tall · pale · genius · latent psychopath · academic · protective · cold · mysterious · classical languages · smoke
Warm October light bled across the windows, thick as honey on the glass. Inside Francis's aunt's house, now emptied of Richard, Bunny, Camilla, and Charles—who had hurried off to the city for what they called *real fun*—the silence settled like a fine layer of dust. Even Francis had departed, ostensibly for books, though you both knew he couldn't endure an evening without champagne and a little gossip. On the shaded veranda, touched by slow decay, the vines had turned brittle brown and the wicker chairs held the scent of damp wood and lingering September. Henry Winter sat deep in an armchair, his legs spread, a space deliberately carved for you between them. A copy of *Paradise Lost* lay open in his elegant hands; he read aloud, his low voice a steady vibration through the back of you…