Page 10 of Two Rogues Make a Right
Will hid a grin in his tankard.
“I wouldn’t exactly hate it if you were happy, too, you know,” Hartley went on. “And I can’t help but feel that holing up in this godforsaken place with Martin Easterbrook—”
“Hush. We’re not using that name.”
“—is not exactly a path toward contentment.”
Will took a long pull of his pint. “I couldn’t be content knowing that he was alone. You know that.”
“Hmm.” Hartley regarded him appraisingly. “I wonder if I do.”
“I’m trying to get him well. That’s all. Then he can...” Will’s voice trailed off.
“Mmm? What can he do then? Harass tenants? Run away from his aunt’s house in order to haunt my attics? What grand plans will Martin return to?”
“A person doesn’t need plans to make their life worthwhile.”
Hartley’s expression softened. “As much as it pains me to say this, it’s probably for the best that he’s with you. You seem to be the only friend he has. His aunt hasn’t exactly been tearing up the country looking for him.”
Will felt his face heat in anger and something else. “You talk about him like he’s a stray dog in need of care. He’s my friend and I hate that I’m all he has,” he said, because that was the thing that saddened him the most.
“You might want to consider why that is,” Hartley remarked, taking a sip of ale.
“Why I care for him?”
“Why nobody else does.”
“His father cut him off from all society,” Will said. “And now he’s prickly and distrustful. He’s so used to being alone that he deliberately alienates anybody who might be fond of him. He’s been doing that all our lives.” Will didn’t add that Martin also seemed to be punishing himself—it seemed both too private and too confusing for Will to articulate.
“Believe me, I recall,” Hartley said tartly. “Then maybe answer the other question. Why do you care for him when he manifestly does not want to be cared for?”
Sometimes it was a little heartbreaking that Hartley needed these things explained to him. “Because he’s my friend,” Will said. That was true, he supposed, for all it was a radical simplification. He didn’t really think anybody could explain the whys and wherefores of friendship. Either you cared for somebody, or you didn’t, and there wasn’t much sense trying to make sense of it. Will and Martin had been friends since Will knew what the word meant, and it wasn’t as if he could just undo that, nor did he want to. “And also,” he added, sensing that Hartley needed this spelled out for him, “he’s only in his current situation—poor, alone, etcetera—because of his arsehole father. He never had a chance. Sir Humphrey was—” Will’s grip tightened around his pint “—ashamed of him. For being sick or maybe just because his father was a terrible person. But he never got to go to school and meet people of his own—” Will had nearly saidof his own stationbut caught himself at the last moment. “He only had us. His aunt was hundreds of miles away. He has no connections and no money and it’s not fair to him that I’m the best he has. He doesn’t belong here in a drafty cottage with—with me, you know? He’s—he’s a baronet.”
Hartley’s eyes went as round as guinea pieces. “Which is... a good thing?”
“No, obviously.” Will’s face heated. “I mean, it’s terrible.” For God’s sake, he had written a dozen screeds on the uselessness of the aristocracy and the evils of inherited wealth. But none of that had to do with Martin. “We were raised to think of him as the heir to Lindley Priory and I can’t see him like this without thinking that he’s been done out of his birthright.”
“Birthright,” Hartley repeated softly. “Listen to yourself. And anyway, he has been. Done out of his birthright, that is. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“It’s just—it’s a fucking tragedy, Hart, that it’s come to this. I spent the winter thinking he was going to die in a poky cottage on his own estate with nobody to look after him but me.”
“But,” Hartley said, with obvious effort, “if I heard someone say ‘I fell ill and my friend took me to the country and looked after me’ I’d think that person was lucky to have such a loyal friend. Why would I be wrong to think Martin is lucky to have you? Leaving class and his arsehole father out of it, thank you.”
“Nobody should have to depend on me,” Will said into his pint. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hartley open his mouth and snap it shut again.
“How long has it been?” Hartley asked at length.
Will didn’t need to ask what Hartley meant. “I bought my last bottle of laudanum in August. Haven’t been to any opium dens or anyplace similar since even before that.”
“That’s good,” Hartley said, not bothering to conceal his relief.
“It’s hard, though,” Will said, and drained the rest of his pint. “I don’t want him to be around if I stop being able to resist temptation.”
Hartley passed a hand over his mouth. “Jesus. I wish I had something useful to say.”
“So do I,” Will said, sliding his hand along the bar and squeezing his brother’s arm. “At least being in the country means that much less temptation. Anyway, that’s why I need him to get better and send him on his way, all right?”
Hartley looked like he very much wanted to protest, but knew better than to try.
