He ransacked his ale-addled mind to come up with something else that might be suitable. “I’m not immune to anybody’s charms,” he blurted out.
Martin choked on his ale. “Good God, of all the ways to put it,” he said when he recovered himself. “Your family. I mean, really.”
That made Will laugh, and so the two of them were laughing like a pair of fools, warm and cozy by the fire. Will’s heart was full with the hope that there could be more nights like this, more days in the sunshine, more time spent laughing and talking and doing all the things they hadn’t been able to do before.
“I haven’t seen you look so well in years,” Will said as they left the inn. The night had grown cold, and he reached out to wrap Martin’s muffler more securely around his neck. He let his hands linger a moment too long, let himself stand a bit too close. He told himself that he was glad to have Martin alive and near, that the drink had made him even more affectionate than usual, and that it didn’t have to mean anything more than that.
“I could say the same to you,” Martin said, not stepping away from Will’s ministrations. And then whatever he saw in Will’s eye must have given him pause because he frowned. “Let’s get you home.”
It was absolutely mad that after more than seven years in the navy and heaven knew how many hours spent in opium dens, all it took was three pints for Will Sedgwick to start petting at people like they were kittens.
“Your hair is soft,” Will said, taking off Martin’s hat and running his fingers through his hair. “Like a duckling. But all tidy, now that Daisy’s cut it. Like a tidy duckling. A very well-bred duckling.”
“This duckling’s in Debrett’s,” Martin said, putting his chin in the air.
Will seemed in danger of wandering into a ditch, so Martin took him firmly by the hand and returned him to the center of the lane.
“Did you know?” Will began. So they were at the Did You Know stage of inebriation, then. Martin knew it well, and suppressed a fond smile. “Did you know that your fingers are very long?” He held up their joined hands, pressing them palm to palm, as if to compare.
“Yes, well, that’s generations of elegance and breeding at work.” He was trying not to focus too much on the sensation of Will’s skin against his own, Will’s hand clasping his tightly, but something of his predicament must have shown on his face.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” Will said, dropping Martin’s hand. “I forgot.”
“You forgot what?” Martin asked.
“You don’t like touching. It’s all right, you know,” Will said with the wide-eyed earnestness of the highly tipsy. “We can be friends without touching. Or with touching. There’s no touching in letters.”
“There is indeed no touching in letters,” Martin had to agree.
“I lost all your letters on the ship.”
Martin let the silence last while they walked a few paces, in case Will wanted to say anything else; as a rule, he didn’t ask Will about anything that happened on board that ship, not wanting to poke at wounds that had only just healed. When the pause stretched out, Martin cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t like being touched. I like it very much. I just didn’t want to give myself the wrong idea,” he said, and then immediately regretted it. Well, in for a penny. “I don’t mind if you touch me,” he said. His face heated; he had meant only to convey that he was sufficiently in charge of his own emotions not to be led into perdition by a hand on his sleeve. But he made himself bite his tongue. Any clarification would be protesting too much. He was determined to be very normal about all of this: they were friends choosing to share a small cottage, and it would be bizarre and unnatural to insist on not being touched.
Besides, said a small and slightly drunk voice in his head, You do like when he touches you. You like it and you could easily get him to touch you all the time.
When they got home, they set about rebuilding the banked fire and putting their muddy boots outside the door. “If we’re both to stay here for a while, then I can’t let you sleep on the floor any longer,” Martin said when Will dropped his pillow onto the floor before the fire. “It