“Have you heard, milord?” Marley started, her voice rising in pitch with excitement as she readied to spill the gossip she’d been carrying around with her all day.

Hers was also, incidentally, the first voice Blaine heard as he approached his husband’s room.

“My dearest Marley, how am I to know whether I have heard or not if you do not tell me?” Kurt responded with a laugh. “I am not a mind-reader, you know.”

“Well, I heard that Lord Trimble is throwing a ball for his niece on Sunday next, and that they have invited all of London!”

“Really?” Kurt sounded as giddy as Marley at the news. “Do you think the earl and I shall be included on the invite list?”

“I imagine so, milord. If they did indeed invite everyone, you and Lord Anderson are certain to be included.”

“I shall ask my husband in the morning if we will attend,” Kurt said, hurrying to his chest of fabrics, “but I should probably get a new suit started, to be safe.”

“Another new suit, milord?” Marley asked, disbelieving. “But you have made three already since we have been in town.”

“You say that as if three is too many, Marley.”

The two friends laughed, and from the sound of it, Kurt had opened the chest, and had started setting bolts of fabric on his bed. Blaine would not know. He was not inside with his husband and his husband’s maid, but outside, listening in. Eavesdropping had become a recurring, and embarrassing, habit of Blaine’s where his husband was concerned.

Just go on in, Blaine thought to himself. You need not even knock. Tis your house, after all. And your husband has been more than welcoming of your company. He would probably enjoy your presence.

But then…why hadn’t Kurt invited him?

These evening chats seemed to be a ritual of Kurt and Marley’s, one they had brought with them when they left Kurt’s father’s house. Kurt took comfort in them. It gave him a sense of normalcy during those times when Blaine was less than civil toward his new husband. Blaine did not want to sully it by making Kurt assume that Blaine should always be expected.

Blaine paced the hallway in front of his husband’s room, his false leg dragging with exhaustion, causing an uneven tap on the wood floor as he went. He didn’t want to be jealous that Kurt kept Marley in his confidence, but he felt left out. He did not need to be privy to all of their secrets (or, at least, he tried to convince himself of that), he simply wanted to join in the general gossip and the laughter.

He wanted to remember what it was like to feel carefree, to recall the nights when he shared a room with his brother, and the two of them would talk about school, his brother’s impending earldom…love.

Cooper mused over Quinn, and Blaine would daydream about Kurt, of what it would be like to woo him, to marry him, to spend long evenings awake, talking and laughing and making love.

Blaine sighed. Pacing out in the cold, dark hallway while his husband cheerfully shared this time with his maid, Blaine felt a might bit pathetic.

“Ooo, and then I heard from the below stairs maid that…milord? Did you…do you hear that?”

Suddenly, all inside became quiet.

“Yes, Marley. I think…I do hear something.”

“Do you think, maybe, that we have rats, milord?”

“The cold weather might drive them inside, but they would take refuge in the walls mostly,” Kurt consoled her. “No. It is coming from…the hallway, I think?”

Blaine stopped walking, the heavy thunking of his lame foot having caught their attention. He heard footsteps rush toward the door. Blaine tried to limp away before he could be discovered. His leg ached, his muscles stiff; he had a hard time toddling faster than a walk. But no sooner had he begun to gain momentum then Kurt threw open the door and peered out. Lit from behind, it was difficult for him to make out anything, but his heart knew the sound of his husband’s uneven footsteps, and he could just make out the outline of Blaine’s silhouette as he lumbered away.

“My lord husband,” Kurt called out to him with the brightest possible smile on his flushed face, “I had hoped it would be you. Would you like to come in and join us?”

Blaine turned and saw the smile on his husband’s face, effervescent in its boyish joy, and felt torn. Blaine wanted to rush him, hug him, take him up on his invitation and join in the merriment. But part of him felt that would be an impertinence, still after all this time. This was the one activity he had so longed to be part of, but he did not wish to force his way into their sanctum.

“Oh, I wouldn’t presume to impose, my dear Count,” he said.

“T’would be no imposition,” Kurt said as his husband made once again to walk away. “Actually, my lord, you are right on time, as I am just now fitting your suit.”

Blaine inclined his head and furrowed his brow. “You are constructing a suit…for me?”

“Of course, my lord,” Kurt said, playfully dismissive of his husband’s apparent awe. “I have wanted to fashion you something for a while, something less dreary than those finely tailored mourning suits you wear.”

Blaine chuckled. “Kurt,” he said, sotto voce so none of the servants (besides perhaps Marley) could hear, “you do realize that my tailor is one of the finest in London?” Blaine was teasing, of course, since he had been searching for a way of asking his husband to make him one of those gorgeous suits he always wore. In the short time they had been in London, Kurt’s suits had become the talk of the town, with lords and ladies all over speculating the name of the genius who created them.

Kurt rolled his eyes. “And the man has been resting on his well-paid laurels, but that is neither here nor there. What is important is…well, it would be much easier if you were here for me to size.” Kurt’s cheeks began to redden darker than the flush he wore, but his eyes, shimmering in the candlelight, bore far less innocence than his face.

“Is that so?” Blaine asked, lowering his voice to match his husband’s change in mood, his heart aflutter in his chest.

“Yes, my lord. In fact, I am in the middle of fitting your trousers, and I have hit quite the conundrum.”

“Have you?” Blaine took a step forward, lured to Kurt’s bedroom by the golden glow beyond the threshold and the lustful gleam in his husband’s eyes.

“Yes, my lord.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, I fear, my lord, that I may not have made them large enough in…uh…certain key areas.” Kurt’s eyes flicked down noticeably to the front of his husband’s trousers, then traveled slowly back to his face, taking in the sight of Blaine standing before him in his state of evening undress, licking his lips as he went.

Despite being a man of Blaine’s vast experience, who had had many a less than skillful lover try clumsily to seduce him, this unabashed display by his young husband made everything from his feet to his forehead burn hot.

“Well, we cannot have that,” Blaine remarked in a breathy voice. He peeked past Kurt’s shoulder at Marley, sitting on Kurt’s bed, eyes rolled politely towards the ceiling as her masters spoke, with her lips pinched shut and her cheeks dimpling as she fought not to giggle. “Will your maid be here long?”

“Not that much longer, my lord,” Kurt promised, reaching out and taking Blaine’s hand. He lifted it to his lips, placing a sweet, chaste kiss to his knuckles, then followed it with a long, leisurely lick between two of Blaine’s fingers that stopped Blaine’s heart and made his cock throb. “And then,” Kurt whispered, “you may have me all to yourself.”