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FILLED WITH a sense of foreboding due to my own carelessness, I left the balcony and returned to the parlor room, busying myself in growing familiar with the place while also trying to calm my racing pulse.

The odds that Arthur had truly intuited my expression were thankfully low, but at the time I was convinced that I had been caught out as an invert before I was even able to properly introduce myself to the man.

I had always been easily read, a man who I’d had a few dalliances with in London having once told me that he’d known before he’d even approached me that I would be amenable to his advances, but what I was failing to take into account at Ashford Hall was that Arthur was undoubtedly not accustomed to looking another man in the eyes and finding attraction there. He must have misinterpreted it.

Distracted and nervous, struck both by the beauty of the man I had just seen and my fear that I had inadvertently destroyed my holiday before it had even begun, I was in the midst of rearranging the desk Charles had provided for my use when a swift knock came at the door.

It startled me so badly I nearly knocked over an ink bottle, steadying it before it tipped off the edge of the desk and glancing towards the door.

“Come in,” I said before I could overthink, although some overactive part of my mind was convinced that it was Arthur come to reprimand me.

Instead, the door opened and a man perhaps a little younger than myself entered, holding my luggage and smiling at me.

I instantly realized this must be Felix.

Shorter than I was by a few inches and red-headed, he had an air about him that oozed friendliness, but it was a facial scar that gave his identity away, a pale pink stripe that reached from his chin to just below his right eye.

Charles had told me the story many times, he and Felix playing in the woods of Ashford Hall as children who did not seem aware yet of the social class that would divide them.

Felix misstepped, falling a good twenty feet down an embankment and nearly into the river that ran through the far end of the property.

It was a tale that always got laughs from the audience he was telling it to, and it doubled now as a perfect identification of the man standing in the doorway. “Hullo, Mr. Whitmore.”

“Felix, isn’t it?” I asked, and Felix grinned at me, stepping into the room before setting my luggage down next to the chaise longue that took up the wall opposite my desk, no doubt so Charles would have a place to lie when he came to interrupt my work during the summer.

“I suppose Charles warned you about me.”

“Warned me? The man has spoken of nothing else since we received your letter, sir. He’s been quite excited. It’s rare that Charles gets to bring his friends here, so we’re all quite pleased about the opportunity to meet you.”

“You mean you’re pleased that he has someone else to bother,” I said, and Felix laughed. Restored from the panic I had given myself minutes earlier, I ventured a question I would not have dared had I still been rattled. “Is Lord Ashford currently in the garden?”

“He walks there in the evenings before dinner to improve his digestion,” Felix said. “I suppose you saw him?”

“I did,” I said, glancing back at the balcony and recalling the look Arthur had given me. “Does he normally look so—”

“Unfriendly?” Felix offered. “Disgusted? Angry?”

I laughed, already charmed by the man; I could see why Charles had immediately assumed I would be friends with him. “Yes. Is that just the nature of his countenance?”

“Unfortunately, yes. His father was the same. They used to call him Lord Stoneford behind his back, and I fear they’ll do the same to poor Arthur. He really isn’t as terrible as all that. Just tends to be unaware of how he looks when he’s deep in thought. Did he give you a dirty look?”

“He did,” I admitted, not wanting to tell Felix that my assumption had been that Arthur had read the look in my eyes and realized exactly what it meant.

I would have to get better at masking my attraction, and hoped in that moment that I would be able to do so by reminding myself that Arthur was my closest friend’s brother, and not some man who might be amenable to my flirtation.

“To be fair, I was trying to figure out who he was and was looking at him with more scrutiny than was perhaps polite.”

“I assure you the look wasn’t personal,” Felix said. “He most likely was trying to figure out who you were in return. Although admittedly, Charles’s description of you is perfectly apt.”

“Oh, I simply must hear how Charles describes me,” I said, glancing at the door as the stable boy who had been roped into assisting with my boxes appeared, giving me a desultory bow before setting the first of many boxes next to my desk. I smiled at him before Felix’s next words distracted me.

“Dark and handsome, with big brown eyes and a rather outdated sense of style,” Felix said, grinning. “All of which describes you to a tee.”

“Outdated sense of style?” I plucked at my shirt, sighing softly. “I suppose that’s not entirely off the mark, but to be honest I’ve never concerned myself with the latest fashion. It’s not much needed in court.”

“I’m sure Charles will take the summer to rectify that,” Felix said, tapping the top of the luggage he’d set down.

“Now, I’ll leave you be so you can wash up for dinner.

All your clothes should be here, and I had one of the maids put hot water in the tub before you arrived. It should still be warm.”

“Thank you,” I said, relieved to finally have a chance to wash up after the journey. “I’ll see you at dinner?”

“I’m sure I’ll be around,” Felix said, giving me a bow that was solidly mocking before leaving the room.

I had liked him from the start, Felix’s comfort with me clearly speaking to how the Ashfords had treated him, and I was pleased to discover that his quick wit did nothing to detract from his thoughtfulness in running the household and ensuring the comfort of the guests.

My first night at Ashford Hall was a pleasant harbinger of the summer to come, the water in the washroom basin the perfect warmth to wash the dust of travel from my face and to spruce myself up before the inevitable call for dinner came.

While the stable boy unloaded boxes in the main parlor of my room, I washed and dressed in a shirt that Charles himself had purchased for me on one of his not-infrequent jaunts to London.

Ostensibly my “opera” shirt, it seemed as good as any other for dining with a lord, and by the time I was ready for dinner, I had convinced myself that I was as presentable as I was going to get.

I knew, without sounding too preoccupied with my own looks, that I was considered handsome, although not in the pale way that was in fashion at the time.

I had inherited my mother’s curly black hair and dark eyes, my skin a deep brown that complemented the rest of me, and I had never struggled to be found attractive as a result.

Charles, in particular, valued my looks in our friendship, as we were almost always guaranteed to be the best-looking pair of men at any ball that we attended, a combination that made for easy first dances and pleasant conversation.

Still, even as I prepared for dinner, I knew why I was making myself look good, and it wasn’t because of Felix’s words or Charles’s usual expectations of me.

It was the recollection of those green eyes looking up at me from the garden, the strange look in them, the almost- judgmental gaze.

I had to prove Arthur wrong, whatever it was he thought about me.

I had to be more handsome, more intelligent, more charismatic, to change his mind.

At the time, I suffered from a near destructive desire to have people like me, and the idea that the brother of my best school friend thought negatively of me was so entirely repulsive that I would have done anything to ensure that he changed his view.

By the time the dinner bell rang I had primped and polished the most I could within a single hour, and I emerged from my room with as good a temperament as one could be expected to have after a journey of a hundred and thirty miles.

Charles met me in the hallway, and I don’t recall much of our conversation on the way down to the dinner table except that it was most likely mind-numbingly dull, a dozen different questions asked and answered about mutual friends we had scattered across the country.

We had never felt the pressing urge to be particularly formal with one another, having known each other first as rowdy teenagers, and this comfort meant we could slip from casual conversation to the deepest, most heartfelt screeds within moments.

The walk to dinner just didn’t seem like the time to bare our souls to one another after a few months apart, so we kept it light and boring.

Because I was barely paying attention to the conversation and was instead soaking up the atmosphere of the magnificent rooms we passed through on our way back to the staircase that would take us closer to the dining room, I was unprepared for the moment when, the hallway opening up to the great hall, Charles and I found ourselves on the opposite end of the stairs from Arthur.

Still dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing while wandering in the garden, dappled sun from a nearby window painting him in the palest last rays of daylight, he looked for all the world like something taken right out of a Renaissance oil painting and placed in the hall before us.