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The boar's head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land,
Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico
Nicklas woke, stretching luxuriously out into the warm spot left by Alex, who true to form had risen at least an hour before, and buried his face into the pillow.
They had compromised early on with regard to mornings - despite Nicklas being for years required to be up before the sun, he held no real love for mornings, and after the second week of forcing himself awake earlier and earlier in an attempt to rise before Alex, they had agreed to let this practice lie.
Nicklas would lay out Alex’s clothes for the next morning the night before and then abandon himself happily to warm bed-clothes until Alex would come back from his too-early mornings and wake him fully with a December-morning chilled kiss.
On this particular morning, Alex was late enough in returning that Nicklas rose and dressed himself and had made himself a cup of very strong tea when he heard a curious noise from the back garden.
Cup of tea still clutched firmly in one hand, he stalked to the library and threw open one of the lead-paned windows and leaned out, shivering a little in the chill.
The back garden was full of sheep. Nicklas pulled back into the library and slammed shut the window. Then, very calmly, he called, “Alexander Mikhailovich Ovechkin!”
There was the familiar clatter of boots and jangle of heavy Russian chains, and then a rumpled and very muddy Alex appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Nicke?”
“Alex, light of my life.” Nicklas was very much afraid of the answer, but proceeded regardless, “Why is our back garden full of sheep?”
Alex beamed at him. “Is prank! From Zhenya. Grumpy Zhenya, of course. Because my name mean ‘sheep’.”
Nicklas took a long drink of his tea. “What did you do to Geno, Alex.”
“He is overreact,” Alex protested, managing to sound injured despite the smile still tugging at his mouth, “I only put cut beets into his pond; turn whole pond pink.”
“Alex,” Nicklas sighed, and then shook his head. Staying out of the battle was the better part of valour, in this case. “Well. You now have, by my count, two dozen sheep. What on earth are you going to do with them?”
“Oh, this is easy.” Alex shrugged a shoulder. “I send them to country house.”
It was not as though Nicklas didn’t know that Alex was rich. He’d known it from the first moment when Alex knocked him over in a park wearing a waistcoat costing an entire year of Nicklas’ wages. (Not an entire year of his wages now; several drawn-out fights early on in their relationship had resulted in a weekly salary he thought far too exhorbitant and Alex thought far too much of a pittance, but since one of the tasks Nicklas had taken over was balancing the household accounts, he was the one who got his way in the end.)
But there was something about the casual way Alex mentioned an entire other house in the country in such an offhand manner that made Nicklas feel as though his entire being was being slowly submerged in a freezing pond. “You have a country estate?” He managed to ask.
“Yes, in Nottinghamshire.” Alex faltered a little, which made Nicklas realise he was probably making the kind of face Alex generally fondly referred to as his ‘murder you and hide the body in the woods’ face. He was far more used to directing it at London society in general than at his lover.
“You hadn’t mentioned that.” Nicklas’ tea had gone cold, to add insult to injury. “I think I might go for a walk.”
“Nicke,” Alex sounded confused and a little afraid. “Nicke, what’s wrong? House is not a secret; truly. I just forget to say.”
“You have an entire estate you just forgot to mention.” Nicklas’ mind was on his mother, eyesight nearly gone from too many late nights bent over fine lace work, and his father, passing away before Nicklas had achieved his majority after speculations gone wrong. He remembered one of the maids at the first house he’d worked in as a footman, dismissed without a reference because the young son of the house had had his way with her and left her in the family way. She’d died in childbirth and the child would have gone to the orphanage if not for a kindly uncle arranging matters otherwise. If Nicklas had had even a tenth of Alex’s wealth - or even what he makes now - perhaps he could have prevented that.
“Nicke, love, please -”
Nicklas pushed his empty teacup into Alex’s hands and brushed past him out the door. He walked aimlessly, bent head the only concession to the slowly falling snow. When he looked up goodness knows how long later, it was to see he was in the park where he and Alex had met. The snow was coming more thickly now, and any residual warmth from his tea had long since worn off. He’d come out without a coat, as well, and no coat meant no emergency stash of sweets or even so much as a pocket handkerchief. The bench on either side of him was slowly piling with snow, and his mind seemed to have just crystalized into a solid ache of loneliness. Nicklas couldn’t believe he, who prided himself on logical thought, should be so foolish as to react so strongly in the face of something that intellectually he ought to have known. All the same, facing facts meant that he couldn’t deny again how differently he and Alex had been raised and the disparity in their situations even now. He was saving enough that he would be all right for a while if Alex got tired of him, but it would be a trial to find another place where they hadn’t heard the rumours of him warming his master’s bed. Perhaps Sidney would take him back, although with Geno now a constant fixture at the house, his feelings on the matter would have to be consulted first, of course. There was always the chance he could -
“Nicke!”
A familiar voice interrupted his musings, and he opened his eyes to see Alex knelt in front of him, heedless of his now very bedraggled trousers, one hand outstretched as though he’d been about to touch Nicklas and stopped halfway. He had one of his coats in the other hand.
“Nicke, please, you not have to come back with me if you want; can take you to Sidney or Zhenya, but please - let me put on coat and get you food.”
Nicklas opened his mouth to speak and then realised abruptly that he was really very cold and tired. He hadn’t meant to make Alex worry so; he’d only wanted a chance to clear his head, but Alex was looking very distressed indeed. He nodded his acquiescence and some of the worry cleared as Alex hurried to drape the heavy fur coat over his shoulders. Alex also pulled out a parcel which turned out to contain sandwiches, and a flask, which contained hot tea.
“Slow, slow,” Alex cautioned, and Nicke fumbled it with cold-clumsy hands. The warning turned out to be warranted; the tea was laced with a hearty dose of brandy. Nicke coughed a little as it slipped down his throat, the lingering warmth very welcome.
“Thank you.” He managed after a moment. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“ You sorry?” Alex looked confused and worried at the same time. “Nicke, is my fault. I should have told you about Nottinghamshire right away. Of course you upset I keep secrets.”
Nicke tried to laugh, but even to his own ears it was bitter. “It’s not the secret, Alex. It’s just - I forgot how rich you are, is all. To have an entire separate estate here as well as in Russia - I was simply taken aback, and I just need time to - to think.”
“Is your estate too,” Alex insisted, catching both of Nicke’s cold hands in his own warm ones and squeezing hard. “Everything I have - is for you, if you want it.”
“Alex,” Nicke said helplessly, “That’s not - I don’t - you cannot simply gift me an estate!”
The confusion is back on Alex’s face. “You - you want house instead? I can make Zhenya move in with Sidney, maybe, and buy you his house, or maybe something near little Zhenya and Taylor? If you tell me what you like, I can get, I promise.”
“Alex!” Nicke shook his head, trying to hold on to his patience. “I love your generosity, truly, but it’s not about that. It’s only that I cannot help but think of how much even a tenth of all of your wealth would have done for people I knew when I was young.”
Sudden understanding suffused Alex’s face. “It hurt you, the remembering.”
“Yes,” Nicke admitted, low.
Alex was quiet for a moment, the only movement his breath steaming into the air and the slow sweep of his thumbs over the backs of Nicke’s hands. “I cannot change - how I was born,” he said at length, haltingly, “But I do - I know it was privilege, how it was. How it is now. I try not to be selfish; only thinking of me and what I can get - except with you,” he flashed Nicklas his familiar crooked smile. “I know I can do better, though. You right; I should be doing more.”
“No, that’s not -” Nicklas bit his lip, feeling guilty in his turn. Alex, of all the gentry, was the furthest thing from selfish that Nicklas could conceive. He’d seen, marked neatly in Alex’s ledgers, the monthly allowance to three local orphanages. He had watched him stop for every street beggar or almsperson until he ran out of coin and had to sorrowfully tell them no. Alex had a standing arrangement with the flower girl on the corner to buy all the wares left at the end of the day no matter how many there are. For the love of all that’s holy; he put Nicklas to shame with his easy cheerfulness for every poor widow who stops them after church to pour out her small troubles in his ears. Marquis Ovechkin, selfish? Nicklas could not countenance such a misreckoning. “I meant what I said, about loving your generosity. I reacted to you without thinking - and thinking about how my frustrations would be better directed at the people who make sport of those they think of as beneath them. I love how you love people and I love you. I will love you, as long as you will have me.”
“Forever, if I have my way.” Alex knelt up, waiting for Nicklas’ nod before he kissed him. “And maybe, for Christmas we can go to the country and you can see house?”
“Well I suppose I must, after all this.” Nicklas tugged gently on one of Alex’s ears “And besides, we have sheep to transport.”
Alex pulled a face. “I thought to just make Zhenya take them.”
Nicke rose from the bench, reaching again for Alex’s hand and lacing it through with his own. “We’ve discussed this, love. You cannot continue to make Kuzya do every little thing you want to put off.”
“He’s happy to do it!” Alex protested as they began their slow meander back towards the house. “And I pay him!”
“Too much, I’ll warrant,” Nicke muttered. “No, we’ll save time and money doing it ourselves.”
Alex accepted this with a philosophical shrug. “Well, at least this way we’ll be in country for Lady Shubskaya’s Ball.”
Nicklas stops short. “I’m not attending a ball. Alex. Alex!”
Alex had already ranged ahead of him, and Nicklas could tell from the set of his shoulders he was laughing.
“Alex I could not be more serious! I refuse to attend! I’ll leave you stood there completely by yourself!”
*Lady Shubskaya’s Ball, 12th of Dec., 18--*
“I look absurd.”
“You look beautiful.”
“Only if the definition of ‘beautiful’ has changed to mean ‘absurd’. I cannot believe I let you talk me into this.”
“Be fair, Nicke. There was very little talking.”
“Not here , Alexander.”
“They don’t even hear us,” Alex grumbled, but subsided.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Nicklas said primly, or as primly as he was able considering he was dressed head to foot in a white silk robe with greenery atop his head. “I don’t want anyone but me to know the kinds of noises you make when I put you on your knees and give you free reign to do as you like provided you stay there.”
Alex, of course, was dressed as Father Frost, and looked resplendent in his fur and velvet as he leaned on his staff and laughed at Nicklas’ evident discomfort.
Nicklas squared his shoulders. “Once more into the breach, I suppose.”
“Hopefully no English dead,” Alex laughed.
The footman at the door took their names, passing them along to the butler just inside the ballroom who very obviously stood much upon his dignity, who announced, “My Lord Alexander Mikhailovich Ovechkin, Marquis of Moscow, and Mister Nicklas Backstrom.”
Thankfully, Nicklas was too focussed on keeping the candles nested into the greenery straight and lit to worry overly about the fact that he was meeting the Prince of Wales. Exactly why the Prince of Wales was even at some country lord’s Christmas Ball still hadn’t been explained at all to his satisfaction. Based entirely upon the rumours circulating before they left London, Nicklas somewhat suspected he had gotten caught being a little too-publicly affectionate with Maria Fitzherbert and was banished to the country by his enraged father.
Alex, Nicklas was surprised to note, merely nodded politely to the prince without any of the effusiveness he often displayed meeting even the highest ranking members of society. The prince nodded back, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance and diving instantly back into his glass of port as soon as they were through the line. “Have you met his Highness before?”
Alex’s eyes flicked back towards the prince and then met Nicke’s own, unexpectedly serious. “His Highness and I have...differing opinions on the importance of paying you debts.”
Nicke started to tilt his head and then remembered the candles and stopped very quickly. “I confess I am curious as to how the subject came about.”
Alex reached out and took a glass off a passing footman with a tray, smiling a thanks to the young man. “He employ some of my countrymen when he build palace in Brighton. Halfway through, he tell John Nash he probably not have money to finish, because Parliament investigate him. But he still plan to let them finish, and then not pay workers. Zhenya get wind of it and come tell me.”
“You paid the workers what they were owed, didn’t you.” Nicklas took Alex’s hand, despite the mass of people around them, pressing his silent appreciation.
Alex looked almost angry. “Is not fair, to promise something and not deliver. Zhenya and I, we make sure both he and Nash know; no more Russians will work for them.”
“It’s not fair.” Nicklas kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them to Alex’s mouth. “I’m glad you did it.”
Alex’s face softened, and he looked as though he wanted to respond with perhaps more appreciation than appropriate for a public venue when a heavily accented voice came from behind them.
“Well, well. Little Sasha Ovechkin, at my party. We had thought we lost you to London for good, didn’t we, Varvara?”
Nicklas turned to behold a vision in green surveying them both. Lady Anastasia Shubskaya was nearly of a height with him, but carried it far more elegantly. Her dark green silk was draped artfully over her form, showing enough ankle to be just on the edge of scandalous, and her slipper-clad feet were cut out at the toe to show off her gilded nails. The ensemble was completed by piles of dark hair just barely contained beneath a diamond net. Her companion, shorter but no less elegant, laughed in response to Lady Shubskaya’s quip. She was dressed in red velvet, with a black capelet trimmed in white.
“Nastya!” Alex’s face lit up and he kissed her carefully on both cheeks before gesturing to Nicklas. “This is my Nicke.”
“Nicklas Backstrom,” Nicklas amended, taking and bowing over her hand. “A pleasure, my Lady.”
“And this Nastya’s companion, Varvara.” Alex exchanged kisses with the second woman, beaming all around the small circle.
“Sasha has told us so much of you,” Lady Shubskaya said, her eyes flicking over Nicklas and distilling him down to his smallest parts.
Nicklas felt himself bridle beneath the gaze and her easy appropriation of ‘Sasha’. He stepped closer to Alex, clasping his hand in his own and saying politely but cooly, “Yes, he has mentioned you as well. What a pity it’s taken so long for us to make the journey.”
“A pity,” she echoed. There was a small, tense silence, and then Alex and Varvara tried at once to speak and then each subsided politely, leaving a perfect empty space for a passing nobleman to sweep by them in Caesar’s robes and then stop.
“Ovechkin! Still hoarding all the exotic beauties for yourself, eh? Amazing any of them will have you, considering how little effort you put into - well, anything, really.” The man leered at Lady Shubskaya and her companion and began to look Nicklas up and down with the same lascivious stare before he realised Nicklas was, in fact, a man and not a woman. “London grown too hot to handle you?”
“How dare you -” Lady Shubskaya began, at the same moment that Nicke took off his green crown and set it gently in Alex’s hands and stepped on the other man’s robes. At the same time he delivered a judicious shove to the man’s considerable mid-section. The resultant rip of cloth was music to his ears far above the beautiful string quartet currently playing the opening strains of a waltz.
“Oh, dear.” Nicklas set his crown back on his head and smiled at the man, closed-mouthed. “What a pity that your robes have torn.”
“You - you - you -”
“Before you say anything else, Mister Millbury, please to remember that friend of His Highness or no, you are at my party, and I do not look favourably on my guests being subject to vile accusations. James will escort you out.”
A large footman had appeared as if summoned from thin air, and inexorably drew Millbury, still sputtering in outrage, out of the hall. Lady Shubskaya met Nicke’s gaze and tipped her glass towards him in silent approbation. He gifted her with a real smile and pressed close again to Alex.
“Should we dance, do you think?”
Alex looked disbelieving but elated. “Yes? I mean, yes, of course, if you not mind.”
“I should love to dance with you.” Nicke nodded politely to the ladies, and with a ‘by your leave’ allowed Alex to swing him onto the dance floor.
Nicklas focussed on his feet for the first few moments of the dance, gripping Alex perhaps a touch too hard as he attempted to not make an absolute fool of himself. They swirled passed couples dressed as every combination of past kings and queens under the sun, several Cleopatras with gilded toenails, and one young person dressed as Pan.
He pointed him out to Alex, admiring the attention to detail surrounding the twisting ram’s horns and pointed ears. Alex followed his gaze and smiled. “I will introduce you. They name Taylor also, like Sidney’s Taylor.”
“They?” Nicklas queried, curious.
“Not he or she,” Alex confirmed. “They stay with Duke of Wolverhampton, mostly. Duke Kessel.”
“Are they related?”
“No, but Taylor help him with estate, I think. Of course, not so good as my estate, but then, not everyone is Alexander Ovechkin.”
“I am glad they are not.” Nicklas slipped his hand inside of Alex’s robe, caressing the strong back hidden beneath it. “I would not cede my claim on him to anyone else for the world.”
“A happy Christmas to me, then.” Alex knew better than to kiss him in public, but this didn’t in the least keep him from bending low over Nicke’s hand as the dance ended.
The rest of the world could do as they might; they would still be here at the still point of the turning world, finding their own rest in each other.