For the next few weeks, Kurt turned avoiding his husband into a profession. It wasn't all that difficult a thing to do. Whatever personal business Blaine kept tending to took him away from the house all day, almost every day, though he seemed to make it a ritual to be home by dinner. Because of that, Kurt joined him for the meal, even if he ate no more than a piece of bread or a morsel of fruit, simply to acknowledge Blaine's effort. Kurt took to walking the grounds so extensively that he had to take in most of his pants and coats, since they started to hang loosely from his newly trim figure. The soft belly he had when he left his father's house disappeared, and his legs became more muscular.

There still didn't seem to be a place on the property that Kurt could hide from the pernicious tongue of Blaine's awful manservant, Matthew, but Kurt had found himself immune to the man's words now that his heart had hardened. This seemed to aggravate the man exceedingly. Soon his presence became no more important to Kurt than a fly on the wall or an ant underfoot.

The trees were beginning to change their coat of colors, and some of the more fragile roses lost their petals. The air nipped at Kurt's skin when he walked, but that didn't dissuade him. He would return to the manor house with his nose red and raw, and the skin of his hands chapped beneath his gloves.

By the evening meal, Kurt was quite exhausted and well lost in his own world. If Blaine watched Kurt while he ate, Kurt took no note of it. Since conversation was nonexistent, Kurt began to draw at the table. It didnt concern Kurt, but it had crossed his mind that if Blaine could have caught a glimpse of his newest work, maybe the misunderstanding between them would be set to right.

His bedroom still vexed him, and often times filled his mind with horrific dreams. One morning Kurt woke, his heart racing in his chest, his skin drenched with sweat, his mind filled with homesickness for his father and his sister, for the warmth of the hearth and the cozy pleasantness of his father's house. He even missed his sister's ridiculous maid, Kitty. Unable to return to sleep, Kurt put on his newly tailored day suit and a heavier coat, and stretched his legs earlier than usual, in search of something that might put his mind at ease. He had it in his mind and circled the gardens, covering a fair tract of the land, but it was nowhere to be found.

Kurt heard the crunch of dried leaves underfoot and put on his mask of impassivity, certain that Matthew had followed him in another attempt to rouse his ire. But the voice that struck his ears – mellow and smooth, and giving the impression of being unerringly kind – did not come from that rancorous source.

“Forgive me, milord,” it said, coming up behind Kurt carefully, “but I've been watching you wander around out here for the past hour or so, and I was curious if there was something in particular you were searching for?”

Kurt turned to the man who followed him, and smiled when he saw his face.

Kurt had only spoken to Sebastian a handful of times since their meeting. The man seemed to always be occupied with the trees in the meadow on the boundary of the property. Apparently they had fallen ill before Kurt had arrived, and whatever ailed them threatened the entire thicket. Those trees had been members of the Anderson clan longer than any family member had lived, and Blaine demanded that they be saved.

Kurt didn't even know that a tree could catch ill, so the whole affair confounded him quite a bit.

Sebastian smiled at Kurt in a way that no other man had. Sebastian's smile was as much polite as it was a touch inappropriate. Sebastian seemed to find Kurt appealing, and he had no problem with letting his expression show it, but Sebastian was a respectful man, who knew very well his place in the world. Therefore, he was simply content to watch Kurt as he walked and talk to him on occasion, but in another lifetime and another world, he would take his chance if offered.

“Pray tell, is there any wisteria on the property?” Kurt asked. “My mother had the most excellent tree. My father brought it home for her on one of his travels. She fought with that thing tooth and nail to grow, but now, it's the most glorious thing.”

Sebastian grinned.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, pointing down the hillside, “I had a wisteria planted last spring, if you'd like to see it, milord.”

“Yes,” Kurt said, returning Sebastian's grin. “Yes, I believe I would.”

After that encounter, Sebastian became Kurt's constant companion as he strolled through the grounds in the early mornings, bringing him cuttings from all over the property that Kurt kept in a vase in his room. Sebastian had a habit of being open and honest with Kurt, with no qualms against telling Kurt exactly what he thought, almost without a filter – a habit Kurt hoped that he employed only in Kurt's presence, since that practice could get him into serious trouble, especially with Lord Anderson.

“I don't understand it, Sebastian,” Kurt divulged, looking down at the buds beneath his nose.

“What is there to understand, milord?” Sebastian asked as he worked hard at deadheading the roses, pruning some of the stems bare to prepare them for the upcoming winter.

“I just don't know how to make him…like me. He has me – all of me…” Kurt admitted with a scarlet flush coloring his features. “He just doesn't seem to like me. He did once. I don't know where on earth that affection has gone.”

“Well, he's your husband, milord,” Sebastian said, gathering up the fallen rose heads and buds into his basket. “Why don't you ask him?”

Kurt watched Sebastian shoulder his basket and huffed.

“Have you ever tried to talk to Lord Anderson?” Kurt asked.

“Aye, I have, milord,” Sebastian commented, moving to another area of bushes where the leaves had taken the cold quickly and begun to turn bronze. “And he is a stern man at that, but he has a good ear. But my concerns are not the same as yours, so if you want to be heard, you must make him listen.”

“I am afraid that it might be too late.” Kurt looked down at his flowers, watching as the petals folded over one another and the blues changed in hue from dark to light at the base traveling to the tip. “I am afraid that perhaps he has finally lost all affection for me.”

“Has he turned you out of the house yet, milord?” Sebastian asked, switching his shears and working at carefully stripping the leaves.

“No,” Kurt said.

“Has he made any indication that he means to do so, milord?”

“No.”

“Then I believe you still have a chance,” Sebastian said, biting his lip as an errant thorn sliced through the skin of his knuckle.

“Oh, here,” Kurt said, pulling out his handkerchief and tending to the wound.

“Tis alright, milord,” Sebastian said, “I have a handkerchief myself. You don't need to spoil yours.”

“Yes, and I've seen your handkerchief, if that's what you call it,” Kurt chided with a shake of his head. “I'm surprised you haven't caught typhoid by now using that thing. So you may hold on to mine and burn that thing in your pocket as soon as you are able.”

“Yes, milord,” Sebastian returned with an amused grin.

“Anyway, Lord Anderson has his reasons for not turning me out, and they have nothing to do with love or affection,” Kurt said, realizing a million times over that he should probably be more censored in his comments, but he couldn't help it. Sebastian seemed to understand, in his own way, what Kurt was going through, and he always had an ear available to listen. Kurt might not always be the greatest judge of character, but he trusted Sebastian. He couldn't see the man turning coat on him.

At least he hoped not. He needed a friend – one more other than Marley – that he could talk to.

“Well, what is it that you want from him, milord?” Sebastian asked, returning to the roses.

“I want to give him my love someday,” Kurt admitted quietly, “but I don't think he'll give me his in return.”

“Maybe he needs more than that, milord,” Sebastian said, avoiding another mixed bag of thorns before they could catch more of his skin.

“I have little else to offer,” Kurt griped. “What could I give him that I haven't already?”

Sebastian turned his head and saw Kurt cradling the flowers lovingly in his arms. He bent to catch Kurt's gaze and smiled.

“Time, milord,” Sebastian said. “Give him time. If you don't mind me saying so, you've married a much better man than you give him credit for. Give him the opportunity to show you that.”

Kurt nodded.

“I'll try,” Kurt said. “I'll definitely try.”

Blaine watched from his office window as Sebastian brought Kurt a blossoming branch bursting with purple flowers. Kurt smiled when he saw it, holding it against his chest and thanking Sebastian with the most gracious bow Blaine had ever seen. It tugged at his heart as he watched them, and as spited as he felt watching Kurt give away another of his precious smiles to a man other than him, Blaine grinned. He imagined himself bringing Kurt a cutting of flowers, and having that smile aimed his way. Why hadn't he thought of that himself? Why hadn't he given Kurt flowers before?

The first flowers Kurt received at his new home came from the groundskeeper.

Blaine would throttle himself if he could.

When Blaine discovered that Kurt took his walks past the view of his office windows every morning, he locked himself away so he could sit and watch him. It used to be that Kurt wandered around the grounds alone, bending to smell the flowers, sitting in the grass and drawing in his sketchbook, sometimes taking a small picnic with his maid…or alone.

Blaine longed to join him – longed to sit outside on the grass and feed his husband olives while they talked about everything under the sun. But his stiff limb and the pain in his joints wouldn't allow him to sit on the ground, and besides, now that Sebastian joined him every morning, Kurt seemed to have all the company he needed.

“Will there be anything else, milord?” Matthew asked as he gathered up Blaine's plates from lunch.

Blaine kept his eyes glued to the couple walking through the roses, getting lost within the depths of the blooming buds as they spoke.

“Do they often spend time together?” Blaine asked.

“Who, milord?” The servant peered over Blaine's shoulder at the scene of Kurt and Sebastian talking in the garden. Sebastian spoke and Kurt threw his head back and laughed. Blaine hit the glass lightly with his fist, and Matthew – irritated that his jeering no longer had any effect on Kurt - took notice.

“Oh, yes, milord,” Matthew said. “I often see them out along the paths together, laughing and talking, from sun up to sun down.”

“Sun up to sun down?” Blaine repeated.

Matthew saw the hurt in Blaine's eyes, and a new plan to be rid of Kurt coalesced in his head.

“Yes, milord,” Matthew said. “They seem to quite enjoy each other.” Matthew stood quietly at his master's side and let his words sink in. “Will there be anything else, milord?”

“N-no, Matthew,” Blaine stuttered. “That will be all. I wish to be left alone.”

“As you wish, milord.” Matthew took the plates and backed out of the office, locking the door with a self-satisfied sneer.

“You sure do like to walk, milord,” Sebastian laughed, doing his best to keep up with Kurt as he sprinted up an unexplored hillside to the north of the property.

“I didn't used to, to be honest,” Kurt said, chuckling as he sped up a little more. “I've gone through one pair of walking shoes already. They weren't my best shoes by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm not that upset.” Kurt heard Sebastian panting behind him and sprinted the last leg of the hillside, reaching the top while Sebastian took a knee to catch his breath.

“That is it, milord,” Sebastian said. “You win, which is quite an achievement in those pants.”

“What's wrong with my pants?” Kurt asked, turning around and looking himself over, trying to find the fatal flaw in his outfit.

“Nothing, milord.” Sebastian made his way up the rest of the hill. He crawled to Kurt's feet and fell on his back in the grass, looking up at the clouds and sucking in deep breaths of air. “It's just that they seem more suited to dining out than to taking a walk around the estate.”

“Any time is an opportunity to be fashionably dressed,” Kurt said. “I made these pants myself, I'll have you know, and if I didn't wear them to walk around the grounds, I wouldn't be wearing them at all. It's not as if my husband takes me to dine out. We receive invitations left and right, but he doesn't accept a one. And we haven't hosted a ball or a dinner since our arrival, which is considered to be appallingly bad manners.”

“Lord Anderson is a private man, milord,” Sebastian said, keeping his eyes fixed to the sky. “Since my employ, which has been many years, he has not hosted a single gathering, but he has his reasons.”

Sebastian plucked a wildflower from the grass and raised it to his face, picking at the narrow petals.

“What reasons are those?” Kurt asked meekly, knowing he was crossing the line of asking Sebastian to betray a confidence.

“Ah, I would tell you if I could, milord,” Sebastian said with a wink, “but alas, it is not my story to tell.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, but he appreciated Sebastian's loyalty to his husband.

He hoped to have it as well.

Kurt decided to do the genteel thing and swiftly changed the subject.

“If I had my choice of transportation about the grounds, I would choose to have a horse.”

“A horse, milord?” Sebastian asked with a grin.

“What?” Kurt said, mocking offense. “Are you saying you cannot see me atop a horse?”

“Not at all, milord,” Sebastian said. “I think you would manage a horse expertly. You'd probably drive the poor creature till it dropped of exhaustion.”

“As long as it keeps up better than you,” Kurt laughed. He turned in a circle and looked over the land rolling out in all directions beneath them. “I learned to ride just out there,” Kurt said, sitting in the grass and pointing to a spot in the distance. “Fell off the thing more than I stayed on at first, but the next day, I climbed on the animal's back and rode and rode all day long. It took eight hands to catch me and pry me off.” Kurt sighed, seeing the memory of that horse gallop over the hillside as if it all happened yesterday. “I remember it felt so freeing, like nothing in the world could touch me. Nothing could hold me down.”

Sebastian looked at Kurt's face, at the nostalgia painting his cheeks red and his eyes a brighter shade of blue.

“You know, there are many different ways to be free, milord,” Sebastian offered. “The life you have here may feel like a prison at times, but it can make you free, if you let it.”

“Yes?” Kurt raised a hand to wipe away a tear. “And how do I do that?”

Sebastian plucked another wildflower from the grass, rolled onto his stomach, and handed it to Kurt. Kurt took it from Sebastian's fingers, gazing at the dainty white flower, which bent on its stem when another tear fell from Kurt's eyes.

“Talk to him, milord,” Sebastian said. “Talk to him now.”

Lord Anderson was standing in the garden, pacing in front of the bare rose bushes, wringing the head of his cane in his fist, ready to greet his husband and groundskeeper when they returned from their afternoon walk.

Blaine saw the two laughing and talking as they headed down the path, all of which ceased the moment their eyes fell on him. Kurt's eyes went wide with surprise, but Sebastian simply smiled pleasantly.

“Lord Anderson,” Sebastian said, bowing when he saw his ill-faced lord glaring murderously at him. “Is there something I can do to assist…”

“Please remind me, Mr. Smythe, why it is I hired you?” Blaine barked. “Was it to tend to the landscaping…” His eyes switched to Kurt's blanched face, “or to my husband?”

Kurt gasped audibly at the insinuation in his husband's tone.

“I am sorry, milord,” Sebastian said with another bow, “but you misunderstand…”

“I misunderstand nothing,” Blaine hissed. “Mr. Smythe, I want you off the property immediately.”

“As you wish, milord,” Sebastian said, brokering no argument. He bowed low to his master, and then to Kurt, whom he looked upon with sympathetic eyes. Kurt watched Sebastian turn and walk back toward the house while Blaine continued to glower at his ex-employee.

“No, my lord!” Kurt cried in a panic, folding his hands beneath his chin in a pleading gesture. “No! Please! You can't…you can't do this!”

“I can and I will,” Blaine said, turning in the opposite direction to take his leave.

Kurt's mouth hung open with words choking to be heard, but they could find no way. He grabbed one of the rose branches, letting the thorns bury themselves in his palm until the pain forced him to speak.

“How, my lord?” Kurt cried after his husband. “How can you be so cruel?” Blaine stopped in the walk as his husband screamed at him. “He was my only friend here! My only friend!”

“Don't be dramatic, Kurt,” Blaine snapped, turning clumsily on his heel, almost skidding on the ground. “You are a Count now. Why don't you start acting like one?”

In his head, Blaine winced. He sounded exactly like his own dead father.

“A Count?” Kurt replied cynically. “I am no one here! I am barely your husband! I don't run this household, your servants do, and you have servants in your employ that show me no respect!”

“You must earn their respect,” Blaine countered.

“How, my lord? How do I earn their respect? They take their cue from you, and you show me no respect, no compassion whatsoever!”

Blaine's body shook in the face of Kurt's anger, but his shoulders slouched.

“What would you have me do, Kurt?” Blaine asked, turning his face away so that Kurt wouldn't see the weakness in his eyes.

Kurt opened his mouth to speak. He had a flurry of answers for that question.

Give me a chance.

Try to know me.

Treat me like your husband.

Defend me.

Teach me how to love you.

But a sound in the distance – some commotion coming from the front of the house – suddenly caught Blaine's attention. Without giving Kurt more time to answer, he turned back down the path he had come, rushing off with his cane in hand, and leaving Kurt with a clipped, “We'll speak later. I need to go.”