It took two weeks for Blaine to arrange their trip to London – not because the arrangements were so extensive, however, but because now that he knew the truth, now that he was willing to make a few alterations to his attitude, now that he knew the path to Kurt's heart, he wanted some time alone with his husband to make amends.

Time to make up for months of awful behavior.

Blaine started his days early, as per usual, but he put his personal business on hold for the time being and walked with Kurt in the mornings. He bade Kurt show him all of his favorite parts of the estate, and Kurt listened as Blaine told him the stories about his life that Kurt had yet to hear.

Not all of the stories, but the happy ones.

The birthday when Cooper's new horse threw him into the lake.

The time a family of squirrels took up in the manor house and would not be removed.

The Christmas when his father's favorite bitch of a hunting beagle gave birth on his mother's imported rug.

Husband and husband ate their meals together instead of hiding away in their separate rooms. They even managed a picnic, seated on the white stone bench in the rose garden to accommodate Blaine's stiff muscles.

They spoke together while they dined about speculations and ideas – places Kurt wanted to visit while in London, how his sister must be doing (since he had barely received six letters from her in all this time), how his father must be managing without his two children for comfort (since Kurt had only sent him one letter to ask about his health). It shamed Kurt to admit, since his anger at his father was a testament to his vexation about his match to Blaine.

Kurt had gone completely through his sketchbook, and this time – when Blaine made a request of his husband to look through its pages – Blaine found more sketches of the gardens, the manor house, even a few of Sebastian tending to the trees in the thicket, but vastly more pictures of himself, sitting behind his desk in the office (though Kurt had not yet been in that particular room), in deep concentration over his dinner plate, reading in the library, and one portrait of him standing on the front steps of the house, cane in hand, top hat on his head, looking stately as he surveyed his property.

That picture he begged off his husband, and Kurt happily obliged.

And after dinner, before they turned in to their separate bedchambers (since they had not broached the subject of physical intimacy again just yet) Blaine walked Kurt up the stairs to his room, took up his husband's hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed him good-night.

Soon, their trip to London was at hand, and Kurt could not find sleep. He wrapped himself in his thick blankets and squeezed his eyes shut tight, picturing himself attending the theater, dining out, walking the streets in his fine suits, all with Blaine by his side.

He realized that this trip would be nothing without Blaine there to enjoy it with him.

On the morning of their departure, Kurt took his breakfast up in his room while he tended to last minute details, and then met his husband outside at the carriage. Kurt was barely able to stand still long enough to climb inside the coach, excited as he was. He was dressed smartly in what looked to Blaine to be a brand new suit of his own creation. One of many, if Blaine interpreted correctly the number of nights Kurt spent awake in his room, laughing with his maid, talking about their trip, several times commenting on lengths of muslin, strengths of thread, and the amount of bobbins and pins in his possession. Blaine sat up in his room listening to them most of those nights when their voices carried clearly through the walls due to the total silence of the manor. They sounded so young, so carefree. Blaine had such a desire to be with them – to sit on Kurt's bed while he sewed, to listen to them prattle on and on, to be in on their secrets and laugh at their jokes.

He comforted himself with the thought that maybe someday he would be. He had to have patience. This was to be a new beginning for them, and some things couldn't be rushed.

After all, Kurt was giving Blaine the greatest gift he could ever give him – a second chance.

“So, what are we to do in London, my lord?” Kurt asked, bouncing on his bench with enthusiasm he could not restrain for the life of him.

“Well, there is plenty to do at this time of the year,” Blaine said, settling on the bench across from his husband, smiling secretively at Kurt and his maid. “There's the theater to attend, the opera, museums…” Blaine looked down at his gloves, fussing with them unnecessarily in an attempt at appearing nonchalant, “but I thought perhaps we might host a ball…”

Kurt's eyes brightened at his husband's coy expression. Kurt turned to Marley, who smiled even brighter, the two holding each other's hands and giggling like giddy children.

“A ball, my lord?” Kurt gasped. “You are not joking, are you? Please tell me you are not joking.”

“Not at all, husband,” Blaine said, idly tapping his cane on the floor of the carriage. “I would never joke about something as important as a ball.”

“Oh, you're teasing me, my lord,” Kurt said with a pout.

“Only a little,” Blaine admitted with a grin, “but we will truly have a ball. Think of it as a belated wedding celebration.”

Kurt bit his lip and smiled.

“Thank you, my lord,” Kurt said. “This means so much to me.”

Blaine took his husband's hand and raised it to his lips.

“You are most welcome,” Blaine said, laying a kiss across Kurt's knuckles. Blaine made to return his husband's hand to his lap, but Kurt held on a moment longer before the carriage lurched forward, the movement of the horses breaking the grasp of their joined hands.

Blaine's manor in London was an extensive, multi-level apartment, right in the heart of the city. Kurt looked even more in awe of it than he had at the country manor house, Blaine thought, though that might have been because Kurt had never been to this apartment before. When they walked inside, Blaine was glad to discover that the apartment had already been aired, as he had requested, and fresh flowers brought in, set in vases that covered every table – roses, lilies, and several branches of blooming wisteria.

“Shall I take you on the grand tour, husband?” Blaine asked, offering Kurt his arm. Kurt did not notice for several moments, as he was staring at a mural on the ceiling – a beautiful rendition of a congregation of heavenly angels, sitting among the clouds, draped in robes of radiance and light, looking down among the members of the household, the mere mortals in their charge.

Kurt once again caught Blaine watching him with those distracting honey-gold eyes, warm and enticing - eyes that he found himself falling into more and more every time his husband looked his way.

“Yes, I would love a tour, my lord,” Kurt said, taking the offered arm and letting Blaine show him about the house.

Blaine took him first to the ballroom, where they would be hosting their first ball as a married couple the following evening. Kurt got excited simply looking at the room, unable to wait even one more day for the event.

“Do you like it?” Blaine asked, trying to interpret the look on Kurt's face as he wandered about the room, taking a few experimental dance steps here and there across the smooth surface beneath his feet.

“It's glorious, my lord!” Kurt gushed, his voice echoing throughout the room. “Oh, I haven't been to a proper ball in so long, public or private.”

The words stung Blaine and he tried to shrug them off, tried to make them unimportant so that they didn't color his mood. The reason Kurt had not been to a ball in a while was because of Blaine, and Blaine knew that full well.

“Why don't we go to the top of the house and work our way down?” Blaine asked, his voice slightly clipped though he hadn't meant it to be.

Kurt stopped his turn around the marble floor and looked at his husband, whose attitude seemed piqued.

“Of course, my lord,” Kurt said, paying it no mind, sure it was a side effect of the journey to town, and another pleasant though uncomfortable stay at that same inn that Blaine seemed to favor so strongly – The Rose and Crown it was called, or something like that. They walked through the music room on the way to the stairs when Kurt spotted a marvelous pianoforte tucked into the corner.

“Oh, my lord!” Kurt gasped, letting go of his husband's arm and approaching it. “What a beautiful instrument!” Kurt had remembered there being a pianoforte at the manor house, but for some reason it had gone missing. Or maybe it wasn't there at all? He was sure that Blaine had once played the pianoforte for him, and if memory served, he was quite a proficient. Kurt ran his fingers along the keys, plucking at one and flinching when the note came out flat. “Oof! The time for tuning is long overdue.”

“Kurt,” Blaine snapped, and Kurt stopped his fingers from hitting anymore keys.

“What is it, my lord?” Kurt asked.

“We don't…I don't…” Blaine stammered, looking uncomfortable, turning his eyes to the floor.

Kurt waited for Blaine to get his thoughts together, but his reaction puzzled Kurt.

“The pianoforte is off-limits,” Blaine commanded in a forceful voice.

“But…”

“I had forgotten it was here,” Blaine continued. “Had I remembered, I would have had it removed.”

Kurt tilted his head, trying to ascertain the source of Blaine's discomfort. Why would this instrument vex him so? But Kurt had just begun to win Blaine back, and he had no wish to discourage his affection, so Kurt backed away from the pianoforte.

“I am sorry, my lord,” Kurt said, humbling himself to his husband as much as possible without sounding condescending. “I didn't mean to intrude.”

Blaine looked into Kurt's eyes – his guileless blue eyes, full of so much want and a need for acceptance…Blaine's acceptance.

“Tis no intrusion,” Blaine said with a half-smile, patting Kurt's hand when he took Blaine's arm again. “You did not know. I could not expect you to. You were much into music, were you not? Singing, I believe.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kurt said, allowing himself to be led out of the room and back through the house. “I quite enjoy singing. My mother taught me when I was very little.”

“Well, you must sing for me while we are here,” Blaine said.

Kurt smiled at the request.

“I would love that, my lord.”

Blaine took Kurt up to the top level of the manor, a level that might have been an attic but was converted into a single room.

“Is this…a nursery?” Kurt asked, scrunching his nose at the glum look of the room – dark and dreary with little light afforded it by any window. The walls were a dark blue and the floors wood, with a round rug set in the center. It smelled like dust and mildew, and even with its crib in the corner and toys scattered over the floor, the room looked entirely miserable.

“It is,” Blaine affirmed, kicking at a block near his feet and watching it tumble across the floor.

Kurt turned to Blaine with a look of disgust.

“Did you used to play here, my lord?” Kurt asked.

“I did,” Blaine said, and Kurt put a hand to his mouth in shock.

“Oh, Bl---my lord,” Kurt corrected himself. “It is so…depressing.”

“Yes, well, my father felt that children should be seen and not heard,” Blaine explained. “And not seen, if at all possible.”

Blaine looked at Kurt, his thoughtful expression drawing his brows together.

“You know, I give you permission to call me by name…”

“My lord!” Kurt gasped, scandalized at the idea of addressing his husband so familiar.

“At least, when we are alone, Kurt,” Blaine said, trying to tempt him. He wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist and held his husband tight against him. “I would like to hear you call me by my name.”

Blaine slid his lips along Kurt's mouth, trying with soft kisses to coax the name out of him.

“I…” Kurt tried to object, but Blaine kissed him more insistently, slipping his tongue across the seam of Kurt's lips.

“Come on, Kurt,” Blaine whispered into his mouth. “Call me by my name.”

Blaine's mouth moved down Kurt's chin to his neck, his hand holding the side of Kurt's head gently so that Kurt couldn't escape the caress of his lips.

Kurt's eyes fell closed, his lips parted, the heat of Blaine's mouth on his skin too impossible an enticement to withstand.

“Oh,” he muttered, his mind swimming from the touch of Blaine's breath on his neck. “Oh…oh, Blaine.”

“There,” Blaine whispered, running his tongue in circles on Kurt's skin, “was that so difficult?”

Kurt swallowed hard as Blaine left him with one last kiss before pulling away.

Kurt smiled, putting his hands to his cheeks to hide his blush, but Blaine took his wrists and pulled his hands down.

“Do not hide your face from me,” Blaine whispered.

Kurt found it hard not to duck his head from view as the blush on his face grew deeper in color, but he promised, “I won't, my lord.”

Blaine frowned, but still gazed at Kurt with a playful fire in his eyes.

“Shall I show you to your bedchamber, my lord?” Blaine asked, taking Kurt's arm again.

Kurt's shy smile fell at the sound of that title on Blaine's lips, the way the words jeered at him.

“Why do you call me that?” Kurt asked quietly.

“Because you are a Count,” Blaine said, “and thus makes you a lord.” Blaine's eyes became dark and sinful as he explained. “And I must admit, I kind of like calling you that. So, if it pleases you, my lord Count, may I show you to your bedchamber?”

“You may, my lord Earl,” Kurt said, chuckling at how absurd it sounded.

Blaine led him back down the stairs, away from that dismal nursery, to the level below where the bedchambers were.

“This room,” Blaine said, opening a door, “will be your room.” Kurt took a step inside. It was definitely again the countess's old bedchamber, with the same feminine touches as the other manor room – the same four-poster bed shrouded in gossamer curtains, the same dark wood wardrobe with delicate scroll work - but this room was smaller in size, and much less of a shrine to her ladyship's memory. “Does this room suit you?” Blaine asked. “I chose it because it directly abuts mine.”

Kurt smiled so wide it took up his entire face.

“It does, my lord,” Kurt said. “It does.”

Blaine searched Kurt's eyes and saw how genuinely pleased he was.

It gave Blaine cause to hope.