Chapter Text
Dear Precious Reader,
A certain famous author once said of our society, It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
And as the season draws closer, this writer seeks to tell you not of truths universally acknowledged, but of the men they speak of. There are many a man looking to find a wife this season, but there is one in particular who stands out. Viscount Alexander Lightwood, a notable corinthian and said to be the dandiest of the Ton. A capital B Beau, as the youths would say. But will any of the ladies of the Ton be able to slip past his cold countenance?
I have no answer, dear reader, but I do have another piece of precious gossip for you. Lady Fairchild, who scandalised the Ton when she fled to Batavia with the man who supposedly murdered her husband, is set to return. It is hard to believe that a lady with her reputation so ruined would dare to set foot in London again, but she has a compelling motive - a daughter, of marriageable age. Clarissa Fairchild. And behind her, native to Batavia and taken into custody by Lady Fairchild, is an elusive young man by the name of Magnus Bane.
While Clarissa Fairchild is set to be presented in front of Her Majesty at the beginning of the season, and to be courted by any young man who finds her agreeable, it is unclear what Mister Bane seeks from London. Is he simply here to chaperone Miss Fairchild through her season, or is there more he seeks? Perhaps, to court a few young women and find himself a wife?
Between Viscount Lightwood and the ever mysterious Mister Bane, never let it be said that there is a shortage of riveting young men in the Ton. Though, only time can tell what will happen to these two men. Will Viscount Lightwood find the lady he desires? Will Mister Bane turn out to be all that the ladies expect him to be? Will he be the blade to the Viscount’s beau? Or will there be something more?
Until next time, dear readers.
Yours,
Lady Blossomwright
The carriage rattled down the cobblestone street, jolting left and right as the driver maneuvered it in the direction of the Royal Palace, leaving in its wake a terrible lurching feeling in Alec's stomach. The fact that the season was to officially begin today didn't help at all either.
If it were upto Alec himself, he would've absconded a long, long time ago, and declared himself married to his estate. No lady of the ton would've ever had to set foot in his private quarters, and he would've been well and happy with that.
But alas, he was Viscount, and a nine-and-twenty this year, and he was Viscount . An ordinary man might've gotten away with abstaining from marriage (of the traditional sort), but not a titled man. Titled men were expected to find a good lady, marry her and bear a few kids so that his estate and title might pass onto one of them someday. Titled men couldn’t embrace bachelorhood, or God forbid, abscond to the countryside with a bosom friend or a trusted servant.
Not that Alec wanted to abscond to the countryside, anyway. He shuddered to think of the fate that would befall the Lightwood family and estate should it fall into Jace or Isabelle's hands. Alec loved his siblings, but neither had the delicate sensibilities one needed to run an estate. It had to be him. It had always been him.
But now, he needed someone by his side. Someone to run the estate with him.
A viscountess.
The lurching feeling reached Alec’s throat, and he quickly pushed it down. No, this was good. Better that he lived a life free from attachment, from love and loss and everything in between.
He knew the life he wanted, and this would take him a little closer to it.
Filled with a brighter determination, Alec tossed his chin up and looked out to where the cobblestones gave way to smooth stone road. The spires of the Royal Palace were gleaming ahead of them, and behind was a second carriage where his mother rode, along with Isabelle, who was set to make her societal debut today, and Helen Blackthorn - the diamond of last season, and Maryse’s Goddaughter, who had been called on to coach Isabelle on proper etiquette.
Poor Isabelle must be at her wit's end, Alec thought amusedly. Isabelle despised the presentations, the courting and dancing and prim properness of the season. Though she did not look it, with her dainty dresses and sparkly tiaras that rivalled the most fashionable of the Ton, Isabelle much preferred rough housing in the mud with her brothers than parading herself around dance parties as she so delicately phrased it.
"Poor Isabelle must be at her wit's end," Jace remarked from where he sat at the opposite end of the carriage. It was almost as if he read Alec’s mind. Alec often wondered if he and Jace shared the same mind sometimes, and now was one of those times.
“I can only imagine the drilling she is receiving from mother and Helen.” Jace sniffed. “Poor soul.”
“Why does not Alec receive any drilling?” Max asked with all the inquisitiveness of a nine year old. Max was the youngest of the Lightwoods, always watching the world with a curious eye. He rarely ever left the Lightwood House, left behind with a few trusted servants while the rest of the Lightwoods had to attend a multitude of parties. So this was, in a way, Max's first integration into the Ton's society.
It was also the Lightwoods' first season. Isabelle was set to be presented in front of Her Royal Highness and make her debut, while Alec finally bowed to the pressure of the older folks' coy smiles and questionnaires about his marriage, and all the young ladies whose advances he had to turn down over the years, and decided to look for a wife, only if so he could never be bothered again. He and Isabelle, who had until now only watched the courting rituals from afar, were to be in the thick of it all this season.
"Because Isabelle will be judged by Her Royal Highness, the Queen,” Alec explained. “And I won’t.”
“She will be judged by all of the Ton, in fact,” Jace added. “And she will have to deal with all of it while she looks for love. Quite a challenge, eh, Alec?”
Alec wilfully snapped his gaze away from Jace’s, whose eyes held something deep underneath that usual teasing twinkle in his eye. He knew what Jace was thinking about.
Everyone searched for love when they stepped into the season, and everyone searched in vain. Alec wasn’t one of them.
“My own task this season can’t be exceptionally challenging,” Alec said, lifting a shoulder in half a shrug. “I mean, every last rake does it every season, how hard can it be?”
“Ah,” Jace sighed sarcastically, melting back into his seat with a hand over his heart. He looked over to Max, who was stifling a giggle. “spoken with such feeling , too!”
Alec scowled at that.
“I do not need feeling ,” Alec said. He knew Jace was jesting, but he still felt the need to repeat his words over and over. Maybe he was repeating them to himself.
“What I need is what I have-“ Alec turned his gaze onto Jace, his scowl having now settled into a tiny crease between his eyebrows. “-and that is a list.”
Max’s eyes widened. Jace’s did too, and he let out a strange choked-off sound. “A- A list, brother?”
“Tolerable, dutiful, a strong constitution, and at least half a brain.” Alec’s chin lifted as he listed out each and every one of his requirements, or atleast the ones highest on his list. “The last one isn’t so much a requirement but a preference, in fact.”
Jace goggled at him, slowly quirking up an eyebrow. Max had his lips pressed together in an expression that Alec recognised all too well. It was the face he wore when he had an unsightly remark to make.
“What is it?” Alec asked, not sharply, turning his gaze on Max.
“Pardon me brother,” Max said, just as the carriage rolled to a stop in the Royal Palace’s courtyard. “But I do not think you will ever find a wife.”
Alec’s jaw dropped, but before he could utter a word, Max pushed open the carriage door and leapt out. Across from him, Jace burst out in laughter.
The previous evening, Jace had summoned Alec to the back of their house in London. The sun was well on its way to setting, and the fresh scent of grass was thick in the air. When Alec caught up to where Jace stood, staring off into the trees with a pensive look upon his face, he stood and waited.
“Mother tells me,” Jace said, “that you are to be looking for a wife this season.”
“That is true,” Alec said. He said nothing more.
Jace turned to him. “Are you sure about this, brother?”
“Why do you think I would not be sure?” Alec asked, his voice smooth, facade impenetrable.
“You would not be happy with a woman,” Jace said, eyes flicking over Alec’s face, as if looking for something. “You- brother, I do not want you to be stuck in an unhappy marriage.”
“Not if I find someone agreeable,” Alec said. “That is the whole point of courting, yes?”
“Would you rather not be wed to a man?” Jace asked.
Alec looked at him then. His little brother looked concerned, for once. It was strange to see that expression on Jace’s face - Jace, who always smiled even when he didn’t feel like it.
“Not everyone marries for love,” Alec said. “And I will not, either. It is my duty, as the Viscount, to-“
“There you go again with your Viscountly duties.” Jace rolled his eyes. Alec couldn’t help but smile - just moments ago, the face that Jace had worn felt almost disconcerting. “Oh, I have to do this, I have to do that- Has anyone told you, brother, that you don’t have to do it all on your own? I get that running the estate is hard, but you don’t have to shoulder it alone.”
Alec’s smile faltered a little.
“Precisely, Jace,” Alec said, his voice wavering just the smallest bit. “I can’t do it on my own. I can’t run the estate and look after the family all on my own, I just- it gets tiring.”
Jace’s eyes were sympathetic as he stared at Alec. Alec took in a deep breath and looked away, folding his arms.
“That is precisely why I need a wife,” Alec said. “I need someone capable by my side to take care of all this. I need a proper Viscountess.”
“I just don’t see why the Viscountess needs to be a woman,” Jace said, his voice levelled and slow. “You could find a capable man to marry- to be by your side. Lady Penhallow-“
“Lady Penhallow may be married to the love of her life, but Lady Blackthorn has absolutely no jurisdiction over her estate,” Alec almost snapped. “Nor does Lady Penhallow have a family of our caliber. Their marriage does not exist in the eyes of the Queen, Jace, and you know very well that the two of them would be exiled if she ever found out.”
“Yes, but-“ Jace stepped closer, stirring the high grass as he moved. “Even if you hide, Alec, you would still be happy with someone you love-“
“I don’t want-“ Alec’s voice cracked, and he snapped his mouth shut. I don’t want love, he’d meant to say, nor do I need it.
The silence that stretched between them was palpable. Alec took in a deep, harsh breath, and listened to the way the wind whistled as it passed between the trees in their yard.
“You do not have to marry at all,” Jace said quietly. “I could- I could learn. I could help you in whatever way you need. Alec, you don’t have to do this.”
“Jace-“ Alec sighed.
“If not me, then Izzy- you are not alone, brother.”
“I know.” Alec closed his eyes. “But this isn’t only about the estate, Jace. There are eyes on me.”
“What, those vile gossipers?” Jace’s voice turned sharp. “You should not have to let the likes of Lady Blossomwright dictate your life, Alec-“
“You don’t understand .” Alec shook his head, and his voice grew a little tighter. “It is not just the people who talk about me behind my back. It’s the men who always talk about the girls they like and who they are courting and then look at me weird when I tell them I have not courted anybody. The ladies who always smile and simper at me and expect me to ask them to dance or to court them, and give me disappointed looks when I do not do anything. All the older Lords who ask me when I am to be married and when I will have an heir to the estate. It is not just a single gossip pamphlet to protect me from, Jace. It is a million little paper cuts everyday.”
Alec took in a deep breath to clear his head, which felt hot with frustration, the way it often did when he missed an easy target while practicing archery in his off-time. “And if getting married will keep all them away from me and let me have even a little peace, I am more than willing to do it.”
He looked at Jace then, and marvelled at how young and old his brother looked at the same time, staring down at the grass with a stubborn frown on his face. Alec watched as the frown smoothed itself out, and Jace looked up at him.
“I just worry for you,” Jace said.
Alec opened his mouth to protest, but Jace cut in, “I worry because I don’t want you to do something without thinking it through. I am the reckless man of this house. We cannot have two men who make stupid decisions under the same room.”
Alec huffed out a laugh at that, and was pleased to see that Jace was now smiling, too. Jace laid a firm hand on Alec’s shoulder, and said, his voice low and serious.
“If you are absolutely sure about this, brother, then know that I will support you in whatever way I can.”
“I am sure,” Alec promised.
“Lady Beatrice Blackwell!”
The hall abounded with low murmurs as the lady of the moment walked across the aisle before she curtsied in front of the Queen, who watched her and all the ladies before her with an impassive face. Alec watched the lady, her perfect posture and elegant looks, her smile small but warm, and made a mental note of her name.
He stood to one side of the hall with the rest of his family, except for Isabelle and Maryse, who stood outside waiting to be introduced.
"Lady Vanessa Ashdown!”
Lady Vanessa, though graceful, had a haughty upturn to her smile. Alec hastily crossed her off of the list he was making in his mind.
Next to him stood Lady Helen Blackthorn - though she was a Lady only in name. Helen had married the Duchess Penhallow's daughter last year, which Alec supposed would make her a Duchess by association in the future. The Queen would never recognize it, but Alec knew that one day she would be greeted with cries of Duchess Penhallow-Blackthorn whenever she came to visit Chiswick Hall.
Helen appraised the lady with her own eye, and then turned to the doors, awaiting the next lady to be introduced. Though she didn't look it, Helen seemed jittery, her eyes darting from the page boy to the doors and back.
"Where is Isabelle?" Max whispered. Alec leant down, his arm going around Max's shoulder.
"Hush. She will be introduced soon."
"That's what you said the last few times I asked," Max whispered back.
Before Alec could say something in reply, however, the doors pushed open and the pageboy called out,
"Lady Isabelle Lightwood!"
Alec straightened, looking at his sister who looked worryingly pale as she stood at the foot of the aisle, their mother standing beside her with one hand on her back to encourage her forward. Isabelle was brash and loud, always carrying herself with an efficacy that made all the heads in the room turn to look at her. To see her so nervous was almost worrying.
"Smile," Helen whispered, loud enough for her voice to carry, and pointed at her own upturned mouth. Isabelle's eyes caught on to the movement, and she smiled - it came out wobbly, and her eyes were wide. Alec was almost certain that the Queen noticed her queer behavior.
Isabelle took an unsteady step forward, and then one of the smaller doorways to the side burst open. All heads in the room turned to the intruder - a page boy, who carried with him a silver tray and on top of it, barely visible, a pamphlet.
"What is the meaning of this?" The Queen demanded as the page boy stepped in front of her, holding the tray out. She picked up the pamphlet, and Alec only had enough time to catch the expression on her face - eyes wide and nostrils flared, before she stood with an innately dramatic flourish.
"I have seen enough," the Queen said, stepping down the dais that held the throne.
"But, Your Majesty!" One of the courtiers protested. "There are still-"
"I have seen enough!" The Queen thundered, leaving the hall with her eyes still on the pamphlet, her red cloak billowing out behind her like a cloud. More page boys arrived now, with silver platters similar to the first, and began handing out copies of the pamphlet. Jace picked one up, and Alec could finally see what the fuss was about.
It was Lady Blossomwright's pamphlet.
From the front of the room, Alec heard his mother call out, "Isabelle!", and turned just in time to catch the swish of her white skirt as she fled. Alec could clearly hear the heavy sigh his mother heaved.
"I truly cannot say I long for any of this," Helen said, lips upturned in a wry smile. She was long past the tedious process of courting now, and Alec almost envied her. Helen turned her smile on Alec. "Good luck to you, My Lord. You will surely need it this season."
When Alec looked around at the chaos that enveloped the hall, he knew without a doubt that Helen was right.
He would need all the help he could get this season.
"One and two… one and two…"
Maryse stood at one end of the room, watching with a keen eye as Isabelle practiced her dancing skills with Max, while Jace played a tune on the piano. She felt a little exhausted already, and it was only the first day of the season. There was still a lot of work to be done. Isabelle needed to train well, needed to be refined enough that she could catch the Queen’s attention. Isabelle would always be a diamond to Maryse - but she wished the rest of the world could see her as she did, and not simply the wild child of the Lightwoods.
"One and two… one and two…" Isabelle muttered to herself as she danced, and as she turned with her brother, Max looked at Jace and whispered,
"I do not think she's very good."
"I believe she can hear you," Jace said, an amused smirk on his face.
"I can hear you," Isabelle grumbled, stepping forward in the dance.
Max yelped. "Ow! Watch my feet!"
Isabelle groaned and stepped away, looking at Maryse with a beseeching look on her face. "Might we be done?"
Maryse, who had been looking on the exchange with an amused smile until now, pulled on her stern mother face once more. "If we are to catch the Queen’s eye after that interruption, you must be perfection."
"I believe it was the interruption that was perfection,” Isabelle said jauntily, smiling the way she always did when she got away with some mischief.
“Shocking, isn’t it?” Jace responded sarcastically, fingers moving to idleness on the piano. “That Isabelle Lightwood was not named the diamond of the season?”
Isabelle scowled at him, but before she could say anything, Alec burst into the room, looking around with frantic wild eyes.
“Has anyone seen my pocket-watch?” Alec asked. “I swear I left it somewhere around here- Ah!”
Alec’s eyes lit up as he spotted the watch, lying on the little table next to the couch. Maryse’s heart tumbled inside her chest as she watched Alec’s fingers close around the watch.
It was an heirloom from his father.
Maryse cleared her throat when Alec made for the doorway again, calling for his attention. “Won’t you join us for tea, Alexander?”
Alec paused and turned to Maryse with an apologetic look. “Um, I’m afraid I must pass. Too many calls on my funds today.” Alec straightened, turning fully toward her, looking every bit the Viscount he was. “Now that the season has started, I need to fill your coffers at the modiste and oversee the hiring of extra staff. And your ring- when you get the chance, I need it.”
Maryse blinked, exchanging a look with Jace who looked just as bewildered as her.
Was Alec asking her for her ring, or was she dreaming?
“The fields by Ferryhallow - I was thinking we might hold off on leasing them due to the hard frost.”
“I beg your pardon?” Maryse asked once she managed to find her voice.
Alec blinked at her. “The frost - it hardens the soil, saps it of nutrients.”
“That is very well.” Maryse waved a dismissive hand. “But you requested my ring?”
Alec blinked again, and tilted his head as if he didn’t understand why this bore repeating. “Father’s betrothal ring.”
Jace perked up, swiveling away from the piano. “Did someone catch your eye at the presentation, brother?”
“I thought all the young ladies looked beautiful,” Max piped in.
“Not particularly.” Alec wrinkled his nose. “And all the young ladies looked the same. Like ladies. ”
“Well you can hardly expect them to look like gentlemen, can you, brother?” Jace quipped, grinning at his own joke.
Alec scowled at Jace. “That is not what I meant, and you know that very well. Besides, I’d simply like to be prepared for when the opportunity presents itself.”
“The opportunity?” Maryse raised an eyebrow, mildly amused. Marriage was hardly just an opportunity.
Alec nodded, and looked quite pleased with himself. “I have compiled an index of the season’s eligible misses and arranged interviews.”
“ Interviews ?” Maryse chuckled, unable to help herself, and stopped when she saw that Alec wasn’t laughing.
He was serious about this. He actually had arranged interviews, then.
“Interviews?” Maryse said again, inquiring.
Alec nodded. “Interviews.”
Maryse pursed her lips together, opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She circled the room to where Jace still sat at the piano, gathering her thoughts all the while.
“Dearest,” she said at last, turning to face Alec. “I shall be more than happy to give you my ring when you find someone with whom you are very much in love.”
She smiled. “Besides, it is in safekeeping, at Aubrey Hall.”
Alec nodded, considering. “Very well.”
Maryse sidled up closer to Jace and laid a hand on his shoulder. Leaning down so that Alec couldn’t hear, she whispered, “See that he is quite well.”
“Me?” Jace whispered back.
“I’m not in need of coddling,” Alec called out. He had busied himself with winding his pocket watch, and tucked the winding key away into his breast pocket. He looked up at Maryse, a reassuring smile on his face. “I assure you all, everything is in order.”
Everything is in order , Alec reassured himself as he checked the time once more before tucking his pocket watch away. He pulled out a small leather-bound notebook from the very same pocket, and flipped it open to find it full of names - names that he had spent the whole afternoon scribbling down.
The first ball of the season was in a week’s time - and Alec planned to meet all of these ladies before then.
The first was Lady Blackwell, who walked with him round Hyde Park while Alec questioned her. Lady Blackwell, to her fairness, managed well enough until Alec asked her,
“Are you looking forward to being a mother?”
He needed an heir. And to have an heir, he needed a mother.
“Oh, very much,” Lady Blackwell said with a pleasing smile. “I am quite close with my brothers and sisters.”
Alec nodded at that. If she had siblings, she would know how to manage Jace and Isabelle and Max.
“And what number do you have in mind?” Alec asked. Lady Blackwell’s smile faltered.
“Of children?” She asked, blinking. When Alec did not reply, and only gazed at her with a look that communicated the obviousness of his question, she began faltering over her words.
“Four,” she said, her eyes wide. “Five- no, no, six.”
“Three children is what I’ve always wanted, My Lord,” said Lady Bridgestock.
They sat at an open tavern, sharing a meal as Alec interviewed her. Alec nodded, satisfied, and picked up another forkful of his cream and apple pie.
“What if, say, one of your daughters had a penchant for overspending?” Alec asked next. “How would you deal with that?”
Alec ate the piece of pie waiting on the fork, and Lady Bridgestock’s face fell.
Hers was the next name to be struck off his list.
“We must secure a new Lady’s maid for Isabelle, now that the last one is out,” Alec said to his steward, Hodge, as he stepped into his office. It was past dark, and the room was kept well-lit by a myriad of candelabras, just the way Alec preferred it. “Ensure that she is even more stronger-willed than the last one.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Alec pulled back the chair behind his desk and had barely gotten himself seated when Hodge placed a stack of papers in front of him. Alec looked at the papers, and then back at Hodge.
“What are those?”
“Accounts requiring your signature,” Hodge said, taking a step backward and pulling his hands behind his back, “My Lord.”
Alec internally heaved a sigh, and picked up the quill.
It was well past midnight when he was done with the last of them.
“The sitar is a wonderful instrument, My Lord.” Lady Chowdhury smiled at him, fingers dancing about the instrument that she had seated in her lap. “Teaching one patience, strength-“ she fluttered her eyelashes coyly at him. “-and an appreciation for beauty, of course.”
Alec nodded, unimpressed. “But do you read?”
“Books?” Lady Chowdhury fluttered her eyelashes again, but there was nothing coy about it this time.
Alec flipped his pocket watch closed. Alec struck off names and signed papers.
And at night, when his head felt too tight, he went out into the archery range at Hyde Park and shot at the targets until his fingers grew numb.
He drew in and drew out breaths, nocked arrows and pulled back the bowstring and released, over and over again.
And when his quiver was empty and his mind clear, Alec sat astride his horse and rode home.
“I am fluent in French, Italian and Latin, My Lord.”
Alec nodded despite the headache he could feel coming on, though it was no fault of Lady Boateng’s. They were walking - in Hyde park, of course, and Alec’s heart longed for the bow and arrows which he knew were tucked into a shed only a couple of miles away.
“And your Greek?” Alec asked.
Lady Boateng’s eyes widened, and she looked away, lips pressed together in a thin line.
Alec winced for the umpteenth time that afternoon as his feet were stepped on, again.
“Apologies, My Lord,” Lady Mendoza chuckled apologetically as she stepped away. “I much prefer a quadrille.”
Alec sighed heftily inside his mind as he stepped back into the dance.
One quiver was not going to be enough tonight.
Lady Ashdown was much too young to run an estate, and it showed in the way she spoke.
“I ride, I paint,” she said, listing out her attributes as if she were introducing herself to her class the first day of etiquette school and not talking to a prospective match at a luncheon. “I sing, I dance. I can divide and multiply, and-“ she beamed, “I can even construct my own hats!”
Alec smiled tightly at her.
Yet another quiver was added to his nightly barrage.
Alec struck off names. Alec signed off on whatever he needed to.
The stacks of paper awaited him every night as soon as he returned from his futile interviews, and he stayed as late as he could, not stopping even when his eyes dropped and fingers grew cramped.
Arrows whistled through the air, paper fluttered, and his pocket watch ticked away.
“Five and twenty more, My Lord,” Hodge would say, placing the papers in front of Alec late into the night. Alec only nodded stiffly and added them to the bottom of the half a pile he had been going through.
Alec signed off names. Alec struck off signatures. Alec went on.
Paper rustled like leaves in the fall. The shafts of arrows clanged together as Alec loaded a new quiver. And his father’s pocket watch ticked away, tucked into Alec’s breast pocket.
Alec was breathing hard as he stared at the line of targets in front of him. His fingers were numb. He could still hear the dim vibration of the bowstring.
He turned away, leaving alone the five quivers of arrows he had emptied into those targets.
The morning air provided a sweet respite from Alec’s tumultuous week.
He had woken at first light and had stepped out of the Lightwood estate, which felt eerily quiet in the early morning when everyone else slept. He had been shooting until now, and though his fingers ached, he was glad to have spent some time by himself in the archery range.
The sun was yet to rise completely, and the sky shone dull and blue-gray onto the dewy grass. Fog clung low to the bushes and trees, but it wasn't so thick that Alec couldn’t make out the distant trees and brambles.
There were two ducks merrily waddling away ahead of Alec’s horse, and Alec watched them, envious. How simple the life of a duck was! They ate, they slept, they swam, and they mated, and that was all. Ducks didn't need to be Viscount, or sign papers or court each other.
Alec wondered if he could crawl off of his horse and join the ducks in their nest.
He wondered again, idly, what Jace would make of this particular train of thought of his, when a distant, loud neigh of a horse alarmed him.
Alec swiveled, and caught sight of, from the gaps in between a thicket of trees, a cloaked figure rising astride, their horse galloping away at high speed. Alec’s eyes widened at the sight.
Who in the Ton would ride a horse so recklessly in the early hours of the morning?
"Whoa, there!" Alec called out as their horse passed him, making a gamble off the men's rising breeches they wore. "Mister, are you in any trouble?!"
When they rode away with no reply, Alec gritted his teeth and, pulling at his own horse's reins, gave chase.
The morning air felt harsher, now that Alec rode as fast as he could, doing his best to catch up with the stranger.
The stranger’s dark cloak billowed out behind them as they rode out into a vast clearing, Alec following behind as fast as his horse could run.
The stranger turned then, just far enough for Alec to see his face and the way his hair - dark, darker than the cloak he wore, darker than night - followed the curve of his ear and the path of the wind into the willowy hood of the cloak that framed his face. Alec saw the glint of an amber eye, a sharp jaw and smooth brown skin that shone like morning dew. Alec saw the man’s lips curl up into a smile, a smile that shone of mischief and amusement and something more, which grew into a hint of a grin right before he turned away.
Something akin to lightning sparked in Alec’s chest. Reignited, filled with a vigor he didn’t know he possessed, he pulled at his horse’s reins once more.
“Come on,” he urged his horse to go faster. “Come on!”
Alec didn’t know who his person was, or even what they were doing right now. All he knew was that he needed to catch up to him, and then catch him.
The mysterious rider rode past a thicket fenced off from the rest of the clearing, and Alec was pleased to see he was catching up, his eyes widened when he saw that they were headed straight for a line of brambled bushes.
“Whoa there!” He called out, and when the rider did not show any intention of stopping, “Careful now!”
The rider didn’t listen to his heedings - instead, his horse leapt over the bushes in an admirably graceful feat. Alec pulled his own horse to a stop, and watched as the stranger’s horse galloped to a stop at the crest of the clearing he found himself in.
He turned, and pulled back his hood. And at that very moment, the first rays of the sun hit the Earth.
Alec stared.
It was a man, just like he’d guessed, and he was the most beautiful man Alec had ever seen.
His dark hair, mussed from the morning wind curled around his face, softening the sharp lines of his face. An errant strand of hair clung to his lips, which parted to allow loose puffs of exhausted breath. Alec looked into the man’s eyes, wide and amber and shaped like peacock feathers, and felt a sharp twang in his heart, something like the release of a taut arrow from his bowstring.
He nodded to the man, a deep flush crawling up the back of his neck. The stranger smiled back, returning the nod, and tossed up their chin.
And before Alec could utter a single word, he was drawing his hood back up and riding away into the dawn.