Page 26 of Two Rogues Make a Right
Will considered this. “I don’t know if that’ll help or make things worse. If you tell her who you are, you’re letting her know you could make trouble if you wanted.”
“Then what do I do? I’m trying to do right by them. I like her, and I even like Daisy, despite her foul temper. Because of her foul temper, if I’m honest.”
“Birds of a feather,” Will murmured, then smiled when Martin elbowed him. “I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. I think you have to earn their trust somehow.”
When they reached the cottage, Will glanced down at his sweaty clothes. “I’m going to wash up,” he announced.
For some time, Martin had been going to great pains to avoid seeing Will unclothed, but Will hadn’t understood precisely why. Now he knew that Martin fleeing the cottage when Will began stripping was Martin trying to be decent. And God knew Martin had precious few models of what it looked like when a man decided to be decent, so Will was sort of touched by this bashfulness, and he tried to meet Martin halfway by announcing well in advance when and where he planned to be naked. Will didn’t much care about nakedness himself; he figured that was the natural result of four brothers and several years in close quarters at sea. He knew some people were troubled by the scars on his back, even more so if they knew their origin, but other than that he supposed his body was as unremarkable as anybody else’s.
When he finished, shivering but clean and dressed in fresh clothes, he went indoors. Martin had set their little table with the plain earthenware dishes and tin spoons Will had unearthed in the loft, and when Will walked in he was fidgeting with one of the plates, turning it around so a chip wouldn’t be visible from Will’s seat. It was such a small and homely gesture, so totally pointless—Will didn’t care about chipped crockery, but obviously Martin did, which was what made it sweet. And it was even sweeter because this was one of the days Mrs. Tanner didn’t make their supper: all this effort was for bread and cheese.
“You’re nothing like your father,” Will said. “And I think I’ve known you longer than anybody else alive, so you should probably concede my expertise on the topic.”
Martin gave him a tiny, crooked smile. “I’m glad you think so, at least.”
“I know so,” Will said, crossing the room to stand close enough to Martin that he was worried his wet hair would drip onto the other man.
“Will,” Martin said. “I really don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, not in any aspect of life, obviously, but especially not this.” He gestured at the space between their bodies.
Will wanted to say that he didn’t know either, that this, somehow, felt like uncharted waters. Instead he put his hand on Martin’s hip. Martin shuddered. By now Will knew Martin wasn’t flinching so much as bracing for something good, like a child about to get a spoonful of treacle or an extra bedtime story.
“Listen,” Martin said, his eyes squeezed shut, “what I’m saying is that I haven’t done this before, and I haven’t wanted to. But I haven’t wanted to want to, if you understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, but I’d like to.” With his thumb, he rubbed a circle into Martin’s hip.
Martin let out a shaky laugh. “That makes two of us. With the people you’ve been with, it was good, right?”
Will raised his eyebrows. “I hope so?” Then he understood Martin’s meaning. “When I’ve been with somebody, it’s—it’s a chance for two people to make one another feel good. And special, and cared for, and any number of pleasant things. Just because people like your father take something good and make it into something twisted and wrong doesn’t mean that the act itself is the problem.” He swallowed. “Anything we do, it’s you and me. Whether it’s going to bed together or playing cards or eating supper. I want you to like whatever we do together. That’s the most important thing to me.”
Martin nodded, and Will wondered if he had just needed to hear someone tell him that what he wanted wasn’t inherently evil. Will hoped Martin had known it already and just needed reassurance. As Will watched, Martin brought his hand up slowly, as if giving Will time to stop him, then cupped Will’s jaw in his hand. With the pad of his thumb, he traced Will’s lower lip, all the while looking like he had been pole-axed. Then he leaned in and replaced his thumb with his lips, brushing over Will’s mouth with his own. It was gentle, sweet, barely a kiss at all, but Will felt something unexpected and fierce coil up inside him.
Martin pulled away, his eyes wide and his fingertips covering his mouth, and Will knew he looked just as dazed.
Bemused, Martin watched Will pile pillows against the headboard before leaning back against them, still fully clothed, his arms stretched out to either side. Martin’s mouth went dry with some unholy combination of nerves and lust. “Bring a book,” Will said.
“What does a book have to do with anything?” Martin asked.
“We’re going to read it,” Will said, as if books were a very normal part of this sort of thing. Martin, despite his ignorance, was fairly certain they were not. “So pick something you like.”
Martin turned toward the shelf that Will had put up over the chimneypiece. Over the last few months, the cottage had started to fill with books. It was, he supposed, only to be expected that Will would spend all his money on books rather than a decent coat, not that Martin minded the steady supply of reading material. He ran his finger over the spines. There was a well-worn copy of Blake, which he dismissed out of hand. He did not want poetry, especially not mad poetry. A novel, then. He did not want to read about unfortunate young ladies trapped in attics or cellars or fleeing from cursed ancestral homes, as that struck rather too close to the heart, and besides he had read all of them already. Nor did he fancy reading about genteel young people who saved their families through a combination of pluck and good character. He wanted misadventure and bad character. His hand alit on a well-read volume and he grinned. He crossed to the bed and handed it to Will.
“Really?” Will asked. “Seriously?”
“It’s one of my favorites, and you don’t haveJournal of a Plague Year.”
“Journal of a— Do you need to have seduction explained to you?”
Squabbling was easy, familiar, safe ground. Martin already felt better. He pulled off his boots and settled onto the bed beside Will. “You can start reading to me whenever you want,” he said primly, pulling the covers up to his chin.
“Oh no,” Will said. “You’re reading to me. I have other things to do with my mouth.”
Martin made a noise that he hoped was a dismissive snort but was probably closer to a moan. But he opened the book and started reading at the frontispiece. “The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, etcetera,” he began. “‘Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continued variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, was twelve year a whore, five times a wife (whereof once to her own brother),’”—perhaps Will was correct, and this was not an inspired choice— “‘twelve year a thief, eight year a transported felon in Virginia—’”
“Shove over,” Will said, squeezing between Martin and the mountain of cushions behind them, one leg to either side of Martin’s.
Martin continued reading, and Will did nothing more than wrap his arms around Martin’s chest and rest his chin on Martin’s shoulder.
“You’re skipping bits,” Will said. “You realize I can see the words.”
