at all. I’ve been trying to shake you loose for months. Why did you think I wouldn’t answer your letters?”
Will knew from years of experience that Martin Easterbrook was a thoroughgoing lout when he didn’t feel well (which was often enough to make loutishness his basic personality, Will sometimes thought) and was even more of a git when he suspected that he was being treated like an invalid. Will knew this. But that didn’t stop it from hurting.
Will clenched his fists. He didn’t want to fight—he hated it as much as Martin seemed to thrive on it. The middle of five sons, and raised in a house filled with quarrelsome adults, even a hint of disagreement made his skin crawl. Other people might like to linger on their differences, poking and prodding until they had aired all their grievances, but Will wanted nothing more than to smooth things over, bandage the wounds, and move on. He had to get out of the cottage before he said something regrettable. “I’m going for a walk,” Will said, reaching for his coat. “I’ll be back before dusk.”
By the time he reached the village, his fury had subsided into a more familiar sorrow. He posted a letter for Hartley, drank a pint of ale at the pub, and then bought a loaf of bread and some cheese to take home as a weak effort at reconciliation.
Before stepping through the cottage door, he steeled himself for the chance of finding Martin in distress or worse, but only after putting his hand to the door latch did he realize that this time he fully expected his friend to be alive. Martin was still pale, but had lost the grayish pallor of illness. His coughs had diminished in quantity and severity. His fever showed no signs of returning. Whatever crisis had been brought on by the idiot’s stay in a drafty attic had truly passed. Will had successfully nursed him through it. And while Martin might have preferred to have been left to meet his end alone, Will wasn’t going to be sorry for having intervened.
He placed his parcels on the table and glanced up to find Martin looking at him with a faint blush and an expression that might have been sheepish on anyone else. Will raised his eyebrows.
“Can we take it as read?” Martin asked.
“Take what as read?” Will asked, shrugging out of his coat.
“That I’m sorry to have met your generosity with my ill manners.”
“I accept your first three words. The rest is rubbish and you can shove it right up your arse. You know perfectly well you saved me—”
“We don’t talk about that,” Martin said, as he always did when reminded of those awful few months two years ago, when Will had returned from sea, shattered and broken.
“Fine,” Will conceded. “But you realize you’re not dying at the moment, right?”
“That possibility has occurred to me,” Martin said about as primly as a man could while wearing a secondhand nightshirt.
“Yeah, well, it’s occurred to me too. After I sat next to you for a fucking fortnight, trying to figure out what I’d have to do to afford a funeral.”
“You needn’t—”
“Needn’t have paid for a funeral? What should I have done? Left you here? Flung you into the woods?” Will buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation with you.”
Martin was silent for a long while. “I prefer it,” he said. “I think about those things all the time, so it’s just as well to hear them out in the open. But, as you say, you probably won’t need to consider funeral expenses in the immediate future.”
Will took out his knife and pared off a slice of cheese, then sat on the edge of the bed and handed the morsel to Martin.
“Really?” Martin asked, holding the sliver of cheese. “First soup and now cheese. We’re living like kings in—where are we?”
“Sussex,” Will said, and saw a glimmer of suspicion in Martin’s eyes. Before Martin could ask any questions, Will said, “Now eat your damned cheese.” For once, Martin did as he was told. Will smiled at the look of stunned pleasure on his friend’s face. “I bet you’re glad you didn’t die now. No cheese in hell.”
The look of barely suppressed laughter on Martin’s face warmed Will’s heart. “Fuck off, Will. That is—that is—just give me more cheese and shut up.”
They ate half the wedge of cheese and the entire loaf of bread. At some point Will shifted so