“If you come in, I can fix you tea. Daisy brought butter and crumpets when she came to feed the pigs, if you’d care for some. I don’t need anything, but I’ve read every book in the cottage and it’ll be days before my aunt sends more, so if you happen to have a book somewhere on your person, I’d be grateful to borrow it.”
Hartley’s eyebrows were at one with his hairline. Martin didn’t know whether it was the mention of the pigs or Martin’s daring offer of tea that put them there. “I do, in fact,” Hartley said slowly. “One of Will’s friends left a French novel at the Fox with instructions to deliver it to you. He said you’d know what to do with it, and that he’d come to collect it in three weeks.” He removed three volumes from his traveling bag and handed them to Martin.
“Oh,” Martin said, holding the books. “I’m going to translate them. For money,” he added, and maybe his voice had done something peculiar on those last words because when he looked back up at Hartley, he saw that the other man was staring at him, but not unkindly. Martin decided to hell with it and returned to the cottage and set about making tea. Hartley could follow or they could keep talking through the open door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hartley looking about, probably searching for something to explain why this was the place his brother was hurrying to, why this was the place Martin referred to as home. Martin poured the tea and set out the basket of crumpets and the dish of butter.
“You can see that it’s perfectly comfortable for Will to visit as much as he likes,” Martin said. “And I’ve hired a girl to look in on me so Will doesn’t need to feel like the only one responsible for me when I’m ill.”
“Visit? He means to stay. If you’ll have him.”
“If I’ll—you must have hit your head. Of course I will. But I never meant to take him away from his life. He has you and his friends and I hate that he’s going to walk away from that.”
Hartley, who had taken a cup of tea, held it halfway to his mouth and stared at Martin. “He didn’t walk away from anything. His friends will still be there. Martin, he’s happiest with someone to look after. He always has been. Especially if that someone is you. And Martin, you pillock, you like looking after him when he has the sullens. You know,” he said, staring at his mug of tea as if it contained important answers to life’s mysteries, “he’ll be devastated if you die. So please, for his sake, don’t do anything reckless. You didn’t see how he was last autumn.”
“As much as I’d like to promise that I’ll live out my three score and ten with him at my side, that’s not a promise I can make.” He didn’t add that it wasn’t a promise anyone could make, because while other couples could indulge in the fantasy that forever would last the same amount of time for both of them, Martin and Will would have to deceive themselves more than most in order to participate in that delusion. “All I can promise is that while I’m alive, your brother will be loved, and that I’ll do my best to make sure that after I’m gone he doesn’t regret having loved me. I know that he’ll grieve me, maybe for a long while. But he’s strong and it won’t ruin him. He has other things to be happy about, other people who love him.”
“I see.” Hartley’s voice was thick, and he turned to the windows, his back to Martin.
“I believe that’s quite enough sincerity for one day,” Martin said.
Hartley snorted. But he drank his tea, still standing, both of them eying the chairs as if sitting in them would be admitting some fatal weakness. “I ought to go,” he said, long after his cup was empty, “if I want to catch the mail coach up to London.” He put his cup on the table, brushed his trousers clean, and made for the door.
“Come back, though,” Martin said, after Hartley passed through the door and was a few yards down the lane. “You don’t need to only meet him at the inn. If this is his home—” He swallowed. “You’re welcome here, regardless.”
Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave Martin a quick nod. Martin rinsed the teapot and fed the uneaten crumpets to the pigs, then he swept the floor and took his medicine and did all the needful things that shaped a day.
Thanks to muddy roads and a broken axle, Will didn’t reach Sussex until a full week after he had first left London for Cumberland. Just outside Manchester on his trip back south, he gave up trying to sleep in the coach and paid for a private room at an inn, then paid even more for a bath, and by the time he climbed back into the stagecoach he thought it might have been the best money he had ever spent. No use showing up at Martin’s door—their door—looking like death warmed over, was there.
By the time he reached the Blue Boar he decided he’d be happy never traveling further than London for the rest of his life. Several minutes after the coach deposited him in the inn yard, his bones still rattled as if in memory of every pothole and rut from Carlisle to East Grinstead.
“There you are,” said Daisy, materializing from behind the bar. “We’ve all been wondering when you’d show up.”
“How is he?” Will asked.
“No worse than when he got here. He’ll be glad to see you.” Will could almost hear the unspoken finally, you horse’s arse, and could not disagree. “Since you’re headed that way, you can bring his supper. There’s enough for two.” She brought a hamper out from behind the bar. “Sandwiches, a couple of cakes, and a jug of ale. Now be gone with you.”
He had been away for less than three weeks, but three weeks in the springtime was the difference between a landscape of lacy delicate green and the heavy verdant abundance that met him on his walk from the inn to the cottage. On impulse, he plucked a fistful of coral bells and a few stalks of foxglove, remembering when Martin had done the same for him. There would be more chances to do this, a rotating calendar of posies to bring one another, from larkspur and apple blossoms to hellebore to sprigs of holly, all laid out before them. They had time. They had time together, and this week apart wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t cut into their time in any memorable way. Martin was fine, he was fine. Will repeated it to himself like a catechism, like a spell.
When the cottage came in sight, he thought maybe Martin would hear his footsteps and come out to greet him, but the birds were calling raucously to one another and the pigs splashing wildly in their muck and Martin wouldn’t have heard his footsteps even if he’d been expected. Will dropped his satchel and the hamper on the bench near the door and pushed open the door, stepping into the single room that was his home, his heart in his throat, his stomach in knots.
Martin was asleep in the bed, his chest rising and falling, a book open on the pillow next to his head, a pair of spectacles crooked on his face. Will pulled off his boots and crawled onto the bed beside him.
“Hey,” he whispered, brushing a hair off Martin’s forehead and straightening his spectacles. “When did you get spectacles?”
Martin made a happy, sleepy noise, unguarded and open the way he only was when on the edges of sleep. Then his eyes flew open. “When—”
“I just walked in the door.”
Something hopelessly fond and relieved flickered across Martin’s face, before being immediately replaced by exasperation. “Cumberland. You idiot. When I’m awake we’re having a proper fight about this.”
“I can’t wait,” Will said, and he meant it. He threw an arm over Martin’s chest and pillowed his head on Martin’s shoulder, and the last thing he heard before he fell asleep was Martin sleepily whispering, “Cumberland. What rot.”
When he woke the bed was empty, the spot where Martin had been already cool. Faint tendrils of light crept through the windows, but Will couldn’t have said whether it was dawn or dusk. Martin sat at the table, one of Daisy’s sandwiches on a plate before him, writing by the light of a candle. The flowers, which Will had left outside with the hamper, were now in a pewter cup at the center of the table.
As Will sat, the mattress creaked beneath him, and Martin put down his pen.
“There’s tea,” Martin said, gesturing at the pot.
Will stretched and felt ev
ery sinew in his body reject the idea of getting out of bed, but he crossed the room and collapsed in the empty chair. He picked up Martin’s hand—fingertips inky, nails bitten—and kissed his palm. “I missed you. And you don’t have to tell me again that I was a fool for having misread your letter. I know it.”
“I still can’t believe that you could think I’d say home and mean anything else but here. Except,” he added, stealing his hand back to bring his teacup to his mouth, “I suppose what I really mean is where you are.”
Will was brought up short to hear from Martin’s mouth the sentiment he’d repeated to himself so many times, across years and oceans and continents. He swallowed. “I know better now.” Will laced their fingers together. “In my defense, you really could have been more clear.”
“William. That entire letter was carefully constructed not to get either of us put in the pillory. If I was evasive, it was because I was afraid if I started being honest it’d all come pouring out. A reprehensible degree of sentiment, even if it weren’t a confession to criminal behavior.”
“I wouldn’t mind some reprehensible sentiment one of these days,” Will said.
Martin looked at him narrowly. In the shadowy half-light, Will could see the circles under his eyes and that old disconcerting sharpness to his features. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said lightly, but he squeezed Will’s hand. With the hand that wasn’t trapped in Will’s he brought his teacup to his mouth. “How long are you here for?”
Will stared. “Well, at least I don’t have a monopoly on idiocy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m here, full stop, because it’s my home, because—as you said two minutes ago—it’s where you are, you monumental lackwit.”
“Are you certain?” Martin asked, managing to look both pleased and guilty at once.
“I don’t know how to make you believe this if you don’t already, but I want to be with you every morning and every night and most of the minutes in between. And not because I think you need looking after, so don’t even start. I can see with my own eyes that you’ve managed to take care of yourself.” He had already noticed the jars of medicines on the chimneypiece, the stack of clean linen, the way Daisy had the hamper of food already prepared. “But I’d like to do it anyway.”
“I want it to be a choice for you,” Martin said.
Will could have laughed at the idea. A choice, as if walking away were even an option. He couldn’t have walked away from Martin any more than he could have walked away from his own arm, nor did he want to. “Loving you is a part of me, probably the best part of me, and even if you want to argue with me about that—and why the hell do you want to, Martin, really—I want to be with you, to be near you, to do what I can to make you happy. A choice,” he said, shaking his head. “A choice. It’s the only choice I want to make.”
Maybe that was a satisfactory answer, or maybe Martin had enough sentiment, but either way he let Will pull him into his lap, let himself be held and kissed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Shadowy twilight had become full moonless dark, and their kisses had devolved into an undisguised and blatant attempt to be pressed close together, a clinging reassurance, more relief than heat. “Let me take you to bed,” Will said, speaking the words against Martin’s mouth. And then, at a greater distance, “I didn’t mean—we don’t—”
“I know.” Martin got to his feet and coughed more than a few times, then downed the rest of his tea. He climbed into bed and watched Will undress, admiring in a detached and tired sort of way. When Will slid between the covers beside him, the mattress shifted and Martin let himself be tilted into Will’s body, his face in the crook of Will’s neck, one hand toying with a strand of Will’s hair.
“I’m going to say this once and I promise I won’t belabor the point,” Martin said. He brought his hand to Will’s shoulder and traced small circles around the winged birds he knew were inked there. “But if you begin to feel penned in here, you can go where you please and I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
“Can’t really imagine why I’d want to go anywhere without you, but—” Will broke off, then brought his hand up to trap Martin’s hand against his upper arm. “What are you on about?”
“Ever since we were little children you wanted adventures.”
“I’ve had my fair share,” Will said dryly.
“It’s just that, even on board the ship, even when things were . . . bad . . .” Martin drew up his courage. He never brought up this topic, never said anything to prompt Will to speak of it. “You still had these done.”
“I did,” Will said slowly.
“Birds in flight. It’s not a subtle metaphor, William. Even then you wanted to explore.”
“It’s not a subtle—well thank God you aren’t a literary critic. Christ, Martin, I’ve been very stupid this past week but you win the prize.” His shoulders were shaking with, Martin was stunned to realize, laughter.
“Care to let me in on the joke?” he asked as sniffily as he could, but the sad fact was that Will’s laughter completely robbed him of any acerbity.
“They’re swallows, you daft bastard. Swallows always return home to nest. Sailors say that if you get one inked on your body it’s a promise that you’ll arrive home. Or, if you don’t, at least your soul will be carried back. I had these done after I was disrated—officers don’t get tattoos, but sailors often do, so . . . when in Rome, I suppose.”
“The sailors liked you,” Martin said, and it wasn’t a question. “Even though they were ready to mutiny and, presumably, do away with all the officers onboard.”
“Well, they probably wouldn’t have killed the surgeon,” Will said mildly. “But yes, they didn’t like the officers, but I suppose I had been treated as badly as anybody so we had a common enemy.”
“And when they started talking about mutiny . . .” Martin said, hoping Will would keep talking.
“I kept reminding them that all we had do to was get home. The navy has a way of dealing with tyrannical captains. But if we mutinied, a number of the lads would be hanged or be forced to live the rest of their lives as fugitives. There were still incidents,” Will said, and Martin suspected he referred to the sailors at whose courts martial Will testified, “but we got home with no life lost.”
“So that’s what the birds meant? A reminder that your problems would be solved when you got home?”
“Partly. I was in general rather preoccupied with the idea of getting home and seeing you again, idiot.” He kissed Martin’s forehead.
“Seeing me?”
“Martin,” Will said, and Martin could feel the smile against his skin. “Dozens upon dozens of letters. Three indelibly drawn birds with your name on them. And still you act surprised to discover that the thing I want foremost in the world is to be with you.”
“With my name—” Oh. Oh. He propped himself up on his elbow to examine the birds’ roughly drawn black-and-white markings by the faint starlight. They weren’t common swallows, but rather house martins. “This is—appallingly sentimental, if I’m honest.” But there were tears in his eyes, and Will was already pulling him down for a kiss.
“I knew you needed spectacles,” Will said fondly.
“I love you, too, always have, always will,” Martin mumbled into the skin of Will’s shoulder.
Will tipped Martin’s chin up for a kiss and they stayed like that, tangled together, barely kissing. Martin’s heart so full it was nearly uncomfortable.
The first visitor came in July. Will had been expecting it, having been warned by Hartley’s letter and then by Daisy running up from the inn, but still it was a shock to see Lieutenant Staunton on dry land. They had been midshipmen together, and now Staunton was very smart in his lieutenant’s uniform.
“My God,” Staunton said by way of greeting. “I’ve only spent two years looking for you, Sedgwick. I don’t mind telling you I expected the worst, and it’s damned good to see you look
ing well. You gave us all a rotten fright by vanishing like that.”
Will had always assumed that if anybody from the Fotheringay spared him a thought, he would at best be an object of pity and at worst a reminder of tragedy, and that everyone would be glad to forget he had ever existed. Before Will could come up with anything to say, Staunton went on. “And now I hear that you wrote that play. My wife has seen it three times. But here’s the other reason I needed to see you.” He reached into his coat pocket and removed a parcel wrapped in oilcloth. “I’ve been carrying this around for years. There were some other things—a shaving kit, a couple of pens—that got lost along the way, I’m afraid. But we all remembered you and your letters and thought you’d want them back.”
Will was alone in the cottage, the parcel on the table before him, when Martin came home. “What’s this, then?” Martin asked gently.
Will shoved the parcel across the table. “You open it.” He watched almost greedily as Martin untied the string and flattened the oilcloth.
“Oh, sweetheart. You thought they were lost.”
“That’s really them, then?” Will asked.
Delicately, Martin spread the papers before him. “There are dozens from me, but I see a few other hands. Your brothers, probably. Maybe your father.” Will knew that Martin could see the worn edges of the letters where Will had handled them again and again, the rips along the folds, the places where the ink smudged under Will’s fingertips.
“Sweetheart,” Martin repeated. “Mine are in a similar state.”
Will tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come, and then he let himself be drawn into Martin’s lap and fussed over in a way he hadn’t quite thought Martin capable of.
The next visitor came the following month. Will remembered him as Able Seaman Davis, a rough-looking northerner several years older than Will, who refused Will’s offers of tea and instead seemed mostly interested in admiring the pigs. “Just wanted to see for myself that you made it,” Davis said. “On my way back to Portsmouth.” He shook Will’s hand roughly, but didn’t make any move to leave. “Named my boy William.”
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