“I’m afraid, ma’am, that my health won’t permit me to hold a regular post, nor to stay in town.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I was under the impression that you were doing better.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever recover,” he said. It was the first time he had said it aloud to anyone but Will. “But some days are better than others.”
She was silent for a moment. “Tell me what I can do for you.”
“I would like to be able to pay my own way,” Martin said. “I don’t want to be a drain on my friend.” No, that wasn’t quite right. “I don’t want to need my friend. I want to be able to pay for whatever care I need the next time I fall ill. I don’t want the people who care for me to worry that I’ll repeat the events of last autumn.” He didn’t say that in an ideal world he’d like to be able to care for Will if he needed it; that seemed both unlikely and private, an impossible thought to hide safely away.
“I would not call these ambitions overly optimistic.”
“It is when you haven’t two farthings to rub together.”
She furrowed her brow. “There has to be something you could do. To hear my friends talk, young men seem to be forever getting posts and taking work that their relations consider beneath them—surely not all of them require a man to live in London.”
“I expect the young men your friends know all have skills that I do not. My education consisted of reading too many novels and little else. I read and write French, and a little German.”
“I’d offer you money—”
“I’d refuse it.”
“I’d offer you money,” she repeated, “but I haven’t any. I have my pin money and Lord Bermondsey pays my bills,” she went on, “but I haven’t any money of my own. However, if you fall on hard times, understand that I wish to help you. At the risk of trading in maudlin sympathy, it’s the very least your mother might have expected of me.”
“My mother died when you were in leading strings and you never laid eyes on me until last year, so you needn’t pretend it was my mother’s dying wish that you look after me.”
“You’ll permit me to decide what and who I care about, thank you,” she said. “And you’ll allow for the possibility that I’ve become fond of you in your own right. My point is that if you fell on hard times, my pin money is not insubstantial. Twenty or thirty pounds would not even make a difference to me. Just assure me that you’ll come to me before you get to a desperate state. Meanwhile, what do you plan to do? For money, I mean, if you don’t mind my asking so crass a question.”
“My solicitor tells me I can likely get fifty pounds a year for Friars’ Gate if I let it on a repairing lease. That way I wouldn’t be responsible for its upkeep. I can live on fifty pounds.”
Lady Bermondsey blanched. Her gown almost certainly cost more than fifty pounds. “Where, darling?”
“Either the dower house at Lindley Priory or the cottage at Friars’ Gate. They both belong to me.” He had no intention of going back to Lindley Priory unless he absolutely had to, but he mentioned it because he thought the dower house would sound more appealing to his aunt than the tiny cottage she had had seen at Friars’ Gate. He was tense with the anticipation of her response. He knew that she couldn’t actually control him, couldn’t shove him in his bedroom and lock the door. But he still expected her to try to persuade him to do as she told him and he was braced to resist her arguments.
“I can’t say that would be what I’d choose myself, but I’ll assume you know your own needs, Martin,” she said. He waited for the rest, but all she did was take a sip of tea.
“Yes,” he said. “And I thank you for that, ma’am.”
It might have been the persistent rain, or it might have been the sunless sky, but Will was becoming nervous. For over half an hour he had huddled under his umbrella, waiting at the stage door for Martin’s arrival. He had long since concluded that Martin had either forgotten the appointed time, been waylaid by his aunt, or met with some horrible fate. The distance between the Fox and Bermondsey House in Mayfair was less than an hour on foot; the distance between the theater and Mayfair was even shorter. But when Martin was at one end of that span and he was at the other, even a couple of miles felt insurmountable, and Will couldn’t know any peace.
In the play, he had written a pair of young lovers who couldn’t bear to be apart. But he had modeled them on Romeo and Juliet, on Tristan and Isolde, thinking more of the concept of mutually pining lovers than on any actual experience of his own. He was vaguely appalled to discover that he was acting that way himself. It would have been even more mortifying if he hadn’t known that Martin was in the same state. And that, the thrill of knowing that Martin had feelings as soft and stupid as his own, only made Will miss him more.
They had parted the previous morning with lingering kisses and murmured promises to meet the following afternoon, Martin’s back against the door to keep it shut, Will’s mouth skimming over the invisible, pale stubble on Martin’s jaw. Will had wanted to haul Martin back upstairs and lock the door and never let Martin out of his sight.
Finally a carriage pulled up in front of the theater. It was not the same traveling chaise in which Lady Bermondsey arrived at the cottage, but rather a lighter and narrower conveyance, but it bore the same coat of arms on the door. Martin alighted, spotted Will, and made his way across the cobblestones to duck under Will’s umbrella.
“A sinkhole opened on Oxford Street,” Martin said. “Or, if not a sinkhole, something vast and muddy and very alarming to horses. It took ages to wend our way through the side streets.”
They were standing close, close enough that Will could smell Martin’s soap. It might have been the dreariness of the weather, but Martin looked paler than he had the previous day, washed out, a bit drawn. “You look tired,” Will said.
“Well, you’ll have to take me to bed as soon as we finish here,” Martin said, arching an eyebrow. “Unless you have other plans.” He spoke the words dispassionately, casually, and there was something about the coolness of the delivery that made Will want him even more. This act of putting a public face on their friendship somehow made the private reality that much more precious.
“Come in,” Will said. “They started the dress rehearsal, but you’re in time for the second act.” He folded his umbrella and shook it out, then held the door open for Martin.
As soon as they walked through the door, Will could hear actors repeating the lines he had long since committed to memory. He didn’t think he would ever tire of it. There was a chance the play would only last a few nights, that everyone would hate it, that nobody would ever again stage any other play he wrote, but for now he was pleased and proud. That pride was an unexpected sensation, fluttering inside some dusty and forgotten part of his chest.
“Oh,” Martin said, a little sound that was hardly more than an exhalation. They had just reached the corner of backstage where they could see the backs of the actors and an expanse of empty seats beyond.
“The woman in the red gown is supposed to be Cecile, the widow,” Will whispered. “The man in black is the wicked uncle, and he’s—”
“I know who they are,” Martin whispered back. “I recognize the lines. I just didn’t realize how big this theater is.”
“It seats three thousand,” Will said, a wave of nausea passing through him as it always did when he contemplated three thousand people watching his play. Hartley had been in agonies for weeks, but Will hadn’t quite caught up until opening night was excruciatingly near at hand.
“I’ve never been to the theater,” Martin said.
“What?” Will asked, loudly enough that one of the stagehands shot him a dirty look. Then, softer, “Your father did take you to London a few times. I remember it.”
“I was always too ill to accompany him to the theater. Or, at least he told me I was. I’m not certain.”
Sometimes Martin would allude so casually to his father’s mistreatment of him that Will would momentarily won
der whether Martin knew the gravity of what he was saying. But now he glanced over at his friend and saw the set of his jaw, the tightness around his eyes. He squeezed Martin’s arm.
“I know,” Martin said, not turning his head. “You’d feed him to wolves.” One corner of his mouth quirked up in the beginnings of a smile.
“Wolves are too good for him.”
When the manager called for a rest, one of the actresses noticed Will standing there, and the next quarter hour was spent in a flurry of introductions and explanations. Martin was fascinated by the Argand lamps and the hanging transparencies, awed by the enormous chandelier that hung over the stage, but flustered and embarrassed while meeting the members of the cast and crew who came up to Will. Martin was always a bit aloof with strangers, though. In fact, he was aloof with almost everyone. It was easy for Will to forget, because Martin wasn’t like that with him. And it was even easier to forget when Martin was dressed fashionably; the price of his clothes somehow transformed his stiltedness into something that passed for snobbery.
“Just say that you’re very much looking forward to seeing the play opening night,” Will whispered. “And say you’re honored to visit backstage and everything is so interesting.”
Martin flushed. “Is it so obvious that I’m terrible at this?”
“It would be a miracle if you were otherwise, Martin. Do you want to leave?”
“No. I do find all of this very interesting.”
“I’m glad. Oh, here’s Madame Bisset. She plays the dowager countess.”
“William,” said an older woman in full stage makeup and a heavy French accent, kissing Will on both cheeks. She proceeded to speak animatedly to Will, too quickly for Martin to understand. Occasionally she cast a curious glance in Martin’s direction, before eventually turning to him and speaking in rapid French.
“She’s saying that she very much enjoyed your translation of the play and sent it to her son, who manages a theater in Paris. If he wishes to stage it, she’ll take twenty—” he broke off, switching to French to hold a conversation with the lady “—she’ll take ten percent as a fee.”
“I only did it to occupy myself,” Martin said when they found seats in the pit to watch the next act.
“If you fancy translating things,” Will said, trying to keep his voice casual, “you’d do even better to translate French novels into English. Remember Jonathan York who visited us in Sussex? His father is a publisher, and the lady who used to do translations for him left for Canada. He’d probably pay a few pounds a book.” Will had been thinking along those lines since he saw Martin’s careful translation of the play. Nobody grew rich as a translator. It probably wouldn’t even pay enough to keep Martin fed. But it would be something. “May I mention your name to Jonathan as a possible solution to his problems?”
“Yes,” Martin breathed, and when Will looked at him sidelong he saw that his friend was almost pink with pleasure.
They found seats in the pit for the remainder of the rehearsal. It turned out that watching the play be performed on stage was more than Will’s nerves could take, so instead he watched Martin out of the corner of his eye. Martin was rapt, staring at the stage like a child at the circus.
“That’s not how I imagined Esmerelda at all,” he whispered. “And I see that they cut most of that scene with the priest. But somehow it’s all perfect.”
“Do you think so?” Will asked.
Martin must have heard the anxiety in Will’s voice because he turned his head. “I’m hardly a capable theater critic, but I think it’s lovely. When I read it last, I could tell the lines that were yours from those that were Hartley’s but now it’s all blended together. Are any of your other brothers coming to see the play?”
“Not this time,” he said, and as soon as he said the words his stomach roiled, as if he had cursed himself by anticipating a next time. Perhaps guessing this, Martin squeezed his thigh. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve been putting off watching a rehearsal since I came to town.”
Martin was silent for a long moment, and Will thought he had become absorbed in what was happening on stage. “I hope you know how gratified I am to be useful to you.”
If it hadn’t been for the hand on his thigh or the choked quality to Martin’s voice, Will might have thought that a chilly sort of sentiment. Instead he knew it for what it was, and briefly laced his fingers with Martin’s.
By the time they passed through the back door of the Fox, Will was all but steering Martin directly toward the stairs. At any other time Martin might have been embarrassed by what amounted to a mad dash from street to bedroom but Will had spent the entire interminable duration of the hackney ride stroking circles on the inside of Martin’s thigh. And even before that, in the shadows of the narrow alley behind the theater, sheltered by fog and Will’s hand cradled against Martin’s face, Will had kissed Martin against the cold stone wall. That moment, the warmth of Will’s body, the chill of the wall, the mad thrill of being kissed in near public, of being kissed at all, of loving and being loved—Martin thought he had never been so alive.
There was still some light coming through the window of Will’s sitting room, enough to see the flicker of amusement in his eyes when Martin locked the door himself and all but pushed Will into the bedroom.
“In a hurry?” Will asked, falling backward onto the bed.
“You,” Martin said menacingly, untying his cravat and flinging it onto the chair. “You know what you did.”
“Oh?” Will asked, looking up at him with innocent eyes.
“I truly do not think I could ever have an orgasm in a hackney cab or any other kind of conveyance, but by God I was tempted to try.”
Laughing, Will threw his coat and waistcoat onto the floor, then knelt up to help Martin out of his own clothes. Narrowly tailored clothes were not meant for speedy or single-handed undressing, Martin was learning.
“And you,” Will said, “with those pantaloons. You could be arrested.”
They landed on the bed, their lips finally meeting in a kiss that had Martin digging his fingernails into Will’s hips. “At some point,” Will said, “I need you in bed for a solid week. Maybe then we can wear one another out and I can hope to spend time with you without wanting to tear your clothes off.”
Martin nearly responded that they could do precisely that if they returned to the country. He knew he needed to leave London. He had gotten sick during his past three stays in town and couldn’t ignore the pattern anymore. He’d stay for Will’s play, but then he needed to go as soon as possible. The news that he planned not to marry, but instead to live off the pittance he could get from leasing Friars’ Gate, would also keep until after opening night. If he told Will now, Will would worry instead of enjoying the opening night of his play. Besides, he shouldn’t even dream of asking Will to leave London, even briefly. He shouldn’t even suggest it. He recalled everything that Will would be giving up. In the country he’d only have Martin. And while Will might think now that it was a fair trade, he’d eventually grow tired of having no company but Martin. Martin knew what it was like to be isolated, and he wouldn’t wish it on Will.
“Come here,” he said, tugging Will up from where he was kissing a path across Martin’s collarbone, and gave him a proper kiss. It didn’t have to mean a parting. Will could visit him in the country. That would be better than nothing. It would be enough, more than enough. Martin had never asked for anything like enough, had never expected it.
“Where did you go?” Will asked. “A minute ago you were kissing me, and now you’re away with the fairies.”
“I was just thinking that I’m grateful for every moment we have together. And also that you should stop making me say these embarrassing things.”
That seemed to satisfy Will, who laughed and pulled Martin down to the bed, then rolled them over so Martin was pressed into the mattress by the satisfying weight of Will on top of him. Martin sighed in contentment. It was just kissing, languid, lazy, late aftern
oon kissing as if they had all the time in the world, until Will whispered, “Do you want to try?” and Martin whispered back, “Yes,” and then Will was showing Martin how to touch him, their breaths coming faster, their hands slippery and searching. Martin wasn’t sure anything in his life had ever been easy or uncomplicated but this came close, Will rising over him and sinking down, letting him in, whispering praise that devolved into nothing more than Martin’s name, repeated and repeated.
“So,” Martin said, as they lay together afterward, “that’s buggery, is it?” and Will had laughed himself silly while Martin stroked his hair and smiled, unaccountably pleased with himself. They fell asleep to the sound of fiddle music coming from downstairs and the steady rhythm of one another’s hearts.
So when Martin woke with a tightness in his chest and the beginnings of a wheeze, his fingertips cold and pale and a trace of blood on his handkerchief, he wasn’t surprised. He had been expecting it for a while now, and he supposed he ought to be grateful he had gotten a few more days. For the first time since he had fallen ill, he felt the unfairness of it, as if he were being shoved into a sickroom and kept away from everything that was good in the world.
He slipped into the sitting room, shutting the bedroom door silently behind him, so he wouldn’t wake Will with any further coughing. But a moment later Will came out and wrapped his arms around Martin’s waist.
“Bad?”
“Not good,” Martin answered.
“Too much smoke and damp?” Will asked after a moment.
“As always.”
“I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to figure it out,” Will said.
“Figure what out?”
“That you first got sick when you were looking after me. The other day you said that smoke and damp don’t agree with your lungs, and that describes pretty much every opium den you fetched me from.”
Two Rogues Make a Right Page 19
