Thomas gasped like Micha had physically struck him. “No. Never.”
“Except now you want me to watch while you become someone else’s?”
Thomas gazed at him pleadingly. “In name only.”
“You say that as if it’s nothing. But it’s me who’ll be nothing.”
“That’s not true. You’re everything to me. You know that.”
Micha’s anger was fading fast. And when it was gone, it would leave him bereft, just like Thomas had. “There’s only so much of you. There’s a piece for your God, and a piece for your flock, and a piece for every lost soul who crosses your path. A piece for your woman and a piece for the child. Even a piece of you for the brother who won’t speak to you because of who you are. What’s for me, Thomas? What part of you is truly mine?”
“My heart?”
“What use is that when you give your life to someone else?” Micha’s lip curled into a sneer that felt as familiar to him as the bitterness of laudanum. “You coward. You fucking coward.”
Thomas’s head snapped up. “You have no idea what it’s like. I have a calling, Micha. You would have me cast that gift aside because you have a pretty arse?”
Micha nearly saidBecause you love me. But he closed his lips over the words. “No.”
“Oh God.” Thomas’s voice broke, and he dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. It’s too much. I’m to minister to these people and help them live with God and His church, when I myself do neither. I’m a hypocrite, the w-worst of sinners. I d-don’t deserve to be their priest. I deserve to be in hell. I am in hell.” And then he began to weep, soundless, terrible sobs that made his whole body shake as though he might shatter at a touch.
It was unbearable. Micha had believed hearts only broke in fairy tales. He pushed away from the bed and dropped to his knees at Thomas’s feet. “Please,” he whispered, half-crying himself. “Please don’t. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you. I’ll always love you.”
At last, Thomas let him peel his hands from his face and kiss away the wetness from his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s right anymore. I just don’t know.”
“We’ll think of something. We will. Just don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” The reassurances fell in a babbling stream from Micha’s lips, though he barely believed one word in ten. “Come back to bed with me?”
Thomas stared at him, with hopeless, red-rimmed eyes, and then his lips turned up in a smile Micha had never seen before. “To coin a phrase, ‘What use is that?’”
And their laughing was weeping inside out.
“No use at all,” admitted Micha, when they were lying together. “But I’m always happiest in your arms.”
“As am I,” Thomas agreed. “And I’m sorry, Micha. I’m so sorry. I’ve been such a fool. I think I must have ... panicked in the moment?”
Micha made a soothing, forgiving noise and drew Thomas closer. It wasn’t that he disbelieved him, for Thomas’s distress certainly hadn’t been feigned. But while he may have spoken to Micha impulsively—while whatever the bishop had said to him might have spurred him to it—Micha could not shake the conviction that these were thoughts Thomas had previously entertained. Had, in fact, probably been entertaining for some time. And that should not have felt like a betrayal. But it did.
Not a grand one. Except this was worse.
This was betrayal like grains of sand, flung carelessly into his eyes.
When Thomas slept, Micha slipped from the bed and paced the hallways of the rectory, with Thomas’s dressing gown wrapped loosely around him. Even the fact it smelled of Thomas—the slightly medicinal tang of Pears soap—was less comfort than usual. It was at once a relief and a torment to Micha that he had no laudanum. He would have mixed himself adraught and swallowed it down without hesitation. Instead, he wandered through shadows and empty rooms, and shuddered, and ached, and was suddenly so very afraid.
He should have expected, if not this, then something like it. They were fortunate it had only been Thomas’s “worldly” bishop. But hadn’t Micha tried to warn Thomas? How many times had he told him that they needed to be careful? That someone would, at some point, discern who and what they were. And that destruction would inevitably follow.
But Thomas hadn’t quite believed him. And somehow—lulled, distracted, hopeful—Micha had let himself stop believing too. He had forgotten to be fearful, and, at some point, they would both pay the price for it. They’d been stupid, careless, complacent in their settled lives. And they’d taken their happiness for granted. Somehow convinced themselves they had a right to it. That they could be free. Was it idealism, or pride, or the simple lunacy of love, which felt too much like invincibility sometimes?
Now, though, there could be no more hiding, no more recklessness and self-deception. Because the truth was this, and it had been their truth all along, and all the love in the world could not change it: They lived on the edge of ruin.
Chapter 24
Spring came swiftly that year, flooding Nettlefield in ice-bright sunlight. The trees bedecked themselves like debutantes, spilling their raspberry-and-cream blossom endlessly down the village streets and across the flower-strewn meadows. In the churchyard, where Micha waited for Thomas to give his service, the grass had given way to a carpet of snowdrops, crocuses, and daffodils, as brash and joyously chaotic as children at play.
Micha rested against a crumbling, ivy-coiled obelisk, its inscription long lost to time. The sky arced over him, endless, infinite, and almost cloudless, shining like the sea. Blossoms kept tangling in his hair. The world was silent, but for the faintest movement of the breeze through the softly sighing trees and a trace of birdsong in the distance.
He felt like the only man left on earth.
But soon, Thomas would be done, and they would walk home, as close to arm-in-arm as they dared, and, perhaps, one of these Sundays would be the Sunday. The Sunday they went in search of that impossible future Thomas had promised and Micha had chosen, as some chose to put their faith in plaster saints, to believe in. Of course, that would also mean leaving. They would leave misty mornings in the meadows, long evenings by the fire, wild nights of secret carnal embraces, lemon drizzle cake and reading groups, fluff-brained dogs and white horses that granted wishes, in search of other beauty, other happiness, as if this was not enough. As if Thomas didnot belong here, among these gentle greens and golds, where he had, at last, learned to be loved.
