“But it’s my job to—”
“To obliterate yourself?” Micha asked sharply. “To strip away all that’s good and kind and true in you in order to fulfil some duty, meet some standard, that only you decided was right or necessary?”
“Is that how you see it?”
Micha shrugged. “Am I wrong?”
“No.” It was a simple admission, but the sorrow of it struck what remained of Micha’s heart. “I think I thought that if I could become the priest I was supposed to be, it would make up for ... for all that was lacking in me.”
“There’s nothing lacking in you.”
Thomas cupped Micha’s face gently. “With you, I can almost believe it. But there’s no escaping the fact I’m a poor son. A poor brother. And even by your reckoning, I’m a poor priest.”
“That’s my point, though,” Micha protested. “You don’t have to be. You love it here. And you love your parishioners—no matter how much you tell yourself you shouldn’t.”
“That’s immaterial. I can’t serve them and lie to them. Nor will I give you up.”
Micha had heard such promises before. What was wrong with him that—even after everything—he ached so deeply to believe them? “Then what do we do?”
“We’ll need to stay here awhile. Until you’re free of your laudanum dependency. Until I’ve put my affairs in order and done what I can for Nettlefield.”
Micha had heard promises like these too. Promises that were little more than compromises. But he just nodded. “And after?”
“Whatever we want. Perhaps”—and here Thomas offered a sweet, uncertain smile—“I will finally see my desert. And you could show me Venice. Or Prague. Granada. The whole world.”
“And while I’m showing you the whole world, how do we live?”
“I have a small inheritance from my mother’s side of the family, and I’m sure I could supplement it with teaching or ... or ... something.”
“But what will I do?”
“Again, whatever you want. Draw. Keep house. Take in an urchin.”
Micha said nothing and hid his face against Thomas. He knew he was making exactly the same mistakes all over again—trusting everything to love, and the vaguest of hopes—but he lacked any power to turn away from it.
“We’ll be fine,” said Thomas, sounding like he meant it. And then, teasingly, “Are you not better than a sparrow?”
But Micha was not in a humour to be teased. “For fuck’s sake, God isn’t going to provide for two sodomites on the run.”
“The Lord loves the lost, and we’ll provide for each other. I believe in that. I believe in you.”
“I wish I believed in myself,” Micha muttered. “And I wish ... I wish we had no future.”
Thomas drew in a sharp breath. “How can you say that?”
“No, I mean. Not because I don’t want one. But because it’s complicated and uncertain. I don’t know who I’ll be without opium. Even assuming I can give it up. You’ll be an exile, from your family and your friends, and even your God. How can we—”
“Stop.” Thomas untangled himself from Micha, rolling him onto his back. And all Micha did was moan as Thomas’s long, lithe body stretched out, hot and perfect, over him. Thomas folded Micha’s hands together and pinned them gently above his head. “Those are questions for tomorrow.”
“I’m scared of tomorrow,” Micha admitted, wrenchingly. “Tomorrows have never been particularly good to me.”
“Then let’s makenowlast for as long as we can.”
“How?”
“Tell me about Venice again.” Thomas released Micha’s wrists, but it was only to draw him into an embrace. And they held each other, lovers trying to hold the night as well. “I always love hearing you talk.”
Micha lifted his head, pushing the hair back from where it clumped over his brow. His memories had lived inside him, neglected things summoned only by opium, for so long that he did not really know how to begin to share them. But he wanted to please Thomas, and to give him something simply because he had asked for it. “I ... I don’t ...” he began and stopped. It was not a story. There was no natural beginning.
