For someone not yet one-and-twenty, Kurt Hummel was extremely confident in who he was. He was the perfect son of a gentleman, well on the way to becoming THE gentleman of the house. Born the second of three children to the well-respected Mr. and Mrs. Burt Hummel, Kurt was everything anyone could expect of him. Like most men his age, he hunted, gambled, and swore with the best of them, but not in front of the ladies, of course. He spent a good deal of time with the Miss Mercedes Jones, in public of course. Their engagement was expected to be announced any day now.
It was around this time that Kurt Hummel first heard the rumors of Lord Blaine Anderson. Everyone knew who Lord Anderson was. The only living son of the late Lord and Lady Anderson, he had inherited the title when he was twenty, but that was eight years ago and wasn’t considered to be news anymore. No, the rumors that were circulating about Lord Anderson involved him as well. Apparently, according to his older sister Quinn, he, Kurt Hummel, was the latest in a long string of men and women to warm Lord Anderson’s bed. Kurt had spent a good five minutes laughing when she told him.
“I hardly think this is a laughing matter, Kurt,” Quinn stated with a small frown.
“But I do, dear sister. Lord Anderson is the most powerful man in the county. Everyone knows that if you want to retain your livelihood, you do not deny Lord Anderson what he wants. People will praise me for doing the smart thing. After all, I cannot provide for Mercedes if I have no future. That is what everyone who hears the rumor will think. They will blame Lord Blaine for the impropriety, not me.” Kurt continued to write his sonnet as he spoke. He found the romance of it to be intoxicating. He hoped Mercedes would like it.
“So those rumors are true?” Asked Rachel, the baby of the family. She was drawing in the corner of his room under the reason that the light was better in his room; a reason that Kurt found to be untrue. His room faced south over the stream behind their house while Rachel’s faced due east over the garden.
"What rumors?" If only he could resolve this blasted sonnet.
"The rumor regarding you proposing to Mercedes."
“That I will propose to Mercedes? Yes, I expect to do it just before spring. Spring weddings are the most beautiful and it will be just before everyone goes to Town. The timing is impeccable.” Damn, he couldn’t think of a couplet to end the sonnet with. How did Shakespeare do this?
“Kurt, you don’t love women. Why do you not marry a man? You know father would be just as happy.” Rachel asked, her voice low. She always lowered her voice when talking about marriage as if her quiet tone would stop the inevitable from happening. Rachel lived in a constant fear of the day when her father would announce Quinn’s engagement. As soon as Quinn was married, it would be Rachel’s turn. And it would most certainly not be a marriage for love or romance but of convenience.
“I know that father wouldn’t mind, but as the only man of the house, I have to have an heir to continue on the Hummel line. I could never have a child with another man, so I will have to marry a woman.”
“But Kurt,” Rachel protested, almost throwing down her sketchpad.
“Enough, Rachel,” Quinn raised her voice as she shot her sister a stern glare. “Kurt’s right. He needs to produce an heir otherwise we lose the house and everything Father’s worked for. Mercedes will be a fine lady of the house. It’s very honorable of him to think of the future generation.”
“But what about love?” Rachel asked.
Kurt twirled around in his seat. His sonnet would have to wait. “Rachel, marrying for love is nice in books, but as children of a gentleman, we need to marry for status if we are to get anywhere in the world and live comfortably. Love is nice in theory, but it’s hardly something to live off of.”
Rachel huffed and flounced out of the room in a swirl of skirts. Kurt sighed, “She can’t continue to be so dramatic.”
“She’ll come around. Father will not let her marry fruitlessly. But what about you? While I do agree that continuing the line is an agreeable idea, marrying a man could still be profitable.”
“But it will produce no heir. It is a small sacrifice to marry a woman if I get to keep the house in our line. Mercedes knows my motivations and has told me she is quite content to marry me. It is better to marry a friend than a stranger in any situation. We will be happier than most.”
Quinn nodded, under no doubt that her brother was right. He and Mercedes would be as happy as possible in such a situation. If only she could have his luck. There was no man in town whom she considered as a possibility for any such happiness. As it was, she had resigned herself to traveling to town in the spring to find a husband. She silently sighed and ran her fingers through her brother’s brown locks before she also left the room.

…………..

The next day found Kurt and Mercedes looking at ribbons under the watchful eye of Miss Jones’ governess, Ms. Smith. While Ms. Smith was distracted by a black ribbon trimmed with lace (“You’d think she was a widow in mourning with all the black she buys,” Mercedes snickered), Kurt handed Mercedes his completed sonnet. Well, a completed sonnet. It wasn’t his. He hadn’t able to figure out a couplet that fit with the rest of it.
Mercedes placed it on top of the ribbons she had been comparing and pretended to continue her examination while she read:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

“Why Mr. Hummel,” Mercedes said after she finished, “this is beautiful and not yours. I can recognize our good friend, Mr. Shakespeare, when I read him.”
“Nothing escapes your notice, Miss Jones. I must confess I seem to not be made to write sonnets.” Kurt grinned, embarrassed, at the floor, his rigid sense of decorum being the only thing to stop him from scuffing his shoe against the floorboards.
Mercedes smiled affectionately at him, “Mr. Hummel, I don’t believe I ever expressed a desire for you to write me a sonnet.”
“It is the least I can do for you, Miss Jones. You deserve to be romanced and this is the best way I could think of while still following decorum. After we are married, I will make sure that every romantic desire you have is fulfilled.”
Despite her better judgment, Mercedes blushed. “Is that a proposal, Mr. Hummel?”
Kurt took on a look of exaggerated offense, “In no way would I propose to you so familiarly. You deserve flowers at the very least and I would never ask without your father’s blessing. I am a man of honor, Miss Jones.”
They both collapsed into silent giggles after his speech. Kurt had lowered his head so as not to be seen in such a vulnerable state and by doing so, missed seeing someone pick up his copied sonnet. Mercedes did not. Her face dropped into a perfect ‘O’ of surprise when she saw who it was.
Lord Anderson read the paper with a look of indifference, “Sonnet 18.”
Kurt’s head shot up and barely remembering his manners, managed to school his features into something neutral. Lord Anderson was uniformly rigid in his manner. Curly black hair, cut neatly, rested on top of a stern brow with stern amber eyes resting underneath. His full lips were a neat line that showed nothing of what he was thinking. He turned to Kurt after a second more of examining the sonnet. His face seemed to want to twist into something more pleasant, but settled on something in-between that Kurt found disconcerting.
With nothing of substance to say, Kurt merely replied, “Indeed it is, My Lord.”
Lord Anderson nodded briefly before turning to Miss Jones, “Good day, Miss Jones. I am glad to see that you are looking well. I hear that you and Mr. Hummel are engaged. I wish to give you my congratulations.”
“I wish I could accept your congratulations, but Mr. Hummel and I are not engaged.” Mercedes blushed and looked to the floor.
“As of yet,” Kurt butted in. “I hope to rectify that soon.” Inwardly, Kurt winced at his social faux pas. To admit that he was going to marry Mercedes without having her father’s consent yet was such a horrible breach of social decorum that not even an utter fool would make such a mistake. Gossiping about the future engagement was one thing, but for one of the couple to so blatantly admit it was unheard of. Kurt worked so hard to maintain his propriety and within seconds Lord Anderson had made him forget it.
“I see,” Lord Anderson said with that same look that was a mix between stern and pleasant. Perhaps if Kurt looked closely, it would seem that Lord Anderson’s expression was leaning more towards pleasant than it had been seconds ago.
A few tense seconds passed before Lord Anderson shallowly bowed, muttered some excuse, and left. Mercedes and Kurt stayed still for a few seconds, looking at each other in pure shock.
“What just happened,” Kurt finally breathed out.
“What were you thinking? Declaring to marry me before you’ve asked my father. I know we tease each other about it, but Kurt…” Mercedes trailed off and looked out the window to where Lord Anderson was mounting a beautiful chestnut horse.
“I have no idea. I just had to declare my intentions toward you. For some reason, I wanted him to know exactly where I stood.” Kurt quieted for a moment. “I think the rumor of us being involved bothered me more than I thought.”
“What rumor?”
“Quinn told me that she had heard that I was Lord Anderson’s latest conquest. She was quite concerned at the time, but I brushed it off. A rumor of being involved with a lord will not hurt my standing.”
“What if his Lord Anderson had heard the rumor?”
Kurt resisted the urge to blanche at the thought. “Then all the better I told him where I stand. Propriety be damned.”
“Mr. Hummel,” Ms. Smith called out sternly. She had been strangely quiet during the whole affair but had not missed Kurt’s mistake and continued to glare at him.
“I profusely apologize, Miss Jones, that you had to hear that. A lady’s ears are delicate and must be treated as such. I hope you will forgive me.”
“I do believe that it could be forgiven, Mr. Hummel, if you would help me choose between these two ribbons.” Mercedes teased as she gestured to the ribbons in front of her.
“Why I do believe I can be of assistance,” Kurt replied with an easy smile and took a step forward, with an appropriate amount of space in between him and Mercedes, and looked at the ribbons.
Lord Anderson completely forgotten, they spent the rest of the afternoon comparing ribbons for Mercedes to wear.

……………….

Kurt was debating trying to convince Quinn and Rachel to accompany him to town or going shooting with Michael and Noah. He wasn’t really in the mood to go shooting, but he wasn’t really in the mood to go walking. He’d prefer to read all day, but his father wouldn’t let him spend the day so uselessly. Burt Hummel was a loving man, but hated seeing his children waste the day away. He encouraged them to better themselves, Kurt’s sisters so that they might be better wives and Kurt so that he might be a true gentleman.
If he saw Kurt reading, he’d ask him to balance their accounts. It was the man’s job and Kurt seemed to be quite good at it. In fact, Kurt thought, doing the accounts would be preferable to going shooting or walking and he could do it at as leisurely pace as he wanted.
Kurt stood up, resolved to go talk to his father about the accounts, when Rachel came in. A waft of overly flowery perfume came in with her and Kurt wrinkled his nose in response.
“Rachel, I told you that one or two squirts of perfume would suffice. You smell as if you bathed in it.” What Kurt should have noticed was that Rachel was on a mission and so ignored his comment.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you saw Lord Anderson yesterday?”
Kurt disregarded the fact that people were gossiping about the encounter. Lima could be counted onto to spread the most trivial news in minutes. “It was hardly worth mentioning. He came into the shop, said hello to Mercedes and me, and promptly left.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Rachel argued.
“Then what did you hear?” Kurt shot back.
“I heard that he went with the specific intention to see you.”
Kurt snorted derisively. “I highly doubt that Lord Anderson would ride into town to see me. No doubt, he was in town on business, saw Mercedes and decided to inquire after her. After all, Mr. Jones is his personal lawyer. He was most likely being polite.”
“Lord Anderson has not once in the past eight years come into to town to do business. He does everything from his manor and always sends a servant to do his bidding.” Rachel seemed quite smug at her reply. Kurt glared at her briefly. He be damned if his little sister got the best of him.
“Maybe the man got tired of sitting behind a desk for eight years and decided to see the sun. Or perhaps, this business was much too important for him to send a servant. Honestly Rachel, there are so many reasons as to why Lord Anderson would come to town. How would he even know that I was in town?””
Rachel stuck out her lower lip. Always one for the dramatic, she had grasped onto the rumor of Lord Anderson’s arrival. It was so romantic if he had come for Kurt. She had to make one last attempt.
“Everyone knows that you and Mercedes meet in town every Tuesday. Also, I heard the rumor from one of Lord Anderson’s servants, Jeffrey. Why would he lie about something like that?”
Kurt walked over to the small mirror they kept in the drawing room and proceeded to try to maintain his coifed hair that the heat was determined to destroy. “I honestly have no idea why Jeffrey would say that, but I doubt that Lord Anderson would tell his servant such a personal reason, if that should be the case.”
“But Kurt,” Rachel pleaded. Kurt whirled around.
“No. I’ve had enough. I know that you are not happy with the prospect of marrying for status and by doing so, project your fears onto Quinn and me, but I am marrying Mercedes to produce an heir. Quinn will marry to raise her social standing and so will you. You need to get your head out of the clouds.”
“Why are you so obsessed propriety?” Rachel shouted. Kurt’s anger fed hers until she was just a compacted form of swirling rage. “Ever since mom died, you’ve been obsessed with social etiquette. You’ve given up everything you care for to fit into society. I don’t see you draw or sing or even sew anymore. You’re just this perfect little puppet, and I can’t stand it.” Rachel turned and fled from the room, tears flowing down her face.
Kurt stood in shock. Rachel hardly ever yelled at him, and he didn’t even know why. She strived to fit into society just as much as he did. Everyone he knew called her and Quinn accomplished young ladies and Rachel preened under the attention. What did it matter if Kurt was the same? He was going to be a gentleman one day. Fitting into society was a must. She knew that.
Kurt frowned once more before he banished the subject from his mind. No doubt it was Rachel just being dramatic. Having given himself a satisfactory explanation, he headed to his father’s office. He had accounts to do.