Victorian Boy || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER I

A boy's horse is his heart.

Harry's horse was a small mare named Bertie. She was a common carthorse, white with a black mark between her eyes. The horsekeeper planned to put her down. She was not strong enough to work the land and not regal enough to pull a carriage. Harry rescued her when he was visiting the stables one afternoon and she broke out of her stall to nose his chest.

He knew no other boys his own age. As the lone heir of the Duke of Somerset, Harry wasn't permitted to leave the estate, go to school or associate with those of low birth lest he catch typhoid or scarlet fever. He spied on the footmen's children with his mother's opera glasses from his bedroom window, longing to join them.

Bertie was his only friend and he doted on the sweet-tempered mare, sneaking cakes from the breakfast table down to her stall every morning.

His father commented on how plump she was getting. "Soon she'll be too heavy to ride. Do choose a proper horse for hunting."

Harry didn't care for hunting.

Lemon teacakes were Bertie's favorite. Harry hid them in his waistcoat so his father wouldn't see and ran to the stables. From there, he walked Bertie to the riverbank where he would feed her cake and scratch behind her ear until her tail swished with delight. Sometimes he would tell her about his day and pretend that she was telling him about hers.

One cool April morning as he was brushing Bertie's mane, he noticed that the thoroughbred in the next stall had been replaced with an Arabian stallion—muscles long and lean, coat as black as midnight. Harry poked his head over the stall door to get a better look at him and the horse struck the ground with his hoof in protest.

Harry found the horsekeeper and asked about him. Alfred lifted his tweed cap. "He's not ours, my lord. Your father had him imported from Egypt. He's a gift for the new Duke of Warwick."

"A visitor? Father didn't tell me."

"Perhaps he didn't want to overexcite you."

"Why would a gentleman's visit excite me?"

"Because the Duke of Warwick isn't a gentleman."

Harry was confused.

"He's a boy." Alfred smiled. "No older than you."

A boy, Harry marveled, here?

Later he asked his mother if it was true and she said it was. In a fortnight they would receive Louis, the new Duke of Warwick, a boy his age, of noble birth. Harry would be permitted to sit with him, speak with him. For the first time in his life he would have a real friend.

Harry hardly slept thinking about the Duke's arrival. He wondered what he would be like and what his interests were.

In preparation for his visit, Harry organized his coin collection. He went to the library and plucked from the shelves all the books he thought the Duke might want to discuss. He practiced his best arrangements on the piano in hopes that one might please his ear.

On the day of the Duke's arrival, Harry and his family stood outside the manor to receive him.

The black carriage barreled down the path in a cloud of angry white dust. When it came to a standstill, a footman opened the carriage door.

Harry caught a flash of red.

The blazing summer sun paled beside him.

He had the shape of a boy but was dressed like a man, with an ivory cravat tied in a bow and a gold-tipped walking stick, the tails of his red coat licking the air behind him like flames.