Page 17 of Two Rogues Make a Right
Will smiled, the real smile that showed the dimple in his left cheek. “You’re in a fine mood.”
“It’ll pass.” But Martin was grinning too. How lowering that a simple haircut and a good shave could put him in such good spirits. A decent pair of trousers would probably send him into paroxysms of joy. He had forgotten how much he liked being neat and presentable. Lately he had started daydreaming about getting his boots properly polished. He felt ungrateful, worse than ungrateful, for even wondering; he was living essentially on a friend’s charity, and he didn’t have the right to even think about wanting fine things. He had deliberately given all that up when he left his aunt’s house, but he didn’t know how to live without it.
“You all right?” Will asked, his head tipped a bit to the side as he regarded Martin.
Martin smiled tightly. “I told you it’d pass.”
Will kept telling himself it was only a haircut and that there was no reason for him to be acting like such a fool about it. But every time he caught sight of Martin, freshly shaved and neatly trimmed and unarguably handsome, it was like a blow to the gut. When he noticed Martin pausing before the looking glass to preen a little, it only made things worse, for some perplexing reason—surely, vanity shouldn’t make someonemoreattractive. Perhaps it was just that seeing Martin act confident and happy about anything was a bit of a thrill and a relief.
Will had known for a decade that he liked the looks of Martin, in a general aesthetic sense. He was Will’s dearest friend; of course Will liked to look at him. And for the past few weeks he had been aware of an attraction, which he was doing his best not to dwell on. But now he was wondering if there was more to it than that, if maybe the combination of friendship and attraction created some third thing. Will suspected that if Martin had been anybody else, Will wouldn’t have hesitated to give a name to what he was feeling.
“Off we go,” Martin said after picking some invisible lint off Will’s sleeve. “We don’t want to keep Daisy waiting.” He bustled Will out the door.
“If we’re lucky, a parcel of books will be waiting for us.”
“Excellent. From Hartley?”
“No, I bought them myself. The owner of the theater is going to stage the play, so I have a bit of money.”
“What?” Martin elbowed him. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I can’t quite believe it’s happened. It’s not much money, really. We’ll get more if the play is a success, but it’s only—”
“Will.This is excellent news.” He turned to Will, flashing his most dazzling smile. Will had forgotten such a smile even existed, and was taken aback. “Congratulations.”
Will stared hard at his friend, saw how his profile was caught in the setting sun, and was struck by how fleeting this all could be. A chill, a cough, and Martin could be gone. He was filled with a wave of—not sorrow, because the time for that had come and gone—but the urge to make this count. If their time was finite, then he ought to—he didn’t know what. He ought to take these tiny incandescent moments and figure out a way to hold them in his heart. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed the toe of his boot. “Hartley is ecstatic,” he said.
“But how are you?”
Will ought to have known that Martin would pick up on his omission, but the truth was that he didn’t know how he felt. He was proud, not to mention relieved, to have earned some money. He was nervous about having his work performed on stage in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. And he was afraid that, somehow, this was going to mean he needed to move back to London sooner than he wanted. Hartley was already talking about how Will could have one of the sets of rooms above the pub so they could work together on another play. And Will did want to work on another play, this time without Hartley having to make weekly stagecoach trips. But—not yet. It was nearly April, and they had been at the cottage for almost three months. It felt like a fortnight, like a decade. And he didn’t want it to end. He knew he was being selfish and shortsighted, but for a moment he didn’t care. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time he had been selfish, and didn’t he deserve—no, he knew that it was lunacy to think people got what they deserved. But he might get what he wanted, and maybe the fact that he wanted it was reason enough to ask.
“I don’t want to go back to London,” Will blurted out. He felt Martin’s eyes on him, shrewd as ever.
“Neither do I,” Martin said lightly.
“We’re doing well here, right? You’re healthy, I’ve written a play, and we’re both doing better than we were a year ago.”
“True,” Martin said. “Although we could hardly be doing worse.”
“So let’s stay. We both know that we have to go back some time, but let’s stay for now. For a little while longer.” He swallowed. “It’s just—I like being here. With you.”
“I like being here with you as well,” Martin said. His eyes were fixed on the lane straight ahead of him.
“I suppose I ought to ask your permission to keep using your house,” Will said.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“So will you stay? For a bit?”
“Isaiddon’t be stupid. As if I would say no.”
The idea of having more time together made Will almost sick with happiness. He didn’t trust himself to say anything sane, and scrambled around for something that at least wasn’t maudlin. “I’m thinking of getting some piglets or a couple of geese.”
Now Martin turned to him and gave him a crooked smile. “Why?”
“They’re easy to keep and easy to sell when we leave.”
“Hmm,” Martin said thoughtfully. He had obviously never considered animals in that light—of course he hadn’t, he was a bloody baronet. But the empty garden around the cottage had been driving Will around the bend for months. It was a waste not to put it to good use.
