Page 30 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“Ben is good to everyone. You’re good to me.”
“You really shouldn’t make that sound like a compliment.”
There was no point in arguing with such arrant foolishness, so Will leaned in and kissed him.
Martin hadn’t expected an epiphany to arrive in the form of an escaped pig. But piglets, it turned out, were very slippery and wished for nothing so much as anarchy. Whenever presented with a dull moment, they began devising new and horrible ways to get out of their pen. Martin, unwilling to let Will’s new project escape into the wilderness, had spent the hours since the piglets’ arrival alternately scolding them for ingratitude and chasing them around the perimeter of the cottage.
“I’m really not sure you can expect gratitude from an animal we intend to sell to the butcher,” Will said, leaning against the plane tree and watching Martin’s efforts with a badly concealed air of amusement.
“There you are,” Martin said, cornering one of the escapees against the woodshed. “Finally. William, are you going to help me retrieve these creatures or are you— Ha!” he exclaimed, lunging as the piglet approached, and finally meeting with success as his fingers closed around its midsection. “Why are they so heavy? And so naughty? None of this can be normal.”
Will took the animal from Martin’s arms and shoved it back into its pen. “You stand guard and shout if they try to make a break for it, and I’ll wedge some stones beneath the bottom rail,” he said. “When they’re a bit bigger they’ll just try to knock the entire fence down.”
“Why do you sound impressed?” Martin called. “This is disorderly behavior. Reprehensible.” He watched as Will took flat stones from an old, crumbled wall and began wedging them around the perimeter of the pen.
“Good work catching that pig,” Will said. “I didn’t think baronets could do that sort of thing.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Martin said happily, preening at Will’s praise.
“In fact, you might be the first man with a title to ever have done something useful.”
“I’ll show you useful,” Martin said, with what he hoped was a sufficient amount of innuendo.
“Promises, promises.” Will had straw and feathers in his hair and a good deal of dirt everywhere else, which was pretty much how he looked every day when he came home from Mrs. Tanner’s. His sleeves were rolled up and his collar was loose. He didn’t look at all like a gentleman. Martin was aware that he was probably equally disreputable looking, which meant that he too looked nothing like a gentleman. Having been raised secure in the knowledge that his title and standing were his most important qualities, Martin felt some lingering shame at spending his days living in a way he would once have dismissed as squalor. He had just flung himself into the mud to catch a pig, for God’s sake. Bigger and louder than the shame, however, was relief that he didn’t have to be that past version of himself anymore. He could let all of it go—his father, Lindley Priory, his entry inDebrett’s. None of it had ever done him any good; he had known from his earliest childhood that he was an insufficient heir, too thin and sickly to be trusted to survive to adulthood, too sallow and ill-mannered to bring into company. He could just... stop being that Martin Easterbrook. Instead he could catch pigs and share a bed with the only person who mattered to him.
This was, he knew, a pipe dream. He couldn’t stay here forever. The day would arrive when he had to go to his aunt and face his future. But for now he could live like none of that mattered. For however long he and Will were to stay in Sussex—a few months, maybe a year, Martin assumed, although they had never discussed the particulars—he could try to live a useful life.
“Why do you look so daft?” Will asked.
“I could feed the pigs,” Martin said.
“Is that something you want to do? Your dream can come true, young man. I can make it happen,” Will said grandly.
Martin elbowed him. “I just mean that I can be useful. I don’t think feeding pigs is my life’s work, but it’s... work.”
“You know,” Will said, his lips quivering with the effort of suppressing a smile, “if you really want to be useful, you could draw me a bath. Maybe that’s your life’s work.”
“I can’t imagine why I’d want to do such a thing,” Martin said, leaning with feigned ease against one of the posts of the pig pen, idly examining his fingernails.
“I don’t think you want me all sweaty and filthy in the bed,” Will said, stepping near.
Really, it just figured that Will had no idea that sweat and filth looked so good on him. “Perhaps I’ll draw a bath for myself,” Martin said. Will was inches away now, blatantly crowding him. “And then sit in it until the water gets cold.”
“There are better things you could do with your time,” Will said, speaking the words into Martin’s ear, his cheek almost against Martin’s own. Martin could feel the stubble on Will’s jaw, could smell clean sweat and fresh earth. He swallowed hard. Behind him, the pigs were making rude noises and never in Martin’s wildest imagination did he imagine that the gentle harmonies of pig snorts would be the accompaniment to any seduction he was a part of.
“Prove it,” he said, achieving something close enough to cool indifference.
Will’s hand landed on Martin’s hip as his teeth grazed Martin’s throat. “I’ve got a shelf full of Defoe novels that you’ll probably find weirdly titillating and a hard on with your name on it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Martin scoffed.
As if that were some kind of invitation—and maybe it was—Will leaned in closer, rocking his hips against Martin’s. “I’m about two seconds from dropping to my knees and seeing what you’ll let me do to you.”
Martin jerked his hips forward involuntarily. “There’s a real chance the answer to that is literally nothing.” Will had been extremely patient these last few days, working around the edges of Martin’s limits. But they both knew that Martin was most comfortable when they both pretended that everything they did was for Will’s pleasure.
“Could be,” Will said. He kissed Martin’s throat, just a graze of lips over the place where his pulse beat. He really was filthy, and Martin was certain he ought to care. “Worth finding out, I’d say.” Another kiss, this one harder. “But not until I have a damn bath.” Will wrenched himself away. “Right. Yes. I’m going to take that bath, while you go find Daisy at the Blue Boar and tell her she doesn’t need to tidy up for us tomorrow morning. While you’re there, get a jug of ale and put it on our tab, will you?”
Martin hadn’t even known they had a tab, but of course they did. In villages everybody ran tabs, otherwise every shopkeeper and barman would be perpetually counting out farthings.
