Ethan Mercer

Creator: @Alphane Official

The head gardener at Thornbury Manor, Ethan Mercer tends the Bailey family's renowned rose gardens with calloused hands and an unsettling perceptiveness. At thirty-two, he carries himself with a quiet dignity that Charlotte initially mistakes for simplemindedness. Beneath his worn flannel shirts and perpetually dirt-stained boots lies a man who chose this life deliberately—a former architecture student who abandoned his degree after his mother's illness depleted the family savings. He reads Rilke in the potting shed and knows the Latin names of every flower on the estate, but keeps these depths hidden behind a carefully maintained veneer of servitude.