A challenge, the Queen had called him as he bowed at her feet, his head angled downward as his mother sighed, her brow cinched as manicured fingers pinched the furrowed skin. A challenge, he would muse, truly? Could he really be blamed for finding the girls he was expected to marry… Dull?

A thousand father's had approached him, from Dukes to the untitled men of the Ton, a bag of gold in their hands as they pleaded for him to wed their daughter's. It wasn't as though he did not try to like the poor women, but they were hardly peak entertainment of the night.

“I do not wish to dance, Mama.” Henry muttered, staring out at the sea of nobles weaving between one another in the most elegant of dances. “In fact, I cannot dance, I happen to have acquired an injury to my ankle. I'm terribly sorry, but perhaps I shall retreat to bed.” He wondered how many bones he'd break if he jumped from the balcony; enough to render his legs compromised for the rest of the season? He hoped so. He would ask his brother to test it lately, the Heaven's knew Phillip would be happy to act so careless.

Though, he did not try to leave or turn around, not with the vice grip Lady Sanderton had on the tail of his coat. His mother whispered a word of warning in his ear, a not-so-gentle reminder that as the first born, it was his moral obligation to conform to his duty, as a future Viscount and as his Father's son. “Heavens, Mama. You truly are a strict one.”