creatures looked so belligerent that Martin always thought they appeared to be quarreling over it.
He remembered the ring forever glinting from his father’s finger, glinting when Martin was ordered back to his room for another bloodletting, glinting when his father hared off to London for a round of debauchery. But the ring was tarnished now, a vaguely embarrassing reminder of faded glory, a sad relic of misused power. Put it next to his mother’s portrait and you got a pretty little picture of landed aristocracy—old power, a compliant bride, a tale that spun itself out again and again.
And here he stood, in his soft wool coat and his newly cut hair, getting ready to play his part in the latest telling of the tale. Except now the Easterbrook baronetcy wouldn’t be purchasing compliance, but solvency. He, Martin realized with a shudder, would be the compliant one. He’d be forever beholden to his new wife and her family. The first time he got sick they’d realize how bad a bargain they had struck. Christ, they might realize it before then, if he couldn’t manage to get his wife with child. And while he didn’t think his wife’s family would be able to lock him away, he also knew he’d be too guilty to protest if they insisted on putting him in a seaside asylum for invalids with weak lungs—for his own good, of course.
It would likely be fine, he told himself. People entered into these sorts of marriages every day, if his aunt were to be believed. He slid the ring over his finger and it gleamed back up at him like a warning.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go like that,” Hartley said, looking about as formidable as a man could with a drooling baby on his hip. “It’s eight o’clock in the morning, which I assure you is a thoroughly bizarre time for social calls, but more importantly you haven’t eaten since you got here last night. I need hardly mention that you look like you were dragged behind the stagecoach all the way from Sussex. You simply cannot saunter up to Bermondsey House looking like that and expect to be let in.”
“But—”
“He’ll still be there later, Will,” Hartley said severely. “Now sit down.” Will sat in one of the straight-backed wooden chairs in the Fox’s still empty taproom. “I saw that you arrived with a satchel. Dare I hope it contains presentable clothing or will you be borrowing something of mine?”
“Er. Probably the latter,” said Will.
“Let the man eat his food,” Sam said, approaching the table with a plate, and then leaving with the baby. Will dutifully ate his breakfast as Hartley stared balefully at him from across the table.
“I knew it was a bad idea,” Hartley said. “The two of you in one another’s pockets for so many months.”
“You’re an oracle, Hart. Who knew?”
Hartley ignored this. “And now, because you’re you, you’ll assume that whatever happened is actually a grand passion that requires you to make an enormous mess of your life rather than two people doing exactly what people do when they’re cooped up together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will grumbled.
“Dare I hope it’s only physical?”
“Hartley!” Will knew he was blushing.
“How bad is it? Does he feel the same way?”
Will thought of the flowers pressed between the pages of his book and mumbled something that might be interpreted as assent. “In any event, it’s over,” he said, pushing food around on his plate.
Hartley sighed, whether with relief or sympathy Will could not tell. “You did the right thing by handing him over to his aunt. Well done. Heroic self-sacrifice, accomplished.”
“It was his idea,” Will said.
“Never thought sacrifice was much in Martin’s line,” Hartley mused. “But I suppose he yearned for the comforts of civilization—”
“It wasn’t like that,” Will protested, but even as he spoke he realized that Martin probably was very much enjoying having three hot meals a day and servants to draw his baths. And Will wanted Martin to have those things. He tried to remind himself that Martin was where he belonged.
“Regardless, now what you ought to do is give him some time to learn how to be Sir Martin again. You’ll call on him later, but first please finish your breakfast, shave as if you care about the results, and make some kind of effort with your hair. I’ll put some clothes that might fit you on your bed.”
When Will went upstairs, he half expected to find one of Hartley’s