children from the village who played at bat and ball with Will when Martin was too sick to join them. Hell, he had even been jealous of Will’s own brothers. During Will’s years in the navy, Martin had found a way to envy his shipmates. He knew jealousy was pitiful, maybe even ugly, and he tried to keep it well hidden from Will. He certainly never acted on it. The jealousy was just always there, along with all of Martin’s other less savory qualities. Logically, he knew that he couldn’t keep Will to himself. He also knew that Will having other friends didn’t make him like Martin less. But Martin was long accustomed to reason deserting him where Will was concerned.
His jealousy of this Jonathan York wasn’t entirely unreasonable, though. The fellow seemed exactly like the sort of man with whom Will could have lasting companionship: affectionate and pleasant, clever and probably educated. His clothes looked respectable and clean, which likely meant he had a steady income. Martin could picture it, and he knew it was the sort of future he ought to wish for Will.
He got to a fork in the lane where Friars’ Gate lay in one direction and the village in the other. With a sigh, he turned toward Friars’ Gate—nothing like a cheerful reminder of one’s failures to properly ruin a day. Thus far, he hadn’t allowed his walks to take him further than the park that surrounded the house, but today he pushed open the creaky garden gate, made his way past overgrown hedges and the desiccated remains of the prior year’s foliage. When he peered through the windows of the ground floor, he could see that the remaining furniture and fixtures were draped in holland covers. The floors were bare, the walls denuded of most art. Not having seen the house in years, and because no house looked the same through windows as it did from inside, he felt like he was peering into a stranger’s home. He was surprised to find that he didn’t hate the sight of the place. He didn’t want to go indoors or linger a moment longer than necessary, but neither did he want to run screaming as if from the harbinger of an ancestral curse.
He could take a reasonable middle ground and figure out how to let the place. But he wasn’t certain how that would work. He couldn’t simply tack a notice to the front door or post an advertisement in the Times. Presumably, at some point there would need to be solicitors and leases involved. He could start by writing his solicitor in Cumberland, he supposed. It would be even simpler if he could swallow his pride and ask his aunt, but he knew that if he confided in her, he’d find himself living at Friars’ Gate himself within a fortnight, very possibly married off to a coal heiress. His mother’s younger sister and his only living relation, Lady Bermondsey was the sort of woman who couldn’t see a problem without exerting herself to fix it. And Martin hated that the only solution anybody could come up with was restoring him to his place in the world—a place that was better consigned to the dust heap as far as he cared. Letting Friars’ Gate would allow him to delay that inevitability, even though something within him recoiled at the necessity of being Sir Martin, even for the duration of a letter.
Before his courage deserted him, he went to the inn, got a sheet of paper from the landlord, and dashed off a letter to his solicitor.
Jonathan stayed for two hours, most of which he spent in a near unbroken monologue about theater, politics, and mutual acquaintances. Will was glad to see him, but he was also glad when the man left. The world Jonathan talked about felt as remote as a desert island, as unreal as a fairy story.
“Are you quite alone?” Martin asked stiffly, inching open the door to the cottage.
“Yes, and you could have stayed, you know.”
“I didn’t wish to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t have.” Will got to his feet and crossed to the door. “It would have been a pleasure for me to have two friends together in the same place.”
“Were you lovers?”
Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes.” Martin was silent for a long minute. “Does that bother you?”
“No, of course not,” Martin said, plainly bothered. Martin already knew that Will sometimes went to bed with men, and implied that his own inclinations were not dissimilar,