It'd been a year since Hugh's dad died. Hugh'd been horribly stoic about it, but I was on eggshells for months. He never mentioned his dad except in business-related matters, but he had a hair trigger about other things. And I never once dared tease him by addressing him as Sir Hugh now that he'd inherited the title. I almost thought the last year had been worse for me than him, but that couldn't be so. I knew he was grieving. I'd been doing my best to serve him and pamper him without letting him think I pitied him.
He went home at the time for the funeral and got a lot sorted. I missed him like crazy, and wanted to be there to support him -- what else is a boy for? -- but I took his point that a funeral wasn't the best time to introduce a new partner. Even if his family accepted him being gay in principle, an actual boyfriend was a different kettle of fish.
And showing up just when successions and inheritances were being discussed would have been pretty tacky. Not that I wanted any part of it. I'm still enough of a lefty to think titles -- unearned ones -- are a crock. He's my sir and he earned that, but his baronetcy was a burden, and I wished he could renounce it. Even if it were the lowest hereditary title you could have. It was one of the things Hugh liked about me -- he was sick of monarchy-struck Americans swooning over his title, and not seeing him. I saw him all too clearly and still stuck around.
Now that we were together, he'd decided against having a child with a surrogate. He didn't need much persuading. He's not much for the rugrats and was mostly considering it as a sop to his parents. So it wasn't as if he was making a huge concession to me, but I was relieved: I wouldn't have handled bringing up a son who was more his family's than my child. Or have wanted to deal with Hugh being a father!
Nonetheless, I was kind of hurt about the heir thing as I'd been his boy for three years now. We had joint accounts and joint property, and suddenly his nephew was his heir. Hugh told me not to fuss because he had a watertight estate plan. He insisted I'd be fine, but I was stressed as hell over not knowing the contents, and, frankly, I thought he was being a prick, not a master.
Hugh announced that we'd travel to England in a week to see his mum and family for a whole bloody month. I was ready to puke with nerves. Hugh arranged it all before telling me about it, and he was just lucky I could get that much time off work.
He just growled and said, "boy, you haven't used your full vacation since I've known you. Of course you have the days."
I'd tried to say that wasn't my point, but, of course, I did have the days, he knew it, and it wasn't my decision to make. I knew he was my master, but he was so high handed about my external responsibilities sometimes. I did my best to be excited about going to England. I'd agreed to not say anything about being anti-monarchy, and Hugh had promised we'd get some time to ourselves to tour around. I was utterly overwhelmed by imagining a whole family of Hughs. And I'd never left America before.
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