“The midshipman?”said Solomon.“But where’s Vaughan?”
Emma grinned.“That’s my other bit of good news.Lieutenant Vaughan was seen at the harbour first thing this morning, not in uniform, going aboard a merchant vessel leaving the country.I had this from two fishermen who saw him with their own eyes.”
Solomon let out an odd sort of sound, half whistle and half sigh of relief.
“So he fled the country?”Jed said.“How much money was he filching off the Greenwich hospital, exactly?”
“The dirty swindler,” Emma said with satisfaction.
Wallace and Solomon exchanged stunned looks.
“I can’t seem to take it in,” Wallace said slowly.
Mrs May came out into the garden.“Who’s this, then?”she said, beaming at Emma.
Soon, they were deep in conversation, Wallace with Emma’s arm tucked into his and a constant smile on his face.Solomon stood alongside, speaking when addressed, though every so often his gaze flickered towards Jed.
Jed watched them, still with that feeling of distance hanging over him.He left them talking and carried his two water buckets through to the kitchen.
He was oddly reluctant to go back outside to join the others.So much had happened since that moment when he stood in the Rose and Crown’s stable loft, listening to Solomon betray him.He hadn’t had time to stop and think.
He stepped out the back door.Behind the row of cottages, a wide expanse of grass sloped down to the sea.Jed walked out a little way and sat on a rock at the top of the slope.
The distant murmur of the waves rose to his ears, overlaid by the nearby clucking of hens.It was a fine day, warm and dry.Jed closed his eyes.
After a minute or two, he heard the cottage door open, and Solomon came to stand beside him.They looked at each other in silence.
Then Solomon burst out, “Jed, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t apologise.”He kept his voice steady with only a little difficulty.“I know why you did it.”
“There en’t any apology as would be good enough.Any explanation in the world as would be good enough—”
“You’d promised Wallace he’d never have to see Vaughan again.”
Solomon closed his eyes, briefly.“Yes.”He ran a hand through his hair, tugging sharply.“In the heartbeat of a second I had, there in the stables, that was all I could think about.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I already let him down once before, in London.I didn’t notice what Vaughan was doing to him, and it was right under my nose.”
Jed had opinions of his own about whether Solomon held any responsibility for that.But this was not the time to talk him out of his guilt.
Solomon went on, words pouring out of him, “And I thought—I know Vaughan very well, better than I’d like to… We were close once.I thought there must surely be some way to talk or trick him into letting you go, too, once we got to Minehead.But it all fell apart like a house of cards.”His voice was urgent, willing Jed to listen.“I was so sure there must be some way I could save you and Wallace both.”
It might have been better if you didn’t try to save anyone at all, Jed wanted to snap.But that wasn’t true.And indeed, this was one of the things he loved about Solomon: that ever-present impulse to help.
But that didn’t make this hurt any less.
The hens clucked in oblivious contentment.A seagull swooped overhead and dived to land on a nearby rock, fixing them with a beady eye.
Jed tilted his head to look up at Solomon, painfully close and painfully far.He thought of those long, cruel hours in the icehouse, when he’d feared they could be separated for ever.
“I wish I’d trusted you when you told me not to try to escape,” he said abruptly.
Solomon let out a pained laugh.“I can hardly be surprised that you didn’t trust me.”He crouched down by the rock, so that he was closer to Jed, looking up at him instead of towering over him.“Jed, I don’t want to lose you.I want to go on seeing you.Do you think— I’ll do anything—”
He broke off at the sound of the door behind them opening.It was Mrs May.
