The more Blaine thought about it, the more confused he became. He was in just the same position with Miss Fabray as he had been with Miss Berry; he was fairly certain that he couldn’t love her the way he wanted to love a wife. And yet, where Miss Berry and he were friends, Blaine considered Miss Fabray as much a part of the elaborate game that all of society must play as any member of his family. She seemed detached to the notion of marriage, of love; appeared as bent on finding a wealthy, society-approved match as every other soulless woman Blaine had ever met. Miss Fabray was Miss Berry’s polar opposite.

Blaine watched them both as the evening went on. Miss Berry, who seemed to, if not exactly shun, then at least dislike the conventions of society, went from dancing partner to dancing partner and showed each of them courtesy, each of them politeness. But her eyes were almost never more than a few minutes away from the duke, a soft smile brightening her face whenever she caught his eye. She was besotted by him, and he by her - and Blaine was pleased that he’d refused to condemn Miss Berry to the life she’d have had with him.

But Miss Fabray - she was entirely different. She flitted from partner to partner without treating any of them any differently. She was as forward and direct as she had been with Blaine. She was calculated. It was her first season in society and yet she knew how to utilize it as well as somebody who had done the season a hundred times over. She was looking for a husband, not a lover; looking for comfort, title, money and stability, not for love. There was an ‘ideal’ that was instilled in every girl from a young age that the best kind of life a lady could expect was to no longer be dependent on her father, but to be the lady of a house and estate... and Miss Fabray seemed wholly committed to that ideal. She was, for all intents and purposes, exactly the sort of lady Blaine ought to make his wife. And for any other soulless, heartless member of the upper class, it would be the easiest decision to make. They’d feel it a moral duty, even, to their family, to their estate, to their wealth and even to the girl they were marrying; it was the highest honor to marry a wealthy gentleman and doing so would spare the shame of being an old maid.

But soulless and heartless were the very two things Blaine didn’t want to become. For him it was the most difficult of decisions to make.

*

The evening drew out for what felt like a lifetime, but eventually the first of their guests began to leave for the night train, exchanging pleasant goodbyes with their hosts and declaring that they’d had a most enjoyable evening. Blaine’s sigh of relief was so heavy as the guests began to leave that he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the entire ballroom had felt it reverberate about the hall. But the band kept on playing, and the guests kept on talking, and nobody noticed.

Blaine, certainly by his mother’s account, had had a triumphant evening. He’d danced with every young lady in attendance - some more than once - and had held his share of conversations more successfully than he’d imagined he would; a much closer representation of the gentleman he’d been raised to be than he had managed of late. Not a single guest had complained, no gossip concerning the hosts had been passed around the room - as far as Blaine and his parents were concerned, of course - and the footmen had been prompt and well presented all night. The evening had been incredibly successful. Even Blaine’s father seemed to have a genuine smile on his face; a twitch just at the edge of his lips, his usually stone-cold, plain face flush with alcohol and ego.

It was as the crowd thinned out and the noise died down that Blaine, wandering about the hall, began to hear snippets of conversation. A smile pulled at his lips at the uncouth nature of some of their guests, clearly oblivious to Blaine’s eavesdropping, or simply uncaring—the alcohol had certainly been flowing more freely into some mouths than others.

“Miss Berry and the Duke? Surely not? What an incredibly fortunate match for her-”

“-What an awful dress, the girl should seek out a new seamstress-”

“-I daresay, they’ve been missing for half the evening. Quite a scandal if anybody should have noticed and I’m certain that people have-”

“-So unladylike for her to squeal like that... I mean, it was silly of him to sneak upon her like he did, but the way she screamed you’d have thought she’d been met with an octopus in the punch bowl-”

“Look at him; searching for his wife like a shepherd after lost sheep,” Blaine heard a gentleman mutter as he passed them, and he glanced in the direction he and his conversational partner were looking. Lord Westerville was on the receiving end of their glances, moving his way through merry crowds of people in the hall, his wife, Emma, decidedly absent. “He should learn to control his woman.”

“How unbecoming it is for a lady to wander off without her husband,” the other gentleman commented with a roll of his eyes. “Lady McKinley has been just the same all night, swanning from group to group of people with her gossip. I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her husband.”

Blaine caught sight of his mother beckoning him over and left the gentlemen to their disdain. She was stood at the grand entrance with the McKinley’s - his Lordship apparently having resurfaced.

“It’s been such a pleasure to have you here, of course,” Blaine’s mother smiled at the couple. She was apparently unaware of the rumors circulating the hall about the two of them - or else she was an even better actress than Blaine had imagined; usually his mother would scorn at any notion of unsatisfactory behavior.

“It’s been an honor, my Lady,” Lord McKinley said. His grip was firmly on his wife’s shoulder, keeping her close.

“Your car is outside, milord,” Ryerson informed, his hand on the brass door handle to open it for them as soon as they were ready.

“Do travel home safely,” Blaine’s mother said.

“Well done, Master Anderson, on your successful evening,” Lady McKinley said, her smirk still set upon her cruel features. “I’m sure your mother is so pleased.” Blaine smiled as politely as he could manage.

“Thank you for your company,” he said to the both of them, an air of finality in his voice.

The McKinley’s left, and as Blaine heard the engine of the motorcar roll away into the distance he breathed happily in the knowledge that he would likely not be required to visit the two of them again for at least another few weeks.

Those people who had traveled further to get to Dalton, and thus were staying the night, began to disperse at last, escorted to their rooms by footmen, all of them gradually disappearing into a wing of the grand house to which Blaine wasn’t sure even he had ever ventured. Miss Berry and her father had their respective suites, Miss Fabray and her family, the Duke, too, all of them eventually disappeared to their rooms. Emma was discovered at last as the number of guests remaining came down into single digits, standing nearby the string quartet, humming along to their music and Blaine had to hide a chuckle as Lord Westerville darted over to her and bought her back to the hosts with the firm grip of his hand around hers, as though he were reclaiming something stolen.

The grandfather clock ticked over into three a.m., and at last the music ceased at Lord Dalton’s orders. The Anderson’s were the only people left in the hall, bar the small gathering of footmen and Ryerson, and Blaine was grateful that the night was at last over. He bid goodnight to his parents before he went to his bedroom, followed presently by Kurt.

*

Even the sun seemed lazy in its occupation over the week that followed the ball, rising up to stream into Blaine’s bedroom every morning, accompanied by half-hearted warmth that simply wasn’t enough to coax him out of bed. It took Kurt, bright every morning, to wake him in time for breakfast.

The clock had dragged since the guests had left after brunch the morning after the ball. Blaine’s mother had since taken it upon herself to rest on account that the past few weeks had ‘simply drained her of energy’, as if the incident hadn’t been entirely her own idea in the first place. His father remained his usual quiet self, reading the paper all morning and off in his study every afternoon. The house staff, whilst no doubt working as hard as ever, appeared almost absent in the calm after the storm, and Blaine missed their constant bustling about the house as it stood in its renewed stillness.

A sudden boredom had come upon him in the loss of something to fret over. Now that his time with Kurt was drawn short and his parents weren’t constantly breathing down the back of his neck, he was once again without purpose, and with a seemingly far longer day ahead of him. Once or twice after his rides about the grounds, he’d stayed by Abrams, watching the stable boy work, conversing with him as much as could be deemed appropriate. He’d wondered, once or twice, what it must be like to be a working man, to never be without something to do. Between hunting and shooting seasons - the former of which was some months away and the latter several months previous - Blaine, as heir to Dalton, had little to do with his time until he took his father’s title. His occupation could be described with a single crude but accurate statement: ‘waiting for father to pass away’. Everything that happened in between was irrelevant, and the fact was making Blaine more restless than ever.

He required a purpose, and, though he admitted it begrudgingly, there was only one place he knew that he could find it.

* * *

“Another love letter? Goodness knows how you’ve the time to write so many.”

Sam was sat, hunched over the desk, his brow creased in frustration. Kurt had lost count of the number of times he’d seen him in just the same position in the past week alone. It had become habit; finishing his duties with Blaine for the day, clambering the uneven, concrete stairs to his room and finding Sam with a pen in his hand, ink staining his fingers and paper crumpled up on the floor.

“Not a love letter,” was all Sam replied, crunching the paper up in his fist and throwing it to the wall, dull eyes following it as it bounced away from him.

“Oh?”

“I can’t - I’m trying to-” Sam stuttered, before finally turning to Kurt, an earnest and innocent look in his eyes. “How would you ask a man permission to marry his daughter?”

The sentence took a moment to sink into Kurt’s conscience. How would Kurt ask a man’s permission to marry his daughter? He’d never thought about it; never had the need... until he’d come to Dalton nobody had ever remotely interested him (and who interested him at Dalton was enough to have him jailed if anybody so much as suspected it). A thousand responses came to mind, none of which would be helpful in the slightest. What left his lips, however, was an incredulous, “You’re going to ask him in a letter?”

Sam’s face crumbled. “How else can I ask?”

“I’ve heard face-to-face is commonly considered acceptable in the middle-class.”

“But Kurt-” his voice sounded like that of a child whining his reluctance to attend Sunday school. “I can’t do that. He’ll turn me down. Kick me out and tell me never to come again.”

Kurt raised his eyebrow. “Well, he could tell you that just as easily by letter.”

“Yes,” Sam said, with a sigh. “But at least then I wouldn’t have to see the look of disappointment...”

At first Kurt supposed it was of the man he was addressing in his letter that he spoke, that Sam feared some kind of disappointed glance from the man he considered a family friend; disappointment at having asked such a ridiculous question. But the far-off look in Sam’s eyes confirmed that he was instead thinking of Louisa discovering the sorry news: that her father didn’t consider Sam good enough for her to marry.

Sam didn’t wait for any kind of advice. He blew out the candle that rested on the desk and threw away his sheet of paper, falling into his bed without a second glance at Kurt.

*

The lull after the ball made life at Dalton appear almost easy; Kurt’s dawn-'til-after-evening hours seeming like a blessed holiday. The servant’s quarters were no longer abuzz with gossip, making them seem comparatively silent - even the bells that rang to call a footman or maid up for duty seemed fewer and further between, as though half of the family had perished.

“I wonder if they’ll be throwing any other balls soon,” Brittany dared to mention over supper one night. “The last was so much fun.”

A few of the maids hummed in agreement, though Kurt wondered how it was that they’d found the evening fun when their only participation had been stealing glances through the crack in the door leading from the servants' staircase to the dining room or from one of the upper floor windows.

“I wouldn’t have thought so. The next party ever gets thrown at Dalton will be for Master Anderson’s wedding, mark my words,” Mrs Sylvester commented, an air of knowledgeable authority in her voice.

“Surely not?” Puck said, smirking. “Master Anderson? Married before the next party?”

“That’ll be enough from you, Noah Puckerman-” Puck scowled at the use of his full name “-I happen to have it on good authority that when the post was collected this evening, a letter addressed to Miss Fabray was amongst the pile.”

“Master Anderson wrote to Miss Fabray?”

Most of the staff within earshot turned to Kurt at his incredulous question. Only Sam’s attention was not cast upon him, the blond boy’s brow still knitted in concern of his own problems.

“Does the news surprise you, Porcelain? I though he might’ve mentioned it to his valet, if nobody else.”

Kurt’s mouth was dry, and his attempt to swallow was painful. “I suppose he felt the topic was unimportant.”

“Or maybe he felt it was too important,” Brittany said, excitement visibly bubbling up within her. “Perhaps the letter was a proposal to her!”

“Perhaps we ought to leave the gentleman’s business to himself,” Kurt said, his eyes flashing in warning to Brittany, whose smile dimmed a little.

“Oh don’t be so proper, Hummel. It’s just a bit of fun,” Puck said with an obnoxious smile.

“No, Hummel’s right,” Santana chimed in, her attention piqued. “It’s Master Anderson’s business, not ours. You shouldn’t meddle where you’re unwanted, Puckerman - you ought to know better than that. You're not his valet any longer.”

Puck looked about ready to retort, before Mrs Sylvester told them all to calm down, and everybody continued to eat in silence. Kurt flashed an appreciative smile in Santana’s direction, and she nodded back.

It was the last anybody spoke of it that evening, but Kurt suddenly found himself lost, unable to think of anything other than Blaine’s letter to Miss Fabray. Of course the man was entitled to write to whomever he pleased; indeed he’d sent many a letter to Miss Berry, the two of them just friends. It was no business of Kurt’s who Blaine chose to correspond with. It was especially no business of his whom Blaine ended up married to. He simply couldn’t suppress the jealousy that hit him, hard, every time he thought on the topic. Every time he thought of the wedding, the bride, Blaine’s finger’s caressing Miss Fabray’s soft skin on their wedding night-

No. He couldn’t allow himself to think on it. The vision was almost unendurable, and yet so devastatingly foreseeable. But it was none of his business, and never would be.

* * *

Dear Master Anderson,

I must confess, I was not expecting a letter from you. Our dancing the other night was singularly outstanding, but I doubted that your interests in me continued much beyond that. I rather thought I was - how did you put it? - much more forward than you would have expected.

Do not think I am not pleased to have received your letter, though. Quite the contrary, in fact; I was resolved to write you by the end of the week, and then this happened upon our breakfast table, quite to my delight.

I have been keeping well, yes, thank you - I’ve attended quite a number of parties this season, though none hosted at quite so grand a place as Dalton Abbey. Indeed, people have been talking of it endlessly for the past week; every meal, every garden party - everybody has had your name on the tip of their tongues. You ought to be a very proud host, Master Anderson. Your parents, too. There’s nothing quite like the bringing together of people.

I have been away from my home for so long of late; London is such an exciting place, one can never stay there for merely a day or two. It was the day after your ball, in fact, that I returned to Crawford for the first time in over a month, and I was pleased to find that our gardeners have been hard at work whilst we’ve been away; the garden that belongs to me is full of blossoms. I remember you saying that you enjoyed the outdoors. Our grounds at Crawford might surprise you, Master Anderson. Such a fine place for a rider to exercise his horse, and indeed, when the sun shines down upon them, a divine place to read. I wonder if you are intrigued? I wonder if you’ll come to visit? It would certainly please my parents to meet you here - perhaps the suggestion of you staying for a fortnight might interest you? Or am I being too forward? Heaven forbid.

Our Lord moves in mysterious ways, Master Anderson, but I do so hope He sees fit to reunite us very soon.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Lucy Fabray

Blaine read the letter several times over before allowing himself to conclude that it was an invitation, loud and clear, to visit her family estate. There was no mistaking the words she had used, the smirk that must have been affixed to her face as she was writing the letter. Blaine wondered if she’d planned it—if she’d thought, deliberately, of the best way to tease him—or if she was merely always so upfront. It was unusual to Blaine; he’d never known a lady to be so confident with her words; certainly not one as young as Miss Fabray. He wondered if it were her father’s status that gave her such confidence - as a Marquess he was, of course, of a higher status than Blaine’s father. Perhaps Miss Fabray thought that persuading an Earl’s son to marry her would be her easy way ‘out’, so to speak. With her sister already married to a Marquess and a male heir having been born already, Miss Fabray could marry as low down as a Baron without anybody blinking an eyelash. Why look for better than Blaine when Blaine was already there for the taking?

It was stupid. Cowardly, perhaps, for Blaine to admit it, but at least Miss Fabray was doing the hard work, laying the foundations. All that was left was for Blaine to decide was whether or not he could bear to submit Miss Fabray to a life with a husband who simply couldn’t love her.

He made a decision to pen his reply after his horse ride that morning. He sat in the library for the entire afternoon, the stained glass window hidden away in the corner sending spirals of light dancing along the floor. His eyes bore into the family crest emblazoned upon the paper and his fountain pen hovered but a few centimeters above it, yet every time Blaine thought of something to write, something held him back.

The window. The one he’d shown to Kurt weeks ago. The one that had cast Kurt’s face in every shade of blue, red and yellow as they’d stood by it looking down into the rose garden. Their ‘secret’ window, so to speak, because nobody ever came to the library and sat by that window; nobody ever gave a damn about it but for himself and Kurt. But Blaine really couldn’t understand why the image of Kurt’s face was preventing him from replying to Miss Fabray.

It did not make any sense.

* * *

Mrs Bieste rushed about the kitchen shouting her orders to the kitchen workers. It was hot, as usual, her face flushed from the heat of the stoves and various pots and pans of boiling liquids. Kurt watched from the doorway, just far enough out of the way that he knew Mrs Bieste wouldn’t raise her voice to him for being underfoot. Sam eventually joined him at the entrance of the kitchen, dressed for the evening. They collected the food prepared for the family’s appetizer and began to make their way to the stairs that lead from the kitchen up toward the dining room.

Kurt threw a glance in Sam’s direction, eyeing his vacant expression with a look of concern. He was so far lost in his own troubles that he was barely comprehensive of anything around him besides what his body was managing automatically. Once eventually in the dining room the two of them were met with Ryerson, already situated beside the door the family would enter through, straight-backed and tight-lipped, his professionalism not leaving him for a second. Kurt wanted to say something to Sam, wanted to shake him out of his trance, but before he could, the family came in and were seated, the long evening of good manners and rehearsed conversation beginning.

Kurt barely listened to the talk around the dinner table. His mind was flitting between Sam and Blaine, though his eyes gave nothing away, trained upon the elaborate food he was serving, or on the dining room wall, tracing the intricacies of the wallpaper. Snippets of sentences filtered in; parties, politics, various medical advances, newspaper gossip.

“What I read in the papers this morning rather surprised me, though.”

“What’s that?”

“King George the Fifth has been accused of bigamy. There’s quite an uproar about whether his wife is legal at all. Certainly the legitimacy of his children has come into question.”

“Surely not?”

“Edward Mylius published the report. French man.”

“Well then he’s making rumors, surely? Only a foreigner would spread such vicious lies.”

“Naturally.”

Blaine remained quiet throughout all of their conversations - whether uninterested or distracted Kurt couldn’t tell - his eyes following his parent’s comments back and forth. Eventually there was a pause between discussions, and Blaine took the opportunity to clear his throat.

“Miss Fabray and I have been corresponding,” Blaine said. His voice was small in the large dining room, yet it seemed to ring in Kurt’s head. There was a long moment of quiet, his parents all but dropping their cutlery and focusing pointedly at Blaine, who shuffled awkwardly. Kurt briefly wondered if his own heartbeat were audible.

“Of Crawford?” Lady Dalton asked.

“Yes,” Blaine said. “I have been invited to visit.”

“Visit Crawford?”

“Yes, mother. Visit Crawford.”

“Goodness, I should hardly have expected this. And so soon!”

Kurt twitched at the excitement in Blaine’s mother’s voice.

“Are you to go alone, or is this a family invitation?”

“Well, mother, your names were not referred to directly in her letter and I shouldn’t wish to impose upon her family the pressure of inviting additional guests at my asking.”

“No, no. Quite right. What reply did you make?”

Blaine was silent, eyes downcast at his food. “I haven’t yet made a reply.”

“Well, why ever not? It ought to have been in the post this evening!”

“How long are you to stay?” Lord Dalton asked.

“Miss Fabray has suggested two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Lord Dalton said, his eyebrows raised. “Won’t you be overstaying your welcome?”

“Nonsense! The Lord and Lady Crawford have invited him for two weeks and he shall stay for two weeks. I implore you to have your reply in the post by morning, Master Anderson. To be married to a Marquess' daughter... that really would be something for you.”

“How strange that you’ve jumped to such a conclusion, mother. I don’t believe I said anything about marriage.”

Lady Dalton threw a side-long glance at the servants, as though she were assessing whether or not they had heard Blaine’s remark, and Kurt felt himself tense slightly under her gaze. He almost breathed a sigh of relief when she turned back to Blaine. “Perhaps not. But it is, after all, the only perceivable outcome after a visit to her family estate. Your reply will be in the post by morning.”

* * *

“Will you be riding tomorrow, milord? It looks as though rain might be setting in for a while.”

“Since when has that ever stopped me, Kurt?”

The cheeky smile on Blaine’s face made Kurt blush a little, and he turned away to replace Blaine’s cufflinks in his drawer of valuables.

“Very true, milord,” he replied, with a smile.

“It shall be strange, riding the grounds of Crawford instead of Dalton,” Blaine mused as he worked away his bow-tie.

“Will it really be so different?”

“Certainly. It’ll be nice. Refreshing. But different. To look at Crawford House instead of Dalton Abbey. Though I daresay they’ll have some fine gardens.”

“Certainly, milord.”

“And a much bigger house...” Blaine looked at Kurt and smiled a little guiltily, “you shan’t tell my parents that I said that, will you?”

Kurt chuckled. “No, milord. Your secrets are always safe with me.”

“I know they are,” Blaine said simply, with an air of confidence, and then, jokingly, “the window in the library is as unnoticed by anybody as it was the day I showed it to you. ‘The Secret Window’, as it were. So you haven’t told anybody about that.”

“No, milord. Of course not,” Kurt said, smiling - perhaps at the memory. “When do you go to Crawford?”

“I expect my hosts will set the date to be within the following week,” Blaine replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “I imagine it will be quite a rushed affair.”

“For two weeks?”

“For two weeks. Unless they renew my invitation whilst I’m there. Kurt-” Blaine pulled the envelope addressed to Miss Fabray out from his desk drawer. He’d penned it after dinner, before Kurt had come up to his room. “Could you ensure that this is ready for the post boy to collect tomorrow morning? I’m quite certain that if I miss him before breakfast tomorrow I shall never hear the end of it.”

Kurt took the letter and Blaine watched the boy’s fingers as they traced the edges of the envelope. His eyebrows were knitted; he looked as though he were debating internally whether or not to say something. “It-” he began, “It won’t quite be the same here at Dalton... without you.”

The note of silence that followed took Blaine’s breath away. Kurt’s entire body seemed to tense, as though he hadn’t meant to say that at all; as though it had simply slipped out.

“What do you mean, Kurt?”

“I-I-I- just mean that- I wouldn’t see you... it’s my- it’s my routine. It would be unusual not to see you everyday. It would... I mean to say that I-”

“Would you miss me, Kurt?”

“No! I mean, I would miss your... your company... you’re- well you-”

“It’s okay to say yes, Kurt. If you would miss me.”

“Well, then I... I suppose... yes. Yes, I would miss you. Milord.”

Kurt looked straight at Blaine then, with a sudden confidence that Blaine had never seen in his eyes before. Something tightened in Blaine’s chest.

“I would miss you too, Kurt. If I were leaving you, anyway.”

Kurt’s brow crossed in confusion.

“Sorry, milord, I don’t understand. I thought you were to go to Crawford?”

“I am going to Crawford, Kurt. But you don’t think I could very well go without my valet, do you?

Kurt looked as though he were unable to comprehend quite what Blaine was saying. The lack of belief Kurt seemed to have in his own worth to Blaine was as heartbreaking as it was endearing, and it made Blaine’s heart ache.

He smiled, placing his hand on Kurt’s shoulder, wrapping his fingers loosely around the muscles there. Kurt didn’t flinch away, though the touch was unnecessary, and probably far too intimate for a gentleman to share with his footman. “I could just as easily have one of the footmen at Crawford be my valet for the fortnight, but not seeing you for two weeks, that would just be... well, it would just be wrong.”

What happened next went by so quickly that Blaine was in the middle of it before he knew that he had begun. He sought out the tiny flecks of green in Kurt’s blue eyes as his face drew closer, watching until the colors became hazy and unfocused. Kurt remained still, his eyes open until the tip of Blaine’s nose touched his cheek, after which Blaine’s own eyes closed and he could account for nothing beyond the sound of Kurt’s sharp intake of breath and the feeling of his lips ghosting ever so lightly over Kurt’s feather-soft mouth.

The younger boy remained still for what seemed like an eternity to Blaine, but Kurt did eventually spring back to life. Blaine felt their lips crush together, sealing their kiss in a forbidden utopia that would last forever and not long enough all at once.

Blaine had no idea how long the two of them stayed pressed together, but when he withdrew, the world appeared altered. Kurt’s cheeks were flush, his eyes sparkling, and Blaine realized for the first time that this was it. This was the feeling he’d been waiting for.

Until Kurt raised his hand to his lips and gasped, backing away from Blaine and staring at him wide-eyed with something akin to fright. And Blaine’s insides twisted with the uncomfortable notion that he’d just done something terribly, terribly wrong.