Leon stood as René rose from the table beside him.

The others had begun leaving in small groups, Ms. Wick among the first to abandon the dining room after having spent the final quarter hour complaining that everyone ate too slowly.

“You mentioned that your sister draws,” René said beside him.

“She does.”

René glanced toward the guests disappearing through the doors.

“I shall introduce you.”

Leon stepped away from the table, and René came with him. He had taken no more than two steps before René slipped a hand around his arm. His fingers rested easily against Leon’s sleeve as they followed the others from the dining room.

Leon looked ahead.

The irritation that had followed him through the latter part of dinner had not entirely left him. He had no sensible reason for it. Mr. Corré was dead. He had been dead before Leon ever met René, and Leon had known perfectly well when he married a widower that there had once been another husband.

That had never troubled him before. Tonight, somehow, it had.

He did not care whether Mr. Corré had been handsome. The observation itself was ridiculous enough that Leon almost resented Miss Doyle for having made it. More ridiculous still had been Leon’s need to remind the table that René possessed another husband now. The moment the words left him, he had felt rather childish.

Yet hearing the man discussed so fondly had left something unpleasant sitting beneath his ribs. Perhaps he simply disliked imagining René happier than Leon had ever seen him. The thought embarrassed him almost as much as what he had said at dinner. Only that afternoon René had laughed himself breathless after Leon dragged him into the grass. Leon could still hear it if he thought about it. He had liked being the cause of it rather more than he ought to have.

René shifted closer as another pair of guests passed them, his hand tightening briefly around Leon’s arm.

Leon lost the thread of his thoughts.

“There.” He nodded toward the far side of the room. “My sister. Come,” he said, and led his husband toward her.

René did not release him, and Leon was becoming rather too aware of that.

His sister spotted them and turned with her wife in their direction, smiling at René before they had even reached her.

Looking at his older sister, Leon remembered the autumn Helena had practiced at the treeline until her aim was dead-accurate, cleanly outshooting Anton for weeks; Anton had brooded in stony silence until she finally took pity on him, stepping up to adjust his stubborn grip herself. 

Salina had suited more than Clara’s preference for warmth. She and Helena managed several weaving workshops there, and between them appeared capable of producing cloth, selling it abroad, and persuading reluctant customers to pay for it.

Helena concerned herself with the patterns, dyes, and workrooms. Clara handled the contracts and shipments. Leon had once listened to them discuss a delayed consignment over breakfast and afterwards regarded his own unanswered tenant letters with considerably less resentment.

His sister had also found time to raise a daughter. Leon preferred not to make a habit of considering the comparison.

“Good evening, Mr. Meren. Helena Meren.” She shook René’s hand, smiling. “And this is my wife, Clara Meren.”

“Good evening.” René smiled warmly as he greeted them.

“Oh, Mr. Leon Meren,” Helena teased her brother, imitating his voice. “Does Blaze still have her hooves on? Do let her rest every now and then.”

“First, you need let your gun rest,” Leon retorted, smiling. 

“Gun?” René murmured. 

“Do not—”

Leon caught Helena short. “She used to love shooting, but refused to trap shoot. So she—”

“Leon, do not,” Helena warned, smiling.

“One day she took all the glasses she found at home and shot through the day, leaving nothing behind but shards.” Leon laughed. 

“Mama was so angry,” Helena murmured. “But then she bought me cheap glass to shoot.”

Clara was laughing breathlessly beside Helena, and René smiled along with them.

“How are the renovations, dear brother? You complained in your last letter. I ought to ask if you need any help.” 

“I do not.” Leon beamed. “René is taking care of that. He likes to tell me how atrocious my choices are, so I handed them over to him.”

René squeezed Leon’s arm tighter and shook his head. “I did not say that…”

He quieted, and Leon suspected he had remembered that his actual assessment had been considerably worse.

“How do you like Langrer?” Helena asked René.

“It is very pleasant. I like it there very much.”

“Well, my lady did not like it,” Helena said, attempting to lower her voice while her wife rolled her eyes beside her.

“Darling,” Clara sighed, “I like warmer weather. The forest gets too cold. We moved farther south, in Salina, and it pleases me very much.” She crossed her arms.

Leon knew the two lovebirds would keep at this all evening if given the opportunity, so he steered his sister toward a subject certain to put an end to everything else.

“Helena, René has taken to drawing and painting these past months. I was wondering—”

Helena snapped her head toward René, immediately ignoring her brother. Apparently, she required no more information than that.

“What technique do you use? Watercolour?”

“No.” René shook his head. “I am only using pencils for now. I can draw people, and very well at that if I can say so myself. But I cannot get the proportions right on animals, Mrs. Meren. The horse I tried to draw—”

Leon remembered the drawing and choked back a laugh, attempting to preserve René’s dignity. 

“Leon…” René sighed, turning towards him, his hand still resting upon Leon’s arm. “Do not laugh at my drawing. You know it vexes me.” 

Leon’s amusement faltered.

René had never called him Leon before. For a moment, the conversations around them seemed to recede. He could think of nothing but the sound of his name in René’s mouth.

“I am not laughing,” he managed.

René gave him a doubtful look. Leon scarcely registered it. He rather wished René would say his name again.

Helena had indeed taken on the role of mentor. She questioned René about the way he held his pencil, offered several corrections and eventually asked to see his drawings. The sketchbook was still in the guest room, and Leon had just offered to fetch it when Ms. Wick intercepted the group.

“Leon,” she called. “I have not heard you play the pianoforte in years. Indulge me?”

Leon glanced toward his sister and husband, who had become practically attached at the hip as Helena began leading René toward the stairs, Clara following beside them.

He agreed to please his aunt, but before following her toward the pianoforte, he looked back once more.

René was already being carried away by his sister and her wife when, halfway to the stairs, he glanced back as well.

Their eyes met.

René gave him a small smile before disappearing upstairs with them.

Leon went to the back left corner of the room and sat at the grand piano, warming his fingers over the keys. He glanced toward the stairs again and again, hoping to see René before he began to play. But René did not return. Most likely, the three of them had gone into the drawing room upstairs, and Ms. Wick had already asked Leon twice to begin.

He eventually turned back to the music and settled upon one of Field’s nocturnes, an old favourite of Ms. Wick he had not played in some time.

The opening came easily beneath his fingers. As he played on, Ms. Wick made her rounds across the room, praising Leon to anyone who would listen. He knew the piece well enough to allow his attention to wander.

Movement appeared near the stairs. Leon looked up immediately.

It was not René.

He returned to the music. Before the piece was halfway through, he had looked toward the stairs often enough to annoy himself. 

Then René appeared. He was coming down the stairs, his sister and her wife ahead of him. Helena and Clara soon departed from him with a smile and a bow, and René looked around the room while Leon continued to play.

Leon wondered whether he was looking for him. Whether he knew Leon was tucked away in the corner, playing.

He searched for René between the pillars and through the crowd, finding him again whenever he disappeared behind a small gathering of guests. René stopped to speak with others, smiling pleasantly through brief conversations, only to disappear from Leon’s sight once more.

Leon’s fingers moved absentmindedly, his eyes did not.

More than once, Leon had the peculiar feeling that René was watching him too. Their gazes found one another through the room, sometimes for no more than a second before one of them looked elsewhere.

Once, Leon thought he caught René’s scent. It was impossible to be certain from such a distance, with so many others between them. Perhaps he had merely remembered it—the sweetness that had gathered inside the carriage earlier that day, when René had sat across from him with his sketchbook in his hands.

Whatever it was, the memory came so vividly that Leon could almost smell him again.

His eyes returned to René. They would not remain upon the music. They could not. When he looked up again, René was coming toward him.

Leon swallowed and returned his attention to the keys.

The nocturne was nearing its end. His fingers knew the final passages too well to falter, though for several measures Leon became strangely conscious of his breathing and held it without meaning to.

René stopped beside the pianoforte. Leon looked at him once. But René was not looking at his face. Instead, his attention had settled upon Leon’s hands.

Leon’s fingers continued over the keys with the same certainty as before. He had played the passage hundreds of times and had never given much thought to what his hands looked like while doing it.

He was thinking about it now. Still, he finished the piece without a single mistake. Only when the final notes had faded did his composure betray him. He withdrew his hands from the keys and rested them upon his thighs, his fingers trembling slightly. 

René’s gaze followed them.

“Beautiful,” René said. “Although I am afraid I did not hear the whole piece.”

“It is all right.” Leon smiled. “Ms. Wick often asks me to play it. It is one of my favourites, though I believe she loves it more than I do.”

René rested his hands lightly upon the grand piano. “Could you play another?”

“Of course,” Leon said as he reached for the sheets.

“The one you like most,” René added.

Leon’s hands stilled.

René remained beside him, watching as Leon began sorting through the music. He might have chosen another nocturne, but René had asked for his favourite.

There were many he loved. Strangely, none of those that first came to mind seemed quite right anymore. Leon passed over one, then another, increasingly conscious of René waiting beside him.

At last, his hesitation left him. He drew a familiar set of pages from the others and placed them upon the stand.

Clementi. Op. 25, No. 5.

“You may sit, if you like,” Leon whispered.

René looked past him, then around the room. There were no chairs nearby. Leon knew that. He shifted to the left and glanced toward the space he had made at his right.

René slowly walked behind him. The disturbance of the air at Leon’s back was enough to make his skin tingle. He drew a sharp breath as René sat beside him and tried to settle his trembling fingers over the keys.

Leon glanced to his right. René was already looking at him.

Leon’s lips parted. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. Then he turned toward the keys and released the breath slowly.

Not trusting himself to look to his right again, he began to play.

His movements did not falter, but with René so close beside him, Leon became overly aware of his hands. He felt the light upon his knuckles, the tendons shifting beneath his skin, and wondered whether René was still watching.

He liked having him there. There was no need to imagine René’s scent now. It was beside him, unmistakable. Whether that made matters better or worse, Leon concentrated upon the music and felt the tension gradually leave him the longer he played.

During the closing movement, his arms crossed repeatedly over the keys. The first time Leon leaned to the right, their suits brushed.

The second time, he was prepared for it.

On the third, Leon leaned a little closer, letting his shoulder touch René’s.

His fingers moved quickly through the finale, but his eyes began to stray to his right. When he struck the final key, he wasted no time before turning to look at René properly.

René’s soft, delighted smile appeared anew.

For a moment, the room seemed considerably farther away. Leon had spent an unreasonable amount of the evening looking for his husband, despite there being dozens of people present whom he seldom had occasion to see. René, who might have given his attention to anyone among them, had come looking for him too. Now he sat beside him.

Leon glanced at the narrow space between their shoulders.

He had known for some time that he found his husband handsome. He had known that he enjoyed his company. He had simply failed to notice how very fond of René he had become.

And, perhaps more dangerously, how pleased he was to discover that René appeared fond of him too.