Jackdaw (13 page)

“You…”

“Where did I go after that, Birmingham? Northampton? I forget. I found a wonderful old lady in Manchester, Auntie Dot. She knew what she had in me, but she gave me fair exchange. She taught me how to pick locks and open windows, how to fence goods, and she never tried to cage me. She said she’d treat me well if I’d treat her well, and we both believed it. She was using me, but we liked each other and it was good. But she was old, and she drank, and she died. Her son took over and told me the agreement had changed. I’d do the jobs he chose from now on. He’d let me do as I wished to indulge his old ma, he said, but it was time to clip my wings. So I ran again. You have to keep running.”

An eddy of wind whipped through his piebald hair, ruffling it.

“I tried to find other people after that, but it never worked. They wanted too much. It wasn’t enough that I could get in through a high window: the plan would be that everyone else got out safe and I took the risks.
You can fly, you can do it. It’s not fair
,” he mimicked. “I had something that everyone else wanted, so nobody ever cared what I wanted. So I decided that I would not be of use to anyone but myself. I tried to keep to that.

“And then I met you. And I stopped running. And I fell.”

Ben shut his eyes.

“I should have told you,” Jonah said. “You’d have made me stop stealing, and I would have, for you. None of this would have happened. We’d be at home, and you’d have your job, and you’d love me.” His voice shook, just a little. “But I didn’t tell you, because everyone in my whole life has either hated and feared me for being what I am, or wanted to take it for themselves. I didn’t want to see you turn away, or watch you think about how you could use me—”

“
Use
you?” Ben said furiously. “You could have trusted me.”

“But I couldn’t. That’s the point. I was too afraid to trust you, and you paid for it. Nobody’s ever cared more about me than about what I can do, and I couldn’t bear to find out if you were different. I was afraid to look.” He pulled his legs to his chest, mimicking Ben’s position, hunched into himself. “Afraid to look, and afraid to have you see me. Contemptible, isn’t it? Lying all that time because I knew what you’d think of me.”

“You could have stopped stealing by yourself.”

“Yes. Except, it never occurred to me that I could. I wish it had. I wish I’d
thought
, but I never think.” There was a glistening trail down Jonah’s cheek. He swiped at it angrily. “I wish you still loved me.”

“Oh, Jesus, Jonah.”

“I’m tired of being the villain in the story. I never meant to be, and I don’t want to do it any more. I just—God, all I want to do is to be with you. I want to walk the wind with you and come home to our bed. I want you to read to me and play rugby. I want to make you proud of me. I don’t need anything else. I don’t see why that’s so much to ask, that I could just
be
with you. If you loved me. And I want you to love me again. I want that, Ben.”

“I can’t love you again,” Ben said, his heart aching on the words. “How can I, when I never stopped? I couldn’t stop loving you when I hated you so much it made me sick to think about you. I used to dream about killing you and wake up crying because I thought you were dead. I can’t not love you. I don’t know how.”

Jonah lunged for him, flinging himself over in a movement of terrifying carelessness that thumped Ben back against the sharp stone edges of the rock face. Then they were kissing as though it was all that stood between them and the precipice. Ben grabbed Jonah’s hair, felt Jonah’s hands on his shoulder, pulling them close, and kissed, warm and wet and clumsy with need, relishing the scrape of stubble. Jonah was straddling him now, clutching him like a precious thing, and Ben pushed himself up and into his grip, forgetful of the sheer drop and the danger.

“Ben, my Benedict,” Jonah panted in his ear, and sat back, on Ben’s thighs. “Really mine? Honestly?”

“I don’t know how we can do this,” Ben said. “But we have to, somehow. God, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I won’t leave you again, ever. I promise. I swear it.” Jonah’s eyes were wide, begging for belief, and Ben pulled him down, and kissed him with all the tenderness that had gone unused and unwanted in the last long, brutal, lonely months.

At last Jonah sighed and sat up. He curved a hand over the side of Ben’s face, running the lightest of touches over the scar, and gently rested his forehead against Ben’s, breaths mingling.

“What happened?”

He hadn’t asked until this moment. Ben wanted to say,
It doesn’t matter
, but he owed the truth. “Gaol. Someone went for me with a broken bottle.” Shrieking about fucking mollies, fucking coppers, half-mad. The guards had watched them fight, shouting encouragement. “It happens.”

“I should never have let it happen,” Jonah said softly. “I won’t ever let anything happen to you.”

“Going to stay out of trouble?” Ben tugged at the lock of white hair, Jonah’s own mark of Cain.

“
Yes
. I promise.” Jonah’s ridiculously expressive eyes clouded, a touch of worry visible. “I mean that. Do you—can you trust me?”

Ben started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. The laughter bubbled up, from a spring that he’d thought long dry, until he was shaking with it. Jonah, astride him, gave him a bewildered look. “What?”

“I jumped out of a window on your say-so,” Ben managed. “I jumped off a
cliff
.”

“Oh. Well. Yes, I suppose that was quite…” Jonah gave a sudden choke. “Actually, don’t you think that was a bit rash? You really should be more careful.”

Ben doubled over, unable to retort, barely able to breathe. Jonah tipped his head back and gave a whoop of sheer joy that sent seagulls wheeling off with offended croaks. He held on to Ben as the laughing fit subsided, eyes aglow, then shifted to sit next to him and snuggled close.

“I never, ever want to be in trouble for the rest of my life,” he said. “I just want to be with you.”

Ben leaned over to plant a kiss on his tousled hair. “I love you, Jay.”

Jonah’s eyes widened at the pet name, so long unused. His unstoppable smile lit his face, and Ben felt the responsive prickle all over his skin. “I love you too.”

They watched the sea from their rocky perch for hours, holding hands, kissing sometimes, talking now and then, mostly enjoying the clear air. Jonah had bread and cheese in his bag, and found a spring to drink from after he’d got Ben back up to the clifftop. At last they strolled back from the clifftop, hand in hand until Jonah sniffed the air and warned, “Someone coming.”

Ben hadn’t thought of lovemaking on a three-foot ledge over a precipitous drop, or afterwards, when all he wanted to do was feel Jonah’s glowing pleasure in being by his side. But as they approached the Green Man, the thought of the night to come, a shared bed, leapt into his mind, and suddenly his mouth was dry.

“Jay…”

“Long time till night?” Jonah enquired, and there was the same need in his eyes.

In a safe place, they would have gone to bed at once. There was no safe place, though this was as close as Ben felt they’d find in a hurry, so instead they ate. Mrs. Linney—Dora—had put out bread and cold meats for the family, workers included, and when they’d finished Agnes tugged at Ben’s sleeve and held out
The Pickwick Papers
.

Ben read to them all in the parlour. He missed Jonah’s head resting against his legs, but at least he was curled in a chair opposite, listening intently. Dora and Bethany knitted, as Agnes lay on the hearthrug, staring into the fire. It felt stupidly safe, dangerously good.

“Bed,” Dora told them all at last. “Lots to be done tomorrow.”

“I might have a crack at that roof, see if I can patch it up a little,” Jonah said. “The good weather won’t last.”

“You’re right there,” Dora said. “Never does.”

Ben paced Jonah down the dark corridor to their room, candle in hand. Light flickered on the walls, making their shadows jump. He was breathless with anticipation and nerves, even shy. It felt like their first time, except that had been unquestioningly confident, and this was terrifying.

Jonah bolted the door and turned to him, taking the candlestick. “I want the light. I want to see you.”

Ben nodded, numb. He reached out, and Jonah stepped into his arms. His skin tasted of salt from the sea spray still, and his arms were strong and warm, snaking round Ben’s neck as he hooked a leg round Ben’s hip. Ben grabbed his taut arse, and Jonah hopped up so his legs were wrapped round Ben’s waist, surprisingly light for a second, decidedly heavy after that. Ben grunted and hauled him to the bed, crashing down on top of him to Jonah’s breathless laugh. Then they were kissing wildly, hands everywhere, fumbling at each other’s clothing, kicking off shoes, tangling each other in their efforts, careless of anything but the need for skin.

Jonah’s hand was round his cock now, a possessive grip. “Ben, my Ben. You are, aren’t you?”

“God help me, yes.”

Ben grinned fondly down at the man beneath him. Jonah smiled up. They both said, together, “Will you fuck me?”

“Oh, for—” Ben couldn’t help laughing.

“This is one of many problems we wouldn’t have if we liked women. Me. Please.”

Ben hesitated. He wanted Jonah in him, needed that wonderful sense of completion and claiming that he wasn’t sure he’d dare give anyone else, but he had to make amends for that last time. He kissed Jonah’s brow. “Have it your way. Is there anything we can use?”

Jonah looked smug. “I may have bought some oil.”

“Confident, were you?”

“I’d say hopeful.” Jonah squirmed out from under and went to collect a small bottle and a piece of cloth that he threw on the bed. “Here, sheet protection.”

“You think of everything.”

Jonah glanced round. “I’ve thought a lot about this.”

Ben crouched on the bed, air chilly on his heated skin. Jonah moved to position himself under him. With the candle on the other side of the bed, the telltale white streak in his hair was barely visible. They could have been in the cottage once more. Except that back then Jonah had been a wonderful fantasy. Now he was flawed and struggling and real, and Ben’s hands shook as he reached for the oil. “God, Jay, I need you.”

“Have me.”

They were both silent after that except for hard breathing, and the soft sounds of oiled fingers and kisses, and Jonah’s grunts of effort and moans of encouragement as Ben bore down into him, into tight heat and the clasp of muscular thighs round his ribs and Jonah’s open, gasping mouth.

Ben had meant to take Jonah carefully, cherishing him with gentle strokes, and he did try for about thirty seconds. But Jonah raised a brow, clamped his legs down on Ben’s spine, and shoved forward to meet him, and then it was frantic. Jonah was wrapped round him, using not just his compact muscles but his powers too so that they were both almost lifting off the bed each time he pushed against Ben. Ben clung on, bracing himself, the steadying force to Jonah’s abandonment, holding him close as they picked up the rhythm that neither had forgotten, and pulled Jonah’s mouth to his when the first familiar shudders of pleasure hit his lover’s body. He swallowed Jonah’s cries as he came, sticky on Ben’s belly, taut with pleasure, and hit his own climax a few seconds later, grunting Jonah’s name.

They flopped together on the bed, interlocked and gasping.

“Think that was too loud?” Ben managed after a while. The other bedrooms were upstairs and at the other end of the corridor, and the stone walls were thick, but it wouldn’t do to forget discretion.

“Don’t care. I love you.”

“I love you too, but I like it here.”

“We’re not staying anywhere we can’t fuck,” Jonah said firmly, and Ben drifted off to dreamless sleep in full agreement with that sentiment.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day was hot and dry, perfect to work on the roof. The slipped slates were visible from the ground, and the reason so many of the bedrooms weren’t in use, as the frequent coastal storms blew the rain in and soaked the ceilings. Jonah ensured that none of the Linneys were watching, and went up the outside of the building like a squirrel. He took Ben up from one of the top windows, climbing awkwardly through thick ivy.

The roof needed a lot of repair, but there were plenty of tiles that could be fastened back into place, and the mechanics of it were simple enough. Jonah danced down to the ground to bring up hammer and nails, spare slates and, after two hours in the hot sun, a mug of ale. It tasted very good, and so did Jonah’s mouth on his afterwards, as they sprawled on the sun-heated roof, out of anyone’s sight.

There were days of work needed just on the roof—days more to spend in this safe place outside the world, eating well, sleeping long nights in each other’s arms, not thinking of what next. Ben was all too aware there would be a
next
, sooner or later, but he couldn’t make himself face it. This was a holiday from thought, from the world, with Jonah.

“We’re doing good work,” Jonah remarked one night. “Don’t you think? Mr. Penrose—Harry, not Bill, you know, the one who fishes with Aaron Tapley—he was saying how much more companionable the Green Man is now.
Like un afore old Linney passed
.” Jonah had developed a creditable Cornish accent. “That’s Dora’s father-in-law, not her husband. Can’t find anyone with a good word for
him
, but apparently his father was a decent enough sort of man, though everyone says Dora brews better ale. What?”

Ben shook his head, grinning. “You were born for a village, weren’t you? You always have to know everything.”

“I don’t,” Jonah said indignantly. “I just listen to people, that’s all. Anyway, Harry Penrose is a good fellow, very popular, even if his brother can’t hold his drink. He’s sending lots of custom our way.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Oh, because young Aaron wants to marry Bethany,” Jonah explained. “He’s Harry’s nephew by marriage and Harry’s got no children of his own. The Tapleys don’t have tuppence ha’penny to rub together so Aaron and Harry are fishing all the hours God sends. But if the inn can do well enough for a wedding portion for Bethany—”

Ben nodded along. They had been at the Green Man for over three weeks now, slipping further and deeper into a domestic routine. Jonah darted around the garden playing tag with Agnes, served behind the bar as if born to it, lit up Ben’s heart with his smile. Ben settled to work alongside Dora, mending and fixing, fetching and carrying, keeping order as the pub got busier. They talked, too. Dora was a taciturn, self-reliant woman but she’d borne her burdens alone for a long time. She would speak, sometimes, in quiet moments, of her hopes and fears for the girls, of perhaps going to visit her mother one day, occasionally of the unmourned Mr. Linney and their bitter marriage, ended by his drowning after a drunken fall from the quay. Ben found himself wishing he could speak more freely in return.

He enjoyed Bethany’s company as well: her hopeful youth, as yet unworn by care, and her simple happiness with Aaron, who would doubtless be ruled with a rod of iron. At one point he’d worried that the presence of two young men under the Green Man’s roof might cause gossip—it would have in Berkhamsted—or even trouble. Dora was a widow, after all, and Bethany an impressionable girl, and hopes could arise…

He’d been so wrong about that it was almost unflattering. Bethany, quite happy with her fisherman, clearly ranked Ben with her own mother in age, and Jonah with her little sister. Dora had made it very clear that she’d had enough of marriage, and had no intention of giving up her rights to a man again, let alone allowing her girls’ inheritance to pass through her fingers into someone else’s pocket. Ben couldn’t quite see how anyone could ignore Jonah’s vital, animal presence—it was as much as he could do not to watch every graceful movement—but the Linneys seemed to do so effortlessly. And life was simply too hard for the people of Pellore for them to make it more unpleasant than it needed to be. So Jonah and Ben had slipped into place, unremarked, and nobody seemed to question it.

They couldn’t be complacent, of course. The easy acceptance would shatter into sharp edges if the truth about them was known, and they’d be lucky to be drummed out of town with only curses. But that would be the case everywhere, and at least here there were the cliffs, and empty spaces, and a bedroom with thick walls.

And meanwhile, they settled in. Ben recognised many of the local faces now and a lot of the names, although not as many as Jonah, who disappeared into the village or neighbouring Looe and Polperro on any pretext, making new friends and picking up gossip at every turn.
Stretching my legs
, he would explain to Dora. Ben just hoped he wouldn’t get caught in midair.

In the end, that was not what caught them.

Jonah woke one morning, sitting upright in bed, and saying, “Storm.”

“Storm?” Ben couldn’t hear a thing outside.

“There’s a storm coming.” Jonah sniffed. “It’s in the air. Here by the evening, if you ask me. I think we should get on the roof. Do what we can about those last leaks.”

He headed up to the roof immediately after breakfast, insisting they needed to get an early start. Dora looked after him. “Knows the weather, does he?”

Bethany frowned. “The boats will be out tonight.”

“I’d guess Harry Penrose can tell the weather just as well as that Jonah,” Dora said dryly. “Storm, indeed.”

Ben shrugged. He had no idea if Jonah could predict weather, but he wasn’t going to argue. “If there is a storm coming, does anything else need doing outside?”

He and Dora strolled out to assess the exterior. The sun was hot, the air a little close, the wind picking up. Perhaps Jonah was right. Ben looked up at the sound of his lover’s voice and saw him, hanging half off the roof exchanging silly remarks with Agnes as she headed down the road towards Looe and school. He leaned out precariously, waving her goodbye, and Dora sucked in a breath.

“He has very good balance,” Ben said. “Wonderful head for heights.”

“He must do. If he falls off my roof…”

“He won’t.”

She shook her head, taking a pace back to rest her elbows on the fence. “He’s a bucca, that Jonah.”

Ben hoped he’d misheard that. “A what?”

“A bucca. Imp, you might say. You’re a steady man, Ben Spenser, but your Jonah’s a flyaway one if ever there was.”

“You could say that,” Ben agreed without thinking, and could have cursed himself. “That he’s flyaway, I mean. Not—” He stopped himself before he could say
Not mine
, and wondered if that was better or worse than going on.

Dora was watching his face. “I was thinking. You two, working all the hours here, no pay. Ain’t right.”

“No need to trouble about that. It suits us while it suits you.”

“Aye, but at the least I can make you more comfortable. Now there’s all those the leaks stopped, and so few in the way of sleeping guests, you’ll want another room. Not to stay cramped up together like that.”

“No hurry.” Ben spoke as casually as he could. “It’s comfortable enough for now and there’s more urgent things to be done. Jonah, what’s up there?” he called.

“Blasted seagulls, that’s what,” Jonah yelled down. “Trying to open the place to the elements. Can you bring me up a load more nails?”

Ben was aware of Dora’s gaze on him, but she didn’t add anything more as he went to pick up the box of roofing nails, and after a moment she grunted and went inside, leaving him wondering.

There was too much work to do to fret, as the sky yellowed and the air became heavier. They spent the afternoon on the roof, securing what they could. Jonah was twitching with nervous energy.

“Can you feel it?” Ben asked. “The storm?”

“Can’t you?” Jonah’s smile was almost manic.

Ben remembered a day back in the cottage, in the eye of the storm that passed overhead. It had been twilight at noon, the thunder on the heels of the lightning, and Jonah had gone for him wordlessly, fucking him with wild intensity over the kitchen table. At the time he’d just thought the man had been cooped up too long by the rain, but he could see that look in Jonah’s eyes now.

“Not on this roof, we’ll fall through,” he said, and saw from his smile that the same memory was in his lover’s mind.

The storm finally hit that evening, sweeping in from the sea with terrifying speed. Huge drops of rain were splatting the hot ground when Ben ran to meet Agnes from the carrier’s cart that brought her from school. Dora shook her head when Jonah asked about opening. “We’ll light the fire but folks’ll bide home if they’ve any sense.”

“They should.” Jonah’s eyes were glittering bright, picking up the turmoil in the skies. “It’s a strong one.”

There were no customers. The little family huddled in the parlour after supper. Dora looked ever grimmer as the storm showed no sign of abating.

“The boats went out this morning.” Bethany was chewing her thumbnail.

“I know, girl. You’ve told us often enough.”

“But, Ma, the
Dainty Jane
went out and she’s not back.”

“Well, and what should I do about it that Harry Penrose can’t?” demanded Dora. “If you want to be a fisherman’s wife, you’ll have to learn to live with storms.”

“What if Aaron gets drownded?” Agnes asked, round-eyed.

Dora’s angry rebuke went unheard in a rolling peal of thunder that sounded just overhead. Agnes squealed piercingly. Bethany clapped her hands over her ears, crying, “Be quiet, you goose!”

“Lord above, don’t squabble,” Dora snapped.

“She’s a stupid child!” Bethany shrieked, and the sisters exploded into furious, high-pitched argument.

“Out! The pair of you! Bethany, you’re a silly miss, not fit to be married if you can’t control your tongue. Agnes, child, get to bed.” Dora hurried the younger girl out as her sister fled the room, and sat heavily, wrapping her apron round her hands, cloth cutting into the thin flesh.

“How bad is this?” Ben asked. He’d never seen a storm at sea and had little idea of what one might entail beyond a dimly remembered Bible engraving of Noah’s Ark, but Bethany’s fear for her lover was contagious, and he could hear the worry in Dora’s fear and anger.

“Bad, if the
Dainty Jane
ain’t back. They’ll have to ride the storm at sea. The tide’s almost at its height now, and Pellore harbour’s no size for this. Too rocky, too narrow. ’Less they can make it to safer harbour…” She tailed off. The wind whipped around the Green Man, and Ben winced at a crash that he suspected was a slipping slate hitting the flagstones of the path.

Jonah had been twitching and restless. “I’ll check the bedrooms,” he said. “See if there’s leaks.”

It was very obviously an excuse to be moving. Dora stared after him. “Bucca,” she repeated.

“Just Jonah.”

“Aye, well.” Thunder shook the building, an improbably deep note, and lightning illuminated the room for a second through the shutters. Dora looked at the blank wall, in the direction of the sea. Her jaw was set and grim.

“I’m sure Aaron will be all right,” Ben ventured.

“Oh, are you? And I dare say you know all about it, do you? Know all about storms at sea, and bringing in a boat through a channel that’s narrow at the best with the wind up?” She pushed herself to her feet, face reddening. “Must be a wonderful thing, that. Come from Lunnon and you know everything, more than us simple folk down here.”

“Dora, for pity’s sake, I didn’t mean—”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I know.” Dora was scarlet, her anger lashing out of her, seeking a target. “You and that Jonah turning up here wi’ no luggage, nowt but what you stand up in, and you think I couldn’t see you were running? Think I can’t see for myself what from, or what you two are? Do you think I’m a fool?”

It was, had always been inevitable, and denial would make bad worse. Ben took a deep breath. He was going to say,
We’ll be gone tomorrow
, prepared for,
We’ll go now
, if he had to—it was only rain, they’d live—but at that moment the door slammed open, banging off the wall. Dora gave a cry of fury, but Bethany was bursting in with eyes wide in her pallid face. “Ma! Listen!”

They all listened. At first Ben heard nothing but the wailing wind, but then he realised there was a metallic note to it, a discordant clanging. Dora’s head reared up.

“It’s church bells.” Bethany grabbed her mother’s wrist. “Ma—”

“I heard.”

“Please, Ma.” Bethany’s face was beseeching.

“What is it?” demanded Jonah, coming in behind Bethany.

“Boat in trouble. There’s naught we can do, Bethy, you know that.”

“But, Ma, if it’s the
Dainty Jane
…”

“Bethy, love—” Dora’s face was crumpling.

“I’m going.” Bethany clenched her fists. “It’s the
Dainty Jane
, I know it is. I’m going down to harbour and you shan’t stop me.” The girl sounded as determined as her mother ever did.

“No. Bethy!” Dora’s voice broke on the cry. She grabbed for Bethany’s arm but the girl sprinted out of the room, pushing past Jonah. He looked after her, back at Dora. “What is it?”

“The church bells. Ship in trouble.” Dora’s angry flush had subsided. She looked grey. “There’s no boat has a chance coming in in this storm. Francis Drake himself couldn’t do it, and surely not Harry Penrose. Oh, Lord, she was there when they pulled her father from the water. I don’t want her to watch her Aaron wrecked. Lord, Lord, what will I do?”

Jonah shrugged. “If you can’t stop her, I suppose, go with her. Can we be of any use? If they need hands down there, for anything…”

Dora hesitated, then nodded. She didn’t look at Ben. “We’ll all go. There might be something to do. I’ll check that Aggie’s asleep. Get oilskins from the hall, there. Bethy, wait for me!”

They staggered down the steep road to the harbour together, fighting the lashing wind at every step. The rain seemed to come from every direction at once, including up from the ground. Ben was soaked within minutes. Trees shrieked and groaned under the strain, and it was too dark to see the road. They passed the church, its arrhythmically clanging bells almost drowned out by the howling gale, and fought their way along to the end of the stone quay, where a group of villagers huddled, watching the sea.