“Nothing,” Vaughan said hastily.“No one.It’s of no importance.Come along.”
He turned away, hurrying the midshipman towards the stagecoach.But before he himself climbed in, he turned back to give Jed another long, hard look.Then he disappeared into the coach, the guard put up the steps, and the ponderous equipage jerked into motion.Soon, it had disappeared from sight along the Taunton road.
A sudden hush descended over the yard.No one was in sight save for two elderly women who had left the coach here and were now negotiating the hire of a cart with one of the ostlers.A cat strolled out from behind the stables and settled down in the sun.
Jed sank back against the cart.He couldn’t stay here.He felt too nervous and exposed, even as he told himself that Lieutenant Vaughan would hardly jump down from the stagecoach and come striding back.
And where in buggery was Solomon?
He ran to the taproom and thrust the two full tankards into the hands of the first person he bumped into.Then he hurried back to the cart and started the horses, urging them down the Barnstaple road as fast as possible.
Half a mile down the road, he pulled the cart up under a tree to wait.He climbed down to pace around, then sat on the grass to brood.
Some time later, Solomon arrived on foot.
Jed jumped to his feet.“Where the fuck were you?”he demanded as soon as Solomon was near enough to hear him.
Solomon didn’t answer.His face was pinched and unhappy, his mouth tight.
Jed was feeling fairly unhappy himself.“That was your Lieutenant Vaughan, wasn’t it?The same man as tried to press us at Mrs Farley’s farm?”
Solomon nodded.
“You saw him coming,” Jed said.His anger was spilling over.“And you just turned tail and bolted.You couldn’t let me know that there was, I don’t know… aNaval officerright there at the inn with me?You could have come into the taproom to warn me, I think?”
“Yes, I could have.Ishouldhave.I know.But I couldn’t let him see me.I couldn’t let him know I’m here in these parts.”
“Yes, well, that cat’s already out of the basket.”
Solomon’s face fell.“Bugger.He spoke to you?”
“He asked about you, and had a good look in the back of the cart.”
“Hell and the devil.I thought maybe he didn’t see me.”He rubbed his face.
Jed regarded him sourly.“Well?I reckon you’ve got a mint of explaining to do.Got a good reason for letting me walk into the lion’s den?”
“But he didn’t press you.He didn’t have the gangers with him, I suppose?”
“You didn’t know that, though, did you?I could be in chains in their tender right now, on the way to the receiving ship.”He shuddered.“And now he knows there’s an ex-seaman working on that road.He saw we were coming from a brewery.Won’t be impossible to track me down to Drake’s yard in Barnstaple.”Fuck.He didn’t want to lose this job, much as it grated on his nerves at times.Would he have to spend the rest of the war running, always running?
Jed took a deep breath.His anger was already draining away, and he was sorry he’d lashed out.He said in a calmer voice, “Just… tell me why?”
Solomon shook his head, a clear refusal.
It was like a punch to the gut.Jed gaped at him.“Why not?”
“I’m sorry, Jed.”
“Why are you like this?”Sometimes he felt like he’d been spilling his guts to Solomon without once stopping since they’d first met.“I tell you everything, and you give me nothing.”His voice came out flat.He didn’t have any energy left for anger now.
Solomon winced, but he didn’t try to defend himself.
Jed swallowed around the bitterness rising up within him.He climbed into the cart and picked up the reins, waiting silently for Solomon to climb in beside him.
It was a long journey back into town in a strained silence.
Restlessly, Jed moved from the bed to the window and back again.There was a shirt he ought to be mending, but he’d tossed it aside on the bed a few minutes earlier.
