“I don’t rightly know.I reckon I’ll have to see Penwick again—or better my sister, maybe.But I daren’t return to the village as long as the press are at Minehead, and Penwick eager to summon them at any time.I suppose I might get someone to write Carrie a note, asking her to meet me somewhere.Are you much of a hand at writing, by any chance?”
Solomon shook his head.“I’m afraid not.”
They broke off their conversation in order to skirt the group of townspeople who had gathered to wait for the weekly waggon from Taunton.
“I’m still hoping to find my cart lying around in some outbuilding on Penwick’s land,” Jed said when they came together again.“Because if it’s been sold, and Bess too, there’s no chance I can buy them back.”
“You wouldn’t say Penwick should buy them back for you?Or return you their worth in coin?”
“Well, the thing is…” This was a sore point that Jed had been brooding over.“There’s also the matter of Carrie’s dowry, you see.We had some savings put by for her marriage, but that’s a paltry sum compared to the dowry a woman of Penwick’s class would have brung him.And if, then, I go to him cap in hand—”
Solomon murmured his understanding.
Jed made a frustrated noise.“I just want to go back to my village, dammit.Back to my old life!”He exhaled.“I’m sorry.I know I’m not the only one who’s eager for the press to leave Minehead.”
Solomon hadn’t mentioned the press gang lieutenant since they’d arrived in Barnstaple, and Jed hadn’t asked.
But now Solomon said, “He’s the reason we left London.Lieutenant Vaughan, I mean.Bill weren’t so far off the mark when he guessed we were running away from someone.”
They had reached the far side of the yard by now, a quiet corner by the feed shed, and Solomon came to a stop, facing Jed.
“Oh,” Jed said.“I did wonder.So, he’s… I suppose it’s not pure chance that brung him to this part of the country?”
“I don’t know, and I hope never to find out.”
Solomon’s voice was tight.Jed didn’t want to press him on a subject he was clearly reluctant to discuss, merely to satisfy his own curiosity.But there was one question he had to ask.“You said he weren’t in the Impressment Service when you knew him?”
“No, he was a half-pay lieutenant, hoping for a ship.”Something in Jed’s expression put a wary note in Solomon’s voice.“Why?”
“It’s only that… I’m wondering how he ended up here.The press gang officers are all men who are washed up ashore, you know.They call them the Yellow Admirals—because their misfortune might be catching.So if this fellow threw away any hope of a ship and volunteered for the press gang in this district… He must badly want to find you, that’s all.”
There was a long silence.
“Please don’t say that to Wallace,” Solomon said finally.“He’s uneasy enough as it is.”
“All right.I won’t.Indeed, I’m sorry I’ve said it to you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.”
The Taunton waggon, with its team of six horses, came lumbering through the main gate, and suddenly the yard was a whirl of activity.Jed and Solomon stepped in out of the way of the grooms that came hurrying up to take the horses in charge.
“Speaking of Wallace,” Solomon said in what sounded like a deliberately lighter tone.“I wanted to ask—why don’t you come have a drink with us?”
“With you and Wallace?”
“Yes.I’d—well, I’d like you to meet one another properly.He’s that curious about you.Says I talk about you a great deal.”
“All right,” Jed said readily.He liked the sound of that.He was equally as curious about Wallace—and also harboured a secret hope that Wallace might satisfy some of his avid curiosity about Solomon.“Not tonight, though.You’re leaving with the mill waggons, en’t you?”
“Yes.I won’t be back for a few days.”
“A drink, then,” Jed said.“First chance we get.And then, perhaps, afterwards, the two of us—”
He met Solomon’s gaze, and the warmth there lit an answering glow in his belly.
They were standing rather closer than was perhaps wise, and Jed was very conscious of all the people around them: the stable boys going in and out of the feed shed, the two men harnessing a string of packhorses, the old fishwife sitting waiting with a trunk and a basket.Jed wished very much there was somewhere in this busy yard that they could slip away to.
It was only a day since they’d ducked into the bushes together on the road to the mill, but it had already become something Jed craved.It was absurd: during all those days travelling together, he’d very easily been able to suppress the occasional inconvenient flash of desire, but now, after only a day apart, it seemed impossible to do so.
