It didn’t take him too long, after the sleepy haze had worn off, to remember why he was dreading the day so much. That evening, he would be traveling to McKinley Manor with his parents to dine with Lord and Lady McKinley and some distant cousins, Lord and Lady Westerville. The thought of facing Lady McKinley again so soon after their last visit made his skin crawl. If the woman’s voice hadn’t been simultaneously terrifying and grating enough when he’d been a child, now that he’d grown up and her sole focus was verbally intimidating him about his lack of ability to find a wife, their visits had become perfectly unendurable.

The sun made a pleasant change from the rain of the previous night, and Blaine couldn’t help but resent the fact that he would not be able to go riding in it, what with his mother's overbearance and the strict schedules to which he was expected to adhere. Kurt would be along at any moment to dress him for the day and prepare the evening clothes that would then be taken care of by one of the many footmen to spare at Lord McKinley's estate. Even if only for a short while, Kurt's friendly company was the only hope of respite from his morosity that he had and, seating himself by the window, he let the early morning rays warm his skin as he waited patiently for the valet to arrive.

*

The motor rumbled to life, Blaine’s entire body vibrating with it as it did so. The road crunched beneath the tires as they slowly pulled out of the grounds, leaving Dalton Abbey to shrink in the background and forcing the reality of McKinley Manor back into Blaine’s consciousness—although he was certain he had appeared positively stand-offish to Kurt, his valet's presence had helped him forget, if only for their brief time together. Watching the garden in which he usually rode pass them by, he idly imagined the look on Lord and Lady McKinley’s faces if he were to show up on horseback, plastered in mud. The picture made him chuckle to himself under his breath and his mother, seated opposite, eyed him suspiciously.

Their motorcar had to pass through the village on its way to the country roads that took them to the McKinley estate, and as it did so, Blaine let his eyes wander out of the window, roaming over the streets that passed by in a slow progression. The young children of the village were taking advantage of the warm sunshine, the boys kicking a brown leather ball between them on the village green and the girls chanting as they played their skipping ropes games. Blaine couldn’t remember ever being such a carefree child, always with some expectations heavily implanted in his conscience. Some of the children stared at the car as it went by them. Blaine’s mother tutted and Blaine shifted uncomfortably in his seat, moving his head to look out of the other window.

Two figures walked along the road, heading in the opposite direction to the motor. They were only indistinguishable for a fraction of a second before Blaine’s eyes focused on the taller and slimmer of the two - Kurt. His attire was more casual than it usually was - Blaine suspected that in the absence of himself and his parents, Mrs Sylvester had allowed him the afternoon off - and his posture appeared different, too; his body more relaxed and a smile on his face so wide and sincere that his nose crinkled a little.

The motorcar passed the two footmen, and Blaine craned his neck to see Kurt until he completely disappeared into the distance.

“What are you staring at?” Blaine’s father snapped, his gaze sharp over the top of the newspaper.

“I just thought I saw somebody...” Blaine replied, his voice trailing off and plummeting the car into silence once again.

*

McKinley Manor loomed ahead of them around two hours later, at which point Blaine’s legs felt so cramped from not moving that he almost breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of it.

The estate was similar in size to Dalton Abbey, although Blaine often couldn’t help noting its inferiority. However, if he were truly honest with himself, his perceiving the estate as inferior was more to do with the property's owners than the property itself. The driveway that lead to the grand front doors ran on long after the entrance gate, past several well-maintained gardens that were decorated with so many flourishing summer plants that the scent of them managed to find its way to Blaine’s nostrils despite the closed windows of the car. The sun’s position cast one of the far off gardens into the Manor’s shadow whilst illuminating the grand windows on the front of the building. Creepers weaved their way up the walls of the house, intertwining in a way that was perfectly imperfect and seemed, to Blaine, designed to cast a haunting darkness over the house.

Lord and Lady McKinley waited at the entrance of the building to greet them, as well as several footmen standing tall and still, like pointedly handsome statues that had been placed, just so, to enhance the grand entrance. Blaine’s father assumed a smile that was plastered to his face purely for the benefit of their company. He helped Blaine’s mother step out of the car and down onto the gravel of the driveway before walking over to shake hands with Lord McKinley.

“Dalton, so good to see you again,” the man greeted, before turning to introduce his guest to the footman that would be his valet for the evening. The two ladies took the opportunity to greet one another, and Blaine followed on behind, stepping out of the car and reaching the others just as his mother had been introduced to her temporary lady’s maid.

“Lady McKinley,” Blaine said, pushing back his reluctance to speak to the woman and smiling as sincerely as possible.

“Master Anderson,” she replied, her voice overly friendly as she looked over him. Blaine had the impression that he was being inspected—weighed and measured to determine whether he was suitable enough to enter her house, before continuing. “You look well today. Your new footman is doing a good job. Still no fiancee though, I hear.”

“Not as yet, my lady,” Blaine replied, refusing to let himself be angered by her implication and the tone with which she delivered it.

“Master Anderson!” Lord McKinley said, holding a hand out to Blaine. “So good of you to join us!”

Blaine would have replied with a scathing ‘as if I had a choice’ had he no regard at all for propriety. He settled instead for shaking the man’s hand and replying, “it was very good of you to invite me.”

“Can I introduce you to our footman? This is Chang, he’ll be seeing to your needs for the duration of the evening.”

“Very good to meet you, Chang,” Blaine said with a smile. The footman bowed his head, acknowledging Blaine’s greeting with a sharp ‘Milord’, before resuming his statue-like posture.

As Lord McKinley led him and his parents through the house to the drawing room the house staff dispersed, collecting bags from the car to take to their dressing rooms, and greeting Hudson. Blaine, eyes adjusting to the dark of the Manor’s entryway from the brightness of the sun outside, fixed his attention on the harmless, rhythmic sounds of polished shoes on polished floor, with the simple hope of surviving the rest of the day.

*

Later that evening, Blaine was met by Chang in the dressing room that had been set aside for him. The evening clothes that Kurt had picked out before his departure had been hung up and brushed down, as entirely free from any creases their journey might have made as they had been before they left.

“Master Anderson,” the footman greeted, standing tall. His dark black hair was cropped shortly and his jawline was firmly set - the image of pure professionalism.

“Chang,” Blaine said. “Good to see you again.”

The footman appeared taken aback for a fleeting moment before regaining his composure. Briefly, he nodded in acknowledgment of Blaine’s greeting, and took the evening attire from where it hung on the closet door.

Chang was taller than Kurt by several inches, and he appeared to tower over Blaine. The room was quiet, save from the shuffling of the two men and Blaine, though usually able to converse easily, found his words struggling to find their way out, as though the room were a vapid, endless vacuum that had stolen his voice and refused to let it be heard. Blaine wondered if Chang found the silence unusual or familiar - he’d clearly not been anticipating kindness when he’d entered the room - and Blaine attempted to focus on other things, so as not to allow the silence to become awkward. Once more, he found his mind wandering back to Dalton; the comfort of his own bedroom and the easiness of Kurt’s company, the way the two of them could talk on just about any topic. Chang was professional, and Blaine looked as well put together as he usually did in time for dinner, but Blaine couldn’t help missing the simple company of a friend.

Presently, he was escorted to the dining room by Chang, where he was greeted by his father, Lord McKinley and Lord Westerville, who looked a lot older than he had the last time he’d seen him some seven years previous.

“Master Anderson, you’ve joined us at last!”

“It appears I’m fashionably late, my Lord.”

“Better fashionably late than never at all.”

“I think your mother would be impressed,” Blaine’s father chimed in. “So long as one arrives appropriately to dinner, one can be as tardy as one pleases.”

“We all know how our women like to keep us waiting,” Westerville said, laughing with Blaine’s father as if the two were sharing some kind of joke that only a married man would understand. Blaine cleared his throat and kept his attention on his host.

“I’d like to thank you again for inviting me,” he said, over the laughter as it died down into the background. “It’s been such a long time since I last had the pleasure of visiting you here.”

“Oh, but of course. It was at her Ladyship's insistence that I did. I think her reasoning was that we couldn’t very well find you a bride without involving you.”

“Right you are, darling,” Lady McKinley’s distinctive voice rang through the dining room as the grand doors were opened by the butler and the three women entered. Blaine’s father and Lord Westerville stood as Lady McKinley made her entrance through the double doors first, followed by Blaine’s mother and Lady Westerville, who still looked the same as when Blaine had first met her as a child, when her name had been Miss Emma Pillsbury rather than Mrs Carl Howell.

Everybody took their places at the table, and the butler began to pour wine into their glasses, beginning at the head of the table - Lord McKinley - and progressing left, circling the table in a clockwise motion.

“Lady Dalton and I were just discussing her plan to throw a ball at Dalton. Won’t that be exciting?”

“Certainly!” Lord McKinley replied enthusiastically, and turned his attention to Blaine. “You’ve merely not been exposed enough to society. No wonder you haven’t found a wife yet!”

“Oh, no wonder,” Lord Westerville chimed in. Blaine’s brow furrowed for a second before he composed himself. He almost excused the McKinley’s for their unkindness given that they’d been that way since Blaine could remember as a child, but he couldn’t help feeling that the input from Westerville, whom he had met only once, and so many years ago, was unreasonable.

He suddenly realised that it was his turn to speak. “A ball would be a fantastic opportunity to bring people together,” he said, hoping it would suffice.

“Oh, they are. I love it when people throw parties,” Emma chimed in. Blaine smiled at how little she seemed to have changed in the past ten years, since he’d been eleven and she sixteen. She was perpetually bright, with a kind of innocence to her face and soft, red ringlets of hair that nobody could suspect her of anything. She’d been married to Lord Westerville for almost four years, and Blaine had heard his parents gossip over breakfast about the fact that she wasn’t yet with child. Thinking of the McKinleys' apparent inability to bear children as well suddenly made Blaine wonder if it was this spurring on the tireless wife-finding mission that Blaine’s parents seem to have concerned themselves with, as though if Blaine hesitated all of the fertile women would be gone.

“We’d never have met if Carmel hadn’t thrown that ball all those years ago,” Westerville stated, leaning back in his seat as a footman placed a bowl of soup in front of him.

“I doubt that,” McKinley said, his gazed fixed on Emma rather than the man he was replying to. “The Lord has a way of bringing people together.”

Emma smiled, and Blaine thought he saw the faintest of blushes tint her cheeks.

“It was at Carmel’s ball that you met one another?” Blaine’s father asked, a rare look of genuine interest etched upon his face. Blaine suspected he was impressed that the Baron had been invited to such an event, considering that Mr St. James of Carmel was a Duke. “Perhaps we should invite him, dear?”

“I’d thought about it,” Blaine’s mother replied.

“He’s eligible too, is he not?” Lady McKinley said. “Some difficult competition for you, Master Anderson. I’ve heard his looks are unrivaled.”

“I suspect the title has a lot to do with that,” Blaine quipped, causing the room to fall to silent for a moment before Lady McKinley smiled wickedly.

“I suspect it does. But you needn’t be intimidated. I'm positive that many young ladies would appreciate a bookish young man such as yourself.”

*

The drawing room was impeccably decorated, ornate electric chandeliers sending dazzling reflections of light up and down the wall. Blaine found himself transfixed on the mesmerizing dashes of color his eyes occasionally picked out of the dancing figures, though he wasn’t sure if it was his drink-addled gaze that was the cause or the chandeliers themselves. From the wall hung a dark framed portrait of the McKinleys and their close family, and Blaine found it all too easy to pick out which family members were directly related to Lady McKinley, the blonde locks and evil eyes apparently a trademark.

The butler made his way once again around the room with wine, which Blaine took gratefully, the dry, bitter taste lingering on his lips, causing the slightest shudder to trace its way down his spine.

“Fabray,” Lady McKinley noted, her voice just barely making its way through Blaine’s haze enough for him to hear. “Lord and Lady Crawford have a daughter of seventeen years now. A Miss Lucy, I believe.”

“Oh yes, her elder sister married just last summer, did she not?” Blaine’s mother chimed in.

“Oh what a lovely thing for Crawford. Both of his daughters married so young,” Emma said. “Assuming Master Anderson takes a liking to her.”

“Of course he’ll take a liking to her,” his father said. “He took a liking to Miss Berry.”

“Oh but a Marquess’s daughter is even better than a Viscount’s daughter,” Lord McKinley said, drinking what was left of his wine and holding his glass toward the butler for more. “Can’t blame a man for wanting to keep his options open. Eh, Anderson?”

Blaine’s eyes widened at the mention of his name, though what he was expected to say was beyond his comprehension, left too far behind with a sober and more proper self. “Yes. Yes, I agree.”

“It doesn’t actually make a blind bit of difference, so long as he gets married soon.”

“And so long as she’s of noble birth,” Blaine reminded his mother, a hint of a slur tainting the edges of his speech.

“Of course,” she snapped back, her eyes narrowing pointedly - a warning that he should stop drinking. Defiantly, Blaine drained his glass and held it out again to be refilled.

“Well then, invite Crawford and his family,” Lord McKinley said, walking over to his wife and placing a hand on her shoulder. Blaine felt he could have imagined it, but he swore that as he did so, he smiled pointedly at Emma, who turned her face away, cheeks slightly flush.

*

Blaine’s ears rang the entire way back to Dalton. Blood pulsated through his body, resounding in his ear drums with a deafening beat. His eyes drooped, his slighted, blurry vision trained on his evening shoes. His mother sat opposite, almost burning him with the hard stare she had fixed upon him. His father was, judging by the sound of rustling, reading the paper once more, as though the events of the world would be different on a second reading.

It was a long, bumpy ride home, and as the motorcar approached Dalton Abbey with the soft, midnight glow of the moon behind it, Blaine had all but sobered up, although his mood had decreased tenfold at the hazy recollection of the dismal evening.

A ball was planned, and the solidity of it hung in the air like a torture sentence for Blaine. It was yet another evening to be melancholy about; another event in which he’d play a part of the ridiculous rules of society and pretend to care about the meaningless noblemen and women of his company. As the only heir to Dalton, Blaine wondered what his refusal to marry would mean for the property. Would the estate be passed on to some distant relative after he himself died? Perhaps a cousin of Lady McKinley or somebody even more abstract. He wondered, too, what it would mean for the rest of his life. Certainly if he married anybody not from their upper-class circle he’d be as good as dead to his parents.

The servants greeted them at the door when they returned. With them, Blaine instantly noticed, was Kurt, who smiled - almost apologetically, as if he knew, just from the sight of him, how much he’d resented his evening - and Blaine returned a weary smile.

“Hummel.”

“Master Anderson.”

“Thank you for waiting for me, but I don’t require your service this evening.”

“Oh, Milord?”

“I’m far too tired. But I shall see you as usual in the morning.”

“A time for me to wake you, Milord?”

Never, preferably, Blaine thought as he walked toward the front doors of the house. “Eight-thirty, Hummel.”

He barely registered the walk from the entrance of Dalton to his bedroom, and he allowed himself to surrender to the comfort of his bed, drowning in the gloriously soft, satin sheets as he drifted off to sleep.

*

It was the sound of birds chirping outside that woke Blaine the following morning, the faintest of lights filtering in through the window as the sun made a slow and colorful climb to the sky. Blaine, head drumming with pain, remained in bed, watching the sunrise for what seemed like an eternity, until Kurt finally came to rouse him. He mumbled the smallest of greetings as the boy entered.

To Kurt’s credit, he said not a word as he picked out Blaine’s clothes for the day ahead, and a simple and easy silence solidified itself between them, allowing the beating in Blaine’s head to calm down a little. He kept focused on the steady breathing of Kurt and himself and concentrated on Kurt’s fingertips dancing along the edges of his waistcoat; his jacket; his tie, smoothing over the material to ensure every inch of it was perfectly well put together. For the shortest time, Blaine could have forgotten that there was anybody else in the world, could have imagined he and Kurt sharing this moment of breathtaking serenity for eternity, society be damned.

But Kurt eventually stepped away from Blaine to allow him to look at his reflection and, as Blaine noticed he often did, admire his handiwork. With a nod, Kurt left the room, his good-natured voice wishing him a good day as he excused himself. Blaine, still somewhat lost in thoughts as he stared blankly at his reflection, made no reply.