“Your bad choices,” Martin repeated, his voice suddenly gentle. “Will. When you came back to England with your mind half gone and your back still bleeding, I don’t think a damned thing you did was much of a choice.”
Will sucked in a breath. They didn’t really talk about that. Will didn’t talk about it with anybody. The events had been reported in the papers. The facts were there for anybody who wanted to know. No need for Will to have to think about it more than he already did.
“As far as this medicine,” Martin went on. “Laudanum helps me sleep but it gives me nightmares. However, it does make me cough less and sometimes that’s worth it. If I ever need it, you have my permission to do what it takes to get it. But perhaps give it to Mrs. Tanner to keep.”
“I don’t need to be babied.”
“It’s not about need, is it? It’s about being comfortable in our home. I know you won’t let the doctor do things I don’t want, and you know you don’t have to think about opium any more than you already do. That seems fair, doesn’t it? It’s just taking care of one another.”
Will was aware that if it hadn’t been for the fever, Martin wouldn’t be speaking half so freely. He crossed the room and kissed the top of Martin’s head. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”
“If you can be stupid for me, then I can be stupid for you.”
“You’re stupid no matter what you do,” Will said, trying very hard to sound like he wasn’t about to cry.
Chapter Ten
“Mr. Sedgwick! You’ve been fiddling with that spar for five minutes!” Mrs. Tanner called from the ground. “Have you gone daft?”
Slightly, Will thought. His mind had been in a muddle all day. “Sorry, Mrs. Tanner.” He gave the spar—the hazel sticks that held the bunches of straw in place—a final check and moved on to the next part of the roof that needed patching.
The Tanners’ cottage was in a state of dilapidation that spoke to years of repairs that had been put off and parts that had been too pricey to purchase. It was a state Will knew well from his own childhood home: the Grange was always leaking from someplace or another, the fences always had a gap through which animals got in or out, and the chimneys smoked no matter the weather. The adults of the Grange hadn’t been practically minded people; perhaps it was difficult to think about poetry and broken pump handles at the same time. Except—nobody would accuse Will of being a practical person. He was the coauthor of a play that he was fairly certain critics would dismiss as a trifling piece of nonsense. But he knew how to stop a leak, how to fix a creaky hinge, how to do all the other things that made a place safe and comfortable for the people who lived there. The difference was that Will gave a damn about the safety and comfort of the people in his care.
Will thought back to his rooms in London. There had been a fungus growing out of the windowsill and not a single uncracked windowpane. He had one decent shirt and forgot to eat more days than he remembered. He might know how to do a good many practical things, but he wasn’t likely to bestir himself to do them on his own behalf. All the work he had done on the cottage and at Mrs. Tanner’s had been for Martin. Broken fences and runaway pigs were solvable problems and gave him something to show for his labors. Left up to his own devices he dwelt on all the things that couldn’t be fixed.
“God help you and save you, Mr. Sedgwick,” Mrs. Tanner called. “Get down from there before you fall. You’re off with the fairies. I ought to tie you to my apron strings.”
“Woolgathering,” Will said sheepishly. “I’m not going to fall, though.” He was pretty sure that after his years at sea, he couldn’t fall off anything even if he tried. “There’s one more spot that needs work, so pass up that last bundle, if you please.”
“If you say so,” said Mrs. Tanner, hefting the bundle of straw and passing it to where Will stood at the top of the ladder. “But I’m giving myself gray hairs watching you, so I’ll be in the vegetable garden if you need me.”
Will secured the final patch and then climbed onto highest