Page 50 of By Marsh and By Moor
He was alone in his room at the Boar, the two men who’d shared the other bed having left town that morning.He got up and went to the little attic window again, staring down at the twilit street.
The hollow ache in his stomach hadn’t moved since they returned to Barnstaple earlier that day.Restlessness jittered under his skin.He wanted so much from Solomon, but he didn’t know how to ask for it.
There came a knock at the door.It was Solomon.Wallace was with him.
“Can we come in?”Solomon asked.
Silently, Jed stood aside.The two of them filed into the room, and they all stood there awkwardly for a moment.
Solomon glanced at Wallace as though asking permission, and Wallace nodded.
“We want to tell you how we met Hugo Vaughan,” Solomon said.
Chapter Thirteen
Five years earlier
The first time Solomon saw Wallace Acton, they were in the stables at the Crown on the Borough High Street.Solomon was brushing down a post horse, and the head ostler came into the stables accompanied by a large, fair-haired young man with a distinct touch of nervousness in his pale blue eyes.
“This is Acton,” the head ostler said to Solomon.“Acton, Dyer will show you how we do things at the Crown.”
The Crown was one of the busiest inns on the road south from London and employed at least a dozen ostlers at any one time, working around the clock.Most of them slept in rooms above the grain store, and Solomon showed Wallace where he could lay out his bedroll and stow the little knapsack that contained all his worldly possessions.
“Freshly arrived in Town, eh?”he said.“Where are you from?”
“Epping Forest,” Wallace said in a small, uncertain voice, and then, more firmly, “I worked ten years in the local squire’s stables.I know my way around horses.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Solomon said, hiding his amusement.
Wallace seemed a mere boy, even though he and Solomon were of an age.As the new fellow, he would be an obvious target for pranks and teasing from the other ostlers, and Solomon resolved to keep an eye out for him, making sure he got his fair share of the vails that gentlemen travellers tipped them.
At that time, Solomon himself was twenty-four or thereabouts, as far as he knew.He had been in London for eight years by then, and at the Crown for three of them.His life suited him down to the ground: the bustle of the coaching inn, the flow of humanity coming and going, the decent wages and dry roof over his head.He had his eye on the post of head ostler, though he’d have to wait a good few years before being considered old and wise enough.
The ostlers at the inn lived in cheerful promiscuity: sleeping in shifts in one small room, eating in the kitchens with the maids, and sneaking off behind the stables from time to time for a swig of gin or a nap.Solomon rarely found himself alone with Wallace, and the first time they exchanged more than a word or two in private, several weeks had already passed since Wallace’s arrival at the Crown.
It was dawn, just after the departure of the Maidstone stagecoach, and Solomon and Wallace were hitching horses to the private carriage of a gentleman who had arrived the previous day.The gentleman’s coachman was a rakish young fellow who had been overtly attentive to Wallace in the kitchen the night before.He was a handsome specimen; Solomon wouldn’t have turned him down.Wallace, however, determinedly ignored every attempt made to draw him aside, though he blushed every time the man spoke to him or even looked at him.
Now, the gentleman climbed into his carriage.The coachman gave Wallace one final wink, then leapt nimbly onto the box and took up the reins.He clicked his tongue, and the carriage left the yard at a brisk pace.
Wallace let out an audible sigh, his eyes following the carriage.
Solomon suppressed a smile.So Wallace had been interested after all.Solomon was not surprised.He hadn’t missed the quick up-and-down that Wallace’s gaze had done, taking in Solomon’s body, when they were first introduced.
He stepped closer to Wallace and spoke into his ear in an undertone.“Never mind.There’s plenty more fish in the sea.”
Wallace jumped.He spun around, casting a guilty look at Solomon.“I—I don’t know what you mean.”But the hearty colour in his cheeks betrayed him.
The two of them were alone in the middle of the yard, their low-voiced conversation hidden by the rumble of traffic passing in the street.Solomon gave Wallace a reassuring smile.
“London is full of men who’d be very eager to become more intimately acquainted with you.Or at least, so I’ve found it to be.”
“Oh,” Wallace said.The fear in his eyes faded, to be replaced by a glimmer of hope.
“I don’t play where I work, though.And neither will you, if you take my advice.I’ve seen men lose their positions for less.Not to mention the risk of the law being called in.”
“Oh, no!”Wallace said in a strangled voice.“I mean, of course not…” His voice trailed off.“But then where—?”
Solomon grinned at him.“Don’t you have an evening off on Thursday?I’ll contrive to be off too, and we’ll go somewhere I think you may find interesting.”
