Page 18 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“You can help me build a pen for the pigs,” he said, trying to sound serious.
“I’ve never built a damned thing in my life,” Martin said, putting on an especially fussy tone. “You can build the pen and I’ll lounge around decoratively while I watch you.”
God help him, but that image should not have made Will feel quite so heated. They arrived at the inn before Will could further investigate the issue. Daisy, who evidently spent her evenings pulling ale and clearing dishes at the Blue Boar, spotted them at once and beckoned them toward a table by the fire.
Will got to work straight away. He wouldn’t ever describe himself as a flirt, but he supposed most flirts wouldn’t. He knew how to make people feel that they were the center of the universe, that was all. There was something worth liking in nearly everybody, and it was no hardship to figure out what it was. The trick was to do so while also hinting, in the vaguest of ways, that it might be nice if they were able to continue this charming conversation in the nearest bed. That’s all it was, a hint. Most of the time he didn’t go to bed with anybody, or even intend to.
Well, sometimes he did go to bed with people—not so much more often than anybody else his age, and it wasn’t his fault if not having much preference as to gender opened up the field quite a bit. Besides, it wasn’t like he was seducing innocents or breaking up homes; he was only after a bit of companionship and comfort, just like anybody else, right?
As he flirted and teased, he knew Martin was watching him. That shouldn’t have made it easier, but it did, and he decided not to think about why.
“Good lord,” Martin murmured when Daisy took away their empty dishes, bending over the table in such a way as to ensure that Will got an eyeful of bosom.
“I feel like a lecherous old pervert,” Will complained.
“It’s for a good cause. Daisy’s seemed happier this evening than she has in the past two months combined. She really is pretty. I hadn’t quite noticed.”
Perhaps the ale had gone to his head because this made Will choke out a laugh.
“Why are you laughing? I’m quite immune to the charms of women, as I think you know.” Martin spoke the words with the hint of a challenge, his chin high.
“I do know,” Will said immediately, even though he hadn’t known, not really. But he had to say something affirmative before Martin got the wrong idea. He ransacked his ale-addled mind to come up with something else that might be suitable. “I’m not immune to anybody’s charms,” he blurted out.
Martin choked on his ale. “Good God, of all the ways to put it,” he said when he recovered himself. “Your family. I mean,really.”
That made Will laugh, and so the two of them were laughing like a pair of fools, warm and cozy by the fire. Will’s heart was full with the hope that there could be more nights like this, more days in the sunshine, more time spent laughing and talking and doing all the things they hadn’t been able to do before.
“I haven’t seen you look so well in years,” Will said as they left the inn. The night had grown cold, and he reached out to wrap Martin’s muffler more securely around his neck. He let his hands linger a moment too long, let himself stand a bit too close. He told himself that he was glad to have Martin alive and near, that the drink had made him even more affectionate than usual, and that it didn’t have to mean anything more than that.
“I could say the same to you,” Martin said, not stepping away from Will’s ministrations. And then whatever he saw in Will’s eye must have given him pause because he frowned. “Let’s get you home.”
It was absolutely mad that after more than seven years in the navy and heaven knew how many hours spent in opium dens, all it took was three pints for Will Sedgwick to start petting at people like they were kittens.
“Your hair is soft,” Will said, taking off Martin’s hat and running his fingers through his hair. “Like a duckling. But all tidy, now that Daisy’s cut it. Like a tidy duckling. A very well-bred duckling.”
“This duckling’s inDebrett’s,” Martin said, putting his chin in the air.
Will seemed in danger of wandering into a ditch, so Martin took him firmly by the hand and returned him to the center of the lane.
“Did you know?” Will began. So they were at the Did You Know stage of inebriation, then. Martin knew it well, and suppressed a fond smile. “Did you know that your fingers are very long?” He held up their joined hands, pressing them palm to palm, as if to compare.
“Yes, well, that’s generations of elegance and breeding at work.” He was trying not to focus too much on the sensation of Will’s skin against his own, Will’s hand clasping his tightly, but something of his predicament must have shown on his face.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” Will said, dropping Martin’s hand. “I forgot.”
“You forgot what?” Martin asked.
“You don’t like touching. It’s all right, you know,” Will said with the wide-eyed earnestness of the highly tipsy. “We can be friends without touching. Or with touching. There’s no touching in letters.”
“There is indeed no touching in letters,” Martin had to agree.
“I lost all your letters on the ship.”
Martin let the silence last while they walked a few paces, in case Will wanted to say anything else; as a rule, he didn’t ask Will about anything that happened on board that ship, not wanting to poke at wounds that had only just healed. When the pause stretched out, Martin cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t like being touched. I like it very much. I just didn’t want to give myself the wrong idea,” he said, and then immediately regretted it. Well, in for a penny. “I don’t mind if you touch me,” he said. His face heated; he had meant only to convey that he was sufficiently in charge of his own emotions not to be led into perdition by a hand on his sleeve. But he made himself bite his tongue. Any clarification would be protesting too much. He was determined to be very normal about all of this: they were friends choosing to share a small cottage, and it would be bizarre and unnatural to insist on not being touched.
Besides, said a small and slightly drunk voice in his head,You do like when he touches you. You like it and you could easily get him to touch you all the time.
When they got home, they set about rebuilding the banked fire and putting their muddy boots outside the door. “If we’re both to stay here for a while, then I can’t let you sleep on the floor any longer,” Martin said when Will dropped his pillow onto the floor before the fire. “It was one thing when I was—the patient, I suppose, and you were looking after me. But you have to let me have my pride.”
