He’s still not looking at me. He’s staring at the ground, winding up to break my heart, and I can’t stick it any longer, so I interrupt, “Just say it, Perce. Please don’t drag it out, just say that you don’t want me. It’s all right.”
“What?” He looks up. “No. No! That’s not what I . . . I’m trying to tell you I love you, you sod.”
My heart takes a wild vault. “You . . . what?”
“Dammit.” Percy tips his face to the sky with a moan. “I’ve had this whole speech worked out in my head—I’ve been planning it for weeks, waiting for a moment on our own—”
“Oh no, did I wreck it?”
“You completely wrecked it.”
“I’m sorry!”
“And it was so good!”
“I’m so sorry!”
“Couldn’t keep your fat gob shut for two minutes. Dear Lord.”
“Well, that was a rubbish way to start it! I thought you were angling in the other direction and I panicked.”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t.”
“Yes, well, I know that now.” We’re both red faced, both of us laughing, though we sober at the same time and trade a look that feels like silk against my skin. I tap his side with my elbow. “Say it anyway.”
“In its entirety?”
“At least the important bit.”
“The important bit was that if you go behind my back, I swear to God, I’ll skin you alive—”
“I won’t—”
“—murder you, then alchemically raise you from the dead so I can murder you again—”
“I won’t, Percy. I won’t, I won’t, I promise you, I won’t.” I put my hands upon either side of his face and pull him to me, standing on my toes so we are a breath apart. “Now say the rest.”
His face goes shy, eyes flitting down, then back up to mine. “Yes, Monty,” he says, and he smiles on my name. “I love you. And I want to be with you.”
“And you, Percy,” I return, touching my nose to his, “are the great love of my life. Whatever happens from here, I hope that’s the one thing that never changes.”
My hands are upon his face, mirror to the spot where I’ll carry red, puckered scars for the rest of my life. In his gaze, they seem to matter less. We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with lacquer and flakes of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.
“May I kiss you?” I ask.
“Abso-bloody-lutely you may,” he says.
And so I do.
Dear Father,
As I write these words, I am sitting at the window of a small flat on a small island that is decidedly off the route you planned for me, having been dropped here by a group of pirates (though this lot are more aptly termed aspiring privateers) after fleeing Venice as a fugitive. I am not certain which of those will most horrify you.
If you desire to be further scandalized, proceed.
In the courtyard below me is Felicity, and she is looking rather happy—and here I was starting to believe her brow was permanently furrowed—and beside me is Percy, and were I not entirely occupied with this missive and he with his indestructible fiddle, I would be holding his hand. Perhaps even a bit more than hand-holding. I will absolutely be scratching that part out before I send this, but I needed to put it down in writing. I still can’t believe it’s real.
I have become the Grand Tour horror story, the cautionary tale for parents before they send their boys off to the Continent. I have lost my bear-leader. I have been kidnapped by pirates and attacked by highwaymen. I have humiliated your good name before the French court, run naked through the gardens at Versailles, turned up corpses, and sunk an island—a whole bloody island. You must be at least somewhat impressed by all that. Also I’m now short one ear (I’m certain it will grow back, though Felicity seems less confident).
But at least I didn’t gamble away my fortune, run away with a French girl, and then abandon her. Now, that would be scandalous.
You would hardly recognize me if I returned home. Which I don’t intend to do. Not now, anyway. Perhaps not ever. Percy and I will be staying in the Cyclades for the time being, and who knows where we’ll go from here or what sort of life we will make, but we will make it together, on our own terms. Both of us. The first step will be unlearning all the things you’ve taught me for my entire life. It took several thousand miles for me to begin believing that I am better than the worst things I’ve done. But I’m starting.
Our pirate friends depart shortly, and I need to hand this letter off before they do. I’ll send word once we’re settled, and perhaps you and I will someday see each other again, but for now, know that we are safe, and well, and know that I am happy. For perhaps the first time in my life. Everything before is all shriveled and pale in comparison to this. And I don’t care what you say or what you think or what I am giving up—the Goblin can have it all. From here on out, I intend to have a damn good life. It will not be easy, but it will be good.
And now Percy has his arms around me and Santorini and the sea are spread like a feast before us and there is sky all the way to the horizon.
And what a sky it is.
Henry Montague
Author’s Note
I first learned about the Grand Tour of Europe while working as a teaching assistant for a humanities survey course in undergrad. I became fascinated by the concept because I had just come off my own Tour of sorts—a year abroad doing research for a thesis I would eventually write, interspersed with frequent jaunts to whatever European city Ryanair was running a deal on. The idea of young people left to their own devices on the Continent in the eighteenth century seemed fertile ground for the sort of tropey adventure novel I had always wanted to write.
But historical fiction is always a blend of real and imagined. So here I will attempt to separate fact from fantasy and lend context to Monty, Percy, and Felicity’s escapades.
Bear with me as we take this last leg of the journey together.
The Grand Tour
In its simplest definition, the Grand Tour was a journey through the prominent cities of Europe, undertaken by upper-middle- and upper-class young men, usually after completing their formal education. The tradition flourished from the 1660s to the 1840s, and is often credited as the birth of modern tourism.