Page 40 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

They sat on the grass among the pithead ruins, eating the food they’d brought with them from Mrs May’s village. It was much warmer now than it had been when last they were here, the spring chill gone from the air.

Jed said abruptly, “Sometimes I see things. As if in a waking dream. Things as happened to me, or as could have happened.” He tugged at a handful of grass, tossed it aside, pulled up another.

“It seems so real. As though I’m truly there, on board ship, and not here in the real world.

When it happens… I don’t know where I am.

When I am.” He bit his lip. “Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. ”

“I don’t think you are,” Solomon said quietly.

“I thought maybe, if I could only go back to my village and my old life… That was a fool’s notion.

” He tugged up another handful of grass, still not looking at Solomon.

“And then there’s this other thing… You may think me an ill-tempered, ill-favoured bastard, but I never used to be that way.

I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

Solomon had been sitting sprawled across the ground, but now he drew himself up, tucking his legs under him.

After a moment, he said, “When I went away to London, when I was a boy… Well, truth be told, I didn’t go away, I ran away.

I’ll tell you about it some other day. But anyroad, when I got to London, I thought all my troubles were over.

But they weren’t. I was miserable, I couldn’t sleep.

And the waking dreams, like you said… Sometimes I couldn’t even breathe. ”

Jed wished he could go back in time to comfort that young boy. “Did it get better?”

“With time. Not entirely.”

Jed thought this over.

“You’re talking about something as happened when you were a boy. I’m a grown man.”

“A man who just spent five years at war.”

“There are a hundred thousand men in the Service. Men who’ve lost arms, legs, eyes… I came away unscathed.”

“I don’t think you did,” Solomon said. “And I expect you en’t the only one. Not by a long chalk.”

It was an overwhelming idea, too big to take in, and Jed didn’t know if he wanted to believe it. If he was able to believe it.

Finally, he said, “I just want to be the man I was.”

“It’s the man you are now that I lo—like. Admire.”

At that, Jed raised his head. They were sitting close together, only a foot or two of air between them. Solomon’s expression was open but wary. Vulnerable, somehow.

Jed looked at him, thinking about how often Solomon had reached out to him over the months, and how often Jed had pushed him away. Not that Solomon hadn’t done his own share of pushing away.

“We en’t always made things easy for each other, have we?”

Solomon’s expression softened. “Maybe not.”

Companionship was not something Jed had ever sought out. Not something he’d ever thought he might want. Now he craved Solomon’s presence in his life, every morning and every night.

The sun was low in the sky now, and the air around them was still and peaceful. A falcon swooped overhead, then dove towards the woods. Ledcombe was somewhere down among those trees, and Jed felt a tug at his heart. But he’d already turned his back on that path.

Perhaps Farmer Harlow would be willing to buy Bess from him. Jed would go to Mr Morgan with Penwick’s letter, and let the man of business handle it. And then… “Is that offer of yours still open? The stables at the Jarret Arms?”

Solomon looked up sharply, hope flaring in his eyes—and then dimming again. “Yes, but…”

Jed felt his breath catch. “But?”

“If I have your mind and body but not your heart and soul, I don’t think I could bear that.”

It was a punch to the gut. Jed fought for words. “Solomon, you can’t think— You’re the only good thing that has happened to me since I ran. You do have me, upon my life. I love you.”

Silence stretched out between them, broken only by the whistle of wind over the hilltop. Solomon’s throat bobbed, fear and startled joy chasing each other across his face. “But do you still trust me?”

Jed couldn’t lie. He had to answer honestly. “I want to try.”

At that, the tension bled from Solomon’s shoulders. Jed reached for him, dissolving the distance between them, pulling him into a kiss.

It was a soft, tentative brush of a kiss, but no less of a relief for all that. After a few seconds, Solomon drew back, searching Jed’s face.

“I love you,” Jed said again. “I don’t know how this will work out—how things will be between us—but I want to try it.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“I know. You haven’t.”

Jed leaned in again, and they tumbled back into the grass, Solomon laughing up at him, eyes bright in the setting sun. Jed crawled over him and ducked his head for another kiss.

“Tell me about this inn,” Jed ordered.

“You’re the one who’s been there before. I en’t even seen the place yet.”

“Well, tell me about the two of us there.”

That made Solomon’s smile broaden. “We’ll work together.

No master over us. A couple of stable boys to help us.

Local lads. And we’ll have a room somewhere for sleeping in, just the two of us.

No one will find it remarkable if we’re tucked into some little room in the attics together.

We’ll have coaches stopping at the inn, and carts and waggons…

Every evening, we’ll sup with Wallace and Emma in the kitchen, and then we’ll go off to bed—”

“And I won’t be able to keep my hands off you,” Jed finished, hand sneaking into Solomon’s breeches.

Solomon laughed and squirmed, fumbling at Jed in turn, rolling him over on the grass.

They retreated to the old mine building they’d slept in before and laid out their coats on a bed built of ferns. It was warmer now than it had been the last time they were here; no need to light a fire. They undressed unhurriedly and lay down together.

Jed closed his eyes, soaking it all in: the smooth, hard lines of Solomon’s forearms under his fingertips, the rake of Solomon’s nails across his chest, the warm breath whispering over his skin. Then Solomon rolled onto his back, and Jed sat up on his haunches, looking down at him.

“Take yourself in hand,” Jed commanded.

Christ, but it was a glorious sight: Solomon’s fingers wrapped around his eager prick, his head thrown back, exposing the long column of his throat.

Jed had never felt such joy—such a wave of affection that he ached with it. So this was what love was. He wanted to do everything for Solomon: delight and gratify him, protect and defend him, turn to him for comfort, laugh and cry with him, and just now, make him come so hard he saw stars.

He lowered himself over Solomon and kissed him slowly, open-mouthed—a fiercely joyful kiss. They were free men, their enemies far away, and a new world lay before them.

They could look forward to innumerable days and nights of this: working together, fucking, falling asleep in each other’s arms. They could have this as often as they wanted. Jed’s heart swelled fit to burst with the joy of it.

They broke off kissing to draw breath, and Jed pulled back. “Tell me what you want.”

Solomon looked up at him, grey eyes dancing with affection. His mouth quirked. “To give you the sucking of a lifetime.”

Jed’s cock twitched, heat pooling in his belly. He knelt over Solomon, straddling him. “Like this?”

They wedged a bundle of shirts behind Solomon’s head, and then Jed was in his mouth, Solomon’s lips tightening around him, Solomon’s hands on his arse, urging him on.

Jed was light-headed with the pleasure of it, bones melting, vision blurring. His world narrowed down to Solomon: his hungry mouth, the desire in his eyes.

“Solomon, Christ, the look on your face. Your mouth—you take me so well. Fuck .”

Solomon’s grip hardened on his arse, greedy and insistent, spurring him on, swallowing him down as he spent.

Jed slumped back, gasping for breath. It took him a long time to gather himself.

When he opened his eyes again, Solomon was staring up at him with a dazed expression. “I half think I’m dreaming. Can’t quite credit that you’re here.”

Jed huffed out a laugh. “What, after my prick in your mouth just now?”

Solomon’s lip curled up. “Well, it’s a dream I’ve had monstrous often, that.”

Their eyes met, mirth brimming between them.

Jed lay down beside Solomon, turning serious now. “I’m not going anywhere. I know you en’t either.”

He ran a hand over Solomon’s body, stroking his flank, skirting his weeping stand.

“Want to see you come,” he murmured.

Solomon made a needy noise in the back of his throat. “Kiss me—your hand—”

Jed settled himself so he could kiss and frig him at the same time, bringing him off with firm, steady strokes. He pressed close, tasting himself on Solomon’s tongue, until they couldn’t kiss any more, and they were panting into each other’s shoulders.

This was what he wanted, what he had been looking for all along. This rapture of closeness, of union, of coming home at last.

“Come for me,” he said, and Solomon spent with a breathy sob.

He rolled over, burying into Jed’s arms, and the only sound was their ragged breathing in the last of the day’s light.

Later, curled up together in their coats, Jed told Solomon what he remembered of the Jarret Arms: a neat little inn on the moors, under the wide open sky.

A grey stone stable block, with rows of stalls and two loose boxes.

The road that snaked across the moors, climbing to the brow of a hill, where the inn stood.

The burbling stream that ran across the hillside below it.

“Hmm,” Solomon said thoughtfully. Jed couldn’t see him in the dark, but he sounded as though he probably had his lips pursed. “Where’s the yard pump relative to the water troughs? And what’s the prevailing wind? Is the muck heap—”

Jed snorted with laughter. “I don’t recall any of them details. I’ve only been there a handful of times, you’ll recollect. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“We should go and look over the place together.”

Jed wriggled closer to plant a kiss on Solomon’s jaw. “Yes, together.”