Abraxas considered going to Almack's but, really, he couldn't quite face having to escort one insipid girl after another onto the dance floor with no libation stronger than punch. He decided that what he would do instead was make a list. He would list off all the pureblood daughters (and nieces, no need to be too particular) of Death Eaters and cross off the ones he already knew he couldn't stand.

The Rowle, girls, for example. Seven of them, and each less attractive and more shrill than the last. Furthermore, their brother was expensive and, if truth be told, Abraxas would prefer to not leg shackle himself to a girl with a high-pitched nasal voice and a brother with such a gambling problem that he was always in the suds

So all the Rowle girls were out.

He crossed Delphinium Flint off the list as well. While he liked horses as much as the next man, waking up to a woman with a face like a horse for the rest of his life seemed to be taking his fondness for all things equine a bit far. That didn't even begin to address the problem of her mother: Pansy Flint was a harpy if ever he'd met one and she always stared at him with a look of mingled loathing and lust that made him uncomfortable.

By the time supper had come and gone he'd written out a lengthy list and crossed every single name off. Freya Dolohov bore no resemblance to her namesake and her father was a nutter. Anais Carrow was an idiot. Piscia Snape had personal hygiene issues, plus, well, there was the blood status problem. The list was long and each possibility was more depressing than the last.

He was well and truly buggered by endless bad choices.

So he went to a hell and started to drink and throw the dice because no one would begrudge him one last night of freedom before he just gave up and took one of the Rowle girls and hoped for a large enough house he'd never have to hear her. There was a new lad at the hell, dark hair chopped off at his neck and probably barely out of the cradle he was so slender, but within an hour the two of them were drinking together – or Abraxas was drinking - and, after he'd lost too many galleons to count at cards and was more than a little top-heavy, Abraxas found himself telling the lad the tale of his woe.

"Have to get married," he explained in the dark room, squinting at his companion. "Why don't they properly light this place, anyway?"

The lad shrugged.

"Have to please my foster-father and my foster-mum. I adore her, you know, but marriage." He shook his head. "There's a shortage of pureblood girls with wit and beauty. Meaning none. Heir to two bloody fortunes and I'm still stuck with lousy choices."

"So marry out," the lad said.

"Can't," Abraxas said shortly. "My birth-mum… do you really not know?"

The lad shrugged again and said, "I was thought to be sickly, kept inside and away. I don't really know anyone."

"Tough lot," Abraxas, a man who'd never experienced a single day of ill health in his life, said. "You seem all right now."

The lad ducked his head and muttered something about how he was a damn fool now, that was what he was.

"Can't marry out," Abraxas said. "Already a bastard half-blood. So I get to choose between horse-faced and shrill." He tossed back another drink. "Lucky me. How about you? You gambling to try to escape any wonderful family pressures?"

"I'm being pressured to marry a cousin," the lad said. "Keep my vaults in the family." He shrugged. "I'd hoped to win enough here to have the money to escape but no such luck."

"Wait." Abraxas was drunk but something about that didn't seem quite right. "If you've the inheritance why d'you need to…"

"Underage," the boy said hastily.

"Ah," Abraxas said.

"I think you should go home," the boy said, sounding uneasy as Abraxas downed another glass of fire-whiskey.

Abraxas snorted but tossed some money on the table and hauled the lad out of the dark hell and onto the street. "Forget home, let's go kick up a lark."

The boy struggled to pull his arm away and, in the light of the moon, Abraxas looked at his new friend. His fair, slender new friend with dark eyes and badly cut black curls that looked as if he'd hacked his own hair off with a knife.

"Bloody hell," Abraxas said.

. . . . . . . .

Almack's is a historical place often seen in Regency novels because it was a fashionable ballroom. I did say Georgette Heyer inspiration and all and you went and read it anyway so don't come whining to me.