by Kai Butler
“You know he’s my pupil,” Zev said. He’d had to admit that much to his younger brother after having to explain the clothing expenses. “I’d be a poor teacher to leave him on his own for his second foray into the ton.”
“So defensive. Would it be so terrible if you’d developed a tendre for him?” Nosre asked quietly.
“Yes, and I haven’t,” Zev said. “I’ve no intention of leading him on, and I’ve less intention of marrying at all. It’s a losing argument to try to convince me that there’s sense in it.”
“You are too stubborn,” Nosre accused. “If you refuse to love the man you’ve clearly fallen for, then at least explain to me what you do feel for him.”
“Friendship,” Zev said shortly.
“Friendship,” Nosre repeated. “For the man you’ve spent weeks…”
Trailing off, he leaned forward and looked at Zev, searching his face. Zev waited for his verdict.
“If this is the life you truly wish for, brother, with physical affection instead of love when you visit Lus, then I leave you to it. But maintaining only a friendship with Lord Gret will not keep your bed warm when you aren’t on Lus, it won’t give you something to hold onto when you need companionship, and it certainly won’t make you happy,” Nosre said. “But it’s your decision.”
“How dour,” Zev accused. “I am not so unhappy as that. You make it sound as though I’m moments away from throwing myself out of my flyer.”
Leaning back again, casual, Nosre said, “Not so. You’re quite adept at performing happiness, but you did desire more once and I think that you still do. Unlike your assistant, you have more needs than food, water, and work.”
“True, I also do like a good coat,” Zev said.
With a wave of his hand, Nosre dismissed the feint. “You’ll not distract me from my purpose.”
“Which is to paint me as the saddest of theater heroes? Yearning for companionship?” Zev pulled out his fob and checked the time. “What a bore.”
“Laugh, but I’d paint you a villain, so unhappy with himself that he’d rather push away his chance at happiness than give in,” Nosre said.
“Now that’s too far.” Zev shook his head, not feigning his hurt. “You cut too close with that accusation.”
“Are you going to see him today?” Nosre asked. He picked up a stylus from Zev’s desk and rolled it between his fingers.
“We must review his performance,” Zev said. He stood. “Which I would prefer to do before an early morning call is relegated to a dinner interruption.”
Following suit, Nosre shook his head again. “I’m glad that Mother isn’t here to see this. Even I can see that for all your best intentions you will end up a tragic hero from a play, stoically watching his love marry another.”
“Your predictions have the air of a cut-rate fortune teller,” Zev said. “Next perhaps you’ll inform me that I’ll meet an interesting person today or that I should lace my boots backwards for luck.”
He walked past Nosre and paused to clap him on the shoulder. He squeezed once and smiled faintly at his brother.
“I’m not so sad as all that. It’s one flirtation; my heart will not be broken by it,” Zev said reassuringly.
“As you say,” Nosre said, in clear disagreement.
He nodded his goodbye to Nosre on the steps outside, calling for his car as he watched his brother get in his own flyer. His driver brought out a flyer designed for discretion: the windows were tinted and the partition was already raised.
The ride to Tiral’s townhome was blessedly silent, and for a moment, Zev wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard Ovi’s unnatural concern or Nosre’s dire warnings. But the truth was that they saw him more than anyone else and to ignore their insight would be foolish. He’d merely have to be more careful going forward, and guard his heart a little more closely.
In front of Tiral’s house, there was a moment when Zev almost ordered the car to turn back, but his courage managed to stick and he stepped out, heading for the door. The butler greeted him and took his hat and gloves, directing him to a sitting room where Tiral was staring out a window.
When Tiral turned, it became apparent that Zev wasn’t the only one who’d struggled to sleep the night before. Tiral’s face was wan, dark circles painted under his eyes. He smiled immediately at Zev, but it was a mere tug at his lips, more like a grimace than a grin. As the butler closed the door behind him, Zev took a step forward, ready to make a joke.
Before he could, Tiral took long steps across the room towards him and gripped his face in both hands, kissing him.
It was a tense moment, neither moving their lips, but Zev couldn’t help the startled breath that left his chest. He sighed and leaned forward, letting Tiral take some of his weight. Gentling the kiss, he pressed a hand to Tiral’s chest, as though he’d be able to feel his heart through the layers of fabric. Tiral kissed him like Zev was the most precious thing in the world.
It was the most passionate experience of Zev's life. Compared to most of his romantic engagements, it was practically innocent, but kissing Tiral felt erotic. Every nerve sang, like Tiral’s lips were electric. Zev wanted more than anything to lean into that feeling and enjoy that sensation. It felt intimate and safe, but also like he was exposed.
But he wasn’t; Tiral didn't know his secrets, no matter what he thought he knew. And for anything more to happen, for them to continue to where they both clearly wanted this to lead, Zev would need to admit things that he’d spent years hiding from the rest of the ton.
He used the hand on Tiral’s chest to push him until they were far enough apart that Zev could think. Watching him, Zev had no idea where to begin.
Tiral felt his heart stop when Zev pushed him away. He’d gone too far; he’d asked more from the man than he’d been willingly granted. He was no better than a customer who assumed a prostitute’s kindness was real affection and not the mask worn for all clients.
He'd been up nearly all night. Echoes of their encounter, somehow familiar and novel at the same time, had kept him from sleep. He’d wished more than anything that he’d been able to see what might have happened if he’d suggested that they continue the evening at one of their homes. Now he knew that it would have ended in rejection.
“I’m sorry —” he stuttered. “Forgive my forwardness, I had no right —”
“Tiral,” Zev said, his voice quiet. “I need to tell you something.”
“Is it about your job?" Tiral asked. "I know about your job."
“What?” Zev asked, frowning. “You know —?”
“That you’re a Laft, yes,” Tiral said. “That you come here every season and pretend you’re not so that you can seduce the wealthy and connected for their secrets.”
“What?” Zev asked, his eyes going wide.
“I won’t tell a soul,” Tiral said. “I won’t tell anyone that you’re a —”
“Demimondaine?” Zev asked, and his brows drew down, his face stretched in a strange way that Tiral couldn’t parse.
“Yes, that.” He wanted to reach over to capture Zev’s hand, but realized that would be too forward considering that Zev had already pushed him away. “I promise, Zev, I’ll keep your secret. But it’s no reason we can’t be together.”
“You’d be alright if I had to take other lovers?” Zev asked, that same strange expression on his face.
“I understand your professional obligations,” Tiral said miserably. The words felt like ice in his stomach. “I would not ask you to give them up for me.”
“Because I am sleeping with peers for the business secrets that they let slip,” Zev said. He sounded like he was clarifying for himself. “Because I’m a Laft.”
“Yes?” Tiral said. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure how it actually works, you could tell me if I’m misunderstanding the intricacies.”
“And how long have you known that I’m a…” Zev trailed off and Tiral rushed to fill in the silence.
“Since I visited your house.”
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“Since the beginning, then,” Zev said. “Alright.”
He took a step back and sighed. When he looked up at Tiral, his eyes had a strange sort of laughter in them that seemed mirthless and terrible.
“I am a Laft,” he said. “But I’m no grand horizontal. I’m Detzev Laft.”
The air left Tiral’s chest in a sharp exhale and he gasped to get it back into his chest. His world shifted on its axis, as though the planet had stopped spinning. Zev was not a honey pot. Zev was Detzev Laft, one of the richest men in the Empire. And he had no interest in marrying.
Zev’s golden eyes looked at his calculatingly, as though he were checking to make sure that Tiral understood before continuing. Swallowing the embarrassment that rose in his throat, Tiral managed to say something that didn’t make him sound quite so much an idiot.
“So, it’s a nickname. And everyone but me knows?”
“No,” Zev said. “No one knows.”
Tiral looked him up and down now, and he could see more clearly what should have been obvious even without confirmation. He looked so similar to Nosre Laft, the public face of the company. He wore clothing that even Tiral recognized as expensive. He had never once asked Tiral anything more than a passing question about anything the Laft Group might want information about.
“Why?” he asked. Then, he thought better and asked a more pressing question. “How? I’m sure someone in society must have met you before.”
With a snort, Zev made it clear how little he thought of the society that he traveled in so easily. “They don’t do their own business. Likely if one of their managers or men of affairs were to see me, they’d recognize me, but I’ve seen only a few lords who wanted to dirty themselves with the technicalities of how their fortunes are kept plump. Nosre deals with them.”
Accepting the idea, Tiral was still confused about the purpose. “You don’t like them —” Us, he realized with an aching sensation. Zev probably thought he was the worst, a member of the elite who couldn’t even keep his own fortune, who had to steal another’s.
“You don’t like us,” Tiral corrected himself, heart loud in his ears. “So, why come to Lus every season? Surely there’s companionship closer to Viga.”
“Yes,” Zev agreed. “There is. But, I came here as a youth to try to find an alliance, and I come every year to remind myself why that was such folly.”
The words were weighted. There must have been a terrible story behind them that Tiral couldn’t pry out of him, not with him looking so serious, a statue made flesh. He looked strange, suddenly, the amusing friend that Tiral had known for weeks gone, leaving behind the mask of a corporate executive. Or, perhaps, ‘Zev’ had always been the mask and only now was Tiral seeing his true face.
He wanted to reach out and kiss Zev again, to see if he could crack that façade like he had when Zev had first entered the room. He wanted to leave Zev with that soft, stunned look, as though for all of his forays, he’d never been properly kissed. He’d never been loved.
Instead, Tiral let his hands fall to his sides.
“So, the whole season is to mock us? To point and laugh at what the rich will do to marry each other?” He tried to make the words come without censure, but knew that he sounded hurt.
“No,” Zev said. “I find joy in taking lovers I won’t see again, who don’t know who I truly am and so do not require anything of me the rest of the year. The reminder that the ton is beyond my interest is merely that — a reminder so that I won’t forget that I have no need of a spouse.”
Unsure what to say, Tiral asked, “None of your lovers inspired a… hope for the future in your heart?”
Shaking his head slowly, Zev said, “No. Not a one.”
There was no way that Tiral, with his awkwardness, with his lack of social graces, could possibly compete with the best the ton had to offer. If none of the accomplished beauties and brilliants who had bedded Zev had even tempted him to the thought of a relationship, Tiral could be only an amusement. To Zev, he was likely no more than a charity case, an asterisk.
“I see,” Tiral said. “I apologize again for my forwardness.”
His lips still tingled from their brief kiss. It was like remembering something that had happened to someone else, though. He knew that it had been real, that Zev had kissed him back, but the Zev who had kissed him was entirely different from the creature made of stone who stood in front of him.
He was even more the fool, Tiral told himself.
“There’s no need to apologize,” Zev said. “After so long together, some fondness was bound to develop. I see no reason we can’t continue as we have.”
“Of course,” Tiral said hurriedly. “I’d like nothing better.”
The lies burnt his tongue. He couldn’t imagine continuing as they had, carefree and easy. Zev was at once the answer and the problem. Worse, Tiral still had feelings for him that he couldn’t untangle despite the revelations.
Forcing himself to sit down on a chaise, he tried to collect his thoughts.
“I won’t speak of what you’ve told me,” he said finally, pressing his hands together. He looked up at Zev, trying to convey his loyalty, though he hardly knew which man had earned it. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, although I no longer understand why you didn’t give me a horrible set-down.”
“I never thought you’d do anything but keep my secrets,” Zev said quietly. “I know this comes as a shock, but I hold you in the same affection, and I do want well for you.”
His earnestness was at odds with the coldness he’d shown earlier when describing his reasoning for the charade. This was a mere echo of the man that Tiral had thought he’d known, and seeing it made a cold settle in his heart.
“You want me to find a marriage though you so disdain the institution?” he asked, curious what Zev would say.
“I want you to find what you want,” Zev said. “I want you to find your old-fashioned, only seeing each other at balls marriage, or a new one with… love.”
The word seemed inadequate for what Zev was trying to say, but Tiral didn’t want to read anything into that pause, into the way that Zev’s eyes had cut to his own. He would have to begin taking the man at his word instead of pretending that there could be anything more to them than friends. Even friendship seemed ridiculous now, though. Why would Detzev Laft, CEO, want a friendship with a penniless earl from a small farming estate?
“Then, I thank you,” Tiral said.
Zev nodded, and they sat across from each other. The silence stretched, like ice spreading across the room. Desperate to break it before it became clear they could no longer talk to each other at all, Tiral spoke.
“My mother and sister are coming soon from Gret,” he said.
“Why?” Zev asked, frowning. He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had no desire for your future spouse to meet the true lord of the manor?”
With a faint smile, Tiral said, “There was a break-in, apparently, and our man is concerned that the thief might go after them next, as he didn’t find what he was looking for.”
“How frightening,” Zev said. “I’m sure they’ll be glad of your protection.”
“Yes,” Tiral agreed, though he hadn't managed to protect his own household from the same outrage.
“You’ll want to see less of me, then,” Zev surmised. He touched a finger to his chin and offered a sincere smile. “It would be hard to explain my tutelage.”
“No,” Tiral said quickly. “You’re still my tutor. I don’t believe I’ve finished my course.”
Agreeably, Zev said, “As you say. Then I’ll pick you up for your next seminar in two days?”
“I await your instruction,” Tiral said. He forced a smile and tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter that Zev had moved himself out of reach in so many ways. This morning, he’d been willing to lose the estate in order to be with Zev. But such a fantasy had become the impossible with a few short words.
Still, he would have Zev’s friendship,
or at least the appearance of it. That would have to be enough.
14
The morning was a busy one. It had been years since the townhouse on Lus had been used as more than a place Lecc stored his clothes during the season. Tiral knew that his own presence had demanded major changes to household staffing and cleaning, and the addition of two more family members stressed the capacity of the maids and footmen that Masub had hired at the beginning of the season.
The normally sedate house was thrown into noisy disarray as everyone rushed to clean rooms and air out the unused parlors in expectation of Tiral’s mother and sister. Even Tiral, who normally woke early anyway, found his own schedule disrupted after a confused maid entered his room to air it. Her hasty apologies had done little to help him get back to sleep, and he gave it up after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling.
His thoughts, in those quiet moments, turned to Zev. No, he corrected, Detzev. Zev was a creation, a fiction that existed for the few months of the season and then disappeared until he was pulled out again like a forgotten puppet locked in a trunk. Despite the intimacy he felt he'd forged with Zev, he couldn’t convince himself that he knew Detzev at all.
Any friendship that they’d had would have to be rebuilt, but this time they weren’t close to even footing. Detzev had no need of the profit from Gret’s next harvest. He had no need of a hanger-on who needed money and a spouse. In fact, now he held all the power.
Tiral couldn’t help but wish he’d been right about Zev, that he’d been some sort of demimondaine who could have left that behind to come live as a professor’s husband. They could have been happy. The estate could have been sold, and he’d have felt pain over it, but they’d have been able to build a future together.
Zev might have helped him finally paint his university-provided house, maybe helped him start a garden. They could have grown vegetables and eaten outside in the summer, enjoying the long, warm Somnu nights. Maybe they would have even danced together, with only the insects for company. Zev might have laughed at how out of practice Tiral was, but they still would have been able to keep time together.