“It’s not—I don’t—”
“I shouldn’t make you squirm. I’m sorry, darling. My point is just that I really don’t care what you get up to. You’re only young once. And you needn’t worry what Lord Bermondsey thinks,” she added. “I’m not entirely certain he even knows you’re staying here.” Indeed, Martin had seen his aunt’s husband at the dinner table a mere handful of times, and was aware of him only as a vague, moustached presence. “He asked me only yesterday why there was a tall, spectacled man in our library, and it gave me quite a fright before I realized he meant you.”
Martin laughed despite himself. Aunt Bermondsey, noticing his squint, had dragged Martin to her oculist the previous day, and now Martin had a pair of silver-framed spectacles in his coat pocket, through which he could see an astonishing array of previously invisible objects. And his aunt had seemed happy for him, as if she were glad to do this service and had no intention to hold it over his head. He found that the more time he spent with her, the more willing he was to put his aunt in the same category as Will and Daisy, rather than his father and his father’s servants. He suspected he was being overly trusting, too willing to see an ally because he had nobody else.
It somehow took nearly an hour to get to the park, because every conveyance in London had apparently decided to take to the streets that afternoon. An hour spent in a carriage with nothing to do and nothing to look at was just the thing to ratchet his nerves up to an unbearable level, and he would have regretted not going on foot except for how walking in town made him short of breath. But finally the carriage stopped and he all but flung himself onto the street.
He found Will waiting for him at the bench Martin had specified. Will opened his mouth to greet him but Martin made a silencing gesture, then sat beside him.
“There can’t be any letters like that last one,” Martin said.
“I know. I meant to be careful, but it didn’t last.”
“If we can’t write without exposing ourselves and we can’t meet without quarreling, then we’ll need to stop meeting and writing.”
“No,” Will said at once.
“Do you have a better plan?” Martin didn’t turn his head. He kept his attention on the brightly dressed women, the tiny dogs pulling at their leads, the horses and carriages in the distance. He didn’t want to see Will’s face as he conceded defeat.
“We’ll have it your way,” Will said.
“Meaning that we part ways for a while,” Martin said calmly. It was nothing he hadn’t expected, and he was certain it was for the best, however miserable he felt about it presently.
“No. I don’t want to do that. God forgive me, I don’t want to stop loving you,” Will said, his voice low and heated. “It’s felt like a gift, and I don’t want to give it up. What I mean is that I think we should ignore the fact that you plan to marry. The future isn’t guaranteed. A lot of things can happen.”
Martin still didn’t turn his head, afraid to see what he might read on Will’s face. “After all, I might die before I get around to marrying,” he said, aware that some of the calm had slipped from his voice.
“You’re so dramatic. Sometimes I can’t believe that I’m the one who wrote a play.” Martin could hear the fondness in Will’s voice and felt something in his chest expand. “No, Martin, I mean that it’s intensely stupid to whistle happiness down the wind, and I am—was—happy with you. If I have to make compromises to be with you, I can do that.”
Martin’s heart beat hard in his chest. “Compromises?”
He felt Will shift on the bench beside him. “Being with a married man seems . . .”
“What does it seem?”
On the wooden slats of the bench between them, Will’s hand opened and closed. “I want to apologize,” he said. “From the first minute you told me you needed to marry, I’ve been difficult about it. I want you to be happy and safe. I ought to just accept it.”
“Why?”
“Because my jealousy is a small thing compared to how much you need to be secure—how much we both want you to be secure. God, if I could offer you a home—not a cottage, not a make-do sort of existence—then we’d be having a different conversation. But things are the way they are.”
“Are you so very jealous, then?” Martin asked, trying to sound as if he didn’t care about the answer.
“I know jealousy isn’t fair to you and I ought to be ashamed—” Will began. He was wringing his hands.
“Get up.” Martin regretted ever thinking that meeting in a public place was a good idea. “Come this way.” He began down a path away from the more populated parts of the park. And—to hell with everything—he looped his arm through Will’s. Men walked arm in arm; he had seen it himself. So what if the feel of Will’s body next to his made him want to get pressed against the nearest tree.
“What’s happening?” Will asked as they proceeded off the path and into a copse of trees.
“Shut up,” Martin hissed, and all but dragged Will further into the wooded area. “You think you’re the only jealous one?” he asked, finally rounding on Will. “Tell me again,” he demanded.
Will’s eyes were wide, and Martin saw the moment he understood what Martin wanted. “I’d be so jealous,” he admitted.
“More.”
“I don’t want anyone else to touch you.”
“Is that so?” Martin said, low and demanding.
“In that get-up, I don’t want anyone to so much as look at you.” Will cast an appraising glance from the top of Martin’s head to the tips of his boots.
“Oh yes?” He put a hand on Will’s hip.
“I want to haul you into the nearest carriage and take you to Sussex and throw you on the bed and never let you leave, and these are all barbaric sentiments and I feel properly ashamed of myself—”
“To hell with that. I like you selfish.” He walked Will backward toward a tree. “I like to know that I’m not the only one. I’ve always been jealous over you. You know this.” He cupped Will’s jaw, running a thumb along his lower lip. Then he leaned in and brushed their mouths together.
Will supposed that at some point he’d understand why confessing what he considered his most regrettable personal failing had gotten him kissed to within an inch of his life, but in the meantime he was content to let Martin have his way with him. He kissed Will hard, slow and searching, as if he were trying to memorize the shape of Will’s mouth.
“Damn it, Will,” Martin said after Will had gone soft and pliant against him. “Feel free to be good and noble in every other aspect of your life, but not this one.”
“Where exactly are we?” Will asked, looking over Martin’s shoulder. He knew they were a minute’s walk from the typical throng of visitors to Hyde Park on a day without rain, but he couldn’t see them through the trees.
“The Serpentine is over there,” Martin said, gesturing behind Will. “And the barracks are there,” he said, gesturing to the side. “After dark, this is a place where men come for assignations. The guards never bother patrolling here.” Martin must have caught the incredulous look Will was giving him, because he rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t here for the assignations, obviously, but because after I left my aunt’s house I didn’t know where to go.”
Feeling very diplomatic, Will decided that instead of lecturing his friend on the idiocy of sleeping rough while consumptive—or, indeed, ever—he would imagine Martin’s reaction to seeing men on their assignations. “Did you enjoy watching?”
“No, you utter pervert,” Martin said, laughing. “Think of how much work you had to do to get me to enjoy . . . participating.”
“I’m thinking of it now,” Will said, leaning in for another kiss. “I’m afraid if I get you hard, you’ll rip a seam or injure yourself,” he whispered, drawing a finger up the inseam of Martin’s pantaloons. He decided that his sad susceptibility to costly clothes would be a secret he took to the grave.
“Idiot,” Martin said, and drew him in, a hand fisted in his s
hirt, for a deeper kiss.
They left the copse of woods and returned to the footpath, walking close enough that they could keep their voices low enough to be private, Will’s arm tucked into the crook of Martin’s elbow.
Strolling together was a comforting echo of their country walks even though there were people in every direction and horses and carriages jamming up the paths. The ground under their feet was level and neatly packed, so as not to overly soil the shoes of the ladies and gentlemen who promenaded about. The sky wasn’t even the same blue as it was in Sussex, dimmed as it was by the smoke and fog of the city. But despite all that, walking and talking with Martin was something Will had known for as long as he could remember.
“I say, is that you, Sedgwick?”
Will stopped short, his arm coming dislodged from Martin’s.
“William Sedgwick? Midshipman?”
Will turned toward the familiar voice, and saw a man a few years older than himself, with the upright bearing and slightly sunburned cheeks of a naval officer. “Lieutenant Reese,” he said faintly.
“Captain now,” Reese said. “You vanished off the face of the earth, man. Staunton and I looked and looked but there wasn’t a trace of you. Henries took up a collection.” He turned to Martin. “Your friend saved our lives, not to put too fine a point on it. He saved the lives of every officer on that ship and every sailor who would otherwise have mutinied. It was a damned shame that they tossed you out after all that.”
Will forced himself to keep his eyes open, to see the curricles and phaetons on the opposite side of the park, to hear the sounds of women laughing and horses neighing. Martin was beside him, safe and sound, wearing shiny top boots and smelling of flowery soap. He slid his hand along the soft wool of Martin’s sleeve until his smallest finger touched Martin’s. It was 1819, this was London, and they were both alive.
“I really didn’t,” Will finally managed to say.
“Mark my words,” Reese said, ignoring Will and directing his speech directly to Martin, “there would have been a mutiny if Sedgwick here hadn’t poured oil on troubled seas, as it were. Where are you living now? Henries especially would want to thank you in person.”
“The Fox on Shoe Lane,” Will said, his voice sounding like it was coming from far away.
“We’d better be going, Sedgwick,” Martin said briskly. “Lady Bermondsey will be waiting for us.”
Only vaguely realizing that Martin was lying through his teeth, Will tipped his hat and bade a clumsy farewell to Reese.
“With the traffic what it is,” Martin said, Will’s arm tight against his side, “it’ll be ages before you get to Shoe Lane in a carriage.”
“I can walk,” Will said. “I’m fine.”
After a short pause, Martin cleared his throat. “All right. We’ll walk.
“Will,” Martin said softly, and Will realized he hadn’t moved from the place where he had been standing for the past few minutes, as if rooted in place. “Will.” It was all he had to say, that syllable somehow communicating affection and shared sorrows and loyalty and a thousand other things for which even the word love was only a rough approximation.
Will looked down and saw that Martin was holding one of his hands, chafing it between his own, in full view of anyone who cared to look that way. It was reckless and stupid and Will’s heart was filled with a fondness that was equally reckless and stupid. With his free hand, he wiped away a drop of moisture that had gathered at the corner of his eye, then reached over and straightened Martin’s lapels.
Chapter Eighteen
Martin’s knowledge of London geography was patchy at best, so he had to rely entirely on Will’s guidance to get them to the Fox. As Will seemed to be in something of a daze, Martin feared they would wander the labyrinth of city streets for hours. By the time they reached Shoe Lane, Martin was all but wheezing—not, he thought, from the exertion so much as the bad air. He had taken longer walks in the country without so much as a cough.
“All right there,” Martin murmured nonsensically to Will as they turned into yet another dark, narrow passageway. He had been filling Will’s ears with soothing foolishness since they left Hyde Park. It was with enormous relief that he finally caught sight of the freshly painted sign hanging above the door of the Fox. He could put Will to bed and trust that Hartley would care for him. Suddenly the prospect of an awkward meeting with Hartley no longer seemed so dire, as long as Will would be looked after and Martin could just sit down.
Martin did not have terribly much experience with public houses beyond the Blue Boar and the inn in the village nearest to Lindley Priory, but he thought the Fox seemed a respectable sort of place, with plenty of clean windows and shiny brass fittings. The air was redolent with the scent of cooking—herbs, rich sauce, and roasting meat—and under that, the smell of ale. Every table was full and the air was thick with the sound of mingled conversations.
“The stairs are through the back,” Will said, indicating a door behind the bar. Before they got that far, they were intercepted by Hartley, who, if he were surprised to encounter Martin, did not show it on his face.
“Is anything the matter?” Hartley asked his brother.
“I’m fine. Ran into a shipmate and had a bad moment. Martin’s just making a fuss, that’s all.”
Martin didn’t bother denying it. “Thank you for letting me fuss. Would you eat if food were put in front of you?”
“I’ll bring supper up,” Hartley said, not waiting for Will’s answer, and disappeared through one of the back doors.
Will led the way to a stairwell. “I really am all right,” he said. “Relatively speaking.”
“You’re doing wonderfully,” Martin said, gasping for air as he climbed the two flights of stairs.
As soon as they had a door shut behind them, Martin pulled Will into his arms and held him as tightly as he could. He didn’t say anything, just felt the solid presence of Will’s body against his own, the softness of Will’s hair against his cheek, the coarseness of his coat beneath Martin’s fingertips, all evidence that Will was safe and they were together. And if he was leaning against Will as much as Will was leaning against him, that was fine too.
“I can hear you breathe,” Will said after a minute, his voice muffled by Martin’s coat.
Martin thought about brushing off Will’s concern, but he didn’t think this was the time for dishonesty. “My lungs hate this city. They hate the smoke and damp. And don’t you dare tell me I ought to have put you in a hackney and gone home. Don’t you dare.” He waited, half-braced to see if Will would protest, but Will only held him tighter.
They were interrupted by three raps sounding at the door, followed by Hartley entering with a tray. Martin immediately made to step away from Will, but Will kept his arms looped around Martin’s neck. Martin knew what it must look like, and he felt slightly exposed but also a little proud that Will would own their relationship like that. And more than either of those things, he was so glad for Will to have a brother he didn’t have to hide the truth from. He had hardly gotten used to having his arms around another person; doing so openly was almost inconceivable.
“I’ll put this here,” Hartley said, placing the tray on a small table that was set beneath the room’s single window. “And you’ll let me know if you need anything?” He addressed the question to Will, but flicked a glance at Martin, and stayed in the room until Martin nodded.
The tray held two plates, a covered dish, and two tankards of ale. Martin lifted the cover and saw that the dish contained a stew of some kind, aromatic and rich. He put a large serving onto Will’s plate and helped himself as well.
“This is familiar,” Will said.
“It ought to be. You spent half the winter putting food under my nose and hoping I’d eat it.”
“I meant that it reminds me of those months you looked after me after I got home.”
Martin was ready to steer the conversation in any other direction, but maybe after seeing his shipmate,
Will wanted to talk about that awful period of time. “A piss-poor job I did of that,” Martin said as lightly as possible, paying more attention to keeping the anxiety from his voice than on the words he was actually speaking. “I recall spending a few months dragging you out of damp-ridden opium dens and forcing you to eat solid food. And then my father died and I didn’t even have the funds to continue doing that much.”
Will furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
Martin realized he had said more than he meant, but before he could explain away his words or even decide whether he wanted to, Will pointed an accusatory fork in his direction. “You shook your tenants down to get money for me. I thought you needed to pay off your father’s debts.”
Martin didn’t bother denying it. A part of him was even relieved to have it out in the open. Now Will would know the worst.
“Martin, you had to know I wouldn’t want that.”
Martin put down his fork. “At the time, what you wanted was to seek oblivion in a cloud of opium, and I was terrified about what would happen when your money ran out. I didn’t care one way or another about what you’d think of how I treated my tenants. More to the point, I didn’t care about my tenants, or myself, or anybody at all. All I cared about was you. I know that’s immoral and I’m trying to do better, but I can’t even promise that I wouldn’t still do reprehensible things if that were what you needed. I don’t care, so you can save your lecture.” There. The worst was out, and he was both relieved to have it done with and terrified to find what would come next.
Will let out a slow breath. “Next time consider stealing from the rich and powerful, all right?”
“That’s it? You’re not cross?”
“Of course I am. But, Martin, I probably would have stolen from a nun if it meant keeping you alive this past winter. I would have stolen from a nun and liked it.”
Two Rogues Make a Right Page 17