"‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire." 

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

They tied their cloaks around their shoulders and reached for their walking sticks—both with horse head handles, Harry's in silver, Louis' in gold.

The rain was heavy enough to drown in.

Harry shielded his face, doing everything he could to protect himself from the downpour, while Louis forged ahead unperturbed. He swept into the forest as though in collusion with the wind and part storm himself.

The grass was slick beneath their boots as they traversed the garden. Two bent trees formed an opening to the woods like a hellmouth. Harry sank into the mud, the soaking earth threatening to swallow him whole with each step.

What was he thinking following a possible murderer into the forest in the middle of the night? Not a soul knew they were out there. Louis could kill him and be in bed before breakfast without anyone being the wiser.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked, wet branches clawing at his cloak like the fingernails of a witch.

Louis hopped over a log. "My father always said 'if you want to catch a fox, you have to think like one.'"

"My father always said, 'stay out of the rain, you'll die of pneumonia.'"

They went deeper and deeper into the woods. There was no pathway and even if there were one, it would be imperceptible in the dark. Louis didn't appear to be following landmarks either. He knew the place intuitively, the way one navigates a dreamscape.

The deeper they walked into the woods, the heavier the foliage, until in blotted out the night sky completely. Harry could only make out vague shapes and shadows. When they reached what felt like the deepest, darkest part of the forest, Louis stopped.

There was nothing there.

He's going to kill me, Harry thought. The Duke of Warwick is mad as a hatter and means to butcher me tonight.

Louis kneeled down and swept away a pile of leaves to reveal a mound of earth with an opening on the side.

Harry crouched down beside him and swallowed. "A grave?"

"No," he laughed, "a fox den." He then proceeded to crawl inside. "Come on."

"Goodness gracious, I'll soil my breeches!"

Louis grabbed his hand and pulled him in.

It may not have been a grave but the space was no wider than a coffin. They had to cram together cheek to cheek in order to fit.

Louis lit a match.

As his eyes adjusted, Harry realized that this was not an ordinary fox den. There were trinkets, toys, and maps of the colonies lining the mud walls. Louis' flame met a small candle in a tarnished brass holder bubbled over with dried wax. He rested it by their heads.

"This place was much more spacious when I was a child."

"You did this?"

He nodded. "It was my second bedchamber growing up."

"My parents would never let me sleep outside."

"Neither would mine."

"You disobeyed them?"

"Naturally."

Harry's eyes widened.

"Every night after Teddy tucked me into bed, I would sneak out to the woods and sleep in my fox den."

Harry finally understood why Louis brought him here. "This is where you were the night of the fire."

He smiled.

Harry reached out and touched his keepsakes: a broken zoetrope, marbles, a spinning top, a deck of dusty playing cards and rows upon rows of toy soldiers standing perpetually at attention.

Louis placed a hand on Harry's waist. "What? I have nowhere else to put it," he said innocently.

Harry examined a set of stamps. There was a Penny Black and a mint block of perforated Penny Reds.

"This is all that's left of my brother's collection. The rest burned in the fire."

In the corner of the den was a stack of periodicals. Harry recognized them instantly for he had read the exact same ones. "Bulletin de l'Académie Imperiale de Médecine," he gasped, pointing at Vol. 8, which rested on top. "You read French medical journals?"

Louis' voice became distant, the flickering candle flame reflected in his glassy eyes as he spoke. "My brother had the best doctors in England but none could diagnose him. I thought if I kept up with the latest advancements in medicine from the continent I would be able to help him somehow. It was all for naught. In the end illness didn't take him, the fire did."

The candle was suddenly blown out by a gust of wind.

They lay there in complete darkness. Harry felt the Duke's warm breath on his cheek. It traveled up his neck to his ear.

"We better get back," he whispered.

"Yes."

Harry crawled out first. His breeches were wet and caked with mud. The storm had somehow worsened and rainy winds slapped him up against a tree.

They advanced toward the house. Harry's cloak was soaked through and chilled him to the bone. Another gust of wind beat them back and the bough of a tree snapped in half nearly crushing them. Even Louis was concerned now. He broke into a run. Harry tried to run with him but he was too cold, his wet clothes tethering him to the ground like an anchor. He tripped and fell.

Louis ran back for him. He wiped the rain from his brow and extended his hand. "Get up!"

"I can't!" Harry yelled over the sound of thunder.

"Yes you can!"

He clasped Louis' hand and pulled himself up. They linked arms and cut through the sheet of rain together. Louis shielded Harry with his cloak.

The door to the house opened with a groan, and the wind nearly took it off the hinges. They pushed it shut.

Harry collapsed onto the floor.

"Shall I fetch your valet," Louis breathed.

"No! Charles would kill me if he knew I went outside tonight."

"The drawing room then," Louis said, untying his cloak.

Harry wheezed with shortness of breath. He felt sickness creeping into his chest. This was quite easily the worst night of his life. Why did he not listen to his father's wisdom? He was raised not to gamble and he gambled and lost all his money and his lucky coin. He was raised not to go out in the rain and now here he was dying of pneumonia!

In the drawing room, Louis kneeled by the breche violette fireplace. An equestrian motif was carved into the swirling marble and a gold gilt mantel clock was perched on top. He rolled up some paper for kindling.

"Shouldn't we ring for a parlor maid?"

"I know how to start a fire," Louis said, then laughed at the implication of his own words. "You know what I mean."

Flames licked the kindling and wood, popping and crackling as they grew taller.

Louis peeled off his shirt. His coltish body appeared softer in the firelight, the curve of his back like a swatch of satin. He had a line of downy blonde hair that dipped just below his navel.

He caught Harry looking.

"You should take off your shirt too," he said, "you'll catch a cold in that sopping wet clothes."

Harry scowled and inched closer to the fire. "I won't sacrifice my modesty, least of all in the presence of someone like you."

Louis' naked chest and arms already glowed with warmth and his breeches were nearly dry. "Suit yourself, Duke," he said and wandered over to the bureau to fetch a cigarette.

Harry sat on the floor in his wet clothes like a stack of soggy newsprint.

With his monogramed lighter in one hand, Louis rifled through the clutter on his desk to retrieve his cigarette case.

"Who are all those letters from?" Harry asked, pointing to the piles of unopened correspondence.

He lit a cigarette and fell into the wingchair, crossing one leg over the other and coquettishly rolling his ankle. "A fling I had in Moscow."

Harry hugged his knees unsure what to say. He'd never been to Moscow and he'd certainly never had a fling.

Louis tapped his cigarette into the iron floor-standing ashtray by his side. "He's a composer. His name's Pyotr."

Harry lifted his head. "Tchaikovsky?"

"You know him?"

"Of course! Or rather, I know of him. I play his concertante pieces. What's he like?"

"Handsome. A decent kisser," Louis mused, exhaling up at the mural on the ceiling, "and clingy."

"That's not what I—"

"He's in love with me, I'm afraid. He won't stop writing. His English is horrid but he says he can't live without me. He's so miserable he began composing a ballet about a dead swan! God almighty, I didn't even bed him! We did everything but."

Harry nodded like he understood what "everything but" entailed. He had no idea. Was it kissing? Hugging? Holding hands perhaps? How many acts could there be? he wondered. It was an embarrassing question to ask but he was curious. He fidgeted with the buckle on his boot. "When you say 'everything but' what sorts of things do you mean exactly?"

Louis pressed his pale lips together, trying very hard not to smile. "Duke, I would never utter such vile things in your presence. We wouldn't want you to sacrifice your modesty now would we?"

Having his own words thrown back in his face made his curiosity that much more humiliating. Harry hugged his knees tighter. "Just wanted an example is all." He felt his ears turn pink. They were the only part of him that was warm.

"Cigarette?" Louis offered. He controlled the ebb and flow of their conversation, extending his kindness and then taking it away as soon as Harry reached for it.

Two could play at that game.

"No, I don't smoke, and when I do it will be from a pipe like my father and Sir Clarence. Cigarettes are for women and deviants."

Louis laughed. "Try it." He cupped his mouth pretending to whisper. "I won't tell anyone."

Harry knew he should not smoke with an impending pneumonia, but surely one puff wouldn't hurt?

As he reached out to take the cigarette from Louis' hand, the Duke pressed it to his lips so that Harry unwittingly kissed his fingertips. His heart skipped at the intimate gesture. He wasn't prepared for it. He flushed, quickly closing his eyes, and inhaled deeply. Smoke filled his lungs, heat expanding inside him, his head swimming from the rich tobacco.

He coughed and Louis pulled away.

"It's good," Harry hacked into his sleeve.

"Really?" Louis grinned.

"Can I have another, um, puff?" he choked, eyes watering.

The mantel clock chimed.

"You've had enough for one night. We should retire." He crushed the cigarette into the ashtray. "Teddy will have a conniption if tomorrow's event is delayed."

Louis lit a candle on the bureau and led them out of the drawing room into the darkened corridor.

Harry scrambled to his feet, his clothes still wet and heavy on his narrow shoulders. "My coin. You said you'd give it back if I followed you into the forest."

"I said you had to win it back."

He chased Louis up the staircase. "In which game? When?"

Louis stopped outside his bedchamber and twirled a finger 'round one of Harry's damp curls. "Darling, we're already playing."

♞

Harry woke the next morning with a runny nose. His muscles were weak and his breathing shallow. He was not quite sick but not well either. He couldn't risk participating in the day's sporting event.

He had to wear his mask.

Sir Clarence was waiting for him in the library, standing over a book with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat. He didn't recognize Harry. His pipe dropped from his mouth.

"I apologize for the surgical mask. My respiratory system has been compromised."

Harry did not reveal the details of his night with Louis. He had nothing to be ashamed of but he knew his friend would disapprove.

Sir Clarence flipped open a map of the region to show him something. In the light of day, Harry felt conflicted about helping him build a case against the Duke. He now had a new piece of information: Louis wasn't in his bedchamber because he was asleep in his fox den. It seemed a more likely scenario than him murdering his entire family.

He was afraid someone might overhear them so Harry rose to shut the library doors. As he did, Frederick walked by, whistling the tune to Frère Jacques. He was carrying his rifle like a walking stick, his bronze mane in a bouffant atop his head like the plumage of a bird.

"Surgeon!" he screamed with a hand over his heart. "You scared the devil out of me. I hope you're not planning to hunt in that ghastly accessory. You'll spook the pheasants."

"I won't be joining the hunt," Harry said drily.

"Performing surgery instead? Whom are you chopping up today?"

"You."

Frederick delighted at the barb. "I'm beginning to understand what Louis sees in you, Duke!" He blew Harry a kiss and headed outside to join the others.

Sitting on either side of the cherrywood partners desk, Sir Clarence and Harry reviewed the facts of the case, many Harry had heard before and some that he had not.

"Did you know that the fire started in James' bedchamber?"

Harry swallowed. "No."

He flipped through a book on estate law and placed it beside the map. "What about the fact that it happened the night before his brother's introduction to society?"

"James turned eighteen that day. What's unusual about that?"

"James wasn't supposed to turn eighteen. The doctors said he would die well before his sixteenth birthday."

Sir Clarence pulled out a piece of onionskin paper and laid it overtop a map of Yorkshire. Then he drew a triangle that represented the Warwick land holdings. There were three. One by the sea that controlled access to the East Port, one in the West on top of a coal mine and one in the North, where they were now, over a rich forest. While no one ever spoke of it, it was understood that James would die and Louis would control one of the land holdings along with his two older brothers. The night they announced that James was well enough to inherit, someone set fire to his room.

"James was Louis' best friend."

"Oh, I'm sure Louis adored James when he thought he was a dead man!"

"Even if James inherited, Louis would still have wealth and a title."

"Yes, but he would have no power, and that's what Louis craves above all things. My cousin is a classist but he isn't stupid. He knows that the future of this country belongs to industry, not the crown."

Harry thought back to Louis' story about writing the infantry in India when he was a child, the way he spoke politics with his father at Somerset, the time he advised Sir Clarence to exploit his title in parliament. He was the youngest president the Bilsdale club had ever known and wielded his position with aplomb. He did enjoy power.

"Now," Sir Clarence continued, tapping the map pensively with his pipe, "do I think he meant to murder his whole family and take everything? I'm not sure. I think James was the primary target. Louis felt he was owed his death. The other deaths were most likely a happy accident."

A series of gunshots rang outside. Harry looked out the window. Louis was pointing his rifle up at the sky. A dead pheasant spiraled out of the air and fell at his feet in a heap of mangled feathers and blood.

"There's more." Sir Clarence opened his satchel. Inside was a leather ledger. Very, very carefully he slid the contents out of their protective cover.

They were pieces of burned paper. "This was the catalyst of the fire. These papers were twisted together, doused in turpentine and placed beneath the curtains in James' bedchamber."

"How did they not burn?" Harry asked, examining the pages.

"These particular pieces slipped beneath the floorboards. Investigators missed them. I discovered them when I examined the room myself. I haven't turned them over because it was clear from the start that the investigation was tainted. Louis must have paid off the magistrate."

Harry examined the pages closely. They were torn from a periodical. Pages six to eleven of Vol. 8. He saw the title and gasped: Bulletin de l'Académie Imperiale de Médecine.

Sir Clarence examined his eyes. "What? Do you know something?"

"No," Harry stammered. "I read the same journal, that's all."

Sir Clarence stroked his mustache. "I've searched his room and haven't been able to tie Louis to these papers in any way. I was hoping the volume from which they were torn would still be in the house somewhere but he probably got rid of it."

Harry remained silent. He didn't know why but he couldn't bring himself to reveal what he saw in the woods the night before. Not only could he tie Louis to the Bulletin de l'Académie Imperiale de Médecine, but to the exact volume that Sir Clarence was searching for.

His mask concealed the anguish on his face.

A/N: Louis broke Tchaikovsky's heart!

Harry caught a cold!

And there's damning evidence that Louis is the killer... Or is he????

If you were Harry, would you have told Sir Clarence what you saw in the fox den?

Why do you think Harry kept quiet?

While looking for inspo for this fic, I was blessed with these holy images of a young Jude Law in the movie Wilde and instantly thought of Louis. (Bury me with this gifset RIP).   

Next chapter will be in Louis' POV!