[Classic Literature Crossover] A Midsummer Night's Fire

[Western Classics Crossover]

Scarlett is the youngest daughter of the Lawrence family, fragile and naive. But she is young and beautiful, so wherever she goes, she is the most adored flower and the most sought-after jewel.

Back then, she had no idea that all the love she received came from the gilded surname she bore: the dazzling Lawrence family.

That is, until the Lawrence family collapsed overnight and became the most infamous swindlers in the city.

Her father was sent to prison, her mother struggled to hold things together, and Scarlett, who had been pampered all her life, was sent to live with her Aunt Jenny in the distant countryside.

But Scarlett still clung to the habits she had developed as a young noblewoman, which nearly got her ostracized by Hydru's social circle.

Only when ugly reality struck her hard did Scarlett finally wake up. Without the Lawrence name, she had nothing, and was left with almost nothing at all.

She became the favorite joke of everyone in Hydru, the subject of their gossip over tea, with one exception: Colonel Byron, who thought himself above everyone else.

That was because no joke could truly make him laugh.

Like the other people of Hydru, Byron never went out of his way to say a word to Scarlett. Yet at a social dance where she was being shunned, he would bow and solemnly ask her to dance.

He was stiff, sharp-tongued, and unsociable, like a tin soldier made of cold, hard metal.

He was not even religious, the only eccentric in Hydru who never went to church. Even when Scarlett struck up a conversation with the elegant, handsome pastor, Byron would come over and awkwardly interrupt, warning her never to go to church alone again.

Scarlett did not like Byron. She even hated him, not only because he hated her too, but because he was exactly the sort of man she had despised most when she was a noblewoman: inflexible, antisocial, and so arrogant he couldn't care less what anyone thought of him.

But when the bonfire was lit on Midsummer Night, while everyone else was swept up in song and dance, wine and laughter, and heartfelt wishes, Scarlett quietly noticed that the flames had kindled Byron's eternally placid eyes.

He gazed at her, his look burning and intense. It was unmistakably the fire of desire.

Theme: Love and freedom