between London and Brighton. His father had used it to host house parties to which Martin had seldom been invited. At the time he thought it was because his father didn’t want the world to know that he had a sickly son. Now he suspected it was because his father didn’t want Martin to know what he got up to in his spare time.
“So you did bring me here,” Martin said, not bothering to make it a question.
Will sighed. Martin didn’t need to turn his head to know he looked guilty, and rightly so. “You needed country air. It was either here or Lindley Priory. Getting to Cumberland would have meant days in a carriage, and you weren’t in any state for that. Besides, you own this place, so, well, I could afford it.”
Martin let out a bitter laugh, but it turned into a cough. Walking so far had perhaps been unwise. Will looked at him with concern, and Martin waved his hand dismissively. “The people here, they don’t know who I am. Daisy calls me Mister.”
“I told Mrs. Tanner that you were a Mr. Smith.”
Martin refrained from rolling his eyes. “Let me guess. John Smith.”
“She didn’t ask for a first name,” Will said, a tiny smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
“Well. Friars’ Gate. You could have told me. I was hardly in any condition to get up and leave.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I figured we could fight about it when you were well enough to fight back. So, do you want to?”
“Do I want to do what?”
“Leave.”
Martin experienced the same ridiculous frisson of excitement that he did on each rare occasion that somebody gave him a choice. “No,” he said after some thought. He was annoyed that Will brought him here—or anywhere—without his permission, but he hadn’t been in any state to give permission, and he could grudgingly admit that Will had done what was necessary to save his life. “It was a good decision. I’m surprised you knew about the gamekeeper’s cottage, though.”
“I looked for you here,” Will said. “In the autumn, after you left your aunt’s house. That’s how I knew there was a cottage standing empty.”
“Thank you for not bringing me into the house itself,” Martin said, and meant it sincerely. He leaned back against the trunk of a tree and crossed his arms in front of him. Will came to stand nearby, and Martin wondered if he were even aware that he had positioned himself between Martin and the wind. Happily, Will seemed blissfully unaware of a good number of things, or surely he would have said something after what Martin thought of as the Shaving Incident. Two weeks had passed, and Will still treated him as a reasonable adult rather than a person who had nearly been reduced to tears by Will’s soft words and the feel of his own smooth jaw. Martin still couldn’t shave without a pang of guilt that didn’t even make sense to him, and he was ready to feel guilty at the drop of a hat.
“Since we’re unburdening our souls,” Martin said, trying to sound flippant and afraid he came off regrettably earnest, “I do suppose I owe you an apology for the unanswered letters.” He swallowed. “I read them—at least all those I received before leaving my aunt’s house—and I kept them.” He nearly admitted that he had kept all Will’s letters. For years, when Will was away at school and later at sea, they had written like paper was cheap and ink free and postage a trifling consideration; they had written pages upon pages, crossed and double crossed, and sometimes when Martin was feeling especially sorry for himself he’d read them all, right from the beginning.
“For a few months,” Will said, his gaze fixed over Martin’s shoulder, “I thought you must be dead, because surely if you were alive you would have written me back.”
Martin felt like he had been slapped. He stepped to the side, placing himself in Will’s line of sight. “You thought—it never once occurred to you that I didn’t want you to disrupt your whole life to come fix mine? Which, mind you, is exactly what happened, so I think that we can agree I was quite right not to answer your letters.”
“No we can’t. We will never agree about that.” Will scraped a hand across the stubble on his jaw, then let it rest beside Martin’s shoulder on the tree trunk. “I thought we were—” He shook his