Page 13 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

The following morning, Solomon was waiting for Jed outside the Boar, lounging against the wall. He tilted his head in greeting. “There you are,” he said easily, but something in his manner told Jed that he hadn’t been as carefree as he seemed, waiting to see if Jed would turn up.

Jed felt a prick of guilt. “Sorry about last night.”

“Nothing to apologise for.”

“Well, then—thank ‘ee. This will be just what I needed. Even if it en’t for long. Only until the press gang leave Minehead and I take up my old route again.”

“Of course.” Solomon pushed himself away from the wall. “Come on. Mrs Drake said to be there at seven.”

“Wait,” Jed said, catching his arm. When Solomon turned back, Jed hesitated. “Up at the pithead, what we did—” He searched Solomon’s face, seeing wariness in his eyes. “I wouldn’t be averse to a repeat.”

Solomon relaxed. “Neither would I.”

There had been other men Jed saw on the regular. They sought one another out if they happened to run into each other in the dark alleys around Exeter docks where men of their habits met. But most of the time he hadn’t even known their names. He had no map for this situation.

“But, just—I can’t offer you anything besides, well, my prick.”

Solomon laughed. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

“Well—that’s all right, then.” Still, Jed had more to say.

“And I need you to be clear about one other thing. This friend of your’n, Wallace—” He scratched his head, wondering how to put this.

“Nothing wrong with fooling around with more than one man at once— without one of ‘em had expectations as how he were the only one.”

“And you’re asking if Wallace has such expectations of me, or me of him?

” Solomon shook his head firmly. “No, nothing like that. I’ve warmed his bed on occasion, but that’s all in the past. Indeed, these past three years, Wallace has been”—he seemed to hesitate over the right word to use—“involved with someone else.”

That sounded complicated, but Wallace’s affairs were none of Jed’s concern. “Good enough for me.”

They stood there for a moment, just looking at each other. Solomon was smiling his half-smile, and Jed wanted to reach out and cup his face, run a thumb over those crooked lips—

But this was neither the time nor the place; and even if they’d been in private, he didn’t know what Solomon would make of such a mawkish little gesture.

“Come on, better not be late,” he said gruffly. And indeed, a nearby clock was just striking seven.

Next to the Boar, a narrow lane led to a cobblestoned yard where two men were carrying sacks of grain from one cart to another. Solomon asked for Mrs Drake and was directed to the office at the far side of the yard, where a stout, middle-aged woman was speaking to several different people at once.

“If I say it’ll be there on Friday, then you can count on it.

Ask anyone in town.” This to a wizened fellow with the air of a prosperous farmer.

She turned to an old lady with a parcel.

“My clerk will take care of that, ma’am.

Toby, take the lady’s parcel. Now, Mr Dalley”—this to the farmer—“when I say Friday, it’s only if you have that worsted here by this afternoon, mind. ”

She and the farmer shook hands on the deal, while Toby—a scrawny, red-haired young man—made a note of the old lady’s parcel in a ledger that lay open on the desk.

Mrs Drake showed her two customers out the door, then turned to Solomon.

“You’re Dyer, are you? Mrs Steele tells me you’ve come down from London. Worked as an ostler, she says. You know how to handle a horse, I take it?”

“I was head ostler in one of the biggest coaching inns on the Borough High Street. Worked there eight years.”

“Hmm.” She was a square-faced woman in her fifties, grey hair pinned under a neat black cap. Her expression gave nothing away. “And who’s this?”

Jed returned her gaze, chin raised. He was a carrier too, even if he’d never owned a yard with a dozen carts and strings of horses as Mrs Drake did.

“This is my friend, Trevithick,” Solomon said.

Mrs Drake’s gaze raked Jed from head to toe. He had the uncomfortable feeling of standing to attention on deck during Sunday inspection as a sharp-eyed captain, keen to find fault, examined him for spots of tar. “There used to be a family of carriers of that name in Ledcombe. Any connection?”

“Michael Trevithick was my father. My name is Jedediah.”

“I thought you looked familiar. You have your father’s face. You don’t work out of Ledcombe anymore?”

Jed shook his head without offering any explanation.

“I remember your father as a decent fellow, God rest him. Lord, it makes one feel old.” She fell silent for a second, then became all business again.

“Well, I’ll take you both on, on a trial basis.

A penny a mile, regardless of carriage, and paid on return.

No deductions for spoilage, without it was by your negligence. ”

Solomon directed a questioning look at Jed. They were reasonable terms, and Jed nodded.

Mrs Drake looked satisfied, and they shook hands on it.

“You can start at once. I’ve twenty bales of cotton for Adamson’s mill and the regular string of packhorses for Clifton.” She turned to speak to the red-haired clerk. “Toby, tell Bill I’ve found someone to go with him this morning. We can send Old Abe to Exeter instead.”

The young man put down his pen and hurried to the door to whistle for Bill.

Solomon caught Jed’s eye, and they shared a grin.

Bill turned out to be a heavyset, square-jawed fellow with his cap set at a rakish angle.

“The cart is for the mill, and the packhorses are for the Clifton run,” he explained in an irritatingly patronising tone of voice. “There’s no getting a cart up the Clifton road at this time of year.”

“I know,” Jed said, bristling instinctively. “I’ve been up there myself many a time.”

The smug bastard didn’t even seem to be listening to Jed. “You’ll walk with the lead horse,” he went on. “Your friend there will take the rear, and I’ll be in the cart. You see to the harnesses, now, and mind you test everything twice.”

Jed had to bite his tongue. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said sourly.

But that sourness soon cleared when they set out.

It was impossible for him to remain in a black mood when they were on the road.

The cart rumbled along at a walking pace, pulled by four strong draft horses.

Behind it came the string of packhorses, sacks and boxes strapped to their backs.

Whenever Jed looked over his shoulder, there was Solomon at the far end of the string, his cap tilted back so the sun fell on his face, his long legs eating up the miles. He smiled whenever Jed caught his eye.

Jed had kissed that mouth. Wrung from it strangled moans that had gone straight to his own prick. Brought a flush to that narrow face and turned those grey eyes dark with desire. If they were alone on this journey—

“Mind your horses,” Bill called back. “Keep them moving there. Hey up, hey up!”

Jed gritted his teeth.

The road wound its way across low-lying farmland.

The cart got stuck in the mud more than once, and they had to stop to put down sacks before the wheels and haul it out.

It was something Jed had done hundreds of times before.

Back in the old days, he’d never thought he’d be happy to be struggling to haul a cart out of the collection of muddy ruts that passed for a road.

But today he welcomed every moment of it.

With the open road ahead and the jingle of the harness in his ears, he could almost forget that he was working for Mrs Drake instead of himself.

By mid-morning, they had covered half the distance to the mill.

They stopped by the roadside to water and feed the horses and break their own fast. A copse of sycamore trees on one side of the road sheltered them from the wind.

The sun had come out, but a mist of rain still shrouded the high moorland in the distance.

The three of them ate their bread and cheese while the horses chomped peacefully. Bill launched into a long monologue about a girl he had hopes of in Barnstaple.

Solomon reached for the bottle of cold tea, and Jed handed it to him. Their hands brushed, and their eyes met. Solomon’s gaze dropped to run over Jed’s body, and a shiver of desire shot down Jed’s spine.

Bill leaned across between them to snag the last apple in the food basket. “How are you liking the work, friend?” he asked Solomon. “Different from what you’re used to?”

“It’s all right,” Solomon said easily.

“They said you came down from London?” Bill said. “Bet you don’t do much walking there.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

But Bill had already lost interest in London. “I can’t believe Old Mother Drake sent us to Clifton. I was sure I’d be on the Taunton run this morning. There’s a cock fight there this evening. Last month I won nearly two pounds on a fine grey bantam—”

Solomon sat sprawled against a tree trunk, legs tucked up under him. Jed let his gaze linger, tracing the lines of his body. When his gaze reached Solomon’s face, he found Solomon watching him, eyes dark. Heat prickled on Jed’s skin.

Bill tossed his apple core into the bushes. He lay back and draped a handkerchief over his face. “Wake me up in half an hour or so.”

Soon his snores filled the air, the handkerchief fluttering as he breathed heavily in and out.

Solomon jerked his head towards the woods, one eyebrow raised. Jed climbed to his feet, blood pounding. He was already half-hard.

Beyond the hedgerow that had been sheltering them from the wind, the trees grew closer together. They went further in, pushing their way through the undergrowth, then Jed turned, reaching for Solomon.

Solomon’s mouth opened under his, welcoming him, humming with a low moan that could have come from either one of them. The kisses were sweet as fresh water, with a growing edge of urgency.

“Let me—?” Solomon fumbled for the placket of Jed’s breeches.