Kim let his hand go. Will could feel the rigidity return to his lover’s shoulders. “I’d like to argue that. I wish I could.”

“But you can’t, because I don’t belong here, and nor do you. They’ve made that clear.”

“Yet here we are, and if Chingford swings, the noose goes round my neck too.”

“Jesus,” Will said. “I’m not having you feel like this.”

“I’m fairly sure my feelings are mine to handle.”

“Not when some bastard’s making you miserable and I can do something about it. In fairness, the bastard making you miserable is usually you—”

Kim gave the ghost of a laugh. “Harsh, if true.”

“But not right now, so this has got to stop. Today. I’m not waiting on your father’s convenience. I want to get done and get out of here quick smart.”

“Sounds marvellous. How do you propose we go about it?”

Will shrugged, feeling Kim’s head shift on his chest. “We go back in and I beat the shit out of Chingford until he tells us the truth.”

“Right,” Kim said. “Not your most subtle plan, I have to say.”

“I didn’t promise subtlety.”

“For which much thanks. It’s tempting, but no. Or, at least, let’s save it for a last resort.”

“Then what’s your alternative? Because staying here watching you shrivel up from the inside isn’t an option. I can’t have you hurt like this.”

“That is an irony,” Kim said. It sounded painful. “Because if we’re talking about hurting me, we both know who can do it in a way that makes my father’s efforts look like a child’s tantrum. Who could destroy me.”

Will’s skin prickled. “Who?”

“You.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You made me fall in love,” Kim said. “You made me want to be a better man, even if I had to claw my way to that conclusion through thickets and thorns. You made me wake wanting you there and sleep in the knowledge that you were, and believe that I had you by my side, with that glorious, stubborn, unshakeable Will Darling obstinacy. And I am terrified, I am sick with fear, that I will lose you to the walking ancestral curse that is my family—not just the painted trappings and gilded vainglory, but the hollowed-out decaying heart of it. That’s my magnificent inheritance: a family rotten to the core, a blighted tree that will fall in the next storm. And you’re strong and clean, and I don’t deserve you at my best, so how can I ask you to put up with this?”