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The oft-empty ballroom of Lady Pierce’s London town-house lies glittering ahead.
The Ton is out in full force tonight; a hundred debutantes and a hundred matching lords and second sons in evening dress flit across the dance floor together like birds searching for mates, a constantly moving pattern of bright fabrics and swirling skirts as they go through the steps of whatever dance is fashionable today.
Josh doesn’t know it – he doesn’t dance much any more – but he can still appreciate the strange beauty of the movements.
Straightening the cuffs of his tails, then the place where his silky pink cravat is tucked into his crisp white shirt, then the gloves that he has to get specially made to his size, and then Josh clears his throat somewhat awkwardly as he waits for the queue to move forward.
He shouldn’t have arrived when the ball was already in full swing. There were half a dozen carriages waiting in the drive when his had pulled up to the front gates of the Allen’s home, and he’s been waiting for Lord and Lady Kinney, their bookish daughter stood quietly a few steps behind, to sort out their exact titles with the herald before he announces their presence.
Josh should have come early, before the rush, to avoid all of this.
He shouldn’t have come at all, if he’s being honest with himself.
A handful of balls a season are more than enough for Josh, and he should have left it at that.
With everything that Lady Pierce has been through so far this season, though…
She’s done a lot for him. He at least owes her his presence for the first ball she’s hosted since her husband fled the country.
Even if that means putting up with an evening of simpering and gossip and calculating mamas (the married women with oh-so-eligible daughters), trying to tempt him with the suggestion of marriage, and all that it entails. They’ll pawn their daughters off to any man they deem a good prospect, or sometimes just a prospect – and unfortunately for all involved, Josh is included on that list.
He’s unmarried, childless, has a fair-sized estate a day and a half’s carriage ride from the city, and has spent many years as an officer in British Navy – fighting first against the Spanish and then, more recently, the French. According to Lady Pierce, this makes him tempting.
That he’s never shown any interest in marrying beyond a short-lived engagement in his early twenties just makes him more of a challenge.
And if there’s anything those mamas love, it seems to be a challenge.
Josh supposes it must get boring for the highlight of your social calender to be arranging the marriages of your children. Setting your sights on a challenge would at least spice things up a little; he understands.
He might even find it amusing if he weren’t one of the unfortunate targets.
So having finally retired from the military, intent on seeing what life as a member of the aristocracy is truly like away from the battlefields, Josh prepares himself to enter this new arena: society. Even after three years back, it still feels impossibly confusing and difficult.
The Kinneys finish explaining their titles to the herald.
He announces them.
The grand double doors fly open, and the Lord and Lady Kinney sweep into the ballroom, their daughter in tow behind them.
And then it’s Josh.
He clears his throat again – the lump in it doesn’t shift – adjusts his cuffs, and steps forward.
The herald’s brow creases for just a moment as he tries to recall Josh’s name, but before Josh can have the embarrassment of having to introduce himself, the man’s expression clears, and he straightens.
He nods to the two footmen, one of them on each side of the entranceway, and in unison they go to open the doors just as the herald calls out, “Lord Josh Nichols!”
A part of Josh wants to stop; to hesitate; to turn and run.
His childhood lessons taught him much about the etiquette of a balls such as this, but there’s a world of difference between learning about something and participating in it.
And Josh is more comfortable on a battlefield, men at his back and musket in hand, than he is here, surrounded by his peers.
If there was anything his service taught him, though, it’s that you don’t stop, and you don’t hesitate, and you definitely don’t turn and run. And no man with family name of Nichols will ever be allowed to surrender. It’s not in their blood – and it’s not in Josh’s either.
He squares his shoulders.
And he walks through those doors.
Immediately, the sounds of a ball at its height hit him: the clink of crystal glasses and the rustle of embroidered skirts; the click of expensive boots against expensive wooden tiles; the gentle melody of the string quartet’s current tune. The never-ending waves of conversation as people gossip, and gossip, and gossip some more.
A few glance up at his arrival, their gazes quickly finding him on the balcony.
From here, he overlooks the entire room.
Lady Pierce, and her staff, have done a fine job of dressing the place up in brilliant colour and shining gems – just decoration to look good and catch the eye, but not so much as to overwhelm the ladies’ dresses as they spin in their dances.
A delicate throne is set up at the far end of the ballroom, where the Queen is seated with her guards and lady’s maids arranged dutifully around her.
Her gaze flicks up when Josh steps into the room, catching his eye.
He bows his head to her.
The Queen doesn’t nod to him – showing that kind of deference to a member of the nobility would be most improper – and her expression remains as passive as it ever is, but Josh thinks he notices some hint of approval as she returns her attention to the dancing in front of her.
Then one of the footmen behind Josh very quietly clears his throat, and Josh abruptly realises that he’s likely holding up the long line of lords and ladies waiting to enter.
He goes for the stairs.
There’s one set curving down to the right, and one to the left, both of which will let him out just before the dance floor. The left is blocked off by a rather intimidating gaggle of young women; the right isn’t.
Josh goes to the right.
Even as he descends the steps, one at a time but still rather more hurried than is strictly appropriate, he can hear the rhythmic announcements of the new arrivals start up again.
The first person he sees when he reaches the bottom of the steps is Van Markus.
Lord, technically; ever since his father passed a few months ago, he’s been the head of his household. However, Josh’s acquaintance with him is rather too close to be calling him by any such titles.
He’s a pretty young man, with an even prettier mouth – and he knows how to put it to good use.
However, like most pretty young men, newly inherited and fresh into his twenties, Markus seems to be in search of a wife. Josh can see as much in the way he’s gazing at the woman with whom he’s in conversation; bright-eyed and practically bubbling with enthusiasm. He knows the type, and he knows that Markus will be wed by the end of the season, to some sweet young woman who’s as shy and bookish as he is. The two will go on to lead a happy, secluded life together. With children. Lots and lots of children.
Van’s bright blue eyes flick up from his partner for just a second, going to scan the room, and his gaze catches on Josh.
His eyes widen.
His throat bobs.
Josh wonders if there are still purple bruises blooming on Van’s collarbone, hidden neatly under the material of his shirt. He wonders if Van’s throat is still sore. He wonders if Van secretly wishes it were safe for them to meet again, and again, and again.
Likely not.
For a single breathless moment, they’re gazing at each other across the room. All of society waits between them.
Josh is the one to look away first, ducking his head as he pinches a champagne flute from the tray of a passing server.
He doesn’t know how long Van keeps looking. He doesn’t want to know.
It’s better this way.
They’re both better off this way.
Josh scans the room for the figure of Lady Pierce.
It takes little time to find her where she’s been cornered by a display of rainbow-hued flowers, politely smiling at some other married lady as the other woman talks at her. As the hostess, she should technically be flitting about the room, making introductions to allow men to dance with women they’ve yet to properly meet and entertaining anyone who wishes her to. It looks like she hasn’t yet had the chance.
And—most wouldn’t know simply by looking at her that she’s uncomfortable; Josh is one of the few who can see past the picture of poise and grace that she paints.
He discards his champagne glass, untouched, on a side table and begins making his way across the room to her.
It’s difficult for most to track the movements of the crowd, and Josh has seen many an inexperienced debutante get lost in the sheer numbers of people – but if there’s one thing a lifetime of serving on battlefields taught him, it’s how to read the ebb and flow of chaos. That’s the only way to survive when you have enemies and allies alike on every side; you either learn the skill, or die.
He steps around an elderly gentleman teetering into his path, then circles past a trio of mamas surveying the room with hawk-like intensity, slips through a group of young men and women in conversation, and finally rounds a promenading couple to come to a stop in front of Lady Pierce and the woman so ungraciously taking up her time.
“—so sad about Lord Allen.”
Carol’s smile grows a touch more strained. “Thank you for your consideration, Lady Flores.”
“I just can’t believe that he’d abandon you in such a fashion!”
Josh steps in before Lady Flores shoots so far past the point of respectable conversation that she’ll never be invited to another party at this manor. Not that he particularly minds either way – his main concern is Carol. “I’m sure that Lady Pierce was equally surprised,” he says, aiming for smooth. “Given that it was her husband who…” He searches for a word, and doesn’t come up with anything better than: “…left.”
Carol’s mouth pinches. “Quite.” Her gaze slides to Josh, and she drops into a neat curtsey. “Lord Nichols.”
He bows. “Lady Pierce.”
One of Carol’s perfect eyebrows arches. “Perhaps you have some deeply important topic to discuss with me, Lord Nichols?”
Josh tries not to smile. “Indeed,” he says evenly. “I noticed a problem with the flowers, and—”
Carol jumps on it. “I’ll have to see to it at once,” she says, already straightening. She looks back to the Lady Flores, and gives her a placating smile. “My apologies, but I simply must see to this.”
Lady Flores opens her mouth.
Before she has a chance to say a single word, Carol is already taking Josh by the elbow and all-but-dragging him away.
Only once they’re a good few yards away, swallowed up by the crowd once more, does Carol’s grip ease, and she let Josh take the lead again. It makes them look like a prospective couple promenading about the room between dances.
“Thank you,” she mutters under her breath, lips barely moving. “I was about to do something very unladylike to that woman. It would be the talk of the Ton for weeks to come.”
“That would be a sight to see,” Josh murmurs back, tone mild. “Perhaps I should have let that play out a little longer.”
Carol flicks her eyebrows up and down pointedly. Dry, she says, “Perhaps I should never deign to speak to you again, Lord Nichols.”
Brow creasing, Josh echoes, “‘Deign’?”
“Mm.” Something eases in the tight line of Carol’s shoulders. An ever so slight smile graces Carol’s lips. “I think that sums the situation up perfectly.” Then she casts her gaze across the ball. “So,” she says, “what do you think?”
“It looks good,” Josh says.
Carol’s lips thin, her eyebrows drawing together. It makes her look distinctly unimpressed. “Merely ‘good’?”
“I have few comparison points,” Josh says. “This is one of the first balls I’ve attended this Season.”
That has Carol sighing. “I suppose it is.” Her gaze slides back to him. Softer: “I do appreciate your presence, Lord Nichols. I’m aware this isn’t exactly your preferred means of passing the time.”
Josh nods. “Balls disagree with me.”
Carol cocks an eyebrow. “Yet gentlemen’s clubs are perfectly agreeable?”
“Gentlemen’s clubs are different,” Josh says.
“Of course,” Carol says. Her eyes are sparkling with muffled amusement. “It’s all these pesky women, ruining your fun.”
“More like proposing marriage.”
“Oh, please,” Carol says. “When has anyone ever proposed marriage to you at one of these events? At most, they’ll request your name for their dance card.”
Josh huffs, letting go her arm to tuck his arms behind his back, crossed at the wrist. She isn’t wrong.
“Although,” Carol goes on, her tone turning thoughtful, “I suppose that the gentlemen’s clubs involve the closest you come to that sort of proposition.”
Once again: she isn’t wrong.
Josh’s mind flashes back to the sight of Van Markus’ surprise to see him here. He flashes back further, to an altogether different image of Van Markus; acres of smooth white skin splayed out under him, marred only by marks in the shape of Josh’s own teeth, making all sorts of pretty noises.
Some things, however, are better left unspoken in polite company, even if said polite company is the closest thing that Josh has to a friend in this city.
This entire country.
Carol laughs lightly at Josh’s obvious discomfort, that pretty, tinkling laugh that every society lady is taught from the moment that they’re born, and pats him gently on the arm.
“As I said, I do appreciate your presence,” she says, and it’s gentler than before. Her gaze goes a little distant. “Perhaps appearing with a well-respected lord will show those gossips that the family name has recovered from the damage that man did to it.” She sighs, heavy. “For Maya’s sake, if nothing else.”
Josh heard about Maya’s prospects when he saw Carol last week, but—well. He hopes something has changed since then. “Has her situation improved at all?”
Carol’s mouth thins. “Ask me tomorrow morning,” she says. “Perhaps I’ll have a more pleasant answer for you then.”
“…Ah.”
“Yes,” Carol says. “Ah, indeed.”
“I—” Josh tenses on instinct at the very thought of what he’s about to suggest. “—could dance with her. Perhaps it would…” He trails off with a vague gesture.
But Carol is already lighting up. “It would signal to the room that she need not be an outcast.” Then her gaze slants towards him. “The other mamas would take it as a sign that you’re eligible.”
“They already think me eligible,” Josh says.
Carol nods. “So very eligible.” Something like hope passes across her face, fleeting but there. “You are willing to do it, then?”
Dancing with an unmarried woman (girl, really; Maya is not yet seventeen) declares to the entire room – the entire Ton – that Josh is not just an eligible gentleman, but one seeking out a marriage.
This is going to make his life a living hell.
Josh can’t find it in himself to care. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
The only problem is—
“I don’t know any of the new ones,” Josh says. Then clarifies: “Dances, that is. It’s been a few years—” Many, many years. “—since my last lesson.”
“I’ll make sure,” Carol says wryly, “that you’re on her dance card for something unseen in over a decade. Would a cotillion be within your wheelhouse?”
Josh huffs out a breath. “I’m not that old, Lady Pierce.”
“I didn’t want to assume,” Carol says dryly. Then she turns her head, searching for her daughter; she zeroes in on her impressively quickly, and Josh follows her line of sight.
Maya is stood by one of the tables piled high with an elaborate flower arrangement, her delicate lavender gown slightly crushed where she’s leaning against the edge of the table. Her hair is pulled into a simple bun on the crown of her head, with just a few ringlets framing her face. It’s the typical fashion for debutantes, Josh has noticed, and he has little doubt that, while the look is intended to look natural, there’s nothing casual about it; a studied kind of negligence.
There should be suitors surrounding her, each of them vying for her attention.
Instead, she’s been left all alone.
Josh expects that it’s been that way since the moment the first rumours of Lord Morris Allen’s scandal began to whisper about the court.
There’s nothing the Ton likes more than gossip – and while that sometimes means inventing stories where there aren’t any, Lord Allen’s situation unfortunately holds more than enough juicy and improper details to keep them ravenous for months without any need for embellishment.
Not that there isn’t embellishment, of course. Josh sometimes wonders if the rumour mill of the Ton wouldn’t fall silent if a few key players took up their true passion of fiction to write novels, and left the rest of society to move on with their lives.
That is not going to happen, though.
And Carol and Maya are caught in crossfire.
Carol tips her head in Maya’s direction. “Go,” she tell Josh. “If nothing else, it will do Maya some good to have something to do other than stand around aimlessly.”
It’s been a long time since Josh danced, but it seems like half his childhood was spent being drilled on the steps for hours on end. His mother was so disappointed when he joined the navy at twenty, by-passing any and all amount of society life to spend it on distant ships in far-off lands (not that he ever went much further than Europe). She still held out hope for a long time, of course, even as Josh showed less and less interesting in marriage with every passing year, but it was no good.
No matter what, though, Josh is never going to forget those dances.
He presses his wrists tighter together where they’re crossed behind his back, the bones digging into each other; draws himself up to his full height. Then he clears his throat, inclines his head in a polite nod to Carol, and takes one step towards Maya.
No further than one step, though, because it’s at that moment that a gasp sounds from the other end of the room.
It begins to ripple outwards.
People begin to turn towards the stairs, towards the entrance, just as the doors open and a man steps through.
Unlike every other man who’s passed over that threshold tonight, though, this one doesn’t hold a title like lord or even duke.
And unlike all the rest, this man has the queen herself sitting up and taking notice.
Josh barely notices any of that, though; Josh barely notices anything other than the striking man stepping into the room.
The sight of him steals the very air from Josh’s lungs.
In a shocked voice, the herald manages to get out, “His Royal Highness, heir apparent to the throne – Prince Oliver Wolf.”
It’s only a short section of his full title, and Josh expects the herald to get a good bollocking for that later, but in the man’s defence, the prince hasn’t made an appearance at one of these events for even longer than Josh.
Josh didn’t even know that the prince was back in the country.
From the way that the crowd is murmuring…
No one else knew either.
Not even Queen Muriel herself.
Across the entire length of this grand room, Prince Wolf’s eyes meet the queen’s.
Everyone over the age of thirty knows of the trials and tribulations of their relationship; knows that whatever the unspoken illness that the king came down with years ago, the prince and queen strongly disagree on the treatment; knows that the last time the queen tried to set Prince Wolf up with a wife, it had started some kind of cold war between the two that ended only with the prince leaving London for several years.
Knows that his presence here, at this ball – Carol’s ball – means something.
And that something will likely become clear very soon.
Then Prince Wolf drags his gaze away from his mother, and begins his descent to the ballroom floor.
Silence hangs throughout the room; weighted, perfect silence as everyone waits with bated breath to see what will happen next.
The prince looks—good. Incredibly good.
Too good for a man of Josh’s patience and restraint.
His swallow-tail coat is a rich blue, a few shades too light to be considered navy, and the cut of it is older. It must be from at least a decade ago. Similarly, instead of the recently-fashionable Wellington boots, the prince is wearing jockey boots, with the tops turned over to reveal the tan leather inside. His pale pantaloons are several inches shorter than most of the men here, showing off white stockings. They’re tight, though; tight enough to show off the curve of the prince’s legs, and the powerful muscles of a man who must spend his life riding horses. Not like the dandies and fops here in court, who spend their lives stuck in buildings such as this.
The dark bristle of hair across the entire lower half of the prince’s face is no better for Josh’s sanity.
Already, he can hear wheels turning in brains as the Ton processes the state of his facial hair; the nobility go clean shaven, and foreign dignitaries are permitted the concession of a neatly trimmed moustache.
A beard, however?
It would be frightfully uncouth on even the youngest, most unimportant second son – but on the crown prince? It’s unheard of.
Josh wonders what it would be like to rub that beard against his cheek, and his chest, and his arms and his thighs and—
He cuts that line of thought off before it can go somewhere dangerous.
Worst of all – the prince is tanned.
His complexion is almost golden, the skin of a man who’s been out under the sun for many more hours than is considered appropriate for any noble, let alone one of his standing.
Josh used to sport a perpetual sunburn, back when he was a soldier and spent his days fighting in fields and forests; when he returned to London, it earned him many side-eyes, and only once it faded to his usual pallour did they stop staring.
Oliver Wolf is the colour of a farmer, with the stocky, muscular build to match, and Josh likes it far more than he should.
He doesn’t know what the prince has been doing to look like this. He thinks he wants to. He thinks he wants to know everything.
The second that Prince Wolf reaches the bottom of the stairs, he makes a beeline for Carol.
Of course he does; Josh should have known this would happen.
Carol’s mother was a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and so Prince Wolf and the then-Miss Pierce spent their childhoods playing together. Even once they grew older, too old for an unengaged young man and young woman to be spending time together un-chaperoned, they still did. To this day, Carol seems to the prince’s closest friend.
And that would be fine. That would be normal, even.
The only problem is that Josh is standing barely a foot away from Carol, and so approaching her means that the prince is also approaching him.
Josh is not prepared for any kind of conversation with Wolf.
Not today.
Possibly not ever again.
It seems he’s not going to get a choice.
Somehow, the room becomes even quieter when Prince Wolf comes to a stop in front of Carol.
He doesn’t even glance at Josht. Perhaps while he’s spent his years pining after someone he can never have, the prince has moved on with his life. Perhaps Josh never meant anything at all, or at least not anything real.
Carol performs a perfunctory curtsey.
Wolf bows.
“Your highness,” she says.
“Carol,” he says, which is—not appropriate.
Carol’s expression says as much. But with every lord and lady in attendance hanging onto every word of this conversation, the last thing she can do right now is tell him off for it.
Instead, she surges forward to pull him into a tight embrace.
Josh is the only one close enough to hear her hiss, “You. My daughter. Ten o’clock, lavender dress, by the flowers. Go. Now.”
The prince’s face contorts in confusion. “What? Carol, I don’t—”
“Dance.”
And then she’s all but shoving him in the direction of her daughter.
Josh supposes that even just one dance with the crown prince of their nation will make Maya the star of this ball, and hopefully many to come.
Carol is nothing if not pragmatic.
The entire room tracks Prince Wolf as he goes to Maya Allen.
He extends a hand.
She blinks several times, and Josh can see her lips form the shape of Uncle Ollie.
Prince Wolf glances back over his shoulder, to Carol; she presses her lips together and nods her head, just once.
Then Maya is taking her hand, and they’re heading for the dance floor, and it’s like the entire room erupts into noise all at once as a thousand conversations start at once, every single one of them saying the same exact thing: the prince hasn’t attended a ball in years, let alone danced at one.
Yet here he is.
Josh can already hear the whispers from the ill-informed: is the prince finally ready to settle down? Will he finally take a bride? And, worst of all— could it be me?
Anyone who knows anything knows that the Prince’s complete refusal of the fairer sex is the worst kept secret in the Ton.
The crown prince – not just the heir apparent, but seemingly the only heir to the throne – is one of very few men in this country whose indiscretions are permitted. If it were anyone else (if it were Josh who were so open…) then they already be convicted of buggery. And hung.
So it remains unspoken outside of hushed conversations in dark corners, and the younger members of society who are watching the man dance with a young, eligible woman will gossip as they may about the possibility that a royal wedding is on the horizon, and in the meantime Miss Maya Allen will become the most desirable debutante in all the Ton.
The music starts.
And they’re off.
The prince cuts an imposing figure as he starts to lead Maya around the dance floor.
Josh is helpless to do anything but watch.
It’s been a long, long time since he last saw Oliver Wolf.
Longer still since they were…something. Something more than friends; closer than casual lovers; more tangled than two people should ever be.
Things were different then. Josh was different then.
Clearly, Wolf was different too.
He still hasn’t even bothered to look at Josh.
From where she’s stood beside him, watching her oldest friend do a favour for her only daughter, Carol murmurs in faint disbelief, “I never thought he would come down here.”
That makes Josh pause. “What do you mean?”
Carol slants a look towards him. A look that says so much, and so little, all at once.
And—Josh has always guessed that Carol and Prince Wolf kept up their communication, even after Wolf left the country; has always assumed that they kept in touch.
Prince Wolf, however, is one of those topics that he and Carol have an unspoken agreement to never discuss
Worse: it’s one thing to learn your friend and your…something have continued to talk. It’s another entirely for him to visit her in London, and expect to remain hidden in the depths of her residence. To not say a single word to Josh.
“It was not my choice,” she says lowly, and it feels like an apology. “It was never my choice.”
“I…” Josh starts to say, but he can’t find the words. Can’t find any words.
Not when Wolf is ten feet away from him and the earlier elation and desire has faded and Josh feels like someone is pouring water into his very lungs, filling them up and up and up until he can’t breathe or move or even think.
“I’m…”
“And he’s not ignoring you,” Carol goes on, even quieter. “He just—hasn’t seen you.”
That, at least, finally makes Josh choke out: “I’m standing right here.”
Something sad flickers across Carol’s face. “I know.” She reaches out to curl her hand around the crook of his elbow. It’s not skin-on-skin – with her soft gloves, and Josh’s tail-coat and shirt and sleeves, there’s at least five layers between them – but it feels like it anyway; feels like her gentle warmth radiates right down to his skin. To his bone, even. “Give him a chance, Lord Nichols,” she says, soft as Josh has ever heard her.
He expects her to say something else; perhaps that Wolf isn’t the same man he once knew, and who once abandoned him, or maybe that things can be different.
She doesn’t, though.
That, at least, feels honest. Josh can’t imagine the Oliver Wolf that he spent one perfect summer with ever being anything more or less than exactly who he was then.
Instead, Carol gives him one, single squeeze.
And then she’s murmuring an apology and moving away to finally tend to her duties as host, and make the rounds of the room. With the shock appearance of the prince, there’ll be many, many questions for her. And with her daughter’s status increasing with each step of this cotillion, Carol has one less item to concern herself with.
All of that means that Josh is left alone in the middle of a crowd of people.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed do. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to do anything at all. Carol said that Wolf just hasn’t seen him – but no matter what they once were to each other, there’s no way that he can go up to a prince and introduce himself. You have to wait to be asked with royalty, at least at an event such as this; to anything less would be the height of impropriety.
More than that, though… Josh can’t bring himself to go up to Wolf and look at him and tell Wolf to look back. To see him for who he is, and who he used to be.
Wolf should know. Wolf should remember.
If he doesn’t, Josh can’t be the person to remind him.
The very thought of it makes something in his chest – something buried deep; something he’d half convinced himself had shrivelled and died a long time ago – ache.
He frowns down at the shiny black leather of his boots. It’s an improper, unlordlike gesture, and one that his father would have punished him for as a child. He’s not a child anymore, though, and it’s been a long time since his parents passed. His life is as much his own at it will ever be.
A drink will make him feel better, he thinks.
Beyond that, perhaps he can excuse himself and head home early. Most people don’t expect him at balls anyway, so seeing him leave before midnight wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. And at least then he wouldn’t be standing around on the edge of the dancefloor.
He begins to head towards the nearest table of champagne flutes, moving at a slower pace through the crowds of people. All of them are watching the prince dance.
Josh can’t stand to do that anymore.
It’s just as he reaches the table, swiping one of the glasses and taking a sip of the bubbly liquid, that the dance concludes with the end of the song.
Polite applause ripples through the room.
Josh foregoes neat sips, and finishes the rest of the glass in a single gulp.
But as he goes to discard his empty flute on the table, already preparing himself to make a quick, hopefully subtle, exit, already he can hear his name being called.
It’s more of a deeply ingrained instinct than conscious thought that has him look in the direction of the caller.
He finds Maya making her way towards him, face set in that intent look her mother sometimes gets, with the prince at her back, looking around the room with interest. His presence has everyone moving out of the way, the crowd clearing a path for her, so it’s barely any time at all before she reaches him.
And with her, Prince Wolf.
“Lord Nichols,” Maya says, out of breath from the dancing. Her smile stretches from ear to ear, and already there are suitors on the periphery of the appropriate circle left around a member of the royal family.
“Miss Allen,” Josh says in response, giving her a neat nod of his head.
Then he looks to Wolf.
There’s a single bead of recognition in the other man’s eyes, like he’s starting to remember who Josh could be.
It hurts.
But whatever happens in this wide, weird, and wild world, Oliver Wolf is still royalty and Josh Nichols is still a man who was learning etiquette and manners from before he could even speak.
Throat dry and heart thudding an uneven beat against the walls of his chest, Josh drops into a deep, deep bow.
“Your highness,” he says, and if his voice cracks a little—well. That’s between him, and Maya, and Wolf. “It’s an honour.”
When he rises, he can’t even bear to look at the prince. He doesn’t think he could handle the apathy on his face.
“I didn’t think Uncle Ollie was going to come,” Maya says, grinning up at Josh. “Mama said he wouldn’t!” Then she pauses, and turns her head, a frown forming. “Why did you come?”
But when Josh follows the line of Maya’s sight to Wolf—
The man is staring directly at Josh.
And—it’s not a bland blankness on his face any more.
His lips are parted, and his eyes are wide, and at his sides his fingers are splayed wide, like they’re reaching for something that isn’t there.
Josh becomes very, abruptly aware of the fact that now – now – Wolf has recognised him.
His expression has Josh’s heart feeling like it’s cracking in two.
“Josh,” Wolf breathes out, and the word itself, his own name, sounds heavenly on his tongue.
Josh doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t think he can say anything at all.
He swallows thickly.
Wolf’s gaze tracks the bob of his throat.
“You’re—here,” Wolf says.
And—nothing.
Another dance starts up, but it sounds so very far away. Suitors for Maya are still circling like sharks, but even they know to keep their distance. Right now, Josh doesn’t know if he’d care if they were stood right next to him – as long as they don’t get in between him, and Wolf.
Wolf is here. In front of him.
There’s three decades and two wars and a crown between them now, and yet he still feels so close.
It would be so easy for Josh to reach out and touch him; prove that he’s real.
Josh wonders what that new beard would feel like against the calluses on his palms, and whether his waistcoat is as soft as it looks. How many layers he’d need to unpick before he could finally touch warm flesh. If that coarse, dark hair has grown elsewhere, and his chest is covered in a thick layer of it; what it would be like to run his fingers through it. Does it hide his pretty pink nipples? Does it cut a helpful trail down to his lovely cock?
Then: “…I’m going to get mama.”
The sound of Maya’s voice has Josh quite literally jumping in surprise.
Wolf, too, startles visibly.
Finally, his beautiful brown eyes – eyes that it’s all-too-easy to get lost in – break from Josh’s own, cutting across to Maya, and he visibly swallows, then licks his lips, then adjusts the lapels of his jacket as he straightens. “Of course,” he says. “It should be pleasant to see Carol again.”
The side eye that Maya gives him says that’s not why she suggested it. “…Uh-huh,” she says. “Sure.”
Josh opens his mouth, going to say something – but what? Maya clearly knows everything already. There’s nothing else to say. And Carol will know what to do. Carol always knows what to do.
He closes it, teeth clicking together.
Maya seems to take that as a signal to leave, because seconds later she’s darting across the room at speeds much faster than a lady would typically employ to go in search of her mother.
And then it’s just Josh, and just Wolf.
Alone.
(Together?)
Josh shifts his weight from one foot to the other. All of a sudden, his clothes feel uncomfortably tight and restrictive. He wants to untangle the cravat from his neck and toss it to one side; maybe that will finally allow him to breathe again.
Yet he knows nothing has changed with his cravat in the past five minutes.
The only thing that’s changed is that Oliver Wolf has finally remembered him.
“I thought you were gone,” Wolf says. “I thought you were at war.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Josh says, because he’s always been helpless in the face of this man. “The war ended.”
“Oh,” Wolf says.
Josh’s mouth feels so very dry. He licks his lips.
That, too, Wolf watches.
The intensity of his gaze has something heated coiling in Josh’s stomach. “I thought you were gone, too,” he says. “You’ve not been seen in London in years.” Longer, even.
Something flickers in Wolf’s eyes. Sharper, he says, “I thought you better, Lord Nichols, than a mindless fop who believes everything that he hears.”
And this? This is the Wolf that Josh remembers. The Wolf who pushes and presses on all the places he knows will sting, but rarely hurt; the places that make Josh want to say status be damned, and push right back.
Like now.
“And I,” Josh says, “thought you better than an insensible royal, content to let the news of the world pass you by as you entertain yourself with some absurd pursuit.”
He should be slapped for saying such a thing to a prince. Sentenced for treason, even. Men have been hung for less.
Wolf’s eyebrows just flick up, mild surprise working its way across his face – but it’s quickly outmatched by the interest. And the thing that no one else in this room can recognise; no one else but Josh: desire.
“I never said that I was unaware of the end of the war on Napoleon,” he says, crisp. “Simply that I was unaware you had finally decided enough was enough and returned home, instead of spending the rest of your days fighting pointless wars.”
“‘Pointless’—” Josh chokes on the very word. “The French have decided that they no longer need kings or queens! Are you not concerned by that? Of all people, you should be concerned by that.”
Wolf simply shrugs. It’s a gesture no lord would ever allow himself to be seen doing, least of all at a ball with the queen in attendance. Wolf, however, has never seemed to care about any of that. “If our people, too, decide to be done with the divine right of kings, then so be it.”
“Your people,” Josh says.
“What?”
“They’re not our people,” Josh says. “They’re yours.”
Wolf makes a vague, dismissive gesture that seems to imply it’s all the same, isn’t it?
Josh disagrees. Josh disagrees very strongly. “Your highness—” he starts.
Before he can say another word, Wolf barks a sound that could be a laugh.
It’s the first part of their conversation loud enough to be heard by the people around them, and it has heads whipping around to stare.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wolf says, too loud. “You don’t need to call me that.”
Josh can’t have this conversation; not here, and not now. Not with all these people watching. He’s worked so damn hard to keep himself under wraps, and not let on to the fact that he breaks the law every other night, in one of the few ways that the nobility aren’t allowed a blind eye for, and he’s not going to let Oliver-bloody-Wolf spoil it for him now.
He draws himself up to his full height. It puts him above Prince Wolf, forcing Wolf to look up at him.
“I,” he says, low; so low that not a single other soul will be able to hear him, “am going to Carol’s drawing room.”
Wolf blinks. Josh can quite literally see him processing that statement, and the meaning behind it. Somehow, he’d forgotten the way that Wolf’s thoughts are written across his face. He’d forgotten how endearing he finds it.
“If you want to keep talking, follow me in five minutes.”
Then Josh turns on his heel.
And he walks away.
The ballroom in Carol’s house is lovely, but she’s never pretended it’s the largest in London. The fact that it’s pretty, and the ceilings are high, and it has a very grand staircase leading down to the dancefloor all make up for the fact.
It’s only eighty feet from where Josh and Wolf were conversing to the half-hidden side door that’ll lead him out of the ballroom and into her kitchen, from which he can take a staircase up to the rest of the house.
And yet somehow, a mere eighty feet has never felt so far in Josh’s entire life.
His ability to move with the flow of the crowd has deserted him. He almost walks into an older lady with greying hair and cane, then barely manages to step around a couple in deep conversation about some book in time, only to have that move take him right into the centre of a circle of mamas.
His head is full of Wolf, Wolf, Wolf.
Josh barely manages to extricate himself, even as he can’t hear a word of their questions as they coo over him like he’s some lost duckling, and he stumbles the last few feet to the door, grabbing for the handle like it’s a lifeline.
It swings open, he falls through, and the door closes behind him.
The sounds of the ball instantly shut off.
Relief. Blessed relief.
The kitchen is buzzing ahead of Josh, with the Allen’s usual cook backed up by what must be an entire team as they flurry about the space, chopping and slicing and boiling. The smell of something sizzling fills the air, and if Josh weren’t already salivating, he might start now.
He has better things to do than stand in the kitchen, though.
He keeps hurrying through.
The house blurs around him, walls and stairs and paintings smearing together. This section of the house is empty of people; everyone is at the ball, and intruding on Carol and Maya’s personal space would be deeply inappropriate for anyone who didn’t know them well. Even Josh would awkwardly keep his distance on any other day.
Today isn’t any other day.
Today is different.
Josh steps through the door of Carol’s pretty drawing room and carefully pushes it to behind him. The latch clicks into place.
He shouldn’t be doing this. It was different when they were young; indiscretions weren’t just allowed, but expected from someone like Wolf. And when they were young, they didn’t truly understand what the consequences would be. They thought they were different and special, and that one perfect summer together was the start of the rest of their lives.
Josh is too old for this. He should know better. He’s seen what happens to men like them; the images are burned into his eyes. On nights when the wind is howling and the rain is pounding against his windows, he dreams that he died alongside those other men, hung in a muddy field in Belgium. They said they needed every man they could get – but not the mollies, and not the pathics, and definitely not the sodomites.
The part of him that wants this, that idealistic part of him that lives deep in his chest, should have shrivelled up or melted away a long time ago.
Josh lets out a breath, rubbing his knuckles along his forehead. He grimaces. Maybe he can kill that part of him now.
Maybe he can go home, and give up this strange dream of a man meaning something more to him, and go back to his gentlemen’s clubs and casual sex and a life lived alone.
That’s what he’s supposed to do. That’s how he keeps himself safe.
Josh turns to leave.
It’s that moment that the door to the drawing room opens.
For a moment, all Josh can see through the narrow gap is the yellow light from the hallway lamps, casting the figure in stark shadow.
Then they take a single step forward, and into a strip of silvery light that the distant full moon is painting across the room.
Oliver Wolf’s features come into sharp relief.
The breath catches in Josh’s chest.
He looks different here, somehow. Perhaps it’s the light, highlighting the lines on his face, or perhaps it’s that he carries himself differently when he’s not in the midst of his mother’s court. It doesn’t really matter which. He looks older. More mature.
Josh swallows thickly. “That wasn’t five minutes,” he says, weak.
“I have no time piece,” Wolf says softly.
“What kind of man doesn’t have a time piece?” Josh murmurs.
Wolf tips his head from one side to the other in so-so gesture. “I didn’t want to wait any longer.”
“Patience was never your strong suit.”
Huffing, Wolf says, “I’m sure you’re thinking of yourself there.”
Josh frowns, his eyebrows drawing together. He opens his mouth, going to disagree, but before he can, Wolf is already continuing with a grimace.
“In every other aspect of my life, I seem perfectly able to exhibit the patience expected of a man of my station.” Wolf’s gaze flickers down to Josh’s mouth. He bites his lip. “Yet with you…”
It would be so very easy to fall for him again, Josh thinks. Yet— “With all men, you mean,” he says.
Wolf’s eyebrows fall a fraction, drawing lower. “No,” Wolf says, and it’s slower and drawn out in that way he talks when he’s a little confused and trying to make sure he’s understood. “I mean with you, Josh.”
“You didn’t even recognise me when you walked into the room,” Josh says. “How am I supposed to believe that I’m—what?” He shakes his head, pulling back a step. “That I’m something special to you?”
Wolf’s mouth opens and closes.
He winces.
“…There is an explanation.”
“Right,” Josh says. “An explanation.” He crosses his arms roughly, and narrows his eyes at Wolf. The prince.
Wolf hesitates, doubt flickering across his face.
Josh waits.
Finally, Wolf says, “I don’t see faces.”
That doesn’t make sense. Josh says as much.
Wolf pulls a face. “Yeah, well.” He shakes his head. “If only.” Frowning, his gaze drops, catching somewhere between his gloved hands and slightly scuffed boots. “It’s a medical phenomenon. In my youth, my mother’s doctor believed it due to some fault in my heart, or perhaps my soul.”
Blinking, Josh says, “Oh.” That sounds less like some made-up excuse, now.
“Truthfully, I do not know the cause.” Wolf’s brows draw even closer together. “There’s an anatomist in Germany who posited that mental functions are performed by the brain, not the heart, soul, or even liver. I’ve long believed that there is something within a person’s brain that allows them to recognise the faces of those around them.”
“Yet you do not have that,” Josh says slowly. “There is some kind issue with your brain?”
Wolf nods vaguely, humming in agreement. “It would seem so.”
“I see,” Josh says slowly. There are a hundred different questions that he should ask: does that mean you’re unsuitable for the throne? Is this why you spend so much of your time away from the palace? Is this the cause your mother’s reluctance to make you Prince Regent in your father’s absence?
That’s what he should be asking. It says much about the poor state of his brain, and his heart, that none of them leave his lips.
Instead, he says, “So you only know me when I introduce myself to you?”
Wolf makes a disagreeing noise, tipping his head from one side to the other in a so-so motion. “I know some people by more than just their faces.” Careful, he reaches out for Josh, who can only watch, breathless, as Wolf takes one of Josh’s hands in his own. “I know these monstrosities,” he says, light, “better than I know my own.”
A choked noise, somewhere between a laugh and an embarrassingly scandalised gasp, gets caught in the back of Josh’s throat.
It draws a self-satisfied smile onto Wolf’s lips.
It’s been so very long since Josh touched a man outside of the backrooms of those gentlemen’s clubs he frequents or the utter safety of his private chambers. Not even his meagre staff of servants are allowed in there, except once a day at four o’clock in the afternoon to clean.
Privacy is everything. Privacy is how he survives.
But Wolf—
Wolf had always liked Josh’s hands much more than he should. At the time, Josh hadn’t understood it; then, as he aged and began to spend his time with other people (other men) he realised that Wolf is not the only one. He’s had many a man beg him to put his hands on their chests; their throats; inside of them. To leave bruises that will last for days.
“So, you—uh.”
Wolf begins to shimmy Josh’s fitted white gloves from his fingers.
“You identify me by my hands?”
Glancing up for a moment, Wolf gives him a sweet smile. “Always.”
He gets the glove over Josh’s knuckles, then pulls it free of Josh’s hand; tosses it to one side, even as he brings Josh’s hand up to press a kiss to the joint of his index finger.
Josh feels like he’s going to choke on his own tongue.
This was not what he expected when he dressed himself earlier in the evening.
Their eyes meet, and Wolf’s expression is so deeply, incredibly sincere as he says, “I’ve missed you, Josh.”
The sound of his given name from Wolf’s lips is almost overwhelming.
Then Wolf’s gaze falls back down to the hand that he’s holding. His brow furrows. “You have the hands of a labourer,” he says.
Josh—well. Josh can’t help it. He bristles on instinct and instinct alone.
That’s not an appropriate sentiment to express to any man, let alone a lord and member of the Queen’s court.
“Were you given any lessons on decorum as a child,” he bites out, “or just left alone in some forest to be raised a feral creature?”
Wolf’s nose scrunches up in annoyance.
Before he can say a word, though, Josh pushes on: “I was soldier,” he says tightly.
“Yes, I may just remember that part,” he says, dry as sun-bleached bone on a long-forgotten battlefield. “Was that before or after you left the country for thirty years?”
“This, coming from the man who hasn’t even been seen at court for over a decade.”
“What horrors,” Wolf snipes back. “Imagine, desiring to be rid of this nest of vipers.” He’s still holding onto Josh’s hand, neither of them willing to let go just let, but his thumb digs into Josh’s palm now, hard enough to hurt. “Are you truly surprised that I left?”
“You did not merely leave,” Josh says. “Don’t try to pass this off as some wayward lordling having an adventure around the continent.”
Wolf scoffs.
“You left, to be sure, but you also stayed gone.”
“The only thing here that I missed is Carol,” Wolf says, and it’s so very sharp. “And I came back for her. I kept on coming back for her.”
And—that’s the heart of the problem, Josh realises very abruptly. That’s why he’s so angry all of a sudden; that’s why he wants to bite and tear into the very heart of Wolf’s being, even as he can’t bear to let go of his hand and lose that singular point of connection.
He can hear his heartbeat, pounding at his eardrums. When he speaks, his voice sounds very distant to his own ears.
“And what about me?”
Wolf blinks. “What?”
“What about me?” Josh shakes his head, almost violently. “You say you missed me, sir, and yet you wouldn’t return to this place to see me.”
“I thought you were gone too!” Wolf throws his free arm out wide. “I thought you were in Europe, fighting another of your wars!”
That’s—oh. Josh doesn’t know how to respond to that; what he’s supposed to say. Sour, he gets out, “Well, I wasn’t.”
Wolf snorts, rolling his eyes, even as he shakes his head. “You don’t say,” he mutters. Then, more serious: “I spoke the truth when I said that I missed you, Josh.”
“…I see.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Wolf tells him, but the harsh words sound fond coming from his mouth.
Josh frowns at him. “You speak as an expert on the matter, your highness?”
“I believe I told you not to call me that.”
“Is that an order?” Josh asks.
One of Wolf’s eyebrows flicks up, his eyes take on a flirtier glint. “Would you like me to make it one?”
Josh exhales sharply.
It would be so easy to lean in and kiss this absurd man.
Josh should kiss him.
He wants to kiss him.
That is, of course, the moment that the door to the drawing room swings open.
Fear erupts in Josh’s chest, strangling his lungs and wrapping a steel band around his throat.
In an instant, he has his hand wrenched from Wolf’s, already darting for the sofa where his glove landed.
He’s aware that this kind of flurry of motion makes him – both of them – look far guiltier than if he stood still and pretended that there was no reason to think they were on the verge of breaking the law.
It’s easier to imagine the correct reaction than to act it out. And panic is not a rational creature.
Wolf makes a frustrated noise, already turning to face the door.
And from the hall, a crisp, all-too-familiar voice says, “Well, I see my daughter was correct to fetch me.”
“Hello, Carol,” Wolf says huffily.
Josh grabs his glove from the sofa cushion, then stands in one smooth motion, spinning to face the door even as he tucks his bare hand behind his back, and out of sight.
“Lady Pierce,” he says, and he knows he’s flushed an embarrassing red, his breathing coming out too fast from the exertion and the fear both. “I thought you were needed at the ball?”
Carol’s gaze shifts from Wolf to Josh, then back to Wolf. She arches one perfect eyebrow, crossing her arms across her chest and fixing the two of them with a rather unimpressed stare. “I am,” she says. “Yet strangely, Queen Muriel herself has been asking me if I’m aware of the location of her beloved son. When I admitted that I was unsure, I was sent to find you.”
Wolf pulls a face.
Eyes narrowed, Carol says, “I have many better ways to fill my time than play messenger for you and your mother, Wolf.”
“I know.” Wolf rubs his thumb across his brow. “I know, Carol.”
“Do you?” she says. “Do you really?”
“…Yes.”
Carol stares at him for a moment longer.
Wolf stares right back.
Some wordless conversation passes between them, incomprehensible to anyone but the two of them, and Wolf’s expression shifts through about six different emotions before settling on one that Josh recognises as begrudging acceptance.
And finally, Carol draws herself up to her full height, and presses her lips together as she steps out of the way of the door, gesturing for Wolf to go through it in the same smooth motion.
Wolf glances back over his shoulder, to where Josh is waiting.
He smiles. It’s only slightly strained.
“You came in a carriage?”
Josh nods silently.
“I imagine there’s still space for two.”
Carol rolls her eyes.
Josh bites his lip.
Wolf’s smile widens a fraction. “I’ll be there in an hour,” he tells Josh. “I hope you’ll be waiting for me.”
Then he straightens his jacket and strides right out of the drawing room, scratching his beard as he goes like he already knows what the queen is going to say about it.
God, Josh has missed him.
BunheadKitKat19 Wed 30 Apr 2025 10:53AM UTC
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Peachygirly Wed 30 Apr 2025 04:17PM UTC
Last Edited Wed 30 Apr 2025 04:18PM UTC
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