"Oh, I'm sure he's free, I don't remember there being any appointments on his schedule this morning." Henri-André stood as well. "He should be in the library, and if not, then in that laboratory of his." Henri-André leaned forward, taking Marcel by the shoulder, and kissed him on both cheeks once more. His expression sobered slightly. "I am so pleased and proud to have you as my son-in-law."
"It is my great honor and privilege to marry into the royal family." Marcel gripped Henri-André's shoulder with his good hand. "And you know I will do everything in my power to make Gilbert happy, or at least content with the life we will build together."
"I know," Henri-André smiled at him fondly. "That's why I chose you. Now go find your soon-to-be-fiancé."
"I will." Marcel bowed to Henri-André.
"Then we will speak later." Henri-André gave him one last smile before heading back the way he had come. Marcel waited for him to leave before going in sure of Gilbert.
It was good to be back in the palace, Marcel thought as he navigated the marble halls. To his left were tall windows letting in the morning sunlight. Outside he could see the courtyards and gardens dusted with snow and tipped with ice. On his right were huge portraits in heavy gold frames of the royal family, past and present.
There was Princess Charlotte Marie, first as a child in a beautiful gown and then as an adult in her military uniform. Princess Louise Henrietta posed in a library holding a book and smiling at the viewer over the top of her glasses. There was the Crown Prince Philippe sitting casually at his desk, surrounded by maps and his favorite hounds. Louis on horseback, looking every bit as dashing as most of the court thought him to be. Then there was Gilbert.
Gilbert had been posed in a garden, encircled by flowering bushes. In one hand, he held the Royal Writ for the Funding of Scientific Study. With the other hand, he pointed to a rose blossom on which a winged insect had settled, glittering in the sunlight.
Science was the new area of academic study, not as old as languages, philosophy, history, literature, and so on. Before Gilbert had personally seen the writ signed into law those who studied a scientific field had struggled to receive funding. Since then, though, things had very much turned in their favor, with science and mathematics by far the most popular and well-funded fields at the moment. Most amazing were those scholars who combined the ancient arts of magic—once scorned and looked down on by scholars—with scientific knowledge. This perfect marriage of science and magic managed to elevate both as far as Marcel was concerned.
At the very forefront of the study into combining magic and science was the Marquis de la Marche and his groundbreaking use of ancient magics to power machines. The field of study that he had founded around this concept, mechanical animation, was by far the most talked about, popular, and lucrative endeavor in academia. So much so that if the Marquis had not already been a very rich man he would be so now simply by what certain merchant families and the crown was willing to pay for his inventions.
None of this would have been possible without Gilbert's full support and patronage. Truly, Marcel thought if Gilbert was remembered for nothing else, history would surely remember him as the champion of the new sciences, including mechanical animation.
He smiled looking up at the portrait. Gilbert had been so mortified by the painting, but he could never understand why.
Married, they were going to be married.
Turning, Marcel quickened his pace down the hall.
Even after being gone for almost two years, Marcel could have found his way to Gilbert's private study half-asleep and in the dark. In fact, he might have traveled the halls to Gilbert's library while asleep before. Certainly there had been plenty of times when neither one of them was completely sober.
He'd helped Gilbert pick the room out, helped him design the placement of the bookcases and then move all of Gilbert's books across the palace.
It was almost like coming home to push open the heavy dark wood door and step into the warm space. The windows behind Gilbert's desk let in plenty of sunlight, keeping the wood paneled room with its matching bookcases from being dreary.
"Marcel!" Gilbert rose from behind his desk as soon as he saw him. "I didn't know you were back yet."
"Just got back yesterday evening." Marcel took in the dark grey suit Gilbert was wearing. His hair was longer than it had been, brushing the bottoms of his ears. Then Gilbert was embracing him tight, nearly knocking him over in his enthusiasm.
"I missed you." Gilbert's voice was quiet, but his words were so heartfelt that Marcel's own heart clenched painfully.
"I missed you too." He broke the embrace and stepped back, smiling down at Gilbert. "I am sorry for not coming straight here when I got back."
"Nonsense." Gilbert waved his hand, dismissing the idea. "You needed to sleep and unpack, I shouldn't wonder. What brought you here today? Aside from visiting me."
"I spoke with your father," Marcel said, and by the way Gilbert froze and then didn't quite look at him, he knew Gilbert was already aware of their proposed marriage.
"Look." Gilbert leaned against the edge of his desk with a sigh. "I already told my father I didn't want this, several times, but he didn't listen. Maybe if you spoke with him ..."
Gilbert might have said more, but Marcel didn't hear it, his mind having gone blank the moment Gilbert had admitted to not wanting the marriage. The marriage that was everything Marcel had wanted since he was twelve.
He couldn't remember the exact moment when he'd fallen in love with Gilbert. The first time Marcel had wanted to kiss Gilbert, though, that he could remember. He had been twelve when he'd decided Gilbert would be his husband. Sixteen when Lord St. Claire slapped him hard enough to leave a mark for crying out Gilbert's name in passion. His entire arrangement with Julian—their 'friends who sometimes slept together' act—had been to distract himself from wanting Gilbert.
Because of course Gilbert didn't want him back and never had. Gilbert loved him but as a friend and a brother, nothing more.
Which was why Gilbert would object to their marriage. He took a breath to steady himself. "I told him yes. Yes, I will go through with this marriage."
Gilbert blinked at him, clearly caught off guard. "But ..." He floundered for a moment. "You and Julian, wouldn't you rather marry Julian?"
Now it was Marcel's turn to be surprised. "Julian and I are good friends, and I enjoy his company in and out of the bedroom, but we've never considered marriage and I shouldn't think we ever will."
"Oh." Gilbert looked away back towards the window, mouth turning down in a frown. It hurt Marcel more than he had thought possible that Gilbert so obviously did not want this.
"Are you sure?" Gilbert turned back, and Marcel's heart clenched again at the words.
He moved across the room to stand beside Gilbert and leaned against the desk as well. "I am sure," he said. "It's a good match, it makes sense, we know each other, we know we could do together." He gave Gilbert a small smile. "Is the idea of being married to me really that bad?"
"No." Gilbert shook his head. "I just thought ... Well, this may sound foolish, I know I have often enough make comments that such things were foolish, but I think at least one of us should marry for love."
I am,
but Marcel didn't say that; he kept studying Gilbert's face. There was a certain wistfulness there, regret and sadness as well. Marcel frowned.
"Did something happen while I was gone?"
The panicked look that crossed Gilbert's face for a moment reminded Marcel of a small child caught stealing sweets. "No."
He was still a horrible liar, at least. Marcel's frown deepened. "There is something bothering you, I can tell."
Gilbert blew out a long breath in a sigh. "Nothing, it's nothing. Nothing important."
"You used to tell me things even when they weren't important." Marcel wanted to reach forward and run his fingers through Gilbert's hair, kiss him and promise to make it better. He crossed his functional arm over his chest instead. Obviously time apart had only lessened his ability to resist Gilbert's charms.
"Truly," Gilbert gave him a small frown that Marcel knew meant this was a subject Gilbert did not wish to speak on. "It's nothing of importance, not even worth speaking of."
"I bought you back a gift." Marcel changed the subject; he'd find out on his own later.
"Really?" Gilbert's mood lightened immediately.
"Not with me right now." Marcel felt a pang of regret at Gilbert's eagerness. He so enjoyed watching Gilbert receive gifts, mostly because Gilbert never seemed to expect them, but he was always delighted, although he often tried to hide it. "I'm sorry, I forgot it in the rush this morning. Next time we see each other, though, I think you will like it. It can be an engagement present if you like."
"Oh." Something seemed to occur to Gilbert, who looked guilty now. "I should pick you up something for the engagement as well. I hadn't thought ..."
"It's all right." Marcel gave into temptation and reached out, giving Gilbert's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I don't need anything, you know."
"Well, if we are to be engaged we should do it properly." Gilbert looked up at him through dark lashes all serious and earnest.
Marcel let his hand fall fighting down the too familiar urges. Maybe it would be best for them not to think about the marriage for a while. Not that he wanted to, the desire to suddenly cling to Gilbert, confess everything that Marcel had felt since they'd been children was strong. Maybe if Gilbert knew he wouldn't treat this marriage like the burden he obviously thought of it as. If he knew maybe he'd let Marcel try at least to make him happy, maybe … maybe he was just a colossal idiot when it came to the entire affair. "Do you want to show me your newest specimens?" He gave Gilbert a cocky grin that was only slightly forced. "I know you do."
"If you want."
Marcel let Gilbert lead the way out of the study and down the hall again, heading deeper into his wing of the palace.
Pausing in front of one of the door Gilbert unlocked it and led the way inside. There were long wooden tables that ran the length of the room, on which were cases of Gilbert's living collection of insects. Not only did Gilbert have thousands of different species native to the local area, Marcel knew, but he also had insects from all over the world.
At the far end of the room were another large desk and two floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto Gilbert's botanical garden. There were rows upon rows of beds, each plant labeled with a tiny metal plaque with the plant's scientific name and properties. Now most things were dead, dusted with frost and snow. Inside, though, the laboratory was kept warm year round to allow Gilbert's insects to thrive even in winter.
"These are new." Gilbert walked over to a large glass case containing pieces of old decaying wood and a nice bedding of leaves at the bottom. He took the mesh lid off of the top and stuck his hand into the class case while Marcel stood warily a few paces behind.
Gilbert had always been fearless when it came to insects, more intrigued and curious than anything else, even when faced with creatures capable of killing him. Marcel didn't mind the bugs—they did not disgust him as they did many others—but he had learned to be cautious over the years.
"They're called hissing cockroaches, and they are biggest roach ever recorded."
They certainly looked horrifying enough, Marcel saw as one crawled onto Gilbert's hand. It was three inches long, its shell mottled brown and black.
"They are wingless," Gilbert said gently, lifting the roach out of the case. "But they can climb almost anything. I have to coat the inside of their case with a lubricant to keep them from escaping. They eat vegetable material and prefer to live in rotting or wet wood. They're harmless and very friendly." He offered his hand with the roach to Marcel, expression eager to share this roach holding experience with Marcel, who fought hard not to take a step back.
"If it's all the same, I'd rather not." Just the idea of touching roaches or beetle like insects turned Marcel's stomach, but Gilbert was so enthusiastic over every creature that crawled that he often forgot which ones Marcel held a particular aversion to.
Gilbert shrugged with a small smile. "Suit yourself." He lowered the roach back into the case and secured the lid again. "Oh, I have gotten more beetles, but nothing you haven't seen. My old batch died, unfortunately. Let me see, what else do I have? Oh! I know."
He turned and headed across the room to one of the cabinets and opened it, taking out a display case. "Unfortunately, you are too late to see them still alive, but look." He turned the case for Marcel to see.
They were butterflies with delicate long white wings, tapered at the tips, with streaks of orange across the top of each wing.
"Zeltus etolus," Gilbert said. "Very rare, from the East. It took me forever to raise them correctly, but they are beautiful, aren't they?"
"They are." Marcel leaned close to have a better look. "Truly amazing."
"You should have seen them when they were alive. When they flew, the tips of their wings looked like streamers coming out behind them, fluttering in the breeze."
"I'm sorry I missed it." Marcel looked up, meeting Gilbert's gaze. There was sadness there Marcel hadn't expected to see, enough sadness to send a shock to through him, and he reached out without thinking to clasp Gilbert's shoulder again.
"Gilbert… ?"
"I'm sorry too." Gilbert pulled away, taking the case back over to its display cabinet. "Do you want to stay? I'll have tea brought up." He turned back to Marcel.
"That would be lovely." The desire to pull Gilbert close, hold him and make him tell Marcel what was wrong was still there, still strong. Marcel clenched his good hand against it. "But Gilbert, what is wrong?"
"It's nothing, you were just gone for so long and I missed you." Gilbert's shoulders were still hunched in a way Marcel didn't like.
"I should have written more." Marcel crossed the space between them and pulled Gilbert into a hug.