Once more Claude found himself outside of the rich man’s home with his cart. People had given him strange looks on the way, but then it was the Ball night, so why would he be dressed in work clothes heading to work? But at least he was getting work.

At the agreed time, Claude knocked on the door wondering if the butler was going to do his job today.

It had been some time since Zechariah had contemplated the idea of another man. Looked? Certainly. Hoped? Perhaps. Looked, hoped, and flirted with disaster?

Two years ago, he had. Simon had done it to himself, certainly. He had led men into the woods and stoked too many fires at once until they burned out of his control. All the same, Zechariah did not want to test whether he had also carried some sort of kiss of death to which all whom he loved must die.

Which did not explain why he had let the butler off for the night. Oh well!

Zechariah was dressed to impress. He told himself he would go toward the end of the ball, make a perfunctory greeting that conveniently doubled as a departure and all would be well. He answered the door, remembered the squalor that the one poor guy he had seen up close all poor people lived in, and absently wondered if he should offer that half-drowned man’s bathrobe as a hand-me-down.

“Good evening, Mister Longbottom.”

Wait. God damn it. Did that make it too obvious he had asked around?

As the door opened, Claude wasn't all that surprised to find the owner of the house behind it. Did the Butler do any work at all? Probably got paid well for it as well... Yet the lack of the Butler was hardly a disappointment as his eyes traced down the mans body admiring it, the greeting the only reason he realised he was doing so at all.

Claude's eyes shot back up and he managed to hide the flinch.

"Mister Longbottom is my father, Mister Meijer. Claude is fine sir" he responded with a light rub of the neck.

Small town... That made it okay to ask around.

Right?

"What needs working on Sir?"

Rose was suspiciously late for the ball. She had put on her best dress. Her corset was twice as tight as normal, pushing her waist in and breasts out. She had actually wasted money on very cheap make up, which she had spent forever on applying. She had been lurking around the stairs, waiting for the doorbell, but mr. Meijer got there first. Why did this guy like answering doors so much? Sulking, she made her way back to her room to wash the make up off her face and prepare for the ball.

Mr. Meijer was smirking at Claude when their eyes finally met.

“The piano bench,” he said. “The leg fell off, and the whole piano is looking dull – do you paint as well?”

Claude couldn't help the blush when he realised he had been caught. But who was he to help it? The man looked good dressed up. Although it meant he was planning on going to the ball and that was a bit of a disappointment.

"Yes sir, what sort of painting?"

He had given the maid the night off. They were – to his knowledge – all alone. Still, Zechariah cast a paranoid glance over his shoulder to the stairwell before putting a hand unnecessarily on Claude’s shoulder.

“This way,” he said, nodding to the parlor.

The piano looked, well, like a piano. The black paint still had a glossy sheen, even if the piano bench was crumpled strangely neatly on the floor.

The screws in the leg were not far from it, and had yet to see rust. There was not a single splinter to be found.

Why was a corset wired in the back rather than the front? Rose was struggling to loosen it.

Claude looked at the hand on his shoulder for a moment, hoping the flinch wasn't as noticeable as it felt. He really wasn't used to being touched by others. Never the less, he followed the man no questions asked.

The bench was oddly neat for something that was meant to be broken. The screws noticeably out of place. "Did you have a child in here sir?" he asked eyeing them on the floor.

Awkward pause.

“It must have been my niece.” Pause. “Nephew. One of them.”

He had a niece and nephew, right?