Page 29 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“Right,” Martin said, avoiding Will’s eyes.
Will found that after last night he didn’t want to think about any future that lay outside the four walls of this cottage. “Is your aunt so bad, then?”
“Bad? No, she’s rather determinedly decent. She doesn’t mean ill, but she’s used to getting her way. It’s exhausting.”
“And yet you left her house to live in an unheated attic. I assumed she was a villain.” Will had never asked before why Martin ran away. At first he had been too furious that Martin had endangered himself in that way, and then Martin had been too sick to pepper with questions.
Martin settled back against the headboard. At some point during the night, he put on a shirt, and now it gaped open at the neck. Will wanted to kiss along his collarbone until he reached the hollow of his throat. He could hardly look away. “It’s going to sound mad. I did it because I could. I realized I wasn’t actually a prisoner in her home, and that I didn’t need to hear her plan out the rest of my life. I know it sounds extreme, but I think that was only the second time in my life I got to make a real choice. I knew, even at the time, that it wasn’t a good choice, but the idea of having a choice at all was exhilarating. I know it was mad.”
Will sipped his tea. “Well, I’m an expert in making poor choices while more or less unhinged. But why don’t you like your aunt? You act like visiting her is a trip to the gallows.”
“She’s a very... forceful personality. She views me as a problem in need of a solution, and in her world there’s only one thing to do with a man who’s both penniless and pedigreed.”
Will furrowed his brow. “Which is?”
Martin cast him a glance that told him he was being very dim. “Marriage,” he said bluntly. “She means to marry me off to the daughter of some wealthy industrialist who wants his grandson to inherit a title.”
“And is this something you want?” Will asked carefully.
The glance Martin now gave him said he was being a monumental fool. “Do I want to marry an heiress? No. I don’t want to marry anybody. But as she has said many times, marrying well is the only way I’ll live as a gentleman. I’ve told her I have no wish to live as a gentleman, but the past few months have shown me I don’t know how to live any other way.”
Will knew he shouldn’t be bothered by that—it was the simple truth that Martin had been raised to be a gentleman. Without Will around, he’d starve or freeze in a matter of weeks. And Will wanted Martin to have the luxuries, large and small, that he had been raised to expect. Will had never known a life in which supper dishes miraculously got washed by unseen hands, or buttons reattached themselves overnight, or the larder refilled itself at regular intervals. Will never thought about sewing buttons or washing dishes as unpleasant tasks: they were just what one did. But to Martin those acts would always be an effort, a reminder of something that had been lost. Will wanted better for him; he didn’t want Martin to live out his life feeling resentful every time he needed to wear a shabby coat or eat off chipped china.
Still, it stung to hear Martin say that life in this cottage had been unsatisfactory in any way.
“I’m utterly dependent on you,” Martin went on. “And I don’t want to be.”
Will knew it would be useless to protest that this was help freely given. He couldn’t blame Martin for not wanting to be dependent on him; Will felt deeply uncomfortable and slightly ashamed about needing help on his worst days. He’d almost rather go without food or a fire in the hearth than let Martin see him at his worst. It was one thing to be looked after by servants, but another thing entirely to be looked after by a friend. With that in mind, Will tried to make peace with what Martin had said: Martin would eventually go to his aunt, who would find him a wealthy wife. Then not only would Martin have the kind of life he was accustomed to, but he could be looked after by servants and physicians who knew what they were doing. He would be safe and cared for.
Of course, that would also mean that this new physical aspect of their friendship would come to an end. At least, Will thought it would, because unless Martin married a very open-minded woman, being together would involve a degree of dishonesty that Will didn’t think he could endure. But the rest of their friendship would remain intact. They wouldn’t lose anything they hadn’t had the previous day. That was fine, he told himself. The strange thing fluttering in his chest was probably just relief.
“Don’t mind me,” Martin said, nudging Will’s knee. “I’m just being a sulky bastard.”
“Yes, but you’re my sulky bastard,” Will said. He took the tea out of his hand and placed it on the windowsill, then climbed onto the bed so he was kneeling over Martin’s lap. “Thank you.” He put a finger under Martin’s chin and tilted his head up, then kissed him.
“What are you thanking me for?” Martin asked.
“For being my sulky bastard,” Will said, then kissed him again, this time deeper.
It was all easier this time, maybe because Martin knew what to expect, or maybe because Will knew that his part involved a steady litany of praise and reassurance. Martin let his hands explore, roaming over the curve of Will’s arse and the planes of his back. Will hadn’t expected that—most people either avoided his scars, as if touching them would remind Will of their existence, or they made a great show of lavishing attention on them. Will didn’t mind either way, but it felt right that Martin would treat his back just like any other part of his body.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Martin asked, breathless. “I’m not here to amuse you.” The asperity of his voice was rather undercut by the fact that he was arching up beneath Will as their erections rubbed together in the space between their bodies.
“Yes, but you amuse me anyway,” Will said, and Martin’s only response was to pinch his arse and then move his fingers rather daringly close to Will’s cleft. Jesus. Will knew Martin was a quick study, but this was— “God, yes, please keep doing that.”
Martin laughed, the complete tosser.
Later, after they cleaned up and ate breakfast and then returned to the bed once again, Martin traced a path on Will’s shoulder blade that Will knew was the tail end of one of his scars. “You know, you and Ben are the only people who never ask me about all that,” Will murmured. Martin had simply shown up at the address Will had mentioned in his last letter and set about making sure Will had food to eat and someone to drag him home from whatever hellish places where he had sought relief. There had been no tears, no hand wringing, no well-intentioned offers for Will to unburden his soul. Martin just did his damnedest to get Will to go home to Cumberland with him, and when Will refused, stayed by his side until Sir Humphrey died and Martin had to go north to sort out the estate.
Martin raised his eyebrows, but didn’t stop the path of his fingers. “Did you want me to ask?”
“No,” Will said at once.
“I’ve always supposed that if you wanted to talk about it, you would. And,” he added after a pause, “I thought you might have had your fill of talking at the court martial.”
That was such a wild understatement that Will actually cracked a smile, which was not something he had ever anticipated doing when talking about theFotheringay, but he knew this wasn’t even the first time Martin had managed it. “My father wanted to write a poem about it.” He coughed out a little laugh, expecting Martin to find his father’s antics amusing, but Martin only narrowed his eyes and looked ready to commit murder. “Hartley bribed someone at the Admiralty to give him the transcript of the court martial. My younger brothers still don’t know what to say to me. They remember me one way and see me like this and it makes them uncomfortable. But you and Ben treat me like I’m still me.”
Martin looked away. “It’s not every day I’m put in the same category as the saintly Benedict Sedgwick.”
