“I’m really quite—”
“Oh, stuff it,” Martin said. “I can’t watch you sleep on the floor like a dog. Either we take turns or we share the bed.” Martin knew that if he had a sliver of common sense he’d refuse to let Will into the bed with him. He wasn’t even entirely certain why he was pressing the matter. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that mere proximity to Will wouldn’t transform him into a grotesquely rutting lecher—wouldn’t transform him into his father. Or maybe he just liked the idea of opening his eyes and knowing Will was there. “The fact is that when I see you over there, I feel guilty and ashamed, and I don’t need more of that in my life, thank you.”
Martin couldn’t quite make heads or tails of the look Will shot him, but it didn’t matter, because a quarter of an hour later they were side by side in the bed. Martin, accustomed to having the entire mattress to himself, awkwardly tossed and turned, all the while conscious that his tossing and turning was likely keeping Will awake. Eventually Will let out a low laugh. “Do you need a bedtime story?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Martin said, smiling into his pillow despite himself.
“It’s worked in the past,” Will reminded him, rolling onto his side so they were facing one another.
“I had half forgotten about that,” Martin admitted. Sometimes, when Martin had been deemed too sick to go outdoors, Will would sneak into his room late at night. He had charted secret paths through sculleries and back staircases and once even arrived through an open window. At the time, Martin had been furious that nobody at the Grange seemed in the least bit interested in whether children were asleep in their beds or roaming about the countryside risking life and limb. Will would sit by his bed and tell Martin stories in a whisper so quiet that Martin’s nurse wouldn’t be wakened, and then slip out once Martin was asleep. They carried on like this for the entire summer of their fourteenth year, until one morning Martin’s nurse found them both curled up together in bed. Will had fallen asleep in the middle of the story, that was all. But Martin’s father was always on the lookout for vice, and within a week he announced that he had secured a place for Will in the navy. Martin had been horrified: anybody ought to have been able to see that Will had no business in the navy. He was absentminded, flighty, and sensitive. But Mr. Sedgwick was glad to have at least one of his sons’ futures settled, and Will was dazzled by thoughts of adventure and faraway lands.
“You’re not even listening,” Will chided.
“I must be more tired than I thought,” Martin said, and then faked a yawn. He remained very still, and Will was asleep in minutes.
Martin woke to discover an arm flung across his middle. He must have gasped or made some other stupid noise because the arm was immediately retracted. The next time Martin woke, Will’s arm was once again around him. This time Will was pressed against Martin’s back. And, oh God, this had been a terrible idea. All Martin could think of was how lovely it felt to have Will so close, as if warmth and safety were seeping into his skin. If they stayed like that, Martin would start to believe that he was the sort of person who deserved this sort of thing, that it had to mean something that their bodies fit together so well and so comfortably. He told himself that this was probably how everybody was; perhaps people just touched one another all the time and it always felt good and they let themselves like it.
He next woke to full sunlight and the sound of the door being flung open. “William Sedgwick,” Mrs. Tanner bellowed. “I told you I would murder you myself if you so much as looked at Daisy.”
Will, his face buried in the back of Martin’s neck, hardly stirred at this intrusion. Martin extricated himself and rose to a sitting position, holding up a finger to his mouth. “Daisy asked Will to flirt with her to improve her standing with some lad who, you’ll be pleased to know, is not the ostler,” he hissed. “I assumed she had told you of her plans, and if she didn’t, I apologize for not speaking to you first. I assure you that neither Will nor I have any interest in your daughter, and Will was fairly horrified by even pretending to flirt with a girl of her age.”
Mrs. Tanner looked back and forth between them. Will, amazingly, was still asleep. “Oh,” she said, as if recognition were dawning. “I see. Well. I hadn’t figured either of you gentleman to be—well, I suppose it takes all kinds, and I do beg your pardon—”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” Martin said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What I mean to say is that neither Mr. Sedgwick nor I have any interest in sixteen-year-old girls. Please curtail your wilder flights of conjecture. Be gone with you.”
He had been harsh, he knew that. In that high-handed speech, he heard the echoes of his father’s voice. And Mrs. Tanner hadn’t even been insinuating any insult or threats of exposure. But his blood boiled at the idea of any harm coming to Will—not an insult, not a twisted bit of gossip, not a nasty rumor. The very idea made Martin want to salt the earth and burn the fields.
It was not, he realized, his best quality. It was a vindictiveness and ruthlessness that suggested he might have more in common with his father than a superficial resemblance. With a pang, he remembered the Cumberland tenants he had squeezed and used in order to raise money; that, too, had been for Will.
Mrs. Tanner was staring at him with wide eyes and Martin scrambled for something civil to say. “I apologize. I’m a bear when I wake up. Please tell Daisy she can have the morning to herself, thank you.” Without replying, the woman backed out of the door.
“Back to sleep,” Will mumbled, tugging Martin back to the mattress. Martin, idiot that he was, let himself be dragged down and tucked against Will’s warm body, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it.
Chapter Eight
Martin was simultaneously pleased and dismayed to discover that building a pig enclosure was the sort of work that required Will to take off his coat and roll up his sleeves. He had a lamentable weakness for Will’s forearms, quite possibly a weakness for any part of Will’s body that he chose to uncover.
“Can’t put that rail up so high,” Daisy said. She too had her sleeves rolled up, which explained why the two sons from a neighboring farm had come to help build the pen, and why Martin could therefore lounge on an overturned barrel rather than actually participate in any of the manual labor. “The piglets are still too little, and they’ll scramble out underneath it.”
Much discussion ensued, and Will proceeded to notch the wooden rail precisely where Daisy had indicated. Daisy was a font of wisdom when it came to rural living. Martin hadn’t the faintest idea what she and her mother were talking about half the time, but it was clear that they managed to make do with a couple of animals and a talent for poaching. Daisy never mentioned any father, and Martin was now fully convinced that the late Mr. Tanner was an entirely fictive entity, designed to give Mrs. Tanner a scrap of respectability.
Will approached, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Martin got to his feet and handed him the flask of ale. Through the damp and threadbare fabric of Will’s shirt, Martin could see the faint shadow of the birds that were inked on his arm. He let himself look for a moment before dragging his gaze away.
“I understand the general principle of penning pigs,” Martin said. “But how does it apply to animals who can fly?”
“With chickens and ducks, there’s a lot of optimism involved on all sides,” Will said. “And also shoving them all into a henhouse at night. Did you know, they build hog pens differently here than they do in the north?”
Martin knew nothing of the sort and could think of few topics less fascinating, but listening to Will go on was a treat in itself. “Tell me more about your pigsties, William.”
Will elbowed him. “The pig enclosure at the Grange was made of stone. There was even a little house at one end, where the pigs could get out of the sun.”
“I don’t remember you having pigs.”
“I believe one of my father’s guests let them out after reading too much Rousseau. But we
did have pigs when I was very young, when my mother and Ben and Hartley’s mother were around to make sure they got fed. To make sure all of us got fed, really.”
Sometimes when Martin thought about conditions at the Grange during Will’s childhood, he had to stop what he was doing and just seethe in anger for a little while. He pushed that thought aside for now. “So pigs in Cumberland live in stone-walled splendor. How will our Sussex pigs live?”
“In relative freedom. Rousseau might even approve. Except for the part where we’ll eat them. In any event, they’ll have three times the space as the Grange pigs, and Daisy and I—or Daisy and her beaux—will build a sort of portico at one end so they don’t get sunburned.”
“They’re not the only ones in danger of getting sunburned,” Martin said, and brushed his knuckles across Will’s cheekbone. It was barely April, but Will had been living almost entirely out of doors these past few weeks, and his freckles were proliferating. Now, under Martin’s touch, Will flushed, but he didn’t move away. In fact, he looked like he wanted to move closer. Maybe sharing a bed had gotten them used to being near one another. During the fortnight since that evening at the Blue Boar, Martin noticed that Will’s chair had inched closer to his own, and that Will had started doing things like adjusting Martin’s lapels and clapping a hand on his shoulder in greeting. They had been waking up with arms or legs touching, and sometimes even had conversations like that without bothering to put some distance between their bodies. At first, whenever he and Will touched, the heady rush from that contact overthrew all Martin’s other thoughts. Now, though, it felt almost normal. It felt safe.
Sometimes, they stood so close that Martin thought he could lean forward and brush their lips together. It might be easy. It might not be a disaster. A kiss, and whatever a kiss might lead to, might be just another kind of touch.
“Oi! Will Sedgwick!” called a voice from the lane.
Martin dropped his hand and Will spun toward the new arrival.
“Is that—good God, Jonathan, what brings you here?”
“I’m on my way to Brighton,” the stranger said. He was some years older than Will and Martin, and handsome in a bookish sort of way. Martin disliked him immediately.
“Daisy,” Will called. “You can be done for the day. Martin, this is Jonathan York.”
Before Martin could extend his hand, Will’s friend grabbed it.
“Is this the Martin I’ve heard so much about? Let me see if I can remember. Sir Martin Easterbrook? Lord’s sake, Will,” York said, lowering his voice, “how did you rope a baronet into shacking up with you in a cottage? Not even much of a cottage either, by the looks of it.”
“It’s perfectly comfortable,” Martin said stiffly.
“Oh, is it?” York said, somehow making the words sound like an insinuation. “Will talked about you constantly,” he went on. “Drove himself half mad. Were you missing? In hiding? In prison?”
“Let him get a word in edgewise,” Will said, but not unkindly. Martin rather wished it had been unkindly. He didn’t like this York person, with his cheerful waistcoat and broad smile. He didn’t like that Will had evidently talked about him to this man. He could only imagine what ghastly things Will might have said about him. “Tried to starve his tenants, absolute git, probably evil.” Even as he formed the thought, he knew Will would never breathe an ill word of him, but the presence of this Jonathan York made him unaccountably grumpy.
Now that Daisy and the others had cleared out, York leaned in and embraced Will, kissing both his cheeks and then holding him at arm’s length as if to inspect him. “You look well, I suppose, but when can we expect you back in London? I’m afraid everything’s dreadfully dull without you, and now with the news about your play, dare we hope that you’ll return for opening night?”
Martin couldn’t stand another minute of it. “I’ll leave you be,” he said to Will, then nodded coolly at York. He snatched his hat off the fence post where he had hung it, and made his way down the lane in a way he hoped didn’t look too much like storming off.
He was jealous; that was no surprise. He had been jealous of all Will’s friends since the earliest days of their acquaintance. When Will was at school, Martin silently seethed with jealousy of his schoolmates. He envied children from the village who played at bat and ball with Will when Martin was too sick to join them. Hell, he had even been jealous of Will’s own brothers. During Will’s years in the navy, Martin had found a way to envy his shipmates. He knew jealousy was pitiful, maybe even ugly, and he tried to keep it well hidden from Will. He certainly never acted on it. The jealousy was just always there, along with all of Martin’s other less savory qualities. Logically, he knew that he couldn’t keep Will to himself. He also knew that Will having other friends didn’t make him like Martin less. But Martin was long accustomed to reason deserting him where Will was concerned.
His jealousy of this Jonathan York wasn’t entirely unreasonable, though. The fellow seemed exactly like the sort of man with whom Will could have lasting companionship: affectionate and pleasant, clever and probably educated. His clothes looked respectable and clean, which likely meant he had a steady income. Martin could picture it, and he knew it was the sort of future he ought to wish for Will.
He got to a fork in the lane where Friars’ Gate lay in one direction and the village in the other. With a sigh, he turned toward Friars’ Gate—nothing like a cheerful reminder of one’s failures to properly ruin a day. Thus far, he hadn’t allowed his walks to take him further than the park that surrounded the house, but today he pushed open the creaky garden gate, made his way past overgrown hedges and the desiccated remains of the prior year’s foliage. When he peered through the windows of the ground floor, he could see that the remaining furniture and fixtures were draped in holland covers. The floors were bare, the walls denuded of most art. Not having seen the house in years, and because no house looked the same through windows as it did from inside, he felt like he was peering into a stranger’s home. He was surprised to find that he didn’t hate the sight of the place. He didn’t want to go indoors or linger a moment longer than necessary, but neither did he want to run screaming as if from the harbinger of an ancestral curse.
He could take a reasonable middle ground and figure out how to let the place. But he wasn’t certain how that would work. He couldn’t simply tack a notice to the front door or post an advertisement in the Times. Presumably, at some point there would need to be solicitors and leases involved. He could start by writing his solicitor in Cumberland, he supposed. It would be even simpler if he could swallow his pride and ask his aunt, but he knew that if he confided in her, he’d find himself living at Friars’ Gate himself within a fortnight, very possibly married off to a coal heiress. His mother’s younger sister and his only living relation, Lady Bermondsey was the sort of woman who couldn’t see a problem without exerting herself to fix it. And Martin hated that the only solution anybody could come up with was restoring him to his place in the world—a place that was better consigned to the dust heap as far as he cared. Letting Friars’ Gate would allow him to delay that inevitability, even though something within him recoiled at the necessity of being Sir Martin, even for the duration of a letter.
Before his courage deserted him, he went to the inn, got a sheet of paper from the landlord, and dashed off a letter to his solicitor.
Jonathan stayed for two hours, most of which he spent in a near unbroken monologue about theater, politics, and mutual acquaintances. Will was glad to see him, but he was also glad when the man left. The world Jonathan talked about felt as remote as a desert island, as unreal as a fairy story.
“Are you quite alone?” Martin asked stiffly, inching open the door to the cottage.
“Yes, and you could have stayed, you know.”
“I didn’t wish to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t have.” Will got to his feet and crossed to the door. “It would have been a pleasure for me to have two friends together in the same p
lace.”
“Were you lovers?”
Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes.” Martin was silent for a long minute. “Does that bother you?”
“No, of course not,” Martin said, plainly bothered. Martin already knew that Will sometimes went to bed with men, and implied that his own inclinations were not dissimilar, so Will doubted that was the problem. He supposed Martin might still find something wrong and shameful about it, but Will couldn’t detect a trace of judgment or disgust on Martin’s face. Which left—
Was Martin . . . jealous? Will had never caught Martin looking. When they woke in the morning, limbs tangled and sleep muddled, warm and snug under the quilt, Martin never let his hands stray. A few times Will wished he would, even thought about doing it himself, because it would be nice to have someone else’s hands on him. The only thing that stopped him was the suspicion that for Martin there was no such thing as a friendly grope, no such thing as a cheerful shag between friends. Anything more than that seemed like it existed on the other side of a locked door, and if Will had ever had a key, he feared that it had gone missing at some point during the ordeals of the past few years.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Will suggested.
“I just got in from a walk,” Martin responded, peeved.
“Let’s go outside and sit on a rock and you can be cross with me in daylight, then.”
Martin snorted, but followed Will out the door. Will gestured at the rock he had meant to sit on, but Martin waved a dismissive hand, and they kept walking into the woods.
The landscape of this part of Sussex consisted of both enclosed pasture and unenclosed heath and woodland, forming a peculiar patchwork more evident now in the spring than it had been when they arrived in winter. Raised in the country and possessing an adequate knowledge of what kind of living could be scraped from the land, Will doubted that the actual property belonging to Friars’ Gate would support so much as a small farmstead, nor was it meant to. Will suspected that the previous occupant of the gamekeeper’s cottage merely cleared the underbrush to make it easier for the gentlemen guests of Friars’ Gate to shoot pheasants. As far as Will could tell, everyone in the village viewed the land and streams around Friars’ Gate as fair game for poaching and fishing, just as much as if it had been unenclosed. And Will thought that was probably good for Martin—he saw the rabbit snares and heard the birdshot; this was a chance for him to be a good landowner, to see that he didn’t need to be like his father.
Two Rogues Make a Right Page 8
