Page 72 of King's Man

When he could sit up again, Moses pressed a cup of good whiskey into his hand and one of his girls set a chunk of greasy pie on the table before him. Sam ignored the pie and stared into his glass, breathing in the heady aroma, and watching the liquid gleam amber in the lamplight.

It reminded him of home, of Nate and all that they’d shared in those golden days before the war. And for the first time since he’d left Rosemont, those memories brought him comfort.

Lifting the glass to his lips, he took a long, deliberate swallow, relishing the flavor of home as he scanned the crowd and found Nate hovering near the door, talking to Cole. He had the look of a bird sensing the approach of a cat, about to take flight.

Sam couldn’t blame him. Nate had saved him; he’d risked everything to save him from injustice. That was all Sam had ever wanted and more than he had any right to ask. But now Nate would go home to the new country he was building, he would go home and save it from men like MacLeod and Farris who wanted to shape it in their vile image.

And with startling clarity, Sam knew that he wanted it too. Not just for Nate but for himself. He wanted to help build an America where men like Amos Holden and John MacLeod could hold no sway. A land of law and justice.

Which left one question: was there a way to go home?

Chapter Twenty-Six

On the orders of Hal Foxe, Nate and Sam were escorted back to the Brewery. It was for their own safety, Foxe said, lest Bow Street come looking. But Nate suspected that, had he preferred to go elsewhere, his escort would have become less friendly.

As it was, he had no objection. It suited him to keep his head down. Farris would be livid, MacLeod apoplectic. But neither of them scared him half so much as Talmach. Nate would have to face the colonel at some point, but he’d rather wait until the heat of the moment had passed. If he were lucky, none of this would affect Farris’s prosecution and, so long as that was intact, he suspected Talmach would forgive him in the end. If not…? Then so be it. He glanced at Sam, trudging wearily beside him, and received an uncertain smile in return. God only knew how things stood between them, but Nate didn’t regret saving Sam any more than he regretted drawing breath. Both were necessary for life.

The Brewery was a place of mystery, Nate soon realized. The snug library he’d seen on his first visit was just the start of it. While he and Sam were shown to two comfortable rooms not far from the library, Nate caught a glimpse through a half-open door of a much larger and private establishment beyond — and none of it at all like the building’s decrepit exterior. Curious, indeed.

But, for now, Nate was too tired to do more than smile his thanks to the young girl who showed him to his room. “You can rest here, sir,” she said. “There’s water to wash and you’re to go to the library when you’re hungry and someone will bring food.”

The room itself had a good size bed, a washstand, and an ewer of water. When he put his hand to the jug, it was warm. Wonderful. Outside, a hazy white sky spread above the tattered rooftops and chimney pots of St. Giles, a bowl of dried lavender on the windowsill perfuming the room and masking the pervasive rookery stench.

Nate eyed the bed, tempted to just lie down and close his eyes. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized the depths of his exhaustion. Now that Sam was safe, the tension that had kept him on his feet was rapidly unraveling. He found it an effort even to strip off his shirt and wash, but the water felt good on his sweaty skin and he sighed as he sluiced a jug-full through his hair, scrubbing it dry with the towel set next to the basin.

The room was warm, a stripe of hazy sunlight crossing the bed, and Nate could resist no longer. He slung his shirt back on and flopped down onto the mattress. He had a few moments to consider Sam, alive and safe, before the softness of the bed, the sun-warmed sheets, and his utter exhaustion dragged him down into a leaden sleep.

He woke sometime later with a start, disoriented. Propped up on his elbow, heart pounding, it took a moment to remember where he was and to understand what had woken him. Someone was knocking on the door. The girl from before, most likely, with food. Nate blinked, rubbed a hand over his face. “Come in,” he rasped, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The light had changed, taking on the golden hue of evening, slanting into the room from an entirely different angle. He must have slept for hours.

The door cracked open, but it wasn’t the serving girl whose head poked around it.

“Did I wake you?” Sam was carrying two gently steaming cups.

“You did,” Nate said, “but that’s alright. What time is it?”

“Past seven.” Like Nate, Sam had washed — and shaved, too. He was dressed in clean clothes, the dark green of his coat complementing the gray of his eyes. “I brought you some tea.”

“Tea?” Despite his patriotic duty to prefer coffee, Nate had never shaken his love of tea. “I haven’t had a decent cup in years.” He took the mug and breathed in the steam with pleasure. “Thank you.”

Smiling slightly, Sam walked to the window and stared out, sipping his own tea. Nate didn’t know how to fill the silence — everything between them was so tangled. He wished he could just walk up behind Sam, slip his arms around his waist, and tell him he was loved and that nothing else mattered. But the world had never been that easy for them.

“You’ll be sailing for Boston this week,” Sam said at last, turning to face him.

Nate tried for a smile. “Probably in the brig the whole way.”

“Because of today?”

“Small price to pay. I’d rather that than see you come to harm.” It was the bare and painful truth. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but —”

“I do.” Sam watched him, evening sunlight gilding his skin. “I do, Nate. I — Hell.” He set his tea on the windowsill and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “I wish I’d talked to you when I found that letter.”

Nate sighed as he bent to set his own cup on the floor. “There are a thousand thingsIwish I’d done different, Sam. I wish I’d never told you we couldn’t be friends back in Rosemont. I wish I’d spoken out against Holden from the start. I wish I’d stood with you that night —”

“I wish I’d stayed.” Sam spoke to him across the small expanse of the room, but it felt to Nate that he spoke from across the years. “I wish I’d sworn the damned loyalty oath and stayed in Rosemont. I think I could have done good there. More good than I’ve done here. Maybe we could have done good together. And I —” In two strides he was across the room, kneeling next to the bed. He took both Nate’s hands in his, looking up with a face stripped of everything but honesty. “Hell, Nate, I want to be with you. That’s the truth. I know you need to go back to America, and I agree. Youmustgo. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind — I still fear for our country’s future, I’m still afraid of men like Holden, of what they could do with a mob at their back — but I see now that you need to stop them. And I want to help you. I want to help build a country ruled by laws, not demagogues. I want to go home. And I think there’s a way I can do it. I spoke to Hal and he knows a good scratchman, someone who could get me false papers in a different name. I couldn’t go back to Rosemont, but maybe we could go somewhere else? Somewhere I’m not known. And we could be together, Nate. Work together. If…” His grip on Nate’s hands tightened. “If you still want that?”

Nate’s throat was too tight, his eyes blurring. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Sam’s knuckles where their fingers tangled together. “Christ, Sam. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Sam made a gruff noise, bent his head to kiss Nate’s hair. Then, freeing his hands, he cupped Nate’s face and lifted it up to look him in the eye. “You mean the world to me, Nate Tanner. You always did, I was just too hurt and angry to admit it.”

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