Snow fell in relentless gusts outside a lowly pub perched near a frozen lake on the outskirts of Brighton. Within its walls, a rowdy gathering huddled around a dimly lit gambling table. Among them, leaning unsteadily over a hand of cards, sat a pale-skinned young man with piercing green eyes and a mane of unkempt brown hair. At about 6'2, with sharp, handsome features only slightly dulled by exhaustion, Lysander looked every bit a disheveled gentleman of his time, though more ragged and careworn than well-to-do. He gave a self-satisfied smirk before downing another gulp of the pungent ale.
"Can't believe I lost again," Lysander muttered, almost to himself, as he turned his nearly empty pockets inside out. His smirk had transformed into a bewildered frown as he slid his last shilling across the table.
"You didn't lose, mate. We just kept winning." One of the men jeered, his grin revealing teeth that were yellowed and chipped. Lysander gave the man a narrowed, defiant look, his drunken state emboldening him.
"I am not the one losing here. It's you lot who've manipulated the very nature of relativity, bending the fabric of probability," Lysander slurred, gesturing with grandiosity and an air of scholarly importance that was quite lost on the group.
"Oh, aye? Einstein's been havin' a sip o' the good stuff, then?" one of the men laughed, clearly amused by Lysander's drunken philosophizing.
"You are cheats. All of you," Lysander declared, rising a bit unsteadily to his feet. "Cunning devils, incapable of honest sport. Swindlers with a penchant for… misfortune."
The amused expressions around the table darkened as the men began to exchange glances. "Enough o' yer fancy talk. Pay up, or we'll be forcin' it out of you."
When He didn't immediately comply, they rose from their seats, closing in on him with grim expressions. Sensing that a discussion of metaphysics wouldn't save him, Lysander tried to back away, only to find himself trapped by the length of his own threadbare coat.
"Well, come then," Lysander muttered, bracing himself as they closed in, fists ready. "There are worse things than being bested by a pack of brutes, though I'd have thought you could afford a bath between you."
Before he knew it, blows started flying. Lysander did his best to swing back, even managing to land a punch or two. But in his drunken state, his hits were more slaps than punches. Within moments, the gang had him pinned in an armlock, his cap tossed aside, brown trousers now thoroughly torn. They didn't stop until Lysander, bloodied and bruised, could barely stand.
With one final shove, the gang tossed him out the pub door, leaving him sprawled on the snow-covered cobblestone, with only the sound of drunken laughter fading into the distance.
He lay there, breath billowing in small, defeated puffs against the cold night air, gazing up at the snow-filled sky.
You know, some folks say adversity builds character. In my experience, it mostly just builds bruises," he mused wryly. "But at least, when one's down here at rock bottom, one has nowhere to go but... no, actually, the only place to go from here is to an early grave or a debtor's prison, isn't it?"
In his mind, he was transported back to a simpler time: a creaky old house at the heart of Brighton, the faint glow of a fire casting flickering shadows over dusty walls. Little Lysander, no older than five, lay sprawled on the wooden floor of his bedroom, attempting to arrange a set of colorful wooden bricks into a tower. His brows were furrowed in fierce concentration, his tongue poking out as he struggled with the blocks. The simple task seemed more like an impossible feat, each brick slipping from his small fingers.
Then came the familiar sound of his mother's voice—sharp and unsympathetic. "Lysander, Lysander, my dear child… oh, how dense could you be?" She swept into the room, blonde hair tied back in a severe bun, blue flowers embroidered onto her dress.
He looked up, meeting her unimpressed gaze with a cautious smile, hoping for even a hint of encouragement. Instead, he was met with a sigh of exasperation.
"Not the kind of words you'd expect from a loving mother, no?" Lysander mused bitterly in his flashback.
As his mother began straightening his mismatched blocks, the door creaked open again, and in walked his father, a tall, bearded man with graying hair and those same piercing green eyes. His voice carried the usual blend of disappointment and faint amusement.
My dear, did we birth a caveman, or is our child genuinely considering the concept of triangles as squares?"
The five-year-old Lysander looked up at them, clutching one of the blocks, his green eyes wide with earnest confusion. "I thought... maybe... they'd just fit if I wished hard enough," he murmured, a small frown on his face.
"Ah, yes," his father replied with a laugh as cold as the draft coming in from the window. "I'm sure geometry is just about wishful thinking, son. But in 1877, we tend to go with logic. It's quite the fashion these days."
His mother tutted and crouched down, giving him a pat on the head that was somehow both encouraging and dismissive. "Oh, Lysander, you precious little dunce."
Lysander tried to hold back his tears. Even then, he knew better than to show weakness.
"Of course, that caveman was obviously me," He muttered, bitterness tinging the memory. He'd been different from other children, though he'd never understood why the simplest tasks—tying his shoelaces, stacking blocks—eluded him. It wasn't his fault. "After all, I was blessed with talents of a different sort, no?"
Lysander's mind wandered to those long corridors, that relentless drone of the school bell, and the suffocating scent of chalk dust and varnished wood. Brighton Grammar School was, in all its solemnity, a grand institution—well, grand enough for boys with sharp minds and sharper elbows. Sadly, Lysander's elbows were neither sharp nor willing to stay free of bruises.
One such day, as eight-year-old Lysander marched into school with his head held high—at least, as high as it could be when facing Fred Morrison—he was met with a familiar sight. Fred, towering and smug, blocked the entrance to the main hallway, arms crossed, a glint of mischief in his eyes. Behind him, his loyal gang of lackeys sneered, waiting for their morning ritual of torment to begin.
But today, He felt a spark of defiance stir within him. He wasn't just going to stand there and take it. Oh no, today he was going to show Morrison exactly what he thought of his bullying.
With an exaggerated sigh, He planted his feet, looked up at Fred, and declared, "Oi, Morrison, I'd rather be flattened than pretend you're anything more than a windbag with fists."
The insult was met with silence, then chuckles from Fred's gang, and finally a dangerous glint in Fred's eye. "What was that, Lysander? You fancy yourself brave now?" Fred sneered, his fists already tightening.
Before Lysander could so much as blink, Fred's knuckles found his cheekbone, and he stumbled backward. His bravado may have been short-lived, but there was something oddly satisfying in having landed a verbal jab, at least.
Just as the world started to blur from the impact, he was vaguely aware of a voice—a soft, melodious voice calling his name. A young woman, a teacher barely out of school herself, ran to his aid, her blue eyes blazing with righteous fury. She helped him to his feet, brushing the dust from his shirt. "Lysander, dear, are you all right?"
But even in his dazed state, pride got the better of him. "I'm fine, Miss," he muttered, brushing her hand away with as much dignity as he could muster. "Nothing but a little scratch."
As he limped away from the scene, he muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else. "People see me, they pity me, but they don't understand. They want to play the hero, make themselves feel better for one fleeting moment. But they never really care—not really. Heroes? Bah, they're only as loyal as the time it takes to feel good about themselves."
---
Back in the present, lying in the snow, He chuckled wryly as he recalled that familiar blend of pain and pride. He still wore his scars—more now, it seemed, both in body and in spirit.
"Well, look at you, lad," he muttered to himself, the warmth of his breath frosting in the cold air. "Out of one fray and into another, yet somehow, still too stubborn to take a hand up."
He rolled his head back and let the snowflakes melt against his cheeks, tasting their faint bitterness, just like life itself. A strange peace washed over him, mingling with the ache in his bones. "At least," he whispered with a sad smile, "at least I went down swinging."
And for that single, frozen moment, there was something close to comfort, a touch of calmness in his soul. He didn't know where the night would lead him, or if this would be his last. But as the snow covered him like a blanket, he couldn't help but feel that, perhaps, he'd finally found a strange sort of victory, lying there—defeated, yet undefeated, in his own peculiar way.
Lysander's vision blurred, the stars overhead dimming as the snow continued to fall around him, each flake pressing its icy fingers against his skin. A small smile crept onto his face, as if he'd finally found some strange comfort in the isolation, in the numbing cold, where he could finally exist as he truly was—unseen, untouched, and, most of all, unjudged.
He whispered into the quiet night, his breath clouding the air for a fleeting moment before vanishing. "A scoundrel, they call me… Perhaps that's all I ever was. in a world too refined to stomach me. No salvation, no sympathy—just the name they branded on my back… like they always knew who I was."
He let his head sink back into the snow, exhaling slowly as he drifted toward unconsciousness, his ragged breath fading to a faint sigh that the night would swallow whole. The world would remember him as a scoundrel, and he was too tired to try to prove otherwise.
Far from that wintry alley, in the warm, lamplit attic of an expansive estate in the heart of Manila, Elena de Vera sat, clutching the book close as if to catch the last remnants of Lysander's words. Her eyes glanced over the final lines, drinking in each syllable, letting them pulse in her mind.
"Like they always knew who I was" she whispered, a soft, bittersweet smile lighting her lips. For all the world, she could picture Lysander lying there in the snow, beaten and bruised, and yet somehow undefeated. Her heart swelled with the thrill of it, that quiet strength she so adored. Adrian Blake's Scoundrel was a favorite not simply because it was beautifully written, but because of Lysander himself—a man whose soul she seemed to understand, perhaps even more than she understood her own.
Elena closed the book with a gentle reverence, her fingers tracing over its worn cover as though it were something sacred. She sat back in her chair, surrounded by the warmth and comfort of her private reading space. It was her favorite spot—a secluded little nook in the attic of her family's mansion, hidden from the eyes of Manila's elite and from the expectations that followed her like a shadow. Here, among towering shelves lined with countless books, she was no longer "the de Vera daughter" or "a perfect example of proper society." Here, she was just Elena.
With her 5'5 frame tucked into a wide, cozy armchair, her black hair parted neatly and falling around her shoulders, Elena was stunning in a way both delicate and striking. Her pointed nose, high cheekbones, and dark, thoughtful eyes had drawn countless glances and whispers, but those glimpses never saw the girl lost in daydreams, clinging to the words of a man who'd never existed.
The only daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the Philippines, Elena de Vera had been raised to be a "dame"—a model of poise, charity, and grace. Her family's fish empire, vast and nearly untouchable, spanned the region, from sardines to prized tuna, from the sea to elegantly canned goods on every table in Manila. The de Veras were as powerful as they were respected, with Elena herself always held up as an example of modesty, elegance, and good sense.
But nobody knew about this. About the nights she would slip away, climb up to her attic escape, and bury herself in the pages of her favourite book, where she could be anyone but who she was supposed to be. And Lysander—oh, Lysander was her escape personified. In his strength, his defiance, his wounded pride, she saw something raw and untamed, something she admired fiercely.
Perhaps it was the difference between them that drew her so irresistibly to him. He was rough where she was refined, daring where she was restrained. He was a scoundrel; she was a dame. Society would never approve, of course. Her heart beat faster at the mere thought of such a rebellious attachment, and she would blush to imagine how anyone might react if they knew the truth—that her thoughts and heart were so deeply entangled with a man who was, for all intents and purposes, a villain, and a fictional one at that.
"No salvation, No sympathy" she murmured again, almost dreamily. Was it because he embodied something she longed for? That he represented a courage she felt she herself lacked? Or was it simply that Lysander's trials, his resilience against all odds, held a mirror to her own struggles, albeit in a world so vastly different from her own? She had everything: wealth, beauty, status. And yet, the one thing she longed for—the one thing money and power couldn't buy—eluded her like the tide slipping from the shore.
The thought was almost laughable. Manila's dearest role model, in love with a scoundrel.
Outside the door, her nanny's voice echoed faintly up the stairs, calling her to dinner or some new societal obligation her family likely required her for. Elena closed her eyes for a moment, still clutching the book, her escape from the world so close yet slipping from her fingers as it always did.
"They don't really care in the end, do they?" she mused softly, as if speaking to Lysander himself. "Or maybe they just care too much." The thought echoed hauntingly through her mind. Her fingers traced over the spine of Scoundrel one last time, and a familiar ache welled up inside her, one that seemed to deepen with every passing day.
Maybe that was why she loved him, after all—because, like her, he was a prisoner of circumstance, tangled in the expectations and judgments of a world that saw only what it wanted to see.