It was over five weeks after Ascension, and Nik had lost track of the number of parties he’d attended this season. The one he was at now was hosted by Lord Olbrunt, who didn’t care for dancing, so there’d been a concert before dinner was served at three o’clock, and drinks afterwards.

Nik still couldn’t credit Lord Comfrey’s affection for him. They’d seen one another a dozen times over the course of the season, in circumstances ranging from high society balls to hunting parties to intimate suppers. When they were in public, Comfrey treated him as a good friend: always circumspect, but always welcoming. When they could manage some privacy – and Comfrey was very good at arranging for such situations in a way that came across as natural and normal – they shared a physical intimacy as intense as what they’d enjoyed in East Hansleigh. Better, even, for being a little less fragile and transitory. Even if Nik would be leaving Gracehaven soon. The whole experience was surreal, like a vivid dream. Implausible if not impossible.

It had been much easier to believe, during those months apart, that the man thought him a catamite or a blackmailer, meat to be bought and bribed into silence and compliance. Were they actually friends, even now? Or was it just a variation on the East Hansleigh ruse, an acceptable part they both played to make it easier to obtain their shared but unacceptable desires?

How much did it matter? I leapt at the chance to be his servant, after all, and certainly didn’t turn him down when I was playing that role. Even if ‘friend’ is another act, I must own it’s a more dignified one.

But he didn’t want to presume on the connection, or become a nuisance to Comfrey by clinging to his side at every event. No matter how tempting that might be.

So when he spotted Comfrey’s distinctive form on the far side of Olbrunt’s study, broad shoulders encased in a tailored jacket, black hair long and stark against cream-colored cloth, Nik restrained his first impulse to bolt in that direction. Comfrey was holding court over a circle of a half-dozen peers. Nik barely knew the others. His experience of the Ascension Season as an adult gentleman in Gracehaven reminded him unpleasantly of being a new student at East Hansleigh Academy. Everyone had their own cliques, most people were uninterested in a youth possessed of neither wealth nor influence, and anyone who showed an interest was most likely trying to get something from him. And you truly think Comfrey isn’t?  Nik taunted himself. He sighed inwardly. It didn’t matter. He’d made friends at academy, eventually he’d make them here, and he didn’t need to hang on Comfrey’s coattails to do that. He made his way over to Lord and Lady Dalsterly, friends of his parents’ whose company he rather enjoyed, despite being several decades younger than them.

Olbrunt Manor had a striking drawing room, even by Gracehaven standards. The original Olbrunt ancestral home had been destroyed in a fire twenty years ago, and the rebuilt manor used an entirely different design. It had been grown in place by a team Blessed for plants. They’d interlaced several different kinds of trees to comprise the walls, and grown entire trunks to serve as pillars that supported an arched roof braced by their branches. Once it was complete, they’d killed the trees, stripped away bark and leaves, and flattened the surfaces to leave wood polished glass-smooth. The whole was far too regular to be natural, but the organic swirl of grains and colors in the walls looked like nothing an ordinary man could craft. The furniture had been chosen to compliment it, in natural creams and browns with sweeping, curving lines to carved wooden legs and high graceful backs.

The crowd gathered for this party paid little attention to the miracle that housed them: they were focused upon their private conversations in spaces loosely defined by furnishings and pillars.

Justin stood at the center of one such group, with a throng of admirers about him. He was wealthy, titled, soon to join the Assembly, young, handsome, and unwed. Personal qualities scarcely entered into it: had he been a callous, ignorant, high-handed jackass, he would still have received the fawning adulation of his peers. Whether they liked him or not was irrelevant: they’d all pretend to in the hopes that he’d be useful to them. Justin did not resent the throng on this account: it was simply the natural order of things. All the flattery and attention was enjoyable in its way, but he would not fool himself into mistaking it for true affection.

(Except with Striker. Is even my sweet, beautiful angel blinded by the trappings of power? Very likely. But did he want something? Perhaps that need not follow.)

At the moment, Mr. Vinnick was being atypically forthright about what he wanted of Justin: support for a new tariff on fish imported from Salventon. Justin’s constituency included a handful of fisheries, two of which he held significant stakes in, so a tariff was probably in his own best interests as well as his viscountcy’s. Mr. Vinnick, whose own constituents in a coastal county were virtually all fishermen, was trying to make a high-minded appeal to the public good. He’d led with an anecdote of a poor mother who’d died to food poisoning from improperly canned Salventon sardines. The plight of the struggling father and six surviving children left behind had at once engaged the interest and sympathy of the other listeners. But now Vinnick had meandered into the details of the bill and the need to raise funds for better customs inspections. Justin was still listening politely, but he could tell the others in the circle had lost interest. He wondered idly if Vinnick would manage to chase them off, or if someone else would leap in to change the subject. “My proposal would increase government revenue by a hundred thousand marks per annum—” Vinnick paused to inhale.

“Hah!” Lord Talinger seized the opening. “My dear fellow, if you want to increase government revenue, I can think of any number of more effective ways. I’d start by reinstating the lord’s dues, myself. And no token sum: make it a real tax. In accordance with rank, of course. A hundred thousand marks for a duke, down to perhaps just a thousand for a courtesy-titled lord.”

Everyone turned to Talinger; even Justin’s attention was caught. Now that’s not speaking from self-interest. Or rather, not obvious self-interest. The “lord’s dues” dated from a time when the nobility acted as tax collectors for the crown. In the sixth century, the Newlant Assembly had started levying taxes directly to fund the national government, and the lord’s dues had been eliminated entirely some decades later. They’d not been levied in two centuries. “That’s generous of you, Lord Talinger,” a young woman said, admiringly.

Mrs. Haskill, a stout woman of middle years, was less impressed. “If you want to give your marks to the government, Lord Talinger, I am sure they’ll be happy to take them, tax or no. But the entire point of courtesy titles for the Blessed is to give them a stipend. Asking them to pay a tax greater than the stipend itself is sheer folly.”

Lord Talinger’s smile tightened. “Indeed, madame, if the entire point is to give the Blessed a stipend, then by all means, give them a stipend. Give them a larger stipend, for all I care. But don’t give them a title. The peerage represents leadership and responsibility. A lord is a man who can take care of his people, not someone who needs the people to take care of him. There are simply too many who call themselves nobility, whose holdings encompass far too much of Newlant’s land, but they have no notion whatsoever how to manage their own affairs, never mind help those people unlucky enough to live within their demesne. Lord Comfrey, surely you take my meaning.” Justin met Talinger’s eye, wondering why the man had decided to single him out. “Your father always understood that privilege required attention and cultivation, and I’ve noticed you follow his good example. You don’t squander your advantages. One would not see a Comfrey attending a Society event in rags, trading on his title and with nothing to show for it.” Talinger’s dark eyes moved from Justin’s to gaze pointedly across the room. Justin followed his look to a tall blond figure with his back to the group. He controlled his surprise: Nikola. Striker was hardly dressed in rags, but he was undoubtedly one of the more humbly-attired men in the chamber. His jacket was out of style and ill-fitting, with sleeves too short and shoulders too snug. Worse, they were at a gathering where most of the attendees would not wear the same suit twice in one season, if at all, yet Justin recognized Striker’s from three previous events. “If one cannot maintain the style of a lord, one should not style oneself a lord. If one cannot afford a lord’s dues, one can scarcely afford the upkeep on a lord’s manor and lands. One’s people deserve better. Let the crown take the title back and give it to someone who can live up to the responsibility. Wouldn’t you agree, Lord Comfrey?”

Don’t get angry. Justin forced his fingers to unclench about his wineglass. Don’t let him see that you’re angry. You can’t duel him for this; he’s not even insulted you. It was good rhetoric, if one ignored that a man impoverished with an estate was unlikely to be wealthier without one.

“It’d be a kindness,” Mr. Clark, another wealthy Newlanture man, added. “To relieve them of the burden of maintaining such standards.”

You can’t slice them to bits with a sabre, Justin told himself. You’ll have to do it with words instead. “Savior spare us from such kindnesses.”

Talinger arched his brows. “Surely Comfrey could afford to contribute to the support of our civil servants?”

“Oh, surely. Even more easily, if the crown started snapping up the lands of the financially strapped and sold them to me at discount prices, my lord.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Now, now, Lord Talinger. You hardly need to, do you? No need for modesty: it’s a fine ploy for making wealthy men even wealthier.” Justin took a sip of his wine as Talinger flushed, then added, “especially those who know no productive way to line their own pockets.”

“You are wilfully misunderstanding me, boy—”

Justin smiled, mirthless. “Am I? Please, kindly explain again how it’s in a lord’s best interests to have his property taken from if he falls below your standards, my lord. Ah – the other man’s best interest, now. Not yours; we’ve already established that aspect.”

Lord Talinger gritted his teeth. “Entailed property belongs to the title and is only held in trust by the current holder. I am sure the crown could offer adequate compensation—”

“—wait, my lord, I thought this was a plan to enrich our government? Now they are to enrich those they disenfranchise? Begging your pardon, but I don’t believe that’s how disenfranchisement has worked, historically.” Justin kept his own expression neutral, but several of those around them smiled or snickered.

“That is beside the point—”

“The point being what, exactly? That you’re rich and not everyone else is? You can’t seriously suggest that you think the weight of your wallet makes you more fit for the peerage than one who’s been Blessed by the Savior himself. Can you?” Justin watched Talinger’s complexion darken with anger.

Before Talinger could produce a counter, Mrs. Haskill added helpfully, “It would be a poor man indeed, who’d nothing to offer society beyond mere lucre.”

Justin bestowed a smile on her. “As you say, madame. Excuse me, my ladies, gentlemen, but I must attend to another matter now.” He bowed to the group with a flourish, then spun on his heel and strode to Striker’s side.

“Hullo, Striker. Lady Dalsterly, Lord Dalsterly, Miss Elvon.” At the sound of Comfrey’s voice, Nik turned with a smile he could not contain. He endeavored to control it to one of friendship rather than infatuation, but Nik was profoundly gratified by the viscount’s notice. Comfrey smoothly inserted himself into the conversation the others were having on housing in Gracehaven. It was a topic Nik had nothing to add to: he’d always lived with his parents. While he was an adult now and in theory could take his own lodgings, in practice his finances put the idea out of the question. Even if he could afford an attic garret for himself in some unfashionable district, he needed a hall to receive his petitioners in. Affording the rent on such a space was far beyond his means. It was beyond his parents’ as well, but his father’s entailment included Anverlee Manor, which could have housed an entire regiment.

Comfrey had no such difficulties: he had not only his entailed home in Gracehaven, but interest in a dozen properties of varying degrees of quality, and spoke readily on the subject of rents, tenants, and maintenance. The Dalsterlys owned property as well, and Miss Elvon was researching for a new home in the spring, when she and her betrothed would be wed. Nik didn’t mind being left out; he could’ve listened to Comfrey recite the numbers from stock listings for hours and not been bored. Not that Comfrey monopolized the conversation: he took care to ask questions of the others and listen attentively to their responses, and did not leap in as soon as there was a pause. After Nik redirected a third attempt to engage him for lack of any useful insight to offer, Comfrey gracefully led the conversation to a new topic: Newlant history. Nikola had a keen interest in this, and the Dalsterlys could contribute much upon it, having lived through a significant fraction of it.

Within half an hour, the conversation turned to sports, and after a short interval on that subject, the others wandered off to leave Comfrey and Nik alone. “Care for some fresh air, Striker?” Comfrey put his back to the room and gazed out a window, looking distinctly uninviting to the rest of the crowd.

“Certainly, my lord.”

They stepped out: the weather was mild for the time of year, cold but not uncomfortable in a dinner jacket and waistcoat. Accordingly, a number of other guests were outside, walking paths about the lawn or sitting on elaborate wooden benches in the garden. “Season’s almost over,” Comfrey observed. “When did you say you were leaving, Striker?”

“Two days, my lord.” The thought of leaving hurt. It would be a full year before he and Comfrey would both be in Gracehaven again. To cover the pain, Nik changed the subject. “I didn’t know if you’d be here tonight.”

“I didn’t know if you would either.” They walked away from the house along one of the well-lit paths, into the gardens. Nik half-expected Comfrey to steer them across the lawn and away from the light, but instead he stayed on the stone walkway, between plots of fading Ascension blossoms and white wintertater blooms. “But of the three invitations I received for this afternoon, it seemed the most likely for you to share, so I took the chance.”

Nik laughed at the absurd notion of Lord Comfrey arranging his schedule around him. “Was Lady Olbrunt also your favorite hostess among those invitations?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t come for Lord Talinger’s company. Two days, you say. Where are you going after the season? Anverlee?”

Nik shook his head. “No, Fireholt. For a couple of months at least. My great-grandmother is the Lady of Fireholt, and her health is failing, sadly.”

“Ah. So you’re going to help her out?”

“If I can, though I doubt I’ll be much use to her. No, my true purpose is to study. She’s a mind-healer like me, and having squandered too many opportunities in the past to learn from her, I plan to make the most of this one.”

Comfrey smiled. “Sounds bracing, after an Ascension season in Gracehaven.”

“It’ll certainly be different.”

“Have I inadvertently deprived you of the opportunity to make a last conquest while in the city, my lord? By separating you from the object of your affections.”

You have reunited me with the object of my affections. The words were on the tip of Nik’s tongue, but even with all they had done together, he didn’t dare articulate it. “Alas, but I do not think that Lady Dalsterly will ever succumb to my charms,” he said instead.

Comfrey laughed. “Lady Dalsterly? Not Miss Elvon? Or perhaps a Miss Dalsterly?”

“Fah, who can look at one of those children when a magnificent woman like Lady Dalsterly is about? I am afraid I’ve made her husband jealous. Not that she’s given him the least cause to be. I am going to leave Gracehaven a broken-hearted man, my lord.” And that last sentence was all too true. “Under the circumstances, there is no one whose company I would prefer to yours, Comfrey. You understand me. As no one else does.” Was that too much to say?

If it was, Comfrey gave no sign, only smiled and watched him with dark, possessive eyes. “In that case – have you a supper engagement tonight, Striker?”

“I do not. You?”

“That depends. Will you dine with me at my club?”

Nik swallowed. It was, strictly speaking, inappropriate: he’d dined with Comfrey three days ago, and ought to have reciprocated before he accepted Comfrey’s hospitality again. And hadn’t because his parents had already overextended themselves during the season. The servants’ wages were two weeks in arrears and his father’d spoken of needing another bank loan. All Nik’s gifts from petitioners had gone to supporting the Anverlee household. But – two days. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Then I am engaged.” Comfrey grinned. “Shall we make it an early meal?”

“I am at your disposal, my lord.” Nik bowed, trying to restrain a smile large enough for three faces. “Whatever my host deems convenient.”

They ate a delectable meal at a pleasant gentleman’s club: an atypically unpretentious establishment with an air of understated elegance and a warm welcome for guests and members alike. Afterwards, they lingered over the dessert course, until Comfrey invited him back to his manor for drinks. Nik decided that counted as part of the supper invitation and it was folly to quibble now, so accepted at once.

Comfrey Manor was strangely dark when they arrived by carriage, with not even a footman by the door. As Comfrey went through his pockets, Nik looked askance at him. “Is something wrong?”

“Hmm? No, not at all. Ah!” Comfrey produced a key ring and tried three different ones in the lock before hitting on the correct one. “It may be that I gave all the servants the evening off.”

“What, on a Tuesday? Whyfore?”

“Well, I was supposed to go to an overnight gathering tonight, but I appear to have changed my mind at the last minute.” He opened the door, turned up the gaslights, then bowed Nikola through. “And neglected to tell my staff. But it would be cruel to deny them the holiday after granting it already, would it not?”

“I’d think so. Why didn’t you go to the gathering?” Nik stepped onto the polished tile floor of the entranceway, before the grand curved staircase that led to the second floor.

“It turns out I had another engagement.” Comfrey grinned as he closed the door behind them, then lunged to capture the slighter man in his arms. He swept a startled Nikola backwards as if Nik had been a woman, and bent to kiss him thoroughly. Nik caught at his shoulder with one hand for balance, the other threading through long dark hair as Nik drank in the kiss. After a long moment, Comfrey broke off. “You don’t mind, do you? It’s been a while, but I think I remember how to pour my own drinks.”

Nik blinked at him, stupefied by lust. “Fuck drinking,” he said, and straightened to push an unresisting Comfrey back against the wall and kiss him again, hands tearing at his clothes.

They screwed right there in the entranceway, with its hard stone floor and walls. It was as uncomfortable as one would expect, even if Comfrey was strong enough to hold Nik off the ground with ease as he fucked him against the wall. Afterwards, they did have a drink in the drawing room, then made love in that room as well. This time, Comfrey knelt between Nik’s legs and sucked his cock while Nik sat on the sofa with his hands buried in Comfrey’s hair: much more comfortable. Then they went to the bathroom to clean up, together: “Because that’s more efficient, surely,” Comfrey said. It surely wasn’t, because they ended in Comfrey’s bed, sweaty and sticky again.

“Don’t fall asleep yet,” Comfrey told him as they lay intertwined beneath red velvet bedclothes. “We’ve a lot of rooms left to go. How do you fancy a billiards table?”

Nik chuckled against Comfrey’s chest. “I do not think I’ve the stamina to make it through your entire manor in one evening. Night. Time period.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Thing.”

“Nonsense. You just need a long enough time period. Do you have a breakfast engagement?”

“Petitioners.” Nik sighed. “And I can’t put them off when I’m leaving the next day.”

“On your next visit, then. In the spring? You can see the ludicrous new fashions when we all emerge from our greatcoat cocoons.”

Nik’s heart lurched at the idea, but he shook his head. “My parents will be in Anverlee County by then.”

“So? You’re a grown man. You needn’t follow them. You’re welcome to stay with me. Or set up your own lodgings.”

With what funds? I can’t afford lodgings that could accomodate my petitioners, and we can’t afford to keep Anverlee Manor in Gracehaven open at the same time as the county seat. Nik didn’t answer.

“Or you could come to the viscountcy. I host hunting parties all the time. Two weeks of tramping about the woods with bows during the day and eating suppers at night of food far superior to whatever we’ve caught. Wait, it’s better than that sounds. Truly. There’ll be music most every night and a troupe of traveling performers for at least two days.”

It sounded glorious. But Nik didn’t have a house of his own to host parties in, and his parents could scarcely afford to offer a reciprocal invitation that would compare to such largess.

After a long moment with no reply, Comfrey shifted to roll Nik onto his back and straddled him. Golden-brown hands pinned Nik’s to the mattress, long black hair hanging to one side of Comfrey’s face as he trapped Nik’s gaze with his own. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then bent to kiss Nik instead: lips, cheek, throat, collarbone. Nik arched into the contact, squirming against Comfrey’s grip only out of a desire to caress that tawny muscular body, wanting him still. Needing him still.

Comfrey broke the contact and sat back against Nik’s thighs. Nik reached to pull him back, but something in the other man’s eyes stopped him short, one pale hand resting on his forearm. “You said we were friends,” Comfrey said. “That night in Dalsterly’s grove. Are we?”

“I want to be.” Nik colored, feeling it was too presumptuous to make that claim himself.

“Do you?”

“What do I need to do to prove it?”

“Accept my invitation? It’s a thing friends do, Nikola. Visiting. Attending parties. There is nothing exceptionable or scandalous or…un-friend-like about it.” The lord looked away. “Or don’t, as you prefer.” He started to move, shifting as if to get to his feet. Nik sat up and gripped his arms, and Comfrey stopped.

Nik looked at him, both face and mind, and wondered for the first time if one of those pearls of trauma beside Comfrey’s mindshape for confidence was new since the first time they’d met. If the hairline stress-fractures around it had happened recently, or if Nik just hadn’t noticed them before. You are so rational, so strong. It never occurred to me that you, too, might have doubts. Maybe it’s not presumptuous to say we’re friends. Maybe the presumption lies in denying it. He has to know that I can’t return his hospitality, and that was the reason I haven’t accepted. But would that make the rejection hurt him any less, when the result is the same? If I were the one receiving rebuff after rebuff, would I not think my attentions undesired?  Nik swallowed. “It would be my honor to accept. In the spring. If you like.” He hesitated, then added softly, “Justin.”

Justin’s face lit with a smile. “I do, Nikola,” he answered, and leaned in for another kiss. “I do.”