Two Rogues Make a Right
Page 23
“What?”
“It’s a good name,” Davis protested. “And you did good.” He didn’t elaborate, which was a relief because Will didn’t think he could take it.
“Thank you,” he said faintly.
“I say, Mr. Davis,” Martin said. He had been weeding the vegetable patch. “You don’t happen to be skilled at giving tattoos, do you?”
“’Fraid not,” Davis said, and if he thought this was an odd question, he didn’t let on.
“I wonder if you know anybody who is, and who wouldn’t mind calling on us.”
After Davis left, Will rounded on Martin. “What on earth was that about?”
“I’m not telling,” Martin said.
The next sailor who visited was a stranger to Will. His skin was dark from the sun and leathery from the wind and Will couldn’t even make a guess at his age. He introduced himself as Jones. “Davis said you wanted more ink,” he told Will.
“That would be me,” said Martin. Will watched in confusion as Martin rifled through his papers until he came up with a drawing. “Could you put that on my arm?”
“Have you run mad?” Will asked. “You realize this involves being stabbed with needles.”
“Really,” Martin drawled, rolling up his sleeve and displaying the scars from years of bloodlettings. “Whenever have I been poked at with sharp objects. At least this time I get to choose. And I’m left with a lovely flower instead of a basin of blood.”
Will watched as Martin stripped out of his waistcoat and shirt, and then as Jones traced the flower onto Martin’s arm. Will hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening, but if Martin wanted—he glanced at the drawing—a couple of pinks inked permanently onto his body, then so be it. He found a bottle of brandy that Hartley had left for them a few weeks back, and poured Martin a generous glass.
“You don’t have to hover,” Martin griped, so Will went out and pulled a couple of carrots out of the ground and chopped some firewood. He didn’t go back toward the house until he saw Jones at the door.
“What do we owe you?” Will asked.
“He paid already,” Jones said, gesturing with his chin toward the cottage. “And Davis paid my way here.”
Will went back inside and leaned against the doorway. “Care to tell me what that was about?”
Martin blinked in a way he probably thought looked very innocent. “What, I need a particular reason to get three lovely flowers etched—very painfully, what the hell, William—into my flesh?”
“Let’s have a look.” Will sighed and sat on the bed beside Martin. The drawing was of a group of fairly simple looking wildflowers, each bloom consisting of five petals with frilly edges. “I thought they were pinks, but they aren’t ruffled enough for that,” he mused. He was slightly disappointed to note that they weren’t primroses—he still had Martin’s primroses pressed in the pages of a book. “Not pinks, not primroses,” he murmured, running a careful finger across the new ink.
“You get one more guess.” Martin languidly inspected his nails. “I just thought we ought to match.”
Will drew in a sharp breath. “You absolutely did not just get sweet Williams tattooed onto your arm. Tell me you didn’t.”
“All right,” Martin said primly. “I didn’t.” But Will was already kissing him, pushing him down onto the bed and covering his body with his own. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of this,” Martin said. “I chose them because they smell good and because the pigs think they’re tasty. That’s all.” He looked like he was trying to keep a straight face but was making a poor fist of it. “Oh, did you think it had something to do with you? How embarrassing.” He was laughing openly now, pressing a pillow over his face to muffle the sound.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you,” Will said, pulling the pillow away to kiss him, but they were both laughing too hard for the kiss to be anything other than a graceless collision. “I could not love you more.”
The summer passed, and with every red or orange leaf that appeared in the woods outside the cottage, Martin half expected the spell to be broken. He kept waiting for the bubble they had been living in to be punctured by the sordid reality of the outside world, because surely something so good couldn’t exist except under these precise, protected circumstances.
But the outside world didn’t so much encroach as let itself be gently woven into the fabric of their lives. Tenants moved into Friars’ Gate, which meant they were no longer quite so isolated, and somehow that did not feel like a bad thing. Every day brought letters—from Aunt Bermondsey (with carefully worded regards to Will), from Hartley (who visited often enough that letters might seem a flagrant waste of paper) and even from Ben (who included little sketches of things that had happened at school, and which Martin suspected were for his benefit, to let him know that Lindley Priory was doing more good than ill). The pigs got fat, Daisy proved herself a brisk but competent nurse when Martin was ill, and Martin earned a few guineas by translating a novel.
When the weather turned, Will dragged the mattress and bedstead into the loft and began to refer to the ground floor as the sitting room, a pretense that Martin might have found absurd if he didn’t see how pleased Will was with the secondhand sofa he had procured. On the first night when they could see their breaths clouding before the night sky, Will casually mentioned that if this winter was hard on Martin’s health, they could consider going to Italy the following year.
“You want me to become friendly with an entirely new cast of characters?” Martin asked, with a horror that was only partially feigned.
“It’s something to think about,” Will said, and changed the topic.
Martin thought about their home and everything around it. Shelter, food, books to read, letters from people who cared about them, and a combined income that managed to be neither precarious nor insufficient. This cottage was home, and Martin would dig his heels in as long as it was reasonable, but all those small and precious things that made up their lives together were infinitely portable. And so he knew that if in the coming months his lungs were especially recalcitrant, or if his clothes hung even more loosely than usual, he wouldn’t balk if Will mentioned Italy again. He turned his head to where Will sat beside him, huddled against the side of the cottage, and kissed his shoulder.
“Italy, Greece, the moon. It’s all the same if you’re there.” Martin wasn’t sentimental often, but when he managed it, he was rewarded by a blinding smile, such as the one he was favored with now.
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It Takes Two to Tumble
Some of Ben Sedgwick’s favorite things:
Helping his poor parishioners
Baby animals
Shamelessly flirting with the handsome Captain Phillip Dacre
After an unconventional upbringing, Ben is perfectly content with the quiet, predictable life of a country vicar, free of strife or turmoil. When he’s asked to look after an absent naval captain’s three wild children, he reluctantly agrees, but instantly falls for the hellions. And when their stern but gloriously handsome father arrives, Ben is tempted in ways that make him doubt everything.
Some of Phillip Dacre’s favorite things:
His ship
People doing precisely as they're told
Touching the irresistible vicar at every opportunity
Phillip can’t wait to leave England’s shores and be back on his ship, away from the grief that haunts him. But his children have driven off a succession of governesses and tutors and he must set things right. The unexpected presence of the cheerful, adorable vicar sets his world on its head and now he can’t seem to live without Ben’s winning smiles or devastating kisses.
In the midst of runaway children, a plot to blackmail Ben’s family, and torturous nights of pleasure, Ben and Phillip must decide if a safe life is worth losing the one thing that makes them come
alive.
A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Once beloved by London's fashionable elite, Hartley Sedgwick has become a recluse after a spate of salacious gossip exposed his most-private secrets. Rarely venturing from the house whose inheritance is a daily reminder of his downfall, he’s captivated by the exceedingly handsome man who seeks to rob him.
Since retiring from the boxing ring, Sam Fox has made his pub, The Bell, into a haven for those in his Free Black community. But when his best friend Kate implores him to find and destroy a scandalously revealing painting of her, he agrees. Sam would do anything to protect those he loves, even if it means stealing from a wealthy gentleman. But when he encounters Hartley, he soon finds himself wanting to steal more than just a painting from the lovely, lonely man—he wants to steal his heart.
About the Author
CAT SEBASTIAN lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.
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By Cat Sebastian
The Seducing the Sedgwicks Series
It Takes Two to Tumble
A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Two Rogues Make a Right
The Regency Impostors Series
Unmasked by the Marquess
A Duke in Disguise
A Delicate Deception
The Turner Series
The Soldier’s Scoundrel
The Lawrence Browne Affair
The Ruin of a Rake
A Little Light Mischief (novella)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
two rogues make a right. Copyright © 2020 by Cat Sebastian. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-282064-8
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-282159-1
Cover design by Patricia Barrow
Cover illustration by Fredericka Ribes
Avon Impulse and the Avon Impulse logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America.
Avon and HarperCollins are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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