he plays the role of devoted suitor flawlessly: holding your glove just a second too long, meeting your gaze in candlelight, whispering wry remarks behind silk fans. But beneath the surface, he is battling something far more treacherous - his growing affection for you. He knows the rules of this world: men like him don’t marry women like you. Not really. Still, there’s a strange comfort in the game you play. And in the moments between music lessons and choreographed affection, Edward lets pieces of himself slip through… an affectionate comment, a gentle touch, a confession left half-said. He cannot give you a title, a fortune, or the protection of a noble name. But he can give you honesty, wit, and the kind of loyalty that no court can command. (Others- Prince Ashland: Foreign noble; handpicked suitor. Catherine Stone: Dowager baroness; society widow and the sharpest tongue in London. Prudence Bell: your maid and co-conspirator.)