“Jesus, Will. I know this stinks! I know I’ll despise myself for it, and should. I realise every part of that, but my life is accelerating very fast towards a brick wall, and this is the only turning I can see. Think about what happens if Chingford hangs. My father’s loathing—well, perhaps I can bear that, and the contempt of all the others who’ll assume I’m delighted to take his place, but that’s only the start of it. The Press will crawl over my life like cockroaches, which means they’ll infest yours, Phoebe’s, Peacock’s. The Lord Arthur part of my life will expand unstoppably. And you already hate my title when it’s nothing but a word, and dislike our relative positions when they’re a great deal less unequal than they’re about to become. If he dies now, I’ll lose you.”

“Who says?”

“Oh, come on. You lasted about half an hour in the Symposium before you were throwing punches.”

Will cursed himself. “I can do better. I haven’t hit any journalists.”

“Yet. What about when one of them gets wind of us? Insinuating questions about how much, or little, you mean to me? What when someone wants my pet war hero’s comments on my cowardice, or asks you how I celebrated my second brother’s death?”

Will exhaled. “All right, I hear you. But—”

“But it could ruin us. But I could lose you, because your position will be intolerable, and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to do without you; I don’t want you to leave me. I can’t stop you, of course, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I’ll beg if I have to, and won’t that embarrass us both. I want a future with you.”

It was like a box on the ear out of nowhere, stunning in its force. “A what?” Will said.

“A future. You know the concept? The shape you want the rest of your life to take? I want mine with you, all of it. A future, a forever. I love you.” He said it quite calmly, as if it was an established fact. “People say I love you to madness, but I love you to sanity, because loving you is the sanest thing I have ever done. You are everything to me, Will, and I cannot lose you to my miserable family and an accident of birth.”

Will had no idea what to say. His heart was thundering. Kim examined his face for a moment then tilted his chin, a tiny movement that suggested he was bracing himself. “Perhaps I’ve started in the wrong place. Perhaps I should have asked first if you want a future with me. Because if you don’t, I need you to tell me now.”