Page 12 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

For the blink of an eye, he was just a carrier having a drink with a friend, his horse and cart waiting outside. But that man—that carefree fellow who’d never been to sea, never knuckled under to an officer’s orders… That man was dead and buried, six foot under.

He met Solomon’s eye with a grimace. “I confess, I did nothing all afternoon but sit here and drink.”

Solomon’s mouth twisted in sympathy. “Listen, I called in at the carrier’s yard behind the Boar to see if they might be looking for hands. And indeed they are. We’d have to go back tomorrow morning to see the proprietor, a Mrs Drake.”

We? Jed thought.

Solomon went on, “I spoke to Mrs Steele—she’s the landlady at the Boar.

She’s well acquainted with Mrs Drake, of course, and she said she’d put in a good word for me as a friend of Wallace.

You too, if you want.” His voice trailed off.

Probably he had been hoping for a more enthusiastic response from Jed. “Maybe you’ve other plans?”

Jed was touched and a little overwhelmed. Not knowing what to say, he settled on, “So you mean to bide here in Barnstaple, then?”

“Yes. Me and Wallace, we talked it over, and we’re staying for the now.” He eyed Jed, still waiting for a real answer.

Jed ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn’t get the impression that Solomon was a man who often put his head over the gunwale, risking being shot down. Jed felt like he’d been offered some rare gift.

But coming to Barnstaple had never been part of his plans, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of being adrift, unmoored, in dense fog. These past five years, he’d doggedly followed the same heading, and now he was dangerously off course.

“Listen, I—I have to think about it.” The change in Solomon’s expression was subtle, but it made Jed hurry on, trying to soften the blow. “I’m setting to be my own master again, you see. Don’t want to be following orders from some Mrs Drake and her head yardman.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the only part of the truth that he could manage to put into words.

“Of course. I understand.”

Silence fell between them.

Solomon leaned back in his seat, one arm stretched casually along the back of the bench. “I’ll be outside the Boar at seven tomorrow morning.”

Jed nodded. For a moment, they just looked at each other.

Then Jed got to his feet. “I’m going to head out. Get some fresh air.”

Outside, night had fallen, and the street was painted in patches of light and darkness. Jed stood motionless in the shadows outside the Anchor, not knowing where to go. A passing watchman stopped to shine his lantern in Jed’s face.

“Evening, friend,” he said. “Any reason you’re loitering in the shadows there?”

Jed grunted and moved on down the street.

When Jed was a young man, he’d lived from day to day, never needing to plan far ahead.

It was clear he’d take over his father’s route, and beyond that, he didn’t need plans.

He had a life that suited him perfectly: long, pleasant hours alone on the road with his horse for company, and a welcoming village to come home to.

A decent livelihood, with enough work to live comfortably.

And an excellent excuse for travelling to towns where he could enjoy the anonymous company of other men of his kind.

The sea had taught him that life was a series of hard knocks you couldn’t see coming: impressment, shipwrecks, friends killed and maimed, being turned over from ship to ship like so much cargo. But throughout it all, he’d always clung to the idea that his home in Ledcombe was there waiting for him.

He drifted through the dark streets, past bursts of talk and laughter from open windows. Two young women stood giggling in the light spilling from an alehouse door. A group of drunken seamen went stumbling by. To Jed, they were all figures in an eyeglass, small and far away.

He wished it was two days ago, and he was up on the moors with Solomon, with everything to look forward to.

Down by the quays, the tide was low in the river, and the briny smell of the mud flats met his nose.

The vessels moored there were small merchant ships, fore-and-aft rigged, much smaller than anything he’d served on.

His eye rested on two men aloft on a lugger out in the middle of the river.

As he watched, two other seamen came to the river bank and hollered to their shipmates to send them a jolly boat.

It was a bloody peculiar world: seafaring men could walk the streets without fear here, merely because the local J.P. happened to be a wealthy shipowner with no love for the Impressment service, while twenty miles away, the press gang scoured the coastline for victims.

That was decidedly an argument in favour of staying in Barnstaple for the moment, at least as long as the press gang remained at Minehead. And as long as Penwick and Carrie were ranged against him— But the thought of Carrie was a sore spot in Jed’s heart that he could not yet bear to poke at.

He turned his back on the river and walked uphill. Where was Solomon now? With his friend Wallace, most likely. Jed’s cheeks heated. What on earth had Solomon thought of him this evening, running off like that?

In another, happier, world, they could be lying now in some private place, Solomon’s skin warm under his fingertips and Solomon’s mouth hard and eager on his.

The shudder of desire that ran through him was so melancholic as to be almost painful.

At the top of the street, he sat on a low wall, some way apart from the people going by in the dark. He sat there for a long time, turning things over in his head.

In the Navy, they sometimes withdrew from an engagement, the better to regroup and live to fight another day. Jed came to a decision. He would be at the Boar tomorrow at seven. He’d work for this Mrs Drake, if she was willing to take him on.

But only until he could lay his hands on his horse and cart again.