RS Octavian

Hello! Welcome to my Substack. This is my first novel and I hope you will share the adventure with me as I flesh out the love story between Stuart and Evelyn, a most unusual couple indeed! Subscribe for free.

Read all the full chapters on Patreon!

“…Runs in the family…like father like son,” muttered Evelyn. “So bloody what? I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. Let them say it to my face if they dare.”

“They’d certainly be foolish to try,” agreed Stuart. “But this lends a fresh perspective on your father’s death.”

“What?”

Stuart blinked. “You mean, you’ve not really thought about it?”

“Thought what?” Evelyn asked, irked and obviously puzzled.

“You’ve always blamed yourself for his heart attack, but what if he’d blamed himself after you presented? Perhaps he could not bear the thought that you’d taken after him, that it was all his fault?”

Stuart watched as Evelyn stared at him, looking thunderstruck. “So, it’s never occurred to you,” he said pityingly. “You’ve blamed yourself for so long, but none of this is your fault, Eve.”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

He glanced down at the words he’d written.

I love you, Eve.

There. He’d done it. He’d written it down not in pencil but in ink, indelible and permanent.

He did not know what was keeping him from saying it out loud. He wished that perhaps Evelyn might say it first. To have him confess it would be satisfying indeed. More than that, it would be a victory of years and years they’d spent, clashing wills.

Stuart sighed. At this point and despite all evidence pointing to their thriving love, only pain of death might induce Eve, and for that matter himself, to divulge something that could decisively tip the scales to either side. He would just have to wait for the right time to come when he would be able to say it out loud, shout it to the heavens, if need be.

Until then, perhaps it would not do to give their game away. This little revelation would just have to wait.

Stuart stowed his journal away in the inner breast pocket of his outdoors coat that was on his chair and promptly forgot all about it when they woke up in the morning.

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

“Eve,” Stuart began, eyes wide as Evelyn stormed into the room.

“There isn’t much time, you great, bloody git,” said Evelyn as he made for Stuart. “He’s coming!”

“What? Who?” Stuart barely got the words out before Evelyn began to kiss him feverishly.

“Aberley the husband, of course! Not the wife. You need to drop your breeches now!”

“Wha— No!” said Stuart, taking hold of his breeches even as Evelyn tried to pull them down.

“You need to be fucking me right now,” said Evelyn, his voice urgent. “You were set up, you idiot, just as I warned you!”

Stuart stared at him for a moment, shocked, before he grabbed him to turn him around and bend him down over the sofa.

“I warned you there was no use talking to that poisonous viper of a woman,” muttered Evelyn as he pulled his own breeches down and rubbed himself frantically against Stuart. “But would you listen?”

Stuart hissed and, despite the circumstances, or perhaps because of it, he felt himself respond almost immediately to Evelyn’s ministrations.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Evelyn, feeling Stuart’s burgeoning erection. “We’ll have to look like we’re fucking. Any minute now, he’s—”

Without another word, Stuart grabbed Evelyn by the hips, shoving against him hard just as the door burst open without warning. The violence of it made them turn as one towards the man who stood there.

Stuart could only gape at the elderly Duke, but Evelyn had the presence of mind to shout, “Do you bloody mind? We’re busy here!”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

“You will pardon me, I am sure,” said Stuart, eyeing Evelyn and Worth with a severe eye, “but I have not changed my opinion on the matter. It is, quite simply, the most dreadfully idiotic plan that I have ever heard.”

“’Tis precisely so, which is why it will work,” Evelyn said breezily. “So straightforwardly stupid, it’s brilliant. That rascal has not got two brain cells to his name and will surely seize upon it.”

“To set yourself up as bait to lure him in is not something anyone can countenance!” Stuart countered. “Least of all your own Alpha!”

“You will calm yourself,” Worth tried to assure him. “Evelyn will come to no harm when we hold all the cards. In fact, let us set this trap rather than walk into his. This way, everything is in our hands. We’ve managed to pin down his haunts and his whereabouts and must act soon; we have not got much time.”

“This can go wrong in so many ways,” Stuart complained.

Evelyn came up to him, reaching out with both hands to cradle Stuart’s face. “What can go wrong,” he said, smiling up at him, “when you will be there right behind me?”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

Evelyn looked as though he might pull himself further away and Stuart stopped him with a hand to his cheek. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t run away from me again.”

“I’m not!” cried Evelyn, his eyes wide, startled.

“Yes, you are,” said Stuart. “And I understand better now. You’ve nothing to be afraid of. Not from me.”

“What the fuck does that even mean—”

“I mean it when I say I will heed your choices. You won’t have to bear children if you don’t want to.”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

“’Tis about to start,” said the man with a wink from behind his mask. “I’ll see you there in a bit, then.”

Stuart nodded and watched as the man weaved his unsteady way out of the crowded rooms and into a narrow, carpeted corridor. He followed a few minutes later to find, at the end of that long, quiet passageway a magnificent marble staircase, guarded by a muscular flunkey.

“Have you an invitation, sir?” asked the masked servant gravely.

Stuart nodded. “Winged seraphs,” he replied, parroting Annabella.

The flunkey stepped aside and Stuart ascended the stairs towards the second floor and a set of rooms in which the programme that night entitled The Punishment was to take place.

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

Annabella considered his predicament for a moment before saying, “I am due to attend a private party in a gentlemen’s club at Pall Mall. Very private, only meant for Alphas. Perhaps you may have heard of it?”

“Indeed?” Stuart said, his demeanor changing as he regarded her words with interest.

“However, I am not certain that it will be up your alley, given you are to be married in less than a fortnight,” she said delicately. “And given a gentleman with an unsullied reputation such as yourself—”

“What sort of gathering will it be?” Stuart interrupted her in a mixture of impatience and rising excitement.

“It is going to be centered upon entertainments which, shall we say, are highly improper. Hence the hushed, word-of-mouth invites. But everyone who is anyone is going to be there.”

“Will it be instructive?” he asked.

“Well, definitely yes,” she said, staring at him with wide eyes.

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

“Easy on the grip,” advised Evelyn. “You’re far too tense. Your arm will tire in no time.”

“I know what I’m doing,” muttered Stuart, his eyes fixed on the target some twenty paces away.

“Boom!” Evelyn said loudly in Stuart’s ear just as he pulled the trigger. Startled, Stuart cursed as his shot went wide. He glared at Evelyn as he handed the pistol back to the waiting armourer.

“Thank you,” he said acerbically. “You’re being quite helpful.”

“What?” Evelyn asked as he fixed Stuart with wide and innocent eyes. “I’m only trying to help. For someone who’s not handled guns until four days ago, you’re progressing wonderfully, but you need to get used to all sorts of things happening around you when you fire, not just your target. There are all sorts of distractions that can be had during a duel, you know— a heckler in the crowd of bystanders, some birds cawing in the trees.”

“Yes, but they’re not going to shout right into my eardrum,” replied Stuart testily. “Now, can you please not hover?”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

Putting this into the early chapters:

Channeling Harold Ramis and his adorable smile for Stuart (I loved him to bits, he’s one of my earliest crushes, ahaha). This is essentially Stuart when he smiles, his dimples leaping out. Imagine Evelyn staring at him with a pained expression, almost wincing, thinking “DAMN THIS MAN, WHY DOES HE HAVE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SMILE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD.” And Stuart looks at him and thinks, “God, he dislikes me so much, he doesn’t want to see me enjoying myself. Not one bit!”

Imagine Stuart misunderstanding Evelyn because the git sees those dimples and he’s like a hell hound in front of a crucifix. “Stop flashing those damnable dimples at my direction!” Because he’s afraid he might melt and turn into a puddle in front of Stu, and that would be lethal to his self-image.

In later chapters when Stu finally catches on, he teases Evelyn mercilessly about it every chance he gets. When Evelyn turns away from him petulantly he will know why and will shove his smiling face at him and maybe even try to steal a kiss. “I know you adore me and I wish you’d just say it!”

Still so much to write when it come to these two idiots... XD

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!

“May I inquire as to what you are doing?” Stuart wanted to know, keeping his tone polite even as he felt his body slowly coming awake at the light, teasing touch as Evelyn resumed his ministrations.

"I miss our time at the cottage,” murmured Evelyn. “To have the luxury of waking up and just touching you to my heart’s content, as though we have all the time in the world.”

“And drive me mad in the process. You’re doing a fine job of it now, as a matter of fact,” said Stuart, smiling crookedly.

Then, more seriously, he asked, “Are you alright?”

Evelyn nodded, his eyes grave as his hand drifted down Stuart’s body, softly dragging the sheets away with it.

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You…this,” Stuart began. “This feels different.”

The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!