“Please don’t smile at me like that, Your Highness. It gives me chills.”
“I told you to be quiet, Basil.”
His words warned Basil to stay quiet and not get caught — yet contrary to all of that, Lucian used his fingertips to part the curtain. Through the gap in the dark navy velvet, a pair of hazel eyes glittered sharp and clear, while on the other side the brothers’ heated debate continued without pause.
“Your jawline is sharp and your features are on the larger side, so there isn’t much breathing room on your face. On top of that, you have curly hair. You’ve already got a thick head of it, and then your sideburns and beard are puffed out so full that they’re covering up a perfectly good face. Trim them back a little and you’d look so much cleaner and more open.”
Forgetting all decorum, Lucian craned his neck to get a look at the two brothers’ faces. Basil cleared his throat pointedly beside him, but Lucian paid him no mind. He caught sight of Ivan, whose curling sideburns swallowed more than half of each cheek, and let out a quiet, amused breath. Precisely as described.
Lucian smiled soundlessly and ran a hand along his own roughened jaw. Unlike Ivan, he kept his beard neatly trimmed and well-groomed — a style that suited him enormously and read as deeply masculine.
But as he listened to the clear, bright voice on the other side making its case to Ivan, he found his own ears perking up against his will. He was the stubborn sort who did everything according to his own judgment and was not easily swayed — yet that calm, unhurried, quietly forceful voice compelled him to listen.
“Eugene, you don’t understand. Right now, this beard and sideburns are the height of fashion in the kingdom. There isn’t a man who doesn’t have them.”
“That’ll start to change soon enough. I’ll lead the way.”
“My dear brother. You’ve never cared what anyone else thought, have you.”
Still peering through the curtain, Lucian found himself laughing under his breath without meaning to. By now he was genuinely curious about the face of the ‘brother Eugene’ Ivan kept referring to. Whoever this person was, they had quite a discerning eye. But the one the name belonged to showed him nothing but the back of a neatly bound head of bright golden hair — and steadfastly refused to turn around.
Turn around.
Lucian murmured it inwardly, like an incantation, as he watched Eugene from behind. Each small tilt of the head made the neatly tied hair sway gently. The swinging blond tail reminded him of a pony flicking its mane — or a cat tormenting someone with the tip of its tail, deliberately teasing. It made him want to reach out, catch it, and pull until the face turned toward him.
If he stretched his hand out and grabbed it, he imagined the glossy strands would slip through his fingers like silk — smooth as a python, impossible to hold. That rising, irrepressible urge to play mischief made Lucian’s hazel eyes gleam gold.
The slender figure kept shifting as though it were about to turn around, then changed course at the last moment. Eugene, who hadn’t obliged his silent command, finally turned his body at an angle — and immediately swung back toward Ivan. It was the briefest of instants. Light caught the clean, elegant line of a high nose drawn in a gentle curve. Beneath lashes that fell long and sheer as a veil, a glimpse of aquamarine reflected the light.
Sunlight raked across one half of a face — from the brow down to the jaw — like a work of art. Like an unparalleled artist named sunlight drawing a portrait in a single, unbroken line. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was beautiful enough to steal the soul clean away. Lucian exhaled as though sighing and murmured to Basil:
“Who is that?”
“From what I can hear — Ivan and Eugene. It must be the Primroses.”
“Eugene Primrose?”
“Yes. The eldest son ran off with a Gypsy woman.”
Unlike Lucian, who couldn’t tear his eyes from the curtain, Basil was standing with his back to it — and answered without even glancing over. When it came to the nobility residing within the capital, there was nothing Basil didn’t know. Whether he wanted to or not, all manner of information poured into his ears simply from always being at Lucian’s side. Not that Basil had any particular desire to know any of it.
News of Eugene had been entirely absent for the past several years, but Basil was able to place the Primrose name immediately — partly because only a limited number of noblemen would ever visit Atrian, and partly because since arriving in the capital, he’d heard the affairs of that family’s eldest son talked about until his ears went numb.
“Hm…. How is it that I never knew of such a beauty?”
“Pardon? Eugene Primrose?”
Basil involuntarily raised both hands to check that his ears were still properly attached to his head. It was a relief they were — and also rather not. Only then did he turn to look at Lucian with an expression that had gone entirely blank.
Lucian Highwinter. The insufferably self-assured, insufferably handsome man — standing there with his eyes bright as a boy’s, still peering through the curtain.
Having seen Lucian’s face, Basil hurriedly rifled through his memory, pulling out a dusty, long-untouched file labelled ‘Eugene Primrose.’ What the paper in his head read was: remarkable looks, as expected of Primrose blood — but a strange one and an insufferable sort. He could even recall whose mouths he’d picked up each description from. All of them had been classmates of Eugene’s who graduated from public school around the same time.
“Well — Your Highness embarked on the Grand Tour before Eugene would have enrolled in public school. And Eugene Primrose’s social circle was apparently not very wide. Seeing as the timing never overlapped with when Your Highness was actively present in the capital, it makes sense you wouldn’t have known of him.”
Basil filtered the information judiciously before relaying it. At one alumni gathering, the subject of Eugene Primrose had come up — apparently the set that dominated the school’s social atmosphere had harboured quite a grudge against him.
“Only the eldest, Kyle, and Ivan attended gatherings on behalf of the family. Eugene Primrose was said to be in poor health. He was essentially living in seclusion.”
Whether it was genuine animosity or simply the petty pride of young men, they had described Eugene as no more than passable — which meant Basil had had no idea he’d be someone who caught Lucian’s eye. Lucian loved beautiful things, but given how exceptional he himself was, he tended to be rather stingy with his aesthetic assessments. For that same Lucian to call someone a beauty — Basil found himself quietly drifting to his side and leaning in to peer through the curtain.
The straight-backed posture was remarkably graceful. In build, compared to his brothers Kyle and Ivan, this figure was considerably slimmer and smaller. He’d been said to be of delicate constitution — and yet for someone of poor health, he held his back quite elegantly upright, and the voice that carried through showed no trace of illness. Right, Basil thought, giving a small nod. Men’s words should always be taken with a generous pinch of salt.
Basil reached out and covered Lucian’s line of sight with his hand. Lucian, undeterred, stretched his neck out further around Basil’s hand to keep looking. Watching Lucian’s unbroken, unwavering attention, Basil found himself genuinely curious about Eugene Primrose’s face too. But rather than the face, all he could make out was a back.
Basil clicked his tongue at the amount of time they were losing. It was thoroughly disrespectful and entirely unbefitting of a nobleman to behave this way before the Duke of Highwinter — but Lucian didn’t hear it. He was completely and utterly bewitched by Eugene Primrose.
“Let’s go now.”
What kind of beauty could possibly warrant this much nonsense? Basil grimaced and alternated his gaze between the curtain and Lucian’s face. Had the extended sea voyage damaged something in his head? He’d gone around sampling beauties from Hyphaelion and every nation beyond — and now he was behaving as though he were seeing one for the very first time. The Primrose looks were famous enough, but even so — this was a man.
Having reached his limit, Basil nudged Lucian aside with his shoulder. Lucian shifted slightly — then simply shifted back and planted his feet. Basil nudged again. This time, he didn’t move an inch. A sigh finally escaped Basil’s mouth, and at the very same moment Lucian spoke:
“Is that creature the same species as me?”
“Pardon? Of course they’re the same species.”
Basil pictured Kyle and Ivan — the two elder brothers with their soft golden curls and the bearing of large, affable dogs — and replied with an expression that said, what are you on about. They had a slightly puppy-ish air, but they were unmistakably human. He’d answered without thinking, and when Lucian’s next words followed, Basil’s face crumpled outright.
“Is that right? Basil — does Eugene Primrose look like the same species as me, to your eyes too?”
“……Not this again.”
Lucian Highwinter, this rogue is up to his tricks again. That was the precise thought that formed in Basil’s head, and he didn’t bother hearing the rest before his expression soured. Lucian, who had been standing there wide-eyed as a smitten boy a moment ago, shifted into an expression of supreme self-satisfaction as though none of that had happened. He swept a gleaming strand of hair back from his forehead with the particular flourish of a man entirely convinced of his own magnificence.
“I have finally found someone of my own kind — someone whose looks are a match for mine.”
At Lucian’s words, Basil clenched his jaw. Even so, he couldn’t very well curse outright at a duke and a prince of the realm.
Insufferable.
While Basil was reeling inwardly, Lucian straightened his clothes and cleared his throat in a way that made it clear he intended to be heard. And as if that weren’t enough, he deliberately knocked his heel against the floor to draw attention. Then, before Basil could get a word of protest in, he flung the dark navy curtain wide open.
Lucian Highwinter
“Pardon the intrusion.”
Showing his white teeth in a broad, easy grin, Lucian appeared — like the lead of an opera making his entrance on stage. He parted the velvet curtain not too wide, slipping through it as smoothly and naturally as a serpent gliding over a wall. The moment he crossed the threshold as though the tailor’s shop had always been his, Basil swiftly drew the curtain closed behind him as if nothing had happened.
“I know this is rather improper — but you seemed to be calling for me so earnestly that I simply had to come.”
He had let himself in entirely of his own accord, and yet Lucian was utterly shameless about it. With all the ease in the world, he quirked an eyebrow and made some vaguely elegant, entirely meaningless gesture with his hand. He had no hat on, yet he performed the gesture with the air of a gentleman tipping his brim — and at the sight of those shoulders thrown deliberately wider than usual as he made his entrance, Basil pressed his lips together behind him.
“Duke Highwinter!”
The moment Ivan saw Lucian, he crossed one foot behind the other and bowed at the waist immediately. Making sure to say it loudly enough for Eugene to hear, he called out Lucian’s title as a pointed hint in his younger brother’s direction. Eugene, catching on quickly, turned and offered his own bow.
“It is an honour to meet you, Your Grace.”
As though proving that all those etiquette lessons had not gone to waste, Eugene bent one knee slightly and inclined his head — and just like his face, the gesture was flawless. In truth, for a modern person, the etiquette of this world was unfamiliar and uncomfortable in every way — but precisely because his appearance was what it was, every time he performed these aristocratic forms of conduct correctly, Eugene felt an inward rush of private triumph.
Whenever he caught himself executing them smoothly in the mirror, he’d let out a little exclamation of delight, shoulders soaring, and would repeat the motion several times over of his own accord until it was immaculate — entirely unbidden.
The only trouble was that in his excitement, he’d occasionally follow through on a gesture and then let out an involuntary groan of satisfaction — like a man taking his first sip of soju after a long day — and had been warned about it more than once. Today, however, he managed to avoid any such indiscretion, and pronounced his new name steadily and without fault.
“Eugene Primrose.”
“Eugene….”
