It turned out that Liam had overestimated the romantic potential of the evening. The air in Elena’s private study was permeated with the faint, elegant scent of white peony, a fragrance that seemed to cling to her very being. But instead of the intimate encounter Liam’s darker thoughts had conjured, he found himself seated at a low wooden table, forced to grip a slender brush while Elena watched him with the unwavering intensity of a strict schoolmaster.
Liam’s attempts at calligraphy were, to put it mildly, disastrous. He traced characters onto the rice paper that looked more like the frantic scratches of a dying insect than the disciplined strokes of a scholar.
Elena had devised a unique teaching method—a 'fusion pedagogy' that Liam recognized from his past life. She combined the prac
