Not long after, the second carriage came barreling down the dirt road. Kurt could tell by the hurricane lamps secured beside the driver's bench that this was definitely their carriage and not another. Beth had cried herself to sleep with her doll hugged tight against her chest, her small body cradled in Blaine's arms as he reclined on the roadside, hidden in the tree line. Kurt rushed the team of horses, waving his arms and calling out to the driver. Dressed in his black traveling suit and with no torch to signal them, he prayed they didn't miss him or run him over – or worse, take him for a robber and shoot him on sight. But Marley, with her head stuck out the window to breathe the evening air, recognized her master's voice right away.

“It's them!” she called, knocking on the roof of the carriage with all the might in her thin arm. “His lordship and my master! Stranded on the road! Stop the damned carriage, for pity's sake!”

The carriage came to a halt a distance away from the trio, and Marley hopped out before it came to a full stop to find out what happened.

“We were set upon by bandits,” Kurt explained, racing forward to summon the footman and a manservant to help his husband. “I do not rightly know. We never saw them. They killed our footman and our driver, set the carriage ablaze…” Kurt shuddered as he recounted the tale. “The horses plummeted off the cliff. They burn…they burned alive.”

“Oh, milord,” Marley sobbed, and he let the girl throw her arms around him. “I am sorry.”

“All will be well when we get off of this accursed road,” Kurt said with a sniffle. “Come, help me.”

The servants and Marley rushed after Kurt, who led them to where Blaine and Beth lay. Marley took sleeping Beth in her arms and carried her to the carriage while the servants tried to aid Blaine, but Blaine would not have it. If he needed to be carried, he wanted Kurt to his left so that his husband could help him negotiate his humiliating dislodged leg.

Kurt helped the footman get Blaine to his feet and then helped carry him to the coach, with the other servant taking the lead, carrying a lantern aloft to guide their way.

Kurt attempted to shift everyone around so that they all could fit in the carriage, factoring in an extra stop so the team could rest, but the servants had ideas of their own, readying themselves to travel the dark road back into town without command in order to give their lords and Beth room to travel comfortably in the carriage – all except for Marley, whose master would not see her go. Blaine tried to object, but the servants insisted. He drew them up two quick letters - one for the authorities in town, detailing the specifics of the attack upon their carriage, and one with instructions that would procure the servants a second carriage to take them home. He wished them well, shaking each one of their hands in turn, and promised to compensate them generously when they returned to the manor house again.

The journey to the country was a silent one, with not an hour of rest enjoyed between Kurt and Blaine. They sat on the bench, side by side, with a sleeping Beth nestled between them. The two lords stayed awake, nerves on edge, eyes glued to the road and the trees, keeping watch for any signs of another attack.

They stopped the journey half way to give the horses an opportunity to rest. Instead of spending the night at The Rose and Crown, as was their usual custom, Blaine took advantage of a long extended invitation by a nearby lord, who gratefully offered Lord Anderson and his family accommodation for the evening in exchange for the pleasure of their company. The Andersons dined with their host, putting on the appearance of normalcy so as not to sully the evening. They were offered three rooms for their use, and a governess at their disposal, but when bedtime finally came in the wee morning hours, Kurt and Blaine slept with Beth between them, and Marley on a settee in the same room, off to one corner.

They left their host's home earlier than the lord would have liked, but Blaine made sure to leave the kind gentleman with an open invitation to visit Anderson Manor for fishing in his lake as soon as his schedule allowed.

The final leg of their journey was tense, though less so as the surrounding countryside became more familiar. The rolling green hills and tight clusters of trees were a comforting sign that they were back where they belonged. When the manor house came into full view both men felt relieved, and Kurt finally felt at home.

Kurt roused a sleeping Beth so that the girl could get her first view of her new permanent home.

“Okay, Beth, my darling,” Kurt said, urging her toward the coach window when the carriage stopped, “this is your home now.”

Beth blinked sleepy eyes, then, taking in the enormous house standing before her, stared with her jaw dropped to her chest. Kurt snickered.

“This, milord?” she asked. “But this…this can't be a house! It looks like the Colosseum!”

“You should see it on the inside,” Kurt teased, kissing the top of Beth's head. “Would you like to see inside?”

“Oh, yes, please,” she said, stepping down from the carriage, taking the butler's offered hand and hopping down the last step.

“Marley?” Kurt summoned his maid from the carriage. “Please take Miss Beth on a tour of the house.”

“Yes, milord,” Marley said with a smile at the little girl who looked back up at Kurt with saddened eyes.

“But, I want you to take me, milord,” she pouted.

“I will be with you in a moment,” Kurt said, following Marley out of the carriage. “I promise. Now run along.”

Marley took Beth's hand, flashed one of her infectious grins, and the two girls shot off into the house, all sense of propriety lost. Kurt laughed as he watched them, Beth especially, so changed from that first little girl who wouldn't let Marley near her.

Now they were thick as thieves and destined to be lifelong friends, Kurt just knew it.

Kurt turned to the butler who stood by the carriage steps waiting for his lord and master, but Kurt addressed him first.

“Please set the young girl up in the room adjoining mine,” he commanded.

“Or…” Blaine interrupted, slowly stepping from the carriage, his hand gripping his cane tightly. Kurt immediately offered his husband an arm down from the carriage, which Blaine happily accepted, “we can set Beth up in your room, my love, and you can move into my room…with me?”

Kurt gasped at the offer, overwhelmed that this custom they had developed in the city of bedding down together would continue here in the country.

“I would love that, my lord,” Kurt said, his lips parting into a slow smile. He raised his husband's hand to his lips and kissed it. Blaine matched Kurt's smile at the sweet gesture.

“If it pleases my husband,” Blaine said, letting Kurt help him down the final step, “I have a present for you.”

“A present?” Kurt asked, bubbling over with excitement. “For me?”

“Yes,” Blaine said, looking left and right around the carriage, and then smiling when he saw it approach. “I arranged for it before we left to make sure that it would ready for our return.”

Blaine took Kurt's shoulders and turned his body around, facing him away from the house and in the direction of the meadow. Kurt saw Sebastian approach, holding the reins of a beautiful horse – a red roan gelding – with a mane of flame-colored hair framing a proud, fierce face.

“A horse, my lord?” Kurt breathed clasping his hands together beneath his chin. “You got me a horse?”

Sebastian smiled at Kurt and bowed deeper than Blaine thought necessary.

“It is nice to see you back, milord,” Sebastian said, pulling the beast closer to its new master. “And you, Lord Anderson.”

“Mr. Smythe,” Blaine returned with a still wary tone in his voice. “Thank you for bringing my husband's gift up from the stables.”

Sebastian smiled graciously and bowed again.

Kurt stared at the gorgeous creature before him with awe, reaching a hand out, almost afraid to touch the mighty animal.

“The horse is quite tame, milord,” Sebastian assured him, running his hand down the horse's face. Kurt put his hand to the beast's face and it nuzzled into Kurt's palm.

“Do you like it, my love?” Blaine whispered, still holding Kurt's shoulders in his grasp.

“I love it, my lord!” Kurt exclaimed, turning and throwing himself into his husband's embrace. Sebastian turned a polite eye away as Kurt held Blaine in his arms.

Blaine held him back, caring nothing if they made a scene. Anderson Manor was their home, and Sebastian, for his part, was more than their servant. He was their friend. Laws that governed behavior and propriety didn't exist here while Kurt was trembling in Blaine's arms from pure happiness.

“But…” Kurt muttered, releasing his grip and stepping back a bit to look into his husband's eyes.

“But, what?” Blaine asked anxiously. “What is it? Tell me.”

Kurt bit his lip and grinned, looking up at Blaine through a fan of long lashes, his blue eyes sparkling with secret intentions.

“I have nothing to give to you, my lord,” Kurt said. “However shall I repay you?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and shook his head, laughing at Kurt's blatant flirting.

“If it pleases you, I will return the horse to its stable, Lord Anderson, until the Count is ready for a ride,” Sebastian said, not even waiting for a dismissal before he began turning the horse away.

“Please do, Mr. Smythe,” Blaine said with his eyes locked to his husband's darkening gaze.“My husband and I have…business to attend to.”

“Oh…oh, my love,” Kurt moaned, arching his back, scratching at the sheets beneath him, his body shuddering at the drag of his husband's tongue down his aching length, “I believe you are trying to kill me, my lord.”

Blaine pulled away from Kurt's cock and smiled.

“If I am, my love, can you think of a better way to go?” He sank down over Kurt again, running his hands up the backs of Kurt's legs to cup his buttocks.

“Yes,” Kurt moaned, “I can, my lord.”

Blaine stopped his assault and pulled off Kurt's cock quickly, Kurt whining at the loss of heat.

“Really, husband?” he asked, crawling up Kurt's body to tease the corners of his mouth with the same tongue that had been caressing his length. “And what way is that?”

“With you buried inside me,” Kurt said, capturing Blaine's tongue playfully between his teeth.

“Is that what you wish, my love?” Blaine whispered when Kurt relinquished his tongue. “Do you want me inside of you?”

“Yes,” Kurt said, kissing Blaine gently. “That is my wish.”

“How shall we then?” Blaine asked. “You choose the position.”

Kurt gave it some thought, and then rolled onto one side, pulling Blaine's arm till it wrapped around him and his husband's body fell naturally behind his back.

“We have not done it like this before,” Blaine said, looking down at his husband with a raised eyebrow.

“I know, my lord,” Kurt said, blushing, “but I want to be closer to you, and I thought…” Kurt's daring fell away a bit, but Blaine kissed him soundly to bring it back.

“I think that sounds wonderful, actually,” Blaine said, climbing behind his husband. Blaine's hands massaged up and down the strong planes of Kurt's back, along the line of his spine. Kurt moaned, Blaine's touch on his skin like a salve that melted all of Kurt's insecurities away.

Blaine's hands slid between Kurt's cheeks, his thumb dipping inside Kurt's entrance with every pass, teasing him, coaxing Kurt to open up for him, making Kurt crave him beyond a shadow of any other doubts in his mind – not that there are many. Most of his doubts had evaporated away long ago. Kurt felt the caress of Blaine's fingers coated in oil slip inside his body and prize him open.

“Kurt,” Blaine murmured against his husband's soft skin, “my beautiful Kurt. What did I ever do to deserve you, my love?”

Blaine slowly replaced his fingers with his cock, biting his tongue as he entered his husband, impatient but unwilling to rush this moment.

“I daresay you don't, my lord,” Kurt panted, resting his head back on Blaine's shoulder so Blaine could see his smile.

“One more word like that, husband,” Blaine said, pushing until he was fully settled inside his husband's body, “and I will have to spank you.”

“Oh,” Kurt cooed, sighing at the feeling of being full, of being complete with his husband inside him, “I wish you would, my lord.”

Blaine pulled out of his husband, almost entirely out of his body, and then shoved back in quickly, bringing a hand back and smacking Kurt soundly on the ass.

“Ah!” Kurt moaned. “Lord…”

“Is that what you wanted?” Blaine asked, looking down at where his hand left a red print on Kurt's perfect alabaster ass cheek.

“Yes, my lord,” Kurt whined, reaching back with his arms and looping them around his husband's neck, giving Blaine unfettered access to his body, which Blaine used to his advantage, alternating between swats to Kurt's behind and casual caresses of Kurt's cock. Blaine kept his eyes open as he made love to his husband, glorying at the way Kurt's skin absorbed the silver moonlight, reflecting it, filling the room with its radiance.

“I think I may have found my new favorite position, my love,” Blaine moaned.

“I am glad,” Kurt said with a sigh. “I think it is mine as well.”

“Really?” Blaine asked, kissing Kurt's shoulder, needing to have his lips on Kurt's skin at all times.

“Truly,” Kurt replied, relaxing further against Blaine's chest. “I think I could just lie here like this all night and be blissfully happy.”

“That sounds like a request,” Blaine teased.

“Maybe it is,” Kurt said, sighing every time Blaine pushed into his body, each tiny breath winding around Blaine's heart, tightening and tightening, trying to pull the truth from him – the truth of how Blaine had fallen in love with his husband.

“Have I ever told you how gorgeous you are, my love?” Blaine asked, holding Kurt's waist in the circle of his arms.

“Not nearly as much as you should, my darling,” Kurt smirked.

“You are gorgeous, my love,” Blaine said, gripping his husband's cock and holding him, letting Kurt fuck himself into his fist, enjoying the way Kurt moved, how Kurt's ass brushed against his thighs, how his muscles twitched as he pushed them to their limits. “You feel like heaven must, I'm sure.”

Kurt wound his fingers in Blaine's hair, twirling his curls, tugging them slightly.

“How does that feel for you, my love?” Kurt asked. “Making love to me? Being inside of me?”

Blaine could see the rush of color speed down Kurt's back and he knew Kurt was blushing, which made his question that much more endearing.

“You feel amazing,” Blaine said, running a hand along Kurt's shoulder to his neck, kissing around his hairline. “Incredible. Like you fit me perfectly.”

Kurt laughed, but in a thoughtful way.

“It's not the same with everyone?” he asked bashfully.

“No, my love,” Blaine said. “No, it is not.”

“I never…I never thought,” Kurt stuttered, finding it harder to talk with his husband's body pushing him towards the summit of pleasure, where nothing else mattered but his body spiraling towards ecstasy, “it would be different.”

“It is…” Blaine said, stammering, caught by the same affliction, “with someone that you…”

Kurt's entire body tightened and he gasped, turning his head and pulling Blaine's face to his to kiss him while he came. Blaine's whole mind shut down with that kiss - the heat of Kurt's mouth and the quaking of his body obliterating anything that wasn't Kurt's mouth, his skin, his scent.

“Mmmm,” Kurt hummed against Blaine's lips, “holy…heavens…I…”

Blaine's body surrendered to Kurt's as Kurt stammered, attempting to form a sentence that expressed how he felt when Blaine knew there were few words that could.

“You know,” Blaine started, pausing to kiss his husband, to lick along the delicate lines of his neck – the ones that made Kurt shiver with a single breath, “we can switch next time.”

“Hmm, what do you mean, my lord?” Kurt asked, craning his neck for more.

“Next time, you can make love to me.”

Kurt turned his head so quickly on his neck to look at his husband that he accidentally knocked his husband's nose. Blaine snorted and began to laugh, but Kurt looked terrified.

“But, I…I don't know how,” Kurt said.

Blaine kissed Kurt's mouth. He loved Kurt's mouth – pink and perfect, his lips plump from being bitten and kissed, dipping in the center like a bow. Blaine could spend a day kissing Kurt's lips and never tire of it.

“I would be honored to teach you, my love,” Blaine whispered, feeling Kurt smile.

“Shame we can't start tonight,” Kurt said with a yawn. “I'm pretty sure I'm already asleep, as is, but I must say, this has been an incredible dream.”

“I'm glad to oblige.” Blaine pulled out of his husband carefully, watching Kurt's eyes drift closed as he does. Blaine turned to the table by their bedside - positioned with forethought by Kurt, who abhorred walking about the bedroom after they made love. He didn't like destroying the mood by breaking away from their comfortable, sex mussed bed to deal with the mundane tasks of cleaning up and getting prepared for sleep. Blaine pulled a cloth from the already filled basin of water (another of Kurt's suggestions), and began to clean his husband. It was a ritual that had become another way of being intimate with Kurt, of showing Kurt how much Blaine cared for him – how much he loved him.

“I've been thinking, my lord,” Kurt said, lying out on his back, stretched like a cat in the sun.

“Yes, my love,” Blaine replied, running his hand down Kurt's chest.

“About the attack on the carriage…” Kurt paused and Blaine stiffened beside him. “I will not discuss it if it bothers you too much, my darling.”

“No, love,” Blaine said, kissing Kurt's shoulder. “Of course we can talk about it. We should talk about it. It was horrible.”

“I just…I don't understand,” Kurt said with a yawn.

“What don't you understand?”

“Well…” Kurt turned onto his back and reached a hand out to touch Blaine's arm, “you seem determined this was a robbery.”

“Don't you?” Blaine asked, looking at Kurt's face while he spoke. His husband looked so tired, Blaine was sure he'd nod off somewhere in the middle of his sentence and not get to finish.

“I…did,” Kurt yawned again, “in the beginning. But…why did they not try to take anything. The carriage was stopped, they had guns, obviously. Why not just rob us then? Why set the carriage on fire?”

“I…I don't know,” Blaine admitted. He had actually come to the same conclusion a day ago - that robbery was not the motive for the attack on their carriage - he just didn't want to add his speculations to the mound of concerns piling onto Kurt's shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I thought it might be Puck,” Blaine said, deciding, however, to test this one theory out on his husband.

“Hmmm, no,” Kurt said decisively.

“No?” Blaine asked.

“Why would Puck attack our carriage with Beth inside?” Kurt deduced. “I could understand wanting you dead, maybe me as well, but Beth…”

“Maybe he did not realize she would be in the carriage along with us,” Blaine reasoned.

“But why risk it?” Kurt asked, releasing Blaine's hand and running his fingers up and down Blaine's arm.

“Because, my love, he is a desperate and insane man,” Blaine explained, trying hard to defend his theory. He needed to hate Puck, not sympathize with him.

“Desperate I agree with, but insane…I believe not. He loves Beth, or thinks he does, that is to be sure.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asked. They hadn't discussed the ordeal Kurt and Beth had with Puck in the alley. Blaine wanted so badly to put everything behind them.

“Well,” Kurt said, his voice fading as sleep tried to pull him under, “he said he had been looking all over for Beth, and that he loved her. He seemed dead set on taking her with him. He was so close to it, too. It doesn't make sense…to hurt her…”

Kurt yawned through his sentence, and Blaine knew he would soon be asleep.

Blaine pondered Kurt's words and he had to admit they made sense. Puck seemed to have gone to great trouble to find Beth, over a lengthy period of time. Kurt said the man called her his daughter and that he loved her. Why risk doing anything then that might hurt her?

Either Puck was extremely disturbed – disturbed beyond the boundaries of rational thinking – or, there was someone else involved. Someone on Puck's payroll, maybe, who didn't get the message correct when Puck hired him to dispose of only himself and his husband and recover the girl safely.

Either way, he didn't like it.

“Sleep now, my love,” Blaine whispered, kissing down Kurt's beautifully bruised neck. “We have a big day tomorrow.”

“Do we, my lord?” Kurt muttered, beginning to drift into a gentle slumber. “A big day of what?”

“Of rest,” Blaine said with a kiss to his husband's temple. “Relaxation. A picnic with you and our darling Beth.”

“Hmm,” was Kurt's serene reply.

“Yes, my love. And you can ride your new gelding,” Blaine continued, smiling at the murmurs Kurt made in his restful state.

“Lovely,” Kurt mumbled before his breathing evened and his gentle snores took over. Blaine smiled. He reached over and turned out the lamp on the bedside. Blaine laid beside his husband, carding his fingers through Kurt's hair, watching his eyes shift back and forth as he dreamed. The night was perfectly peaceful - his naked husband's body warm and inviting, the room silent, moonlight spilling through the window - but none of it helped him relax.

What if the villains who tried to kill them discovered that they weren't dead? It would be known as soon as word of the attack on their carriage reached the papers. Then might Puck and his gang try to kill them in their home? It was a long shot, but it was not beyond the realm of possibility.

There were many on the estate who could help if Puck found them, but Blaine would feel safer with the addition of one more hired man. This was a matter of extreme importance. It could not wait. 

Blaine slipped from beneath his quilt, attached his prosthetic, and hobbled to his writing desk.

Blaine knew if it came down to it, he would be useless in protecting his husband and daughter. He was pretty good with steel against one sword, but against several villains, he couldn't be sure.

Blaine knew of a man who could help him - a man he had already trusted his life to once. Blaine only hoped that he could get to the estate in time. 

Blaine pulled a piece of writing paper from the desk drawer and laid it out on the polished desktop. He opened a maple box with a golden catch that contained an inkwell and a writing quill. He penned a quick note, then left it on the desk for the ink to dry. He rang for the butler to fetch his page, Kenneth. When the young boy appeared in the dark doorway, Blaine folded the piece of paper, fixed it shut with a wax seal bearing his signet, and handed it to the boy.

“Keep this safe,” Blaine whispered to the boy. “Don't show it to anyone but its intended. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded wearily. Blaine grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and shook him hard.

“Listen to me, boy,” Blaine said.  Kenneth's eyes widened, awakened by his lord's stern tone. “This is a matter of great urgency. Take this to The Rose and Crown. You will find it down by the waterfront. Deliver it only into the hands of Jonas McMillan.”

Blaine pulled the boy close by his collar and spoke sharply in his ear. 

“Try not to be seen when you leave here, and ride like the wind. Answer no one's questions...no one's. If I find out you have not done this exactly as I have asked, I will skin you alive when I next see you.”

Kenneth nodded hard, swallowing anxiously as he tucked the small parchment in his shirt pocket, right above his heart. Blaine took the boy's hand. Opening his fist palm up, Blaine pressed a few coins in it and closed his fingers around them.

“Use this only for emergencies,” Blaine stressed. “And don't get into any trouble.”

Blaine's eyes softened as he looked into the boy's face. Kenneth, no more than fifteen give or take a year, had joined Blaine's service after his parents were killed. Though he was a bit of an absentminded boy, he was loyal to a fault and eager to prove himself. Blaine respected that. 

“God be with you, boy,” Blaine said, clapping Kenneth on the shoulder. Kenneth smiled, a look of pride shining from his heavy-lidded eyes.

“Thank you, m'lord,” he said, and with quiet footfalls against the cold wood floor, Kenneth disappeared into the darkness.