“Sweetheart.” Martin put his hands over Will’s and leaned back against his chest. He was ready to lie—it would have been the easiest thing in the world to say that he had the first signs of illness before Will even returned from sea. But this morning, this closeness, felt too sacred to defile with lies or evasions. “I think it was the city, not the opium dens,” he said. “And even if it were, neither of us knew so at the time. The first time I got sick was mild and I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
“Because you were too busy worrying about me, probably.”
“Could be. In case it isn’t obvious, I’d do it again.”
“You make terrible choices where I’m concerned. Hauling yourself across London after my incident at the park. Refusing to take the paregoric the doctor prescribed. Harrowing your tenants. What’s next, Martin?”
Martin remained still, hoping Will would change the topic. He could feel Will’s body go rigid when he realized. “Tell me you aren’t planning to marry because you want the money to look after me. Tell me that much.” When Martin said nothing, Will sucked in a breath. “Martin, how could you?”
“I’d do anything to make sure you were safe,” Martin said. He couldn’t tell Will that he no longer meant to marry, because that would mean confessing the full precariousness of his future, and that needed to wait until after Will’s play. There were tears in his eyes, and he hoped Will couldn’t tell in the dark. He didn’t know if it was the early hour or the lack of air to his brain or just the fact that Will had rested his chin on Martin’s shoulder, but he wanted to fill the quiet with things better left unsaid. “I’ve loved you since you came home on leave the summer I was seventeen.”
Will stayed motionless, then pressed a kiss to Martin’s neck. “I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t meant to. Obviously, Will,” he said, striving for archness and failing miserably.
“And when did you realize that I loved you?”
Martin raised his eyebrows, not having expected that question, but knowing the answer anyway. “When you woke up early and made tea for me that morning after we first went to bed together. You looked troublingly fond and I thought to myself, well this is going to be a proper disaster.”
He turned his head to kiss Will, soft and slow, with one hand cupping his jaw, trying to convince himself that his opinion had changed since that day. But he couldn’t lie to himself. Will deserved a full life, a real life, more than what he’d have in an isolated cottage in the country. He turned and pressed an absent kiss to the birds that were inked on Will’s shoulder, a reminder that he couldn’t keep Will to himself.
Chapter Twenty
“At least let me send for the physician,” Aunt Bermondsey whispered as Martin stifled another cough.
“We’ll talk during the interval,” he answered, and then returned his attention to the stage. He had read the play and seen the dress rehearsal, but still he was riveted by the spectacle of the cast arrayed on stage, the chandelier lit with hundreds of candles, the audience equally glittering in their opening night finery.
“This is going well, yes?” he whispered during a scene break.
“Yes, darling,” his aunt answered, patting his knee as she had done the previous fifteen times he asked. “Your friend ought to be proud.”
It was odd to be sitting high up in the theater and to know that Will was behind the curtain. He wondered if Will could spot him among the hundreds of almost identically dressed men in the theater’s upper levels. Regardless, they were meeting backstage after the play; Will had shown Martin where to go and whom to speak to and told him what to say.
When the curtain dropped for the interval, Martin rose to his feet to greet the theatergoers who stopped by his aunt’s box. But after a few minutes upright, he began to feel unsteady. He gripped the back of a chair. “I beg your pardon,” he told a matron whose name he had already forgotten. “I’m afraid—my health—a minor complaint.” He sat, despite it being gauche for a man to sit while a lady remained standing, because he thought he might faint if he spent another moment on his feet.
When the box cleared and the audience hushed in anticipation of the play resuming, his aunt leaned over. “If I send for the apothecary, he can be waiting at Bermondsey House when we return.”
Martin shook his head. “I already have willow bark and camphor. There isn’t anything else to do except rest and wait and—” he took a deep breath, or as deep a breath as his lungs would presently allow “—get out of London.”
“When will you leave? I could take you myself—”
“No,” Martin said, appalled by the idea of his aunt attempting to play nursemaid. “With all due respect, Aunt, I would rather handle this on my own.” He wanted to prove to himself that he could. “I’ll send you word as soon as I’m home.”
“At least take my carriage. It’ll be far more comfortable than the stagecoach.”
“All right,” he conceded. He still couldn’t quite believe that his aunt wasn’t trying to prevent him from leaving, and he wasn’t sure he’d be convinced until he had left London far behind him.
The play resumed, and Martin spent the next hour so entranced that he hardly noticed his mounting discomfort. But as soon as the curtain fell, he became intensely aware of the pounding in his head, the quickness of his pulse. He told himself that this was no worse than that cold he had a few months earlier, and which had disappeared after a few days. His lungs were bad; it stood to reason that minor afflictions would affect him more seriously than they might affect another man, but it didn’t mean there was any real danger.
“How bad do I look?” he asked his aunt when the curtain fell for the last time and the audience finished applauding.
“Not well, my dear,” she said, frowning. “I badly want to put you to bed with a mustard poultice and I’ve never had such an urge in my life. If you’re asking whether you’ll alarm your friend by appearing in such a state backstage, I’m afraid you might.”
“I’m afraid I’ll also alarm him by not showing up at all.” But that was clearly the lesser evil; he wasn’t going to appear backstage and distract Will from what ought to be his moment of triumph. If Aunt Bermondsey was moved to tuck Martin into bed, Will would probably act on the impulse, and Martin would be cheating him out of his celebration. God knew Will had been cheated out of enough. Martin could at least make sure he had this.
“I’ll write him as soon as we get home,” Martin said.
“Quite right,” his aunt responded, shepherding Martin down the front of the stairs and toward the line of waiting carriages. He was dimly aware that his aunt was using promises of coin and threats of dire consequence in order to circumvent the line of waiting theatergoers, but Martin was too tired to object.
“But I saw him,” Will said for perhaps the tenth time.
“And so did I,” Hartley responded. “He was here, in a box with a lady who wore a turban. Perhaps the crush was too great for him to get backstage, or perhaps his aunt had other plans for him. There are a hundred possible explanations for why he isn’t here, and you can sort it out with him tomorrow.”
Will knew his brother was being perfectly reasonable, but he had a lingering presentiment that something was wrong.
“Drink,” said Hartley, handing him a glass of wine. “And then drink more. We earned it. The play went well.”
“Better than well,” Will said, grinning.
“I thought I was going to faint from nerves. Or have an apoplexy.”
“I noticed,” Will said, elbowing his brother.
“Now, come and let people congratulate us.”
He and Hartley didn’t stumble out into the street until well past midnight, neither of them remotely sober. “We’re going to get murdered,” Will said.
“Pfft. It’s twenty minutes if we hurry.”
“Do you think either of us are capable of hurrying? Because you look hardly capable of standing upright.”
“Come,” Hartley said, looping his
arm through Will’s, “we’ll take Portugal Street.”
“No, can’t go that way,” Will said, shaking his head.
“Why not? It’s the fastest. Don’t tell me you really are afraid of being murdered. A few months of country living have made you soft, Will Sedgwick.”
“Can’t go past St. Clements. Avoiding temptation.”
“Avoiding—oh.” Will felt Hartley go stiff beside him. “I’m sorry, it didn’t even occur to me. Here, we’ll take the Strand instead.”
“S’alright,” Will said. “Been a long time, and it wasn’t you dragging me out of those places anyway, was it? Can’t have expected you to memorize the map.”
“I suppose I never did give Martin enough credit for that, did I?”
“You never give Martin credit for anything,” Will grumbled under his breath. “You know, that’s how he got sick.”
Hartley fell silent for a few moments. “Even if Martin did ruin his health by following you into filthy places, I daresay he’d do it again.”
Will grumbled incoherently.
“You’d do it for him, wouldn’t you? I’d do it for Sam, and he for me. When the person you love needs you, you don’t refine overmuch on self-preservation.”
Will tried to believe this—no, he did believe it. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible. “It was my fault for being in those places.”
“Oh, bugger that. I’d really like to know what a man’s supposed to do when His Majesty’s Navy does its damnedest to ruin his mind. If the opium helped you escape your thoughts, then so be it. What other options did you have? Gin? Ben would have suggested prayer, but even he used to say that every night you landed in an opium den was at least a night you hadn’t walked into the Thames.”
“I could have tried harder.”
“You tried pretty damned hard and you’re still trying, you absolute arsehole.”
“You swear a lot when you’re drunk.”
“I swear a lot about this particular topic, thank you.”
They managed to make it back to the Fox and into their respective beds, and all too soon Will woke to the sound of someone knocking on his door. Outside his window was what passed for daylight in London, so he supposed he had to answer.
When Will opened the door, Sam let out a low whistle. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you look even worse than Hartley.” He handed Will a folded sheet of ivory paper. “A messenger brought this for you,” Sam said. “I’d have let you sleep, but figured the letter was from—” He cleared his throat.
“It is,” Will said, recognizing the handwriting at once. “Thank you.”
Back in his room, he broke the seal.
Dearest Will, your play was every bit as lovely and brilliant as I knew it would be, and I hope you’re as proud of yourself as I am of you. I regret not being able to join in your celebrations, but I’m afraid I’m under the weather. Or—why beat around the bush—it’s rather worse than that, and there’s nothing for it but to go home. It seems that London does not agree with me. It manifestly does agree with you—I’ve seldom seen you happier. Watching you with your friends at the theater was almost like seeing how things might have been if the events of a few years ago never happened, and I’m glad you have that.
Will put the letter down and paced across the room. That last line sat badly with him. He didn’t want to believe that Martin looked at him and saw the ghost of someone long gone, as something that had once been whole but now was broken. He wanted Martin to see him the way he was and love him for it, but it really sounded like Martin was telling him to stay in London in order to resemble someone who was long gone. He needed to talk to Martin, to hear from Martin’s own mouth that this was only a misunderstanding. But Martin wasn’t there. He was heading home, and Will had a sinking feeling that home meant Lindley Priory—the last time they had talked about it, Martin told Will that he wished they had never left the place.
My solicitor wrote to inform me that he found a tenant for Friars’ Gate. In my return letter, I asked him to draw up an agreement that would give you a life interest in the two acres surrounding the gamekeeper’s cottage as well as the cottage itself. It seems that this is something I have the right to do despite the entail. I want you to have that; I want you to know that no matter what you have a place to go, that no matter what you’ll always have a choice. Before this spring I’m not certain I knew that I did have choices. You helped me remember. Regardless of anything else, the cottage is yours to use.
I’m about to get teary and I’m afraid that doesn’t do my lungs the least bit of good, so I’ll end this letter now, with the reminder that I remain and will always be,
Yours,
Martin
“What the hell,” Will muttered, staring at the letter. The man couldn’t have let him know his plans ahead of time? Will would have had his bag packed and been ready to leave by the time the play ended last night. He began absently throwing his belongings into his satchel with one hand while rereading the letter.
“Where are you going?” Hartley asked, when Will appeared downstairs with his satchel slung over his shoulder.
“North,” Will grit out. “Look at this.” He held out Martin’s letter.
“Good,” Hartley said a moment later. “This is better than last year. He noticed he wasn’t well and so he took steps to care for himself. This is good, yes?”
“Yes,” Will said, struck by the truth of his brother’s observation. “I suppose it’s very good. But why the hell does he need to go to Cumberland? Not only can he not stand the place, but he knows my work and my friends are here and he’s going to put himself a two days’ stagecoach trip away from that?” Will passed a hand over his jaw. “No. That’s selfish of me. He said he can use the dower house there. I should be glad.”
“Should you?” Hartley looked up from where he was assembling a stack of sandwiches.
“Yes,” Will insisted. “Am I going to have to explain friendship to you again?”
“Perhaps, because I’d be far from glad if Sam moved to Cumberland, even if it were for the best reasons in the world.” He wrapped the sandwiches in a napkin and stuck them in Will’s satchel. “You’re allowed to be greedy and grasping. You’re allowed to be cross with him. That’s sometimes what love is. It’s not all sweetness and light.”
“Sometimes when he looks at me, I worry that all he sees is what happened on the ship. And I’m afraid that he left me because he’s afraid that watching him die will be what finally breaks me. That’s why he avoided me last autumn, and that’s why he’s doing it now.”
“Are you certain that isn’t what you’re afraid of? Because I’ve seen him look at you, and there’s no way he’s thinking of the Fotheringay. He looks at you like you’re a miracle, like something precious and maybe a little fragile—fragile in the way that something priceless is, not like some old doorknob that’s about to fall off. Not broken,” he said firmly. “I think he loves you exactly as you are. You should hear how he talks about you. His face does this thing, where he’s all wide eyes and bafflement.” Hartley seemed to realize what he was saying. “It’s all very disgusting, actually,” he sniffed. “In any event, you should get out of my kitchen and go tell him all these absurd things.”
“Thank you.” Will planted a kiss on the side of his brother’s head, and then laughed when Hartley wiped it away with the back of his hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
Martin had twenty shillings and a few pounds in bank notes. It was more money than he had carried in years and the clink of coins in his pocket made him feel perversely adult. Here he was, three and twenty, and for the first time he felt fully in charge of his own destiny.
He also had four books from his aunt’s library, several sets of clothes that he supposed would do for a rural convalescence, as much camphor and willow bark as his aunt could purchase at eight o’clock in the morning, and a tin of tea. He supposed people had started out on far less.
Foolishly, he had
hoped that he would feel better as soon as he stepped out of the carriage, that the first breath of fresh air would restore him to some semblance of health. Instead he coughed, and there was blood on the handkerchief, and this was—well, it was not ideal, but it was what he was working with, and he was going to keep working with it because the alternative was not worth thinking of.
The Tanners’ cottage was a five minutes’ walk from the inn. He knew he could walk that distance without coming to any harm, but he was being careful, so he gave tuppence to one of the boys who loitered around the inn and told them they’d have another tuppence if they came back with Miss Daisy and her mum. Then he took his hat off, straightened his shoulders, and took a seat at a table near the door. He felt exceptionally visible, especially without the shabbiness of his old clothes to give him cover. Anyone who had believed him to be plain Mr. Smith would have plenty of time to recognize him as an Easterbrook. But in order for his plan to work, he had to be as honest and upfront as possible, so he gritted his teeth and let people look.
When Mrs. Tanner and Daisy entered, he paid the lad who had fetched them and then gave Daisy another tuppence to bring his satchel to the cottage. That, he figured, would give him enough time to have the conversation he needed to have with her mother.
“Is Mr. Sedgwick with you or is he coming later?” Mrs. Tanner asked. She had immediately taken stock of his fine clothes and probably also noticed his pallor.
“It’s only me for now, which is why I wanted to speak to you. My health has taken a turn and I need someone to look after me. I thought Daisy could do it, for whatever wage is customary. It would be light work as long as I don’t get much worse. She’d only need to look in on me a few times a day, do the wash, and bring supper. If I need the physician, she’d be the one to fetch him. But if I get worse, I might need nursing, possibly overnight, and that’s where things get difficult. She’s young and I wouldn’t wish for anything untoward to be said. That’s why I’m speaking to you first, instead of to her directly.”
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