They ended up entwined in one another, Kim’s head heavy on his shoulder. Will was coming to like that feeling a lot.

“Where were we?” Kim murmured. “Oh, you were saying not to piss you off. I’ll try.”

“You say that now.”

“I can’t let you get complacent.” He puffed a breath over Will’s skin. “Are you sure? Given the situation—”

“I’m sure. Anyway, I was thinking about that, and don’t you lot always have some bloke with a shotgun to slope around behind you and glare at people who don’t tug their forelock hard enough? I could do that.”

“No you couldn’t.”

“Course I can. You be the marquess, I’ll be the gamekeeper. I’ve my own flat cap. All ‘my lord’ this and ‘your lordship’ that and ‘as your lordship pleases’—”

“And you have the bald-faced cheek to call me a liar.”

Will kissed his hair. “I don’t know what we’ll do but we’ll do it, all right? So you needn’t talk like I’m going to run away from this, because I don’t want an easy life, any more than I want a better man. What would I do with a better man? He wouldn’t like it, and I’d get bored.”

“Christ, I adore you.”

“Good,” Will said. “You’re not bad yourself.”

Chapter Nineteen

They slept together that night. Maybe it was reckless; Kim didn’t seem to care so Will didn’t either.

They’d sealed the deal with an intense, joyful, glorious fuck that risked the bed-frame and probably had Kim’s noble ancestors turning in their graves all the way back to the lady who shagged the Prince Regent. Kim was all gasping, quivering pleasure under Will’s hands, and Will kissed him and fucked him, shoved him down into the mattress and told him he was beautiful, and came painfully hard, clutching Kim’s shoulders, as his lover cried out under him.

Kim went out like a light after that, the lines of stress around his eyes and mouth fading in sleep. Will felt like a bit of a toe rag for how many of them he’d put there.

They’d each given the other a hard time in a variety of ways since they’d met. They’d both acknowledged that, and in the last months Kim had worked hard to change. Will had taken that gift, and he’d truly appreciated it, but he hadn’t stopped to consider what of his own behaviour needed changing. Maybe because he was a selfish idiot, maybe because of the overwhelming implausibility and impossibility of the future Kim wanted.