Victorian Boy || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER XVI

"It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn." 

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Harry couldn't sleep.

He kicked off his blankets and flung open the windows. The heat was unbearable, Louis burned inside him like a fever that would not break.

As he flopped back down on the bed he felt something beneath his pillow.

An envelope.

He broke the wax seal and peered inside. It contained the stamps Louis retrieved from his fox den that morning. The perforated Penny Reds were bright as Louis' red tailcoat, their sharp edges like the tines on a crown. Harry was cursing himself for not coming up with another reason to go back to the den but all was not lost, at least he now knew that it was west of the stables. He would try again in the morning.

There was something else. Louis had written him a note on a slip of paper. In the Duke's hasty cursive, were two words:

Dearest one

Harry felt his entire body levitate. He held the piece of paper against his chest. This was the closest thing to a love letter anyone had ever sent him. Dearest one. He was dear to Louis, dearer to him than anyone else.

He read it over and over, tracing the jagged pen strokes with his finger.

Dearest one

He kissed the piece of paper and put it on his pillow, smoothing the empty space beside him with his hand.

Dearest one

Oh how he longed to lie next to the Duke! Could he go to his bedchamber? What would he say? Louis told him that he left his bedchamber door unlocked. It sounded like an invitation but what if Harry had misunderstood?

He needed a reason to go to him. He'd already said goodnight. He glanced at the envelope. He could thank him for the stamps!

Harry sat at the vanity. He ran a silver comb through his curls and dabbed some rosewater on his neck and wrists. He pinched his cheeks to make them glow, and bit his lips to make them full and red. His shapeless nightshirt with its ruffled collar and cuffs was as arousing as his mother's curtains but he didn't have any other nightclothes. He unfastened the ribbon around his neck. This would have to do.

Quiet as a church mouse, he tiptoed to the door and turned the knob. As he exited his bedchamber he closed the door behind him with a careful click.

The second he turned around he bumped into someone in the dark.

"Harry!"

"Lady Finnes."

The older woman's grey braid fell over one shoulder like an ashen snake. She was in a yellowing nightgown with quarter-length sleeves and a square neckline. Harry was embarrassed to discover that his nightshirt was more modest than that of an elderly woman.

"Insomnia," she said, shadow deepening the lines of her face. "Walking helps pass the time." She lifted her candleholder and looked him up and down. "It's nice to see a boy your age with some modesty. I would present my granddaughter to you if you weren't Catholic."

"Thank you. I think."

"The young gentlemen of Bilsdale could learn a thing or two from you. I've just witnessed the most scandalous scene outside my window, the Earl of Pembroke and the Viscount Greindl mounting their stallions for a midnight ride..."