Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Rhys sat in the far corner of his painting classroom, in the studio space he'd carved out for himself by what had once been the bay window of the countess's reading room. Whichever of his great-great-something-grandmothers had commissioned the room had had a brilliant eye for landscape. The view out that particular window was one of the best views on the entire estate.

That didn't mean he'd ever been able to paint it the way it deserved.

He sighed and lowered his brush, staring at the half-finished painting on his easel. He had the geometry of the hills and the stream right. The trees had been rendered exactly the way they looked as they stood against the blue of the sky. Technically, every detail was exactly the way it should be. So why did the whole thing feel flat and lifeless?

He lifted his brush again, swirling it through the pale yellow on his palette, then touching it to some of the trees on the horizon. A few highlights usually helped when he couldn't figure out why whatever he'd just painted was wrong. If he could just get the paint to do what he wanted, just get his brushes to bleed out the scene of peace and home that was in his mind, maybe he could?—

A slight shuffle near the door and a delicate throat clearing jerked Rhys's attention away from his quest for perfection.

"What?" he demanded, more frustrated with himself than the interruption, and twisted to glare at whoever was there to interrupt him.

He winced when he saw Early standing in the doorway, pink-faced and wide-eyed, looking like a rabbit who might turn tail and run.

"I'm sorry, Early," Rhys huffed out, setting his palette aside and standing from his stool. "I'm frustrated with myself, not upset with you."

"Oh," Early said, still partially clinging to the doorframe. "Right. Sorry anyhow. It's just that your dad wants you upstairs for a family meeting."

"He does?" Rhys frowned with a different sort of emotion as he strode to his classroom door. "Nothing's on the schedule."

Early glanced up at him with that reverential look that never failed to make Rhys feel even taller than his six feet and four inches, and that made him writhe with discomfort at the same time.

Not because he didn't like Early looking at him that way, but because he liked it a little too much. Early was a family employee, and they were only twenty-one, twelve years younger than Rhys. More than that, Early had the restless, slightly desperate edge of a young person who had just become brave enough to admit they were non-binary, but still feared that everyone in the world would judge them for it and their life was over.

"There's been a late development in the whole saving Hawthorne House from certain financial ruin," Early said, stepping back into the hall so Rhys could leave his classroom. "Robbie and Toby showed up with a group of elderly, wealthy, gay gentlemen who have just offered to donate enough money to the house to keep it out of Willoughby Entertainment's hands until the deal Toby's been working on with Silver Productions can go through."

Rhys blinked and stared at Early instead of striding out into the hall and up to the meeting room. "All that just happened?"

"We're as surprised as you are," Early said, shuffling bashfully and rubbing one arm with his opposite hand. "I was sure Willoughby Entertainment would win in the end," he went on. "And believe me, I wasn't looking forward to trying to find a new job if Hawthorne House or the arts center shut down."

The way Early glanced down when they said that, and the way their long hair, which they were wearing loose that day, fell over their shoulder in a way that hid their face, tugged at Rhys's heartstrings. It also made him want to brush Early's hair back and stroke his hand over Early's cheek, which was an impulse he definitely couldn't afford to act on.

"I'm sure you'd do brilliantly at any job you applied for," he said, smiling with what he hoped was encouragement. He wasn't always great at softer emotions, as his younger siblings were always telling him. "Anyone would be glad to hire you."

Early's eyes went wide. "Are you telling me I should go work somewhere else?" they asked, tense and potentially miserable.

"No, no, not at all," Rhys said. "We all want you here. You're a fantastic admin."

He started walking, trying to leave his uncomfortable feelings behind and get to the meeting, where he was needed. Early followed along with him.

"I'm just saying that you probably want more in life than to be the admin and receptionist for Hawthorne House forever, right?" he asked once Early caught up to his side.

"I'm very happy where I am," Early said, though from their tone of voice, they were anything but happy.

Rhys frowned and glanced at him as they stepped out into the front hall, then turned a corner and headed up the stairs. "Are you sure about that?" he asked.

"Definitely," Early said. "I don't want to go anywhere. I love working for your family."

Rhys didn't doubt that much, but he wondered about other things.

"Weren't you at uni, studying marketing or something?" he asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

It was the wrong question to ask. Early glanced down, their hair covering their face again. "Uni wasn't for me," they said.

Those few, simple words held a wealth of meaning. Rhys hadn't been ignorant of Early's struggles in the last year. Coming to terms with your identity wasn't an easy thing. Rhys had heard Rebecca say that Early's parents were aghast at their life choices and refused to accept their identity. That couldn't be easy.

Rhys considered himself extraordinarily lucky that he'd grown up in a family with so many sexual identities across the spectrum in just their branch of the family tree that they'd all grown up without any preconceived notions of who they should love or be with. He'd dated men and women himself, though as he'd gotten older, he'd leaned more and more toward men. He hadn't dated anyone for years, though.

"Well, whatever you want to do with your life, you know the Hawthornes will support you," he said as they neared the meeting room, where Rhys could already hear the excited buzz of the rest of his family.

"Oh, I know," Early said. "That's why I just want to stay here. I feel safe here."

Early gave him a brilliant smile, which went straight to Rhys's balls, as much as he tried to stop it. They really were a beautiful person, no matter what sort of criticism and trouble they got at home.

But at the same time, Rhys worried that Early was selling themselves short by hiding at Hawthorne House when the whole world was out there. You couldn't hide forever. He knew that as well as anyone. And if Early's other reason for sticking close to Hawthorne House was so that they might somehow catch his eye someday, well, that just couldn't happen.

"Thanks," he said, stepping toward the open meeting room door. "I think we've got it from here."

He smiled at Early one last time, then headed into the meeting.

He glanced back before he shut the door, though. Early stood there, looking beautiful and forlorn, like they were gazing through a door into the Promised Land, and like Rhys was the tree of forbidden fruit they wanted to take a bite out of. It was sweet how they wore so much of their heart on their sleeve, but that radiant emotion was probably part of the reason they found life so hard.

And it did something to Rhys. It brought out every protective instinct he had. He wanted to shelter and nurture Early. He wanted to do a few other things as well that he really shouldn't be thinking about when he was stepping into a family meeting.

None of it mattered anyhow. Early Stevens was out of bounds and not for him. They were too young, too fragile, and they worked for the family. Starting anything with them would be a disaster.

So why couldn't he stop thinking about them?

I hope you've enjoyed Robbie and Toby's story!

Hawthorne House is saved for now, but there's no telling what the future holds. And what about Rhys and Early? Is Rhys really too stubborn to let himself follow his infatuation for the younger Early?

How does the fact that Early is still learning about their sexuality and what they want from life play into that? And what happens when Early's family rejects them entirely so that they're forced to rely on the Hawthorns for support? Find out next in book two of The Art of Love series, Painted !