landscape of lacy delicate green and the heavy verdant abundance that met him on his walk from the inn to the cottage. On impulse, he plucked a fistful of coral bells and a few stalks of foxglove, remembering when Martin had done the same for him. There would be more chances to do this, a rotating calendar of posies to bring one another, from larkspur and apple blossoms to hellebore to sprigs of holly, all laid out before them. They had time. They had time together, and this week apart wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t cut into their time in any memorable way. Martin was fine, he was fine. Will repeated it to himself like a catechism, like a spell.
When the cottage came in sight, he thought maybe Martin would hear his footsteps and come out to greet him, but the birds were calling raucously to one another and the pigs splashing wildly in their muck and Martin wouldn’t have heard his footsteps even if he’d been expected. Will dropped his satchel and the hamper on the bench near the door and pushed open the door, stepping into the single room that was his home, his heart in his throat, his stomach in knots.
Martin was asleep in the bed, his chest rising and falling, a book open on the pillow next to his head, a pair of spectacles crooked on his face. Will pulled off his boots and crawled onto the bed beside him.
“Hey,” he whispered, brushing a hair off Martin’s forehead and straightening his spectacles. “When did you get spectacles?”
Martin made a happy, sleepy noise, unguarded and open the way he only was when on the edges of sleep. Then his eyes flew open. “When—”
“I just walked in the door.”
Something hopelessly fond and relieved flickered across Martin’s face, before being immediately replaced by exasperation. “Cumberland. You idiot. When I’m awake we’re having a proper fight about this.”
“I can’t wait,” Will said, and he meant it. He threw an arm over Martin’s chest and pillowed his head on Martin’s shoulder, and the last thing he heard before he fell asleep was Martin sleepily whispering, “Cumberland. What rot.”
When he woke the bed was empty, the spot where Martin had been already cool. Faint tendrils of light crept through the windows, but Will couldn’t have said whether it was dawn or dusk. Martin sat at the table, one of Daisy’s sandwiches on a plate before him, writing by the light of a candle. The flowers, which Will had left outside with the hamper, were now in a pewter cup at the center of the table.
As Will sat, the mattress creaked beneath him, and Martin put down his pen.
“There’s tea,” Martin said, gesturing at the pot.
Will stretched and felt every sinew in his body reject the idea of getting out of bed, but he crossed the room and collapsed in the empty chair. He picked up Martin’s hand—fingertips inky, nails bitten—and kissed his palm. “I missed you. And you don’t have to tell me again that I was a fool for having misread your letter. I know it.”
“I still can’t believe that you could think I’d say home and mean anything else but here. Except,” he added, stealing his hand back to bring his teacup to his mouth, “I suppose what I really mean is where you are.”
Will was brought up short to hear from Martin’s mouth the sentiment he’d repeated to himself so many times, across years and oceans and continents. He swallowed. “I know better now.” Will laced their fingers together. “In my defense, you really could have been more clear.”
“William. That entire letter was carefully constructed not to get either of us put in the pillory. If I was evasive, it was because I was afraid if I started being honest it’d all come pouring out. A reprehensible degree of sentiment, even if it weren’t a confession to criminal behavior.”
“I wouldn’t mind some reprehensible sentiment one of these days,” Will said.
Martin looked at him narrowly. In the shadowy half-light, Will could see the circles under his eyes and that old disconcerting sharpness to his features. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said lightly, but he squeezed Will’s hand. With the hand that wasn’t trapped in Will’s he brought his teacup to his mouth. “How long are you here for?”
Will stared. “Well, at least I don’t have a monopoly on idiocy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m here, full stop, because it’s my home, because—as you said two minutes ago—it’s where you are, you monumental