the vegetable patch. “You don’t happen to be skilled at giving tattoos, do you?”
“’Fraid not,” Davis said, and if he thought this was an odd question, he didn’t let on.
“I wonder if you know anybody who is, and who wouldn’t mind calling on us.”
After Davis left, Will rounded on Martin. “What on earth was that about?”
“I’m not telling,” Martin said.
The next sailor who visited was a stranger to Will. His skin was dark from the sun and leathery from the wind and Will couldn’t even make a guess at his age. He introduced himself as Jones. “Davis said you wanted more ink,” he told Will.
“That would be me,” said Martin. Will watched in confusion as Martin rifled through his papers until he came up with a drawing. “Could you put that on my arm?”
“Have you run mad?” Will asked. “You realize this involves being stabbed with needles.”
“Really,” Martin drawled, rolling up his sleeve and displaying the scars from years of bloodlettings. “Whenever have I been poked at with sharp objects. At least this time I get to choose. And I’m left with a lovely flower instead of a basin of blood.”
Will watched as Martin stripped out of his waistcoat and shirt, and then as Jones traced the flower onto Martin’s arm. Will hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening, but if Martin wanted—he glanced at the drawing—a couple of pinks inked permanently onto his body, then so be it. He found a bottle of brandy that Hartley had left for them a few weeks back, and poured Martin a generous glass.
“You don’t have to hover,” Martin griped, so Will went out and pulled a couple of carrots out of the ground and chopped some firewood. He didn’t go back toward the house until he saw Jones at the door.
“What do we owe you?” Will asked.
“He paid already,” Jones said, gesturing with his chin toward the cottage. “And Davis paid my way here.”
Will went back inside and leaned against the doorway. “Care to tell me what that was about?”
Martin blinked in a way he probably thought looked very innocent. “What, I need a particular reason to get three lovely flowers etched—very painfully, what the hell, William—into my flesh?”
“Let’s have a look.” Will sighed and sat on the bed beside Martin. The drawing was of a group of fairly simple looking wildflowers, each bloom consisting of five petals with frilly edges. “I thought they were pinks, but they aren’t ruffled enough for that,” he mused. He was slightly disappointed to note that they weren’t primroses—he still had Martin’s primroses pressed in the pages of a book. “Not pinks, not primroses,” he murmured, running a careful finger across the new ink.
“You get one more guess.” Martin languidly inspected his nails. “I just thought we ought to match.”
Will drew in a sharp breath. “You absolutely did not just get sweet Williams tattooed onto your arm. Tell me you didn’t.”
“All right,” Martin said primly. “I didn’t.” But Will was already kissing him, pushing him down onto the bed and covering his body with his own. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of this,” Martin said. “I chose them because they smell good and because the pigs think they’re tasty. That’s all.” He looked like he was trying to keep a straight face but was making a poor fist of it. “Oh, did you think it had something to do with you? How embarrassing.” He was laughing openly now, pressing a pillow over his face to muffle the sound.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you,” Will said, pulling the pillow away to kiss him, but they were both laughing too hard for the kiss to be anything other than a graceless collision. “I could not love you more.”
The summer passed, and with every red or orange leaf that appeared in the woods outside the cottage, Martin half expected the spell to be broken. He kept waiting for the bubble they had been living in to be punctured by the sordid reality of the outside world, because surely something so good couldn’t exist except under these precise, protected circumstances.
But the outside world didn’t so much encroach as let itself be gently woven into the fabric of their lives. Tenants moved into Friars’ Gate, which meant they were no longer quite so isolated, and somehow that did not feel like a bad thing. Every day brought letters—from Aunt Bermondsey (with carefully worded regards to Will), from Hartley (who visited often enough that letters might seem a