highly lamentable stubble. He wore a coat of some rough brown substance that might once, much earlier in its lifetime, have been called wool. Martin was surprised to discover that he had been expecting a much younger version of Will. This was not the Will of long-ago summers, of hillside rambles and multiplying freckles. This Will was tired, haggard, and very pale. Martin strongly suspected that he was all of those things too. Good to know, he supposed. He certainly felt haggard and wrung out, but he also could not remember a time when he hadn’t felt that way.
There were hands on his shoulders the next time he woke, and then another hand on the small of his back, lifting. Martin attempted an “unhand me” but it came out a sad mumble.
“Need to get you sitting, love,” Will said, because he was the stupidest man to ever live and had never guarded his tongue, not once in his life.
“Shut up,” Martin said.
Will didn’t take his hands away, even after hauling Martin upright. “I’ll shut up as much as you like after you have a swallow of this.” He held up a vial.
Martin ignored this. “How long have I been here?”
“Just under a week.”
“Not my aunt’s house,” Martin said, forgetting that he had already worked out the reasons for which this hovel could not have anything to do with Lady Bermondsey.
“No, not your aunt’s house.” Will was now smoothing hair off Martin’s forehead. It felt good, which was not permitted. Martin shrank away from his touch.
“Promise me you won’t send for her.”
That made Will frown. That was appropriate, if slightly belated, because he ought to have been frowning minutes ago instead of petting Martin like a cat. “I can’t do that.”
Oh, Martin knew that face. It was the face of Will having a moral quandary. There was no use talking to him when he was in that sort of state, too profoundly in love with the idea of the moral high ground to actually get anything done. Something useless, like—fondness, maybe—swirled around in the vicinity of Martin’s heart. “Fuck off,” Martin said, for lack of any better ideas. He was almost positive he heard Will laugh. “And open the window, will you. It’s sweltering in here.”
When he woke the next time, blessedly cool air wafted across his body. The pounding in his head had diminished enough to let him think somewhat cogently. This was not London. The only sounds from outdoors were the hoots and shrieks of owls and the wind agitating bare wintry branches. He also knew that it wasn’t Cumberland, although he would have been hard-pressed to say how he knew he wasn’t home. Nor was it Will’s house, because Will didn’t have a house—he barely had a pair of trousers, judging by the looks of him. Will had taken him somewhere, and Martin didn’t know whether to be grateful or to be outraged that Will had walked away from his life to sit in a—hut, or whatever this place was—playing nursemaid to his dying childhood friend.
Martin sighed. Good lord, he was tired of dying. He had been dying for over twenty years now and was slightly appalled that even consumption didn’t seem to have finished the job. Whatever illness had prompted this little rural interlude had been worse than usual, however. He had the wrung-out and ragged feeling that only came after a long, brutal fever. But now he could fill his lungs partway and was aware of something resembling hunger, so he supposed he’d live to see this whole revolting cycle through from the beginning.
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Two truths were dawning on Will Sedgwick.
The first was that he had, very possibly, almost certainly, kidnapped Sir Martin Easterbrook. He hadn’t meant to—in his defense, he had had a lot on his mind—but he was aware that a magistrate, or, really, anybody with a functioning brain, would take one look at this situation and know precisely what to think. But Martin had been wavering between unconsciousness and delirium, and the doctor said he needed country air, so Will had done the only thing he could think of. He knew exactly what the papers would make of it: Invalid Baronet Kidnapped by Disgraced Sailor. Never mind that they had been friends for fifteen years. Never mind that they had grown up together. Never mind that Will, during his more maudlin moments, thought Martin might be his other half, the true north on his compass, the