"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." 

― Mary Shelley, A Vindication of the Rights of Men

Louis never lied to Harry.

He was so clever he didn't have to. Like a fox, sly and cunning, he merely threw Harry off the scent.

The young Duke backed away from the bed.

If Louis pushed him in the drawing room that meant he moved the planner, and if he moved the planner then it was in his possession, possibly in that very room.

"Harry, don't!"

Louis was confined to the bed and could not stop him. Harry tore through the bedchamber in search of the crucial piece of evidence.

It was not in the desk, nor the chiffonier nor the linen trunk. Perhaps he had destroyed it.

Harry rummaged through the shelves, the wardrobe, the sideboard. It was nowhere to be found.

As he pulled the brass handle of the vanity, his boot met the floorboard with a hollow thump.

He dropped to his knees and rolled back the gaudy Persian rug. He was right. The floorboard was loose.

"Please, Harry, I'm begging you."

He held up a candle and peered inside the void.

Whose name would Harry find in that book? Was Louis protecting William? Someone else? Why?

He brushed off the sawdust that coated the embossed lettering and traced the initials on the cover with his finger.

"No!" Louis cried.

Harry opened the planner and flipped to its final entries counting back five days. One, two, three, four... He held his breath. Five.

The Duke of Warwick had only one appointment that day:

The Duke of Somerset.

Harry's own title stared back at him, a title that four years ago belonged to... his father.

It was preposterous. Surely Louis realized that this was some sort of mistake. When he looked up at the Duke, he had turned his head.

"Louis, you don't actually think my father capable of..."

Reluctantly, Louis faced him.

"I saw him with my own eyes."

"Well, your eyes deceived you." Harry could not hide the tremor in his voice.

"I did not want you to find out this way. I did not want you to find out at all. I'm so very sorry, Harry."

He stood and stomped his boot with indignation. "There is nothing to be sorry about because my father would never do something like this! How dare you accuse him of such a crime?"

Even in his weakened state, Louis would not falter. "Your father came to the manor five days before James was to be introduced to society. He said my brother was a danger to public health."

"Stop this! My father dedicated his life to the sick. He most likely wanted to help James, not harm him."

"Your father was not dedicated to the sick, he was terrified of them. He wanted James locked up, if not at home then in one of his ghastly sanatoriums. My father refused to institutionalize his eldest son."

"He is not who you say he is! He was a good man who did good in this world."

Then Louis threw Harry's own words back at him: "Every coin has two sides."

Harry ran out the door. He could not listen to another word and thundered down the darkened hallway into his own bedchamber. James' bedchamber.

He paced beside the window and caught his reflection in the glass, his dark curls, his green eyes, his square jaw and fine patrician nose.

He truly was his father's son.

His father, who donated thousands to medical research and hospitals across the country. His father, who not only donated to these hospitals but visited them regularly and oversaw the patients' care.

He looked down. This was the spot where the killer used torn pages from the medical journal to ignite the curtains.

The medical journal.

Memories spun to life around him like the moving pictures of a zoetrope.

The very first thing that came to mind when he saw Vol. 8 of the Bulletin de l'Académie Imperiale de Médecine in Louis' fox den was that he had read the journal before: In his own home.

Later, when he discovered Louis' innocence, he remembered flipping though the intact pages. The article detailed the symptoms of his brother's disease. It ended on the subject of infectivity. Scientists could not determine whether the disease was contagious or not. The research was inconclusive.

During their visit to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, a man with James' disease was admitted to the sanatorium and the staff treated him as though he were contagious. Louis insisted he was not.

Had the Duke of Warwick and the Duke of Somerset come to different conclusions about James' illness? Could his father have killed James--his family a casualty--out of fear of contagion?

Harry thought on his own childhood. He was in perfect health but his father's fear of disease held him prisoner. The Duke could lock up his only son but could not lock up the entire world...

He walked back to Louis' bedchamber. He did not enter. Instead, he turned to the elderly nurse who sat on a chair sleepily darning a sock while waiting to be called upon.

"Watch over him. I'm retiring for the night," he said, though dawn was now upon them.

She jumped to her feet. "Of course, your grace. Is everything alright?"

No. He could not face Louis knowing how his father had wronged him. He did not know if he could ever face Louis again.

♘

Harry's discovery of the day planner, had it been a dream? The loose floorboard was now covered by the plush rug and the planner was nowhere in sight.

Neither was Harry.

The nurse drew back the curtains to let the sun in. Louis' body appeared grotesque in the light of day. He didn't recognize his own stitched flesh. He was not himself but Frankenstein's monster.

The nurse prepared a tincture for the pain. The planner rested beside the vials on the sideboard.

So it wasn't a dream. Harry knew.

There was a knock at the door and his heart nearly jumped out of his sewn chest.

He heard the nurse try to dissuade someone from entering, saying that Louis' condition was very precarious.

But her warnings were superseded by Louis' order: "Come in!"

The door flew open. "Honestly!" Eleanor complained, haughtily adjusting her bodice. "I'm his betrothed for heaven's sake!"

She was followed by Roy and then Frederick. "Move, peasant!"

The nurse desperately tried to keep them at a safe distance, but his friends stretched around him on the bed like a pride of lions.

"You look dreadful, old chap." Frederick tucked a cigarette between Louis' lips.

Roy lit a match. "We were worried sick."

Eleanor placed a crystal ashtray on his chest. "London is already wild with gossip!"

The nurse opened a window and waved her arms around trying clear the smoke to no avail.

Louis peered over Eleanor's shoulder to see if Harry had joined them. He had not.

"Where is the Duke?" he asked.

They had last seen him bid adieu to Lord Graves in the rotunda. Roy explained that the club had begun to depart the manor. Louis craned his neck. In the distance, he spotted a long row of black carriages heading out the gates like an army of ants.

Quietly the door creaked open. It was Harry. He did not join them on the bed but sat quietly with his head down on a wing chair in the corner.

The hounds had been collected by the gamekeeper, Roy continued, but William's body had yet to be recovered. They found Frederick's horse at the riverbank contentedly lapping the water.

"To think," Frederick said with a tear in his eye, "my Belvédère was out there all alone, kidnapped by a lowly footman. Oh it's too ghastly for words!"

Roy indulged him, kissing his icy hand consolingly.

"You do realize Albertine was slaughtered, don't you?"

The Viscount arched an eyebrow. "You're not seriously comparing your carthorse to my thoroughbred?"

Louis was too weak to strangle him and took another drag of his cigarette.

His friends continued to entertain him. Eleanor giddily described the affair she'd had with Lord Finnes' Romanian valet, Roy divulged a lucrative business deal he'd made with Beardsley, while Frederick was eagerly anticipating the premiere of the opéra bouffe, La belle Hélène, in London.

Louis patted the bed beside him. "Join us, poppet."

Harry shook his head. The others did not comment on his silence. They presumed the boy had been shaken by Louis' brush with death.

When his friends got up to leave, Harry quickly followed.

"Harry, wait!" A pain shot though his side. Even yelling put a tremendous strain on his wounds.

Uneasy, Harry stayed behind.

Louis dismissed the nurse so they could speak in private.

"Why will you not come to me?"

"How can you even look at me after what he's done?"

"A son should not pay for the sins of his father."

Harry stood half obscured by the canopy. "The magistrate declared the fire an accident. Why did you not tell him of my father's crime?"

Louis knew he would have to answer this question sooner or later and confessed. "Because I wanted revenge. The reason I visited Somerset four years ago was to do to your father what he had done to my family."

"You were going to..."

"Yes."

Harry's eyes were wide with horror. "Why didn't you?"

"Why do you think?! How was I to know my family's killer had fathered the most beautiful boy alive! My only love sprung from my only hate." Louis shook his head with dismay. "When I stepped out of the carriage and you ran toward me in your white knee socks and kissed my cheek, I knew instantly my plans were ruined."

"Was that why you were so cross during your stay?"

"Every time I thought I had mustered the will to go through with it, you would tug my sleeve and offer to show me your coin collection or else play the sweetest arrangement on the piano. It was infuriating! I realized if I took your father from you, you would feel how I did when he took my family from me. You were such a gentle little boy. I couldn't bear the thought of you suffering as I had. But I also knew that I couldn't be in his presence again, and he never let you out of his sight. That's why I only wrote to you once he had passed."

Harry kneeled by his bedside, lip quivering. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I knew it would devastate you, so I buried the truth within me."

Louis coaxed Harry up on the bed. He took the monogramed handkerchief from his waistcoat and dried the tears on his cheek.

As Louis held his chin, Harry asked, "Do you see him when you look at my face?"

He took too long to answer and Harry was crestfallen.

"I knew it. I'm a source of pain to you."

"No!" And desperate for a way to explain, he reached for a vial on the sideboard. "When bitten by a poisonous animal, do you know where they find the antidote?"

Harry sniffed. "It's derived from the venom of the same animal."

He smiled. "Your father poisoned my heart, but, while he took my family from this world, he also brought you into it. You are my antidote."

Louis reached out to hold him but was struck with pain. The wound on his side shaped like a crescent moon seemed to have its own gravitational force that bound him to the bed.

"I'll get the nurse to tend to your wounds."

He took Harry's hand. "I wish you would be my nurse. I like the way you tend to me."

Harry refused to accept the compliment. "You were unconscious at the time."

"The body never forgets."

Harry got up and rang for the nurse. It was just as Louis feared. Harry was devastated by the truth and it had created a gulf between them. Would they ever be as close as they once were? 

When the nurse came Harry said: "You are dismissed for the afternoon. I will be seeing to the Duke's needs personally."

She curtseyed. "Very well, your grace."

Though Harry stayed in Louis' bedchamber he was not himself. He did not speak nor smile. Harry saw to his every need like he was atoning for his father's sins. He took his temperature, fluffed his pillow, administered opium for the pain, laudanum for sleep, applied ointment to his wounds, and prayed slavishly by his bedside.

When he wasn't caring for Louis, he read silently in the corner.

Guilt weighed heavily on his boyish features. It seemed like he would never forgive himself for what his father had done.

"Harry?"

"Yes."

"May I have a sip of water?"

Harry put down his book and poured Louis a glass of water from the silver pitcher on the sideboard. Louis took a sip and handed back the glass.

"Harry?"

"Yes."

"May I have an extra blanket?"

Dutifully, Harry fetched him a quilt from the trunk.

"Harry?"

"Yes."

"May I have a kiss?"

The corners of the young Duke's mouth twitched into a smile and Louis thought: there's hope for us yet.

♘

Harry examined Louis while he slept. A restless sleeper and vivid dreamer, he lay outstretched like the Pythian Apollo, the bed sheet scarcely covering his naked limbs. One would think the deep gashes would mar his beauty, but they only emphasized the golden flesh around them making him more beautiful still.

His fever had broken and it was nearly time for his bath. Harry would need a basin of water brought to the bedchamber. He rang for a maid.

A few moments later he thought he heard Charlotte's hurried footsteps outside the door. He went to take the basin from her when he bumped into the surgeon. The doctor removed his hat immediately and flattened his mop of grey hair. He was calling on Louis for his afternoon appointment to see how the stitches were healing.

"He grows stronger by the minute," Harry reported. "I'm about to give him his bath."

The surgeon delivered a stern look. "He may appear stronger than he is, your grace. Remember no matter how healthy he feels, he needs to rest. That means no... physical activity."

Physical activity? Whatever did he mean? Louis was bedridden.

"He won't be playing croquet any time soon," Harry assured him.

After a brief examination, the surgeon stepped out of the room and said that he would check on the Duke once more in the evening before returning to the village.

Harry re-entered the bedchamber with the basin of water.

He folded the sheet off of Louis' body and rolled up his sleeves. The water, which was scented with lavender oil brought back tender memories of the bath they shared the morning after Louis deflowered him. He carefully wrung the rag in his hands before bringing it to Louis' pale cheek and neck.

"Nice and warm," Louis remarked.

Harry turned him on his side and dragged the cloth along the golden curve of his back then set him down and washed beneath his arms. He dipped the cloth in the soapy water and examined Louis' body, blushing when his eyes fell upon his undergarment.

He moved to the Duke's legs, scrubbed the soles of his feet until they were pink, then meticulously scrubbed between each toe.

"I believe they're clean."

Harry bit his lip. He had seen Louis in the nude before. Why was he being so prudish? He slipped Louis' undergarment off his hips and dipped a fresh rag into the basin.

Louis nosed the pillow sheepishly.

He moved the cloth from the Duke's inner thigh to his groin, and very gently, as to barely touch him, Harry passed a cloth over his member, but however light his touch it did not matter for Louis thickened at once.

"Reflex," he said.

"Of course," Harry swallowed, now understanding the surgeon's warning about physical activity.

He slowly passed the cloth over his member again feeling it harden beneath the wet fabric. Louis held Harry's wrist to savor his touch.

"All done," said Harry, returning the rag to the basin.

"I don't think you are."

Harry licked his lips. "I've been instructed to let you rest."

Louis' chest rose and fell, his length lying hard against him. He was very hard indeed. Achingly hard. Too hard to ignore. Harry looked over his shoulder at the locked door. A gentle caress couldn't hurt, he reasoned. It might even ease his pain.

Harry took him in his bare hand and caressed him. The Duke widened his thighs and sighed.

"Does this make you feel better?"

He nodded wordlessly.

Harry tried to approach the task like a nurse. He tried to stroke the Duke to climax efficiently, the way he would take his temperature or administer laudanum. But he could not be impartial. Louis' pleasure was his own.

His breeches tightened.

A caress was not enough. He wanted to give him more, much more, deliver as much pleasure as his father had delivered pain. Harry placed an open, wet kiss between his legs. The Duke's muscles seized, tugging on his stitches. He hissed through his teeth.

Harry lifted his head.

"Don't stop!" he begged.

Unsure, Harry nestled his head between the Duke's thighs and delivered light, furtive kisses. Louis tossed his head on the pillow.

"Stay still or you'll hurt yourself," he ordered.

"Your teasing will be the death of me!"

Harry was reluctant to take him in his mouth only because the act aroused him so. The sensation of Louis sliding down his throat made Harry yearn for him to slide deep inside another part of him. Louis must have been thinking the same thing.

The Duke gripped his curls and pulled his face up. Harry's swollen lips slipped messily over his tip, his eyes unfocused.

"Let's make love."

"You are too ill to mount me."

"Straddle my lap."

No sooner had the words escaped Louis' lips did Harry begin ripping off his clothes.

Louis tried as best he could to help him. They laughed breathlessly as they fumbled with the buttons on his waistcoat, his white shirt and breeches. So many buttons! Who designed these infernal garments?

When he removed every article of clothing down to his socks, Harry sat naked on the bed. Louis stared at him with wonder, and even though it made him impossibly shy Harry never wanted him to look away.

The Duke pointed to the sideboard and instructed softly, "The oil."

"Right."

Only, the sideboard was filled with tinctures. He had to examine each one carefully to find the right vial. It was Louis who normally handled the logistics of their lovemaking. The responsibility now fell on Harry's shoulders. He wanted everything to be perfect.

He drizzled some on his palm and smoothed it over Louis, covering every inch of his manhood. Was this too much? Not enough? Unsure, he reached behind and rubbed some on himself for good measure.

Louis beamed as though he had never been fonder of anyone than he was of Harry in this exact moment.

They kissed but Louis could not wait a minute more. He longed to breech the young Duke and Harry longed for this as well. He climbed atop Louis' body and loosely straddled him.

Louis' hands slid down Harry's ivory chest and rested on his narrow waist.

With their hips aligned Harry tried to sink down upon him but found he couldn't. It was easier when Louis mounted him, pushing past his threshold. Harry couldn't do it himself.

Louis coaxed him with a gentle whisper, "that's it." Harry opened with a gasp. The Duke caressed Harry's pale thighs. "Deeper, darling, yes, yes, take all of me."

The tenor of his voice made Harry hungry to envelop him. He took a breath and sank down, until he was sitting on his lap, the Duke so deep inside him he shuddered with pleasure.

Unwittingly Harry began to roll his hips.

Though they had made love before he had never felt so exposed, his desire so naked.

Louis cried out.

Harry stopped at once. "Am I hurting you?"

"No, I mean yes, I mean you're perfect, absolutely perfect." Perhaps he was delirious from the opium but Louis was so overcome with emotion he had tears in his eyes and could not stop declaring his love: "I love you, dearest one! I love you! I love you! I lo—"

Harry moved slowly at first and then faster in tandem with Louis' cries.

Harder and faster, he seemed to never tire but only grow stronger the more Louis unraveled beneath him.

"Slow," Louis urged suddenly.

Harry remembered he was supposed to prolong his lover's pleasure. He flexed his thighs and slowed while moving up and down in a tantalizing rhythm.

Unlike their early urgent attempts, this was the languid lovemaking of two men who were promised to each other, who had their whole lives ahead of them, bound together by the heart and spirit.

Louis reached out to stroke him but Harry playfully batted his hand away.

He sat upright and arched his back.

Amused, Louis said, "When did you become such a strong rider?"

The answer of course was that he became a strong rider the moment he realized he had to save Louis' life. It was Louis who made him better rider, a better lover, a better man.

As Louis drank in the sight of him, sweat pricked his brow. The Duke's body began to weaken, from pain and pleasure both. His mouth opened and his eyes fluttered shut in the early signs of release.

Harry lifted his hips and sank down upon him over and over in long merciless thrusts until the Duke let out a choked sob and spilled inside him.

The sensation excited Harry. Carefully, he rose up off of Louis' lap onto his knees, the Duke's hot wetness escaping his body, deliciously mingling between them.

Harry was now aching, untouched, with Louis' seed running down the length of his inner thigh.

They locked eyes.

Louis used the remainder of his strength to prop himself up on one elbow.

"Louis, you musn't."

He guided Harry's hips toward him. "I want to."

Harry should have insisted but Louis' soft lips beckoned.

The Duke took him in his mouth, curious fingers tracing Harry's tender entrance, where he defiled him.

Harry clasped the back of Louis' neck careful not to thrust. He did not need to. Louis' lips and tongue ravished him and he quickly released inside his lover's mouth. Louis swallowed and drew him closer, lapping every last drop.

Harry kissed the top of his damp head and he fell back on the bed, so dizzy and exhausted the young Duke was sure he killed him.

"What have I done?" He brushed the hair off Louis' sweaty brow. "Are you alright?"

He closed his eyes and moaned.

Harry drew a sheet over him and got dressed immediately.

The buttons on his shirt and waistcoat were askew and his curls wild but he had to fetch the doctor straight away.

He ran downstairs to find him. He was in the servant's hall having supper.

"It's the Duke, he's feeling unwell!"

The surgeon took one look at Harry's hair and clothes and dropped his fork.

"Has he participated in any physical activity?"

"What? No!"

The surgeon suspected this was a lie and when he found Louis sprawled out on the bed, flushed and panting, he confirmed it.

He pressed the stethoscope to his chest and leaned in to listen. "His heart is about to burst, your grace."

Oh my God.

"With excitement." The doctor put away his stethoscope. "He's fine, but for the love of all things holy, let the man rest!"

"You can count on me, doctor," Harry said with a salute.

Charles came to the guest bedchamber that night to attend to Harry, removing his clothes for laundering and dressing him for bed. Instead of sleeping in the guest bedchamber, however, Harry tiptoed back to Louis' room and curled up beside him. He watched over the Duke by candlelight as he slept.

"Louis?"

He opened one eye. "Aren't you supposed to let me rest?"

"Yes, but I miss you terribly when you're sleeping."

"I take back everything I said about you being a good nurse."

"Louis?"

"Harry."

"Did you mean what you said about me being the antidote to your suffering?"

"Yes."

This pleased him. "Did you also mean it when you said I was the most beautiful boy alive?"

"Yes."

Harry blinked up at the canopy. "Louis, do you want to make love again?"

"Naturally."

♘

Louis survived Harry's affections and awoke the next morning exhausted but wholly content.

They had breakfast in bed. Louis had not yet regained his appetite. He ate a single strawberry with a sip of tea. Friends and acquaintances had begun to send flowers, wishing him a speedy recovery. Harry stuck a daisy in his hair and read him the morning paper. A vast improvement on Dickens:

"A grander illustration of the truth of the proverb that 'Union is power' than the existence and condition of the English ruling classes, the whole world does not contain... When the working classes of England shall have acquired and practiced the capacity for combined, simultaneous, and sustained action which has always characterized their oppressors—then, but not till then, will the shame and the misery, the contempt and the weakness, of their present condition cease to exist."

They were about to ring for Teddy to take the tray away when he burst through the door breathless.

The hunt was over, the guests were gone, what was his valet frazzled about now?

"They found William."

Harry and Louis sat up.

"He's alive."

A/N: Yes, Harry's father set the fire. Pat yourself on the back if you solved the mystery!

The earliest clue appeared in Chapter X: "In the corner of the den was a stack of periodicals. Harry recognized them instantly for he had read the exact same ones..."

Harry is the only other character in the story with a connection to the medical journal/murder weapon. Why? "We at Somerset are nothing if not scrupulous about disease!"

His father.

Other clues appeared in Chapters XIII & XIX but there were many more.

What other clues did you pick up on?

William is alive! What should they do with him???

Just one more chapter to go!

The excerpt Harry reads to Louis at the end of this chapter was taken from a real Victorian newspaper. Here's the piece in full: