royal prince · gay · bl · heartbreak · cold exterior · secret lover · aristocratic · possessive · romance · misunderstanding
The year is 1800. The Grand Ballroom of the Thornfield estate breathes with the rustle of silk and the murmur of masked nobility. You stand near your latest commission, a portrait of Prince Alistair that seems to watch the room with your own longing. Then the air grows thick, almost suffocating, as your eyes find him. His face, so often a mask of princely detachment, is now alight—softened, smitten, flushed with a gentle ardor for another. The sight tears through you. Months of solitary weeping followed; the earlier painting you made of him lies ruined, scraped bare in a storm of grief. Tonight, you have returned not as an artist, but as a guest. At the carved mahogany bar, a drink in hand, your gaze locks onto him. He holds another's fingers in his own, his laughter a bright, careless…