Hongjoong had expected to spend yet another ride with Seonghwa in silence while they attended the scenery brush past. However, minutes after they had taken off with the carriage, after a sympathetic gaze from the coacher that was privately directed at Hongjoong, Seonghwa spoke up. He rose his voice over the undying rattling of the wheels.

"You look lovely tonight," he said, as if trying to warm up for his role of liking Hongjoong.

Hongjoong leaned against the carriage wall to look out of the window. Every bump in the road had him sway with the vehicle.

"Thank you," Hongjoong replied; bored as always. Seonghwa could have been considered handsome in his black suit with the red velvet jacket, but Hongjoong wouldn't tell him that.

Seonghwa cleared his throat when the conversation instantly absorbed in the air.

"There will be no dancing tonight if you were afraid of that."

"I wasn't overly scared last time. You are a decent dancer, so I had an easy time following along." In nonchalance, Hongjoong played with his grey gloves. The leather was soft on his skin. They warmed him more than the lace gloves, but that was perfect for the cold air trickling through the doors.

"I am glad to hear that. I figured you didn't pick up the basic steps in the underworld."

Seonghwa, mentioning Hongjoong's origin again and again, underlined his fear of what the reply would be if he came clean about his gender. If Seonghwa couldn't let his living place rest, how would he allow how Hongjoong had pretended to be a woman? The earl's fragile opinions proved Hongjoong did better keeping the truth to himself.

Hongjoong cast Seonghwa a cool glare. His eyes unwillingly got stuck on the man's pink lips before they swiped on.

"We dance in our way, but you are right; that style hardly applies to the fine dresses of your society," Hongjoong bit back. For once, Seonghwa didn't look offended immediately. Rather, his brow knitted when he schooled his expression into one of distant involvement.

"How do you dance there?"

Surprised by his unforeseen interest, Hongjoong turned his head to face Seonghwa. No vicious plan shone behind the man's eyes. They showed a foreign fascination hidden by a blanket of discomfort.

Hongjoong narrowed his eyes at him until Seonghwa lifted his hand placatingly.

"I wanted to learn. I found an unexpected amuse in our fight in the kitchen, and since you spend a lot of time around me, I might as well use the opportunity to understand your people better. Who knows, it might get me some good work relations."

Cooled off by the man's business analysis, Hongjoong eyed him warily once more before he spoke up.

"The people down there occasionally gather in the marketplace during festivities. Everybody tries to put away their worries for a day to celebrate. People play merry music, and everybody dances how they please and with whom they please. It's about the joy, not the visual."

Seonghwa nodded slowly.

"Do you accompany them a lot? Isn't it dangerous for a woman?"

Hongjoong wanted to scoff at this self-proclaimed genius, but he wouldn't give anything away. As a man, he had no trouble joining.

"When I find the time, yes. My parents took me often as a child, so it's a fond memory."

For a long moment, Seonghwa pondered that statement as if he hadn't thought about Hongjoong having parents before. When he spoke again, it was more discreet, as if he at least understood the shared sentiments about parents.

"Do they still live with you?"

With a sigh, Hongjoong crossed his legs.

"No. They died a few years back from lung infections when their commodities offered no opportunity for a clean healing environment. I miss them dearly." The memory sent a stab of pain into his heart. He knew Seonghwa's parents and sister were alive and well in the house they lived in together in the countryside of Seonghwa's home area in Huntingdonshire. Perhaps his sister was even married already and had children.

Hongjoong had no siblings.

"My condolences. You sound as if you loved them a lot."

"My father told me to read the stars how you can read the flowers. And my mother made the best stew in all of London. Though you wouldn't have wanted to try it." Hongjoong flashed Seonghwa a smile. When the earl tilted his head curiously, Hongjoong continued.

"One ingredient was rat meat."

Repulsed, Seonghwa flinched back in his seat. He shook himself, face contorted in disgust by the imagination. Hongjoong grinned over the reaction.

"I'm joking. But I loved it more than anything."

"Did your parents ever tell you to search for a husband in the upper society? Women can't work, so your only opportunity to live in adequate surroundings that wouldn't make you sick would be marriage, no?" As careful as his wording was, the message was the same once more. He blamed the poor for being poor.

"Not everyone wants to be part of your people. While well aware of the pitfalls and compromises of poverty, I know several people that find other ways to enjoy life. We don't need expensive wine and lavish parties. Sometimes, an accordion and some dance are more than enough to distract." With as much understanding for Seonghwa's side as possible, Hongjoong laid out the cards.

Seonghwa licked his lips, suddenly nervous.

"Then... How did you survive there without your parents to provide you with food? You're still young. I made some tactless comments about you, but I am concerned whether they held any truth."

This time, Hongjoong's smirk turned cynical.

"What do you want to know for, earl? Does it invite you to gossip to your friends about me? Or are you repulsed by the thought of a woman who has no virtue?"

Seonghwa pouted to himself, but it wasn't cute. It was every bit the charming manipulation he used to get people to like him.

"Not at all. I told you the truth about my affair, so I think it is only fair if I know this about you."

Hongjoong shook his head and bounced in his seat at a harsh bump in the road. Through the night, he heard the horses panting in the cold air.

"Why? Does the imagination arouse you? Do you regret pushing me so far off that I wouldn't offer the same services to you?"

Scandalised, Seonghwa turned his head away. His blush reddened the apple of his cheek that faced Hongjoong's direction. The rat catcher smirked broader.

"I didn't invite you to my home to ask such unsightly favours of you. Just as you would take no alms, I would take no payments of that kind."

Hongjoong believed him. Yet, he couldn't help taunting the man further now that he had him dangling on a hook.

"You sound knowledgeable in these matters, mylord. If it isn't too much to ask; since you are so sure of the type of woman you like, you can't be the innocent man the upper class demands to wait for marriage before acting upon your sexual desires," Hongjoong said sugary sweet. He wouldn't give anything away about the accusations of prostitution Seonghwa threw at him without a repayment.

Seonghwa gulped. His eyes flicked through the carriage as if trying to find something to distract the conversation with.

"I believe that among young and inviting people who know what they want, there is no need to wait forever. It's an old concept, I think, one that we have no need for anymore."

The answer was avoidant, but it gave enough away. Seonghwa's accusations towards Hongjoong spoke from experience.

Seonghwa peered at Hongjoong from his peripherals as if having to make sure he didn't get laughed at. When he found Hongjoong unimpressed, he dared to look at him again.

"What about you? Work or no, have you felt the embrace of a man before?"

"I have. It's no significant transaction where we come from. Most people never marry, they just have kids," Hongjoong said. He didn't need to specify for Seonghwa that he had experienced both genders; that would only confuse the slow earl.

"I will also have you know that in the slums, all hands are needed. Women work, and not only as prostitutes."

Seonghwa was stunned into silence, most likely by the revelation Hongjoong had made before the last statement. He tried to brush it off with elegance, minding just as little as Hongjoong had.

"What do you work as while you are there?"

"I catch rats," Hongjoong said. At the first moment, Seonghwa mistook it as another joke and was about to laugh. Then his eyes clouded over.

"Why in God's name would you catch rats?"

"They can be sold for fight rings, and you can make poisons from the diseases they carry, so there is a lot of demand for them. People are also more than happy to point them out for me to remove from their homes." Hongjoong shrugged.

Seonghwa looked astonished. Rats were a plague in the upper society as well, so they had their own tricks to get rid of the beasts, but those involved no people or fight rings. More poison, though.

"Is it difficult?"

"It is. They are vicious creatures, and their bites carry diseases. I believe I sweated through so many fevers that I am immune to all ailments."

Seonghwa made a face at the unattractive imagination of what he saw as a beautiful woman.

"What do you work as to be so free in your desires, earl? Apart from your interest in crime solving?"

Seonghwa played with his hat. His long lashes lay on his cheeks as he mindlessly looked at the expensive accessory.

"I mostly live off my father and have to accompany him to influential dinners for work relationships. I get schooled from time to time on how to take over for him after his death, but my sister's marriage to the earl of the neighbouring duchy will put her in a position of power. I may be able to live my life in leisure studying and travelling as I please."

Hongjoong nodded. Their lives were opposites. Despite living in the same city, their paths never would have crossed if not for Yeosang's trickeries. They couldn't feel more alien to each other.

"Does your father know of your scandal?"

Seonghwa looked out of the window, uncomfortable with the question. His fingers tightened around his hat until his knuckles stood out white under his skin.

"He doesn't. Though he has been pushing me for marriage so I would stop fooling around. Neither my demand for flexibility nor the scarcity of a suitable woman deterred him. I might have to tell him about you so he, too, is distracted enough that he stops sending potential matches every so often."

Perking up, Hongjoong connected the dots. The coacher had mentioned something about Seonghwa getting drunk sporadically, and the only time Hongjoong had seen him drink was while exposed to the public with a woman he didn't like by his side. Perhaps, he accepted the arranged meetings but got drunk to deal with them. It would explain why nasty rumours about him had spread even outside the scandal with Lady Culpepper.

Hongjoong didn't know if he should pity Seonghwa. The presence of a woman wanting to court him didn't seem like the most drastic thing Hongjoong could imagine.

Before he had to come up with a solution, Seonghwa finished the thought for him.

"They can be quite persistent since my father asks them to."

Seonghwa probably wasn't aware, but his stressed drinking and barking at people most likely fended those women off more than his declines. Despite him having invited Hongjoong over, Seonghwa had reacted automatically to how he would to a woman by his side who bothered him.

But not last time when they went out and danced. Last time, he resisted his need to push all women around him off.

Hongjoong could sympathise with that. One could get fed up with an entire gender if exposed to it as something Seonghwa regarded as punishment.

"How is it in the slums? Do people try to get matches just as desperately? Perhaps to those with work, or those with ties to the upper society?"

With a shrug, Hongjoong watched the lights of London pass.

"Perhaps. I never had many women throwing themselves at me."

Seonghwa snickered, and in the first moment, Hongjoong was confused because Orion's belt was back and he didn't know why.

By the time he remembered he was supposed to be a woman, he had to smile at well.

"I sure hope so. I know what I said about your reputation getting stained if you search for a husband here, but if you are to meet someone you could imagine settling for, please know I won't be in your way. You may not regard our society as better than yours, but I believe knowing you are doing well and not catching rats in those crime-infested alleys would soothe me."

"Worried about me, earl?" Hongjoong teased him. Seonghwa scoffed.

"Not too much since I have to live up to the haughtiness of the flower you gave me." He glared again, but it was less fierce.

Hongjoong leaned back in his seat. He was satisfied that this time, he wouldn't go into the soiree on edge because of Seonghwa. They could still fight on their way back.