Page 15 of Two Rogues Make a Right
Will wanted to argue, to say that Martin could always have a home with him, but that wasn’t helpful or even true. Will didn’t know if the play would sell or whether he’d have anything to live on in a few weeks. It was only because of his arrangement with Mrs. Tanner that he had been able to stretch his meager funds this far. On days like this, he didn’t even know whether he’d be in his right mind for much longer. Besides, it was good that Martin was thinking to the future: only a few months ago he seemed content to waste away.
“This is your property, you know,” Will pointed out instead.
Something odd flickered across Martin’s face—embarrassment or maybe shame. “I can’t stay here alone. I can’t fend for myself the way you do.”
“I could—”
Martin shook his head. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Not right now, at least. Now,” he said, dusting the crumbs from his hands, “I think it’s my turn to read aloud.”
They settled into the rhythm they did most evenings, one of them reading while the other toasted bread at the fire or brewed tea. Sometimes they played a few hands of cards using a deck that Will found in the loft. Will realized he had taken that routine for granted, and that when it came to an end he would miss it. He didn’t like to think of what might happen afterward. He didn’t, if he were honest with himself, want to go back to London. He didn’t want to go back to a shabby set of rooms, to shapeless days stretched out before him. Here, there was always something that needed to be done, if he felt like being busy, but he could sit idle if he had a day like today. And he liked seeing Martin every day. For years their friendship had been confined to letters and occasional meetings; seeing him daily, sharing a home with him, made something glad and grateful rise up inside Will.
“Will!” Martin called, and Will felt a chunk of Bath bun hit the side of his head. He grinned up to where Martin glared at him. “I’ve read the same paragraph three times. You aren’t paying attention at all.”
Will dragged his chair over to the bed where Martin sat, propped his feet on the bottom of the mattress, and shut his eyes as Martin resumed reading.
Chapter Seven
While Martin was cautiously pleased that he was able to go on ever longer walks, roaming about the Sussex countryside at ungodly hours every morning was not his idea of a good time. The alternative, however, was watching Will dress, sneaking looks out of the corner of his eye like a Peeping Tom. He was, frankly, disgusted with himself.
Later in the day Martin could control himself, but in the morning his guard was down. Fresh from a night of sleep and with the usual annoyance of an erection, he found himself regarding Will through a haze of want. Later on he could bury all that under the usual shame and guilt and maybe even some grief, but first thing in the morning his brain was in a shocking state of vulnerability. So every day after waking, Martin dragged himself out of bed and into his boots and through the front door.
By the end of March, when winter had slid into a bleak and soggy spring, Martin could easily make it all the way to the village and back without getting winded. Mrs. Tanner and her astounding brat of a daughter brought enough food for three men to eat, and since Will had always picked at his food as if he were afraid of being poisoned, that left the rest to Martin. His trousers were starting to fit snugly and he could no longer count all his ribs. When he chanced a glance in the tiny mirror they used for shaving, he saw that the circles under his eyes were all but gone. Of course, he also saw that the face looking back at him was more like his father’s than ever, but that was no surprise. It was a timely reminder not to let his baser impulses get the better of him. It was a timely reminder to keep his thoughts away from Will.
In point of fact, he tried to keep those thoughts at bay, full stop. Better simply to pretend that none of that existed than to succumb and find himself reliving his father’s sins. Sometimes when he got home from his walk and found the cottage empty and smelling of Will’s soap, he let himself pause for a moment to want things that he couldn’t have and didn’t deserve. Just for that minute, he let himself want, and even that felt like an unearned indulgence.
One morning, he returned from his walk to find Daisy clearing the cobwebs from the rafters with a whisk broom. Her hair was up in a kerchief and her face was in its usual scowl. She was an accomplished scowler, managing to take the expression all the way from her pale, furrowed eyebrows to the tip of her sharp little chin, a masterful feat Martin had only seen achieved by his own father.
“You,” she said, pointing the broom at him like a weapon, “need a haircut.”
“You,” he said, “need to mind your own business.” He resisted the urge to feel the ends of his hair, which were sweeping his jaw at a highly unfashionable length.
“You also need a shave.”
That was tragically correct. He had shaved every few days ever since Will had taught him, but the looking glass was tiny and he kept missing spots. “Are you offering, or are you simply stating the obvious?”
“Offering.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t wait to hear what you mean to extract from me in exchange.” Daisy offered nothing for free, and he found that he grudgingly respected her for it.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just tired of seeing you look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Daisy, my child, I was raised by one of history’s greatest liars and you are but a sad amateur. Tell me what you want from me, or leave me in peace.” He pointedly sat at the table, a dog-eared copy ofTom Jonesopen before him.
“I need you to flirt with me. At the inn. In front of Jacob.”
“Is Jacob the ostler? Our Casanova of the Southeast?”
“No,” she said, scowling. “The ostler is a dirty old man. Jacob is one of the lads who works in the taproom.”
“You’ll want Will for that. He’s an accomplished flirt.” He remembered Will at seventeen, home on leave, rich in pocket change and tales of far-off lands, charming his way quite blatantly into the beds of more than one woman, and in such a way that years later they still asked Martin when Will was next due home. Martin had been struck dumb by jealousy, but also impressed and even proud that the friend of his childhood had turned into such a man. Will’s next ship had been theFotheringay, and now Martin thought that leave had probably been the last peaceful time in Will’s life.
“You’re better looking though,” Daisy said, pulling him back to the present, “and that’s what I need.”
“You’re blind and deluded. And I don’t think I could hold up my end of a flirtation if my life depended on it. You cut my hair, I’ll persuade Will to do your bidding. And I’ll make sure he brushes his coat beforehand.” He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”
She ignored his hand and proceeded to comb his hair with a ruthlessness he had not known possible.
“Good God, why are you like this?” he asked. “Do you mean to make my scalp bleed?”
