“I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
Will whipped around to see Martin in the doorway. The clock wobbled precariously and Will lifted a steadying hand, but was seized by the notion that he didn’t want to look like he was trying to steal it. Which was patently absurd—of course Martin knew he wasn’t in the business of stealing clocks or anything else. He tried to collect himself.
“I came as soon as I could,” Will said. “I told you I would.”
“You told me a good number of things,” Martin remarked flatly. He was wearing a pair of gray pantaloons that looked like they were sewn onto his body and a dark blue coat that threw the paleness of his skin and hair into relief. Will didn’t think he had ever seen Martin look so beautiful or so refined, but it was a reminder that Martin belonged to the same world as this sitting room, a world of thick carpets and impossibly delicate teacups. Will had known this all along, had known it when they were children and he had needed to tiptoe through the servants’ entrance at Lindley Priory if he wanted to see Martin. He had never not been aware of this fundamental inequality. Never before, though, had he felt like this gap between their stations could actually keep them apart. That gap was filled with gilt clocks and liveried servants and finely tailored clothes. In the country they had lived in a fantasy land where none of this mattered, but in the real world it did; even if it didn’t matter to Martin, it mattered to Will. Will hadn’t thought he had any pride left. He thought it had quite literally been flogged out of him, stripped away alongside his rank. But sitting here he felt like being among all this finery humbled him in some way that he didn’t want any part of.
They still had half the length of the room between them. Will took a tentative step to close the gap, aware that this should not have felt as difficult as it did. “You look good,” he said, aware that he was making an understatement. “All of that—” he gestured to Martin’s attire “—suits you.” It did more than suit him. It looked like a second skin and was just this side of obscene. Then Will remembered that he no longer had any right to look at Martin that way, and dragged his gaze to Martin’s face.
“You didn’t come here to congratulate me on my tailoring,” Martin said. He still leaned against the door frame, as if deciding whether to step into the room.
“I came because I missed you.”
“It’s only been a few days.” Martin’s expression was closed off, his eyes flinty and hard. It was nothing Will hadn’t seen before; this was fairly typical of Martin, in fact. But over the past months Will had started to take for granted Martin’s moments of openness and vulnerability. He had gotten used to being looked upon as something rare and loved and now he felt the lack of it.
“And I’ve seen you every day for months. Christ, Martin, this shouldn’t be so awkward.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted it—admitting to the stiffness between them would only compound their problems.
But Martin huffed out a laugh—not a pleasant laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “I’ve reverted to form. I’m hardly known for my warm and inviting nature.”
“You can be warm and inviting,” Will said. “And you can be prickly and difficult. I like you this way and every way.”
Martin stared at him for a long moment, cool and considering. “You’re making a poor fist of returning to our usual friendship.”
“Bollocks. You’re my friend and I’m allowed to tell you that I like you.” He stepped closer, now within touching distance.
Martin shrugged. Will stuck his hands in his pockets and scuffed his toe against the pile of a carpet that he could only assume was priceless.
“So,” Martin said, “this is the friendly rapport we have to look forward to.”
“No,” Will said, gruffer than he intended. “It’ll just take some time to adjust.”
Martin gave skeptical little hum. “Has it ever occurred to you,” he said, a dangerous note in his voice, “that things could have been different?”
“Different in what way?” Will asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“We were both doing marvelously in the country. If we wished to feed pigs and live in near poverty, we could have spared ourselves this detour into trauma and illness. We could have simply stayed in Cumberland. There are cottages by the dozen and any quantity of livestock.”
It took Will a moment to understand. “You’re talking about what would have happened if I hadn’t joined the navy, if instead I had tried to scratch out some kind of living up north. You’re imagining that we could have stayed there and somehow wound up feeling as we did in Sussex. Feeling as we do,” he amended.
“Precisely,” Martin said tightly.
“No, Martin, I don’t think about that. I don’t let myself. I don’t know who I’d be if I hadn’t—if none of that had happened. And neither do you.” Will clenched his fists. He had thought Martin cared for him the way he was, not as a second-rate version of the person he would have been, and he tried not to be too disappointed to learn the truth. “There’s no what if. This is not something I can while away a morning hypothesizing about. That universe doesn’t even exist in my imagination, all right? It can’t. I won’t let it.”
Martin looked like he had been slapped. He looked like he wanted to go to Will, to take him in his arms, and Will didn’t know why he wouldn’t. Martin might be in a mood that was foul even for him, but he was never anything other than kind about the things that had happened to Will at sea. Will braced himself, waiting for Martin to say something—to either make it worse or to make it better. But they were interrupted by the arrival of a servant carrying a silver tea service, and the tension in the room dissipated. They sat, Will on the edge of a strange backless sofa and Martin in a chair made of wood carved to look fine as gossamer. Will had the distinct sense that if either of them moved wrong, all the furniture in the room would crumble to toothpicks, and he almost wished it would, just to give him an excuse to walk out the door. He watched silently as Martin poured the tea.
“Any luck finding a bride?” Will blurted out. He had been aiming for jocular friendly banter, a remark that would show Martin he supported his plan and didn’t intend to let his own feelings get in the way of their friendship. Instead it came out bitter and hostile.
“I’ve been here three days.” Only the faintest lift of an eyebrow disturbed the impassivity of Martin’s expression.
“I’m trying to be supportive.”
Martin blinked. “Why? It’s a bit of a blow to my pride that you’re so complacent about this, that you’re so ready to walk away from me.”
“I’m not walking away from you,” Will protested. “That’s my point.”
“Ah, yes. Silly me. Nobody walked away from anybody else. This is just a cessation of fucking, followed by a return to how things used to be. It was your idea, even. My idea was to spend the rest of our lives going to bed together. No. Bugger that. My plan was to spend the rest of our lives loving one another.”
That was the first time Martin had said the word love and it just figured he had to do it during a fight. Will was equal parts fond and devastated. “While you’re married to someone else.”
“Correct.” The syllables were crisp and uncompromising. “Did it occur to you,” Martin hissed, “that I don’t want to be passed around from pillar to post like an embarrassing burden, and that I don’t like this any more than you do? Considerably less, in fact. Did it occur to you that I might, just possibly, be humiliated not to able to earn my keep in some way? That I don’t enjoy being entirely helpless? That maybe, just maybe, after being told my whole life that I’m a useless waste of space, I might want to prove that I’m something more?”
Will felt a wash of shame pass over him, because the fact was that he had not considered any of that. All he had thought of was how miserably, hideously jealous he was at the idea of Martin belonging to anyone else. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Then, as Will watched, some of the surliness slid off Martin’s face. “I know I’
m being a bastard. But I’d go back to Sussex with you now, right this minute.” His jaw was set, but he didn’t meet Will’s eyes, instead gazing at the small, perfect teacup he cradled in his hand. “If I thought that was a good idea for either of us. But if this needs to end—which it does, if you can’t accept that at some point I’ll marry—then it’s better to end it sooner rather than later.” He blew out a breath. “This awkwardness will be temporary. God, Will, we’ve been through worse. We need to remember what it’s like to be friends in the usual way.”
“Right.” Will got to his feet. “I know you’re right. I just—” He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to will away the anger and jealousy that threatened to well up within him. “I just can’t do this right now. I’m staying with Hartley. You can ask for me at the Fox on Shoe Lane.” He didn’t suggest coming back to Bermondsey House.
Chapter Sixteen
Will’s visit at Bermondsey House had been about as disastrous as possible, and Martin knew it had been mostly his fault. They were going to need some time—time for Will to move on, and time for Martin to learn to act like he had. That was all. Maybe it would help if they didn’t see one another for a while. After all, there had been years during which they hadn’t seen one another, and they had still been friends.
That gave Martin an idea. He swept into the morning room and found his aunt’s writing desk unoccupied. As soon as he dipped the pen into the inkwell and scribbled the date at the top of the page, he felt like he was on sure ground for the first time in days. There was something about the familiarity of writing to Will that soothed Martin far more than Will’s presence had. Letters had been the medium of their friendship long before their bodies were. The neat stack of letters sitting in Martin’s trunk stood as proof that they could do this, that they could exist as something other than lovers, that the past few weeks hadn’t ruined anything.
“Dear Will,” he wrote, and then the rest of the words flowed out, with none of the awkwardness they had in the Bermondsey House drawing room. It was as easy and natural as talking to Will when they shared a pillow. He wrote about a friend of his aunt who lost an ear bob in the punch bowl the other night. He wrote about visiting his mother’s grave in the parish churchyard. It was one page, front and back, filled with mostly trifling concerns, and containing not even the faintest suggestion of anything that could get either of them into trouble, but when he signed his name he knew he had written a love letter.
And when Will wrote back—a letter filled with slightly less trifling material than Martin’s, but with words underscored and scratched out and ink blotted in a manner befitting a twelve-year-old—that was a love letter too. He had closed with a simple “Yours, W.S.,” but the yours was underscored by the tail of the Y, and the postscript simply read “Soon.”
There was no undoing the fact that they loved one another. Even if they never touched one another again, even if they never saw one another again, even if they never spoke or wrote the words—the truth was still there. At some point, the fundamental material of their friendship had undergone a sea change and it couldn’t be reversed. Martin had already known that he would go through the rest of his days in love with Will, but now he had to face the possibility that Will might do the same. When Martin reread Will’s letter, the stubbornness was there in every pen stroke, in every turn of phrase, and Martin feared Will was going to hold on to this. It was a stupid thing to do, and Will was going to do it anyway, and Martin was an idiot for not having seen it earlier. What was worst of all was that this knowledge made Martin love him even more.
Well, Will was a stubborn fool. That was hardly news. What mattered now was what Martin did about it. Clearly Martin was going to have to do the thinking for both of them.
“You haven’t seen Martin in days,” Hartley said.
Will looked up from under the table where he was tightening screws. “I didn’t realize you were keeping an eye on me.”
Hartley shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “I’m trying not to act completely insane about it, but I’m worried you’re going to get your heart broken and repair to the nearest opium den.”
Will sighed and got to his feet. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Which one? Getting your heart broken or going to an opium den.”
“The opium den.” Every time Will left the Fox, some old and unsettled part of his brain reminded him how close he was to his old haunts, but he wasn’t going to visit one, even though not doing so required more of an effort than he might have preferred.
“Just—tell me if you’re going to, though. That way I’m not imagining you dead.”
Will was ready to protest that he was fine and Hartley’s concerns were unnecessary, but Hartley had every right to be worried, he supposed. The thing about losing one’s mind once was that everybody expected it to happen again. He sighed. “All right. I promise.”
Hartley ran a finger along the glossy wood of the bar top, then took a rag out of his pocket to polish away a probably imaginary blot. It was early, and the Fox was still empty. “I thought for certain Martin would be loitering around here all hours of the night and day.”
“I had hoped he would,” Will admitted, turning his attention to fixing a wobbly chair leg. “We parted under less than ideal terms in Sussex, and even worse the other day.”
“I gathered as much.”
“He means to marry. He says it’s the only way he can be sure to have a roof over his head and food in his belly. His other option, I suppose, would be to rely on me, and while I’d be more than happy to let him, it’s not like I have much to offer.”
“It sounds like you support his decision to marry,” Hartley said. He spoke in the measured tones of a man trying his best to bite his tongue.
“I don’t like it. But I want the best for him. I can’t be with him if he’s married, though.”
“Why not?” Hartley looked up from the tap he was polishing.
“It’s dishonest.”
Hartley tapped his finger. “It’s not ideal. But I’m not certain it’s dishonest either. He wouldn’t be making a love match. It wouldn’t be unusual for both parties to have liaisons. Unless you were tremendously indiscreet, his wife would have no cause to be jealous. You’d be her husband’s friend, not a rival.”
“I doubt you’d be advising me the same if I were a woman.”
“I’m not certain either, but that may be because a husband’s spending time with a woman is more obviously an affair, while a man’s spending time with another man is unremarkable. The lady’s feelings wouldn’t have to be hurt. She’d probably consider herself fortunate to have so faithful a husband.”
Will got to his feet and sat on the edge of the table. “You’ve thought about this.”
“Martin Easterbrook isn’t my favorite person, but I want you to be happy. But, Will, surely you knew going into things with Martin that he’d eventually have to marry.”
Will didn’t know how to explain to his brother that he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I just wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with me, and we’re already—God, Hartley, I don’t need to explain to you how he and I are, because you already know. We’re important to one another.”
Hartley frowned at him. “I know. That’s why I said what I said. There was a time when Sam and I were being stupid about things. Mostly me, if I’m honest. And sometimes I think about how easy it would have been to let things go wrong.” He gave Will a faint smile. “If you and Martin can figure out a way to be happy together, I think you ought to do it. I think that his getting married is a small consideration.”
“How would you feel if Sam got married?”
“Horrible, obviously. But Sam doesn’t have consumption. And he has a trade. He doesn’t need to marry. But if he came to me tomorrow and said he needed to, I know we’d see our way through, because the alternative is too grim to think about.”
“My plan was to go back to how things were with him. We were only lovers for a sh
ort time, but we were friends for so long before that.” He refused to think about how even friendship would be strained with a man who was ensconced in a world of silver tea pots and velvet draperies.
Hartley gave him a look that plainly said he thought Will was full of shit, and went back to polishing the bar.
Chapter Seventeen
When a letter arrived from Will that was unprecedentedly riddled with words that had been crossed out, and perilously close to the sort of declaration that could land one or both of them in the pillory, Martin decided enough was enough. For the first time ever, he threw one of Will’s letters onto the fire instead of placing it with the rest of his collection. His plan to let time and distance restore their friendship to its earlier state had clearly been a failure. He needed to see Will in person.
He couldn’t quite work up the nerve to call on Will at the Fox, partly because he knew Hartley wouldn’t particularly want him there, and partly because he thought they ought to meet somewhere very public. So he wrote Will a short letter requesting that they meet the following day at a particular bench in Hyde Park.
“I’m going to see a friend this afternoon,” he announced to his aunt at the breakfast table.
“You say that as if you expect me to bar the doors,” she said, looking up from her newspaper. “Go call on your friend. Call on ten friends.”
He had rather thought she would insist that he accompany her on her usual round of morning visits. “Nothing of the sort,” he said, feigning confidence.
“In fact,” Aunt Bermondsey said, her attention firmly fixed on her newspaper, “if you think you might not return until tomorrow, dress in a way that passes as morning clothes. Don’t give me that look. I acquired my wealth of information the hard way, and now I’m passing it on to the next generation, which is very auntly of me, I should think.” She winked at him and he felt his face heat.
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