When Laurence returned to university after Christmas, the world felt colder than when he had left it.
Perhaps because De Montfort — even strained by silence and pride as it had briefly been — still possessed a warmth no university town could imitate. At home there had been candlelight in the evenings, the noise of his brothers, the low steady grace of the Duchess moving through rooms made orderly by her presence, and Sophia's voice somewhere within it all, whether in laughter, argument, or wounded silence.
At university there was only routine.
Stone.
Frost.
Duty.
The carriage stopped before his townhouse just as dusk thickened over the street. Lamps had already been lit inside, their glow warm against the cold blue of evening. A footman hurried forward to open the door, and Laurence stepped down with the same composed economy that marked nearly everything he did.
Yet beneath that composure, his thoughts remained less orderly than he would have liked.
The image would not leave him.
A chest in the entrance hall.
White fur spilling like winter moonlight from within it.
Sophia's face softened by a letter.
Florian's name at the bottom of the page.
The memory continued to irritate him in ways he did not consider entirely rational, which only deepened the irritation. A man could forgive a foolish infatuation in a girl of ten. A man could even, with patience, allow letters if they were innocent and if the gentleman in question was honorable.
But the exchange of gifts — thoughtful gifts, intimate in their thoughtfulness, winter-warm and specific — had changed the matter from passing sentiment into something Laurence could neither entirely dismiss nor openly condemn.
As he crossed the threshold of the townhouse and removed his gloves, he reminded himself sternly that Maxim had not thought it grave.
Only letters and gifts.
Florian is a good man.
Why not just let her?
The memory of Maxim's calm shrug returned with infuriating clarity.
Because, Laurence thought grimly, Maxim had not seen the look on Sophia's face.
Because Maxim did not understand how easily affection could deepen into attachment.
Because men, whatever virtues they possessed, were still men.
And men, Laurence believed, were very often less innocent than they appeared.
University resumed its rhythm with efficient indifference.
Lectures filled the mornings. Politics, economics, geography — the proper studies of an heir whose future would not permit idle brilliance but demanded disciplined command. Laurence moved through them all with the precision expected of him. He listened, answered, observed. His tutors found little to fault. His peers, whether they admired him or resented him, made room for his competence.
Afternoons were given over to training.
The weather had turned severe enough that rowing upon the channel became impossible. The river had frozen over in places, its grey surface hard and glasslike beneath winter sky. Boats could not be taken out, and so the rowing club had been forced indoors, where long sessions of mechanical training and grueling drills took the place of open water.
Laurence disliked it.
Not because it was difficult, but because it was inelegant.
Rowing in its proper element held rhythm, control, and a certain austere beauty. Training indoors amongst forty young men red-faced with exertion, sleeves rolled, tempers shortening in the stale heat of the hall, felt less noble.
Still, he did not complain.
If anything, he trained harder.
When he was not in lecture halls or training rooms, he returned to the townhouse, where his evenings were spent with books, correspondence, and whatever estate reports had been forwarded to him from De Montfort.
And Florian, of course, crossed his path often.
They shared the same rowing club. Their lectures occasionally overlapped. They met at dinners, in libraries, along corridors, and — more often than not — at the gentleman's club where the sons of noble houses gathered to speak with more confidence than wisdom.
That winter and into early spring, every meeting with Florian carried a slight edge for Laurence.
Not visible.
Never visible.
But internal.
He would see him across a room and feel, before any rational thought, a tightening somewhere beneath the ribs. Unease. Irritation. A flare of hostile speculation: How dare he?
How dare he write so warmly?
How dare he send gifts to Sophia as though she were already some cherished figure in his private affections?
How dare he step so naturally into a place in her life that had once belonged wholly to family?
And then, just as quickly, another thought would follow — cooler, almost embarrassed by the first.
Perhaps Maxim was right.
Perhaps you are being absurd.
Florian had shown no overt romantic interest in Sophia. In truth, whenever he spoke of her, it was with the same fond gentleness one might use for a younger sister. He had not boasted. He had not flirted. He had not attempted any improper boldness.
That, perhaps, made it worse.
Because if he had been openly dishonorable, Laurence could have despised him cleanly.
Instead, Florian remained sincere.
And sincerity disarmed accusation.
The first conversation on the subject came unexpectedly.
One afternoon Laurence sat alone in the university library, a sheet of paper before him and a pen held idle in his hand. Around him, the room lay in the peculiar hush of academic spaces: the faint rustle of turning pages, the distant clearing of someone's throat, the low crackle of a fire attempting to make old stone hospitable.
He had been attempting to write to Sophia.
He had promised.
And, irritatingly, he had discovered that promise did not make the act itself any easier.
He could write essays on trade routes and governance without effort. He could draft clean letters regarding tenants, repairs, legal questions, and household matters in less than a quarter hour.
But a letter to Sophia — one that contained not merely information but something of life, something she might smile over — did not come naturally to him at all.
He had already written and crossed out three beginnings.
The weather here remains cold.
No. Too dry.
My studies continue well.
Intolerable.
I trust you are in health.
Like a solicitor writing to a widow.
He stared at the page, annoyed.
"What offense," came Florian's easy voice from across the table, "has that paper committed?"
Laurence looked up.
Florian stood there with two books tucked beneath one arm, his expression carrying the mild amusement of a man who had caught another in an uncharacteristically human difficulty.
"None," Laurence replied.
"That is not how a man looks when none have offended him."
Florian sat without waiting to be invited, setting the books down.
"You appear frustrated."
Laurence considered dismissing the question.
Instead, perhaps because the irony was too sharp to ignore, he said flatly, "I am trying to write to Sophia."
Florian's brows lifted slightly, then softened.
"And finding it difficult?"
"Yes."
That admission seemed to amuse him more than anything else ever had.
Florian let out a short laugh.
"I confess," he said, "I never imagined you unable to conquer a page."
"I am not unable."
"No, merely displeased by the process."
Laurence gave him a cool look.
Florian smiled.
"Well then. What troubles you?"
Laurence tapped the page once with the pen.
"I have promised to write more. I do not know how you manage to fill pages so easily."
Florian leaned back in his chair, considering.
"It is easy."
"For you," Laurence said dryly.
"Yes," Florian agreed cheerfully. "For me."
Then, seeing Laurence's expression remain unamused, he relented.
"Very well. I simply recount what has happened. Interesting things. Ridiculous things. People."
"People."
"Yes. My sisters like hearing of my classmates. They find university life far more entertaining when populated by real characters."
He grinned suddenly.
"My eldest sister says, for instance, that if she were only two decades younger she would have asked you to marry her."
Laurence's expression changed so sharply that Florian laughed aloud.
"You need not look so stricken," he said. "She is blissfully happy in her married life."
"That is fortunate for all concerned."
Florian chuckled and rested his forearms lightly on the table.
"Write what would amuse her. What would interest her. Tell her what the river looks like frozen. Tell her which man in your lecture hall is most likely to disgrace himself. Tell her what was irritating, inconvenient, or absurd. She will like that better than formalities."
Laurence looked down again at the blank page.
Something about the advice — simple, practical, and annoyingly correct — made the task suddenly less impossible.
He thought of the past months.
The frozen channel.
The ridiculousness of rowing drills indoors, thirty men laboring in mechanical rhythm beneath a roof too low for grandeur and too warm for dignity.
Sophia would laugh at that.
He could almost hear it now — her delighted, incredulous laugh as she imagined them all heaving in formation like overworked oxen.
He began writing.
He wrote of the rowing hall and the indignity of dry training. He described how the channel had frozen over and how every man in the club had complained as though nature had personally insulted him.
He wrote of one politics lecture in which a classmate, having stayed too late the night before at the gentleman's club, had fallen asleep in full view of the professor. The man's punishment had been swift — a board eraser thrown with remarkable accuracy, followed by a stern rebuke that sent half the class into terrified silence and the other half into suppressed laughter.
As he wrote it, he thought vaguely that Arthur would almost certainly invite such disciplinary measures when older.
He wrote, too, of morning training in the cold.
How unpleasant it was to rise before proper light, to cross frost-hardened courtyards with numb hands, to practice sword work while breath smoked in the air.
Then, almost without thinking, he added the line that felt closest to truth:
Still, I continue. Father who is now on a battlefield, would have no choice in the matter. It is not for me to complain of cold when he must endure worse.
He paused after that.
The line sat differently from the others.
Stronger.
More honest.
He left it.
By the time he finished, he was mildly astonished to find that he had written a proper letter — and not a short one.
Florian, who had tactfully occupied himself with one of his books while Laurence worked, glanced over when the pen finally stilled.
"There," he said. "You see? Entirely manageable."
Laurence sanded the ink and folded the pages.
"Do not become pleased with yourself."
"I have every intention of it."
Despite himself, Laurence almost smiled.
He sent the letter that same afternoon.
With it he enclosed a gift: several potted tulip bulbs, chosen because spring was approaching and because the thought of Sophia setting them into De Montfort soil pleased him in a way he did not examine too closely.