Page 6 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“That I’m sorry to have met your generosity with my ill manners.”
“I accept your first three words. The rest is rubbish and you can shove it right up your arse. You know perfectly well you saved me—”
“We don’t talk about that,” Martin said, as he always did when reminded of those awful few months two years ago, when Will had returned from sea, shattered and broken.
“Fine,” Will conceded. “But you realize you’re not dying at the moment, right?”
“That possibility has occurred to me,” Martin said about as primly as a man could while wearing a secondhand nightshirt.
“Yeah, well, it’s occurred to me too. After I sat next to you for a fucking fortnight, trying to figure out what I’d have to do to afford a funeral.”
“You needn’t—”
“Needn’t have paid for a funeral? What should I have done? Left you here? Flung you into the woods?” Will buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation with you.”
Martin was silent for a long while. “I prefer it,” he said. “I think about those things all the time, so it’s just as well to hear them out in the open. But, as you say, you probably won’t need to consider funeral expenses in the immediate future.”
Will took out his knife and pared off a slice of cheese, then sat on the edge of the bed and handed the morsel to Martin.
“Really?” Martin asked, holding the sliver of cheese. “First soup and now cheese. We’re living like kings in—where are we?”
“Sussex,” Will said, and saw a glimmer of suspicion in Martin’s eyes. Before Martin could ask any questions, Will said, “Now eat your damned cheese.” For once, Martin did as he was told. Will smiled at the look of stunned pleasure on his friend’s face. “I bet you’re glad you didn’t die now. No cheese in hell.”
The look of barely suppressed laughter on Martin’s face warmed Will’s heart. “Fuckoff, Will. That is—that is—just give me more cheese and shut up.”
They ate half the wedge of cheese and the entire loaf of bread. At some point Will shifted so he sat beside Martin, his back to the headboard. His belly was full, his friend was alive, and that was really all Will had ever wanted. Happy and sated, he put his hand on Martin’s leg. Just a companionable touch, nothing they hadn’t done a thousand times before. There was nothing to it, so he was surprised when Martin batted his hand away.
“None of that,” Martin snapped.
Will’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t meant anything pointed, anything particular. He hadn’t even realized that Martin understood Will was the sort of man whocouldmean anything pointed or particular by a touch. “I’m sorry,” Will said, and rose from the bed to sit in the straight-backed chair by the fire.
Martin woke to the sound of a broom swishing across the cottage’s flagstone floor and furniture being dragged out of the way with more noise than he might have thought possible, given that the cottage contained about four pieces of furniture.
He rolled over to see what had possessed Will to start this clamor when the sun hadn’t quite risen, but instead of Will, he saw a yellow-haired girl in a plain dress and apron, wielding the broom like it was a weapon.
“What on earth?” Martin said, propping himself on his elbows. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m your maid,” she said. Spat, really. “He—” she pointed an accusing finger to where Will still slept on a pallet by the fire “—hired me.”
“And I’ll fire you,” Martin said, “if you let that chair topple onto Mr. Sedgwick.”
“Go ahead!”
“What onearth,” he repeated. It occurred to him that perhaps his fever had returned, and that this entire scene was a febrile delusion.
Will, finally alerted to the battle progressing mere inches away from his face, stirred. “Oh,” he said, sitting up. “This is Daisy Tanner. She’s been tidying up in the mornings and bringing us supper.”
Which meant Martin must have slept through this uproar on previous mornings. He had wondered where the food had been coming from, and who brought clean linens, but he had been raised in a house staffed with an army of servants; he was used to things simply getting done. “She seems less than thrilled about it,” he observed. “Did you win her in a card game? Buy her off a pirate ship?”
“My mother sent me here because she thinks the ostler is after me,” the girl said.
“After—oh,” Martin said. “Well, is he?”
The girl turned scarlet.
“Do you want him to be? Are you after him? Is the ostler some kind of rural Casanova? In any event, this cottage is hardly larger than a stable stall. I daresay you can finish your work in under an hour and you’ll have the entire afternoon to get yourself seduced. Now, step outside for a moment while Mr. Sedgwick and I make ourselves decent. Neither of us are inclined to duel the ostler for your honor, I assure you.” He made a shooing motion until the girl left. When the door slammed shut, he turned to Will and raised a single questioning eyebrow.
“I let myself get bullied,” Will said. “Her mother told me nursing invalids is women’s work.”
