Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Penny woke with a start as the train jerked and juddered, slowly coming to a stop at the station in Newquay. It was well into the morning, though not an hour he cared to see much of under ordinary circumstances, and fresh, clean sunlight streamed through the train compartment window.
Greer was slumped against him, having spent most of the darker hours of their journey asleep with at least half his body wrapped around Penny.
It felt good. It felt right. And despite the fact that the blinds of the compartment windows were opened, giving anyone on the platform who might be inclined to look more than enough to see, Penny smiled.
It would have been easy to dismiss the warm feelings pulsing through him as lust at having the older man’s body so close to his, but it was the vulnerability and the deeper closeness that had Penny’s blood racing through him.
The small, calm moment was as much proof that the two of them made the perfect team than any of the mad situations they’d found themselves in together so far.
All the same, the bustle on the platform just outside the window caused Penny to nudge his companion to full wakefulness.
“We seem to be here,” Penny said, stretching and then standing once the train had fully stopped.
Greer grunted and made an adorable sound of complaint as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He then stood in the cramped compartment, rolled his shoulders, and by all appearances was instantly fully awake.
Damn the man for being able to slide between sleep and wakefulness so easily. Penny always greeted the day begrudgingly at best.
“Take this case,” Greer said, handing one of the two cases they’d brought with them down from the rack above the seat. “We’ll find a pub, break our fast, then decide what to do from there.”
Penny nodded and followed along with no reason to feel suspicious.
No one paid the least bit of attention to them at all as they climbed down from the compartment and made their way off the platform and through the station house to the streets of Newquay.
That alone filled Penny with the feeling that things were different here.
In London, at least the parts he frequented, nearly everyone knew who and what he was on sight.
“What’s that smell in the air?” Penny asked, wrinkling his nose and sniffing the air. It was crisp and damp, but in an entirely new way from London.
Greer paused at a streetcorner as they waited for a cart to pass and stared at Penny, bemusement in his flashing eyes. “Have you ever been to the seaside before?” he asked.
Penny laughed, the idea was so absurd. “When and how would I have ever gone to the seaside?” he asked with a grin of his own. “You think I’m some rich toff who takes trips to Brighton on the weekends?”
Greer’s smile widened. He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s salt air,” he said as the traffic cleared and they were able to walk on. “You’re smelling sea salt for the first time.”
Penny’s eyebrows went up. Greer had to be teasing him. But the more Penny thought about it, the more the air did smell like salt. It was so much more potent than the scent of the Thames.
There were other things that felt entirely foreign to him as they walked along the street, heading away from the station.
The sun seemed brighter somehow and the air lighter.
The faces of the people they passed were rosy rather than being half coated in soot.
The plants growing tenaciously up through the cracks in the street were different than Penny was used to, and as they passed a few conversations, the voices of the men and women were laced with entirely different inflections and accents.
“We should be careful how we speak,” Penny whispered, leaning closer to Greer as he paused at another crossroads, looked both ways, then made a decision and headed to the left. “One word, and they’ll know we’re not from here.”
Greer grunted. “It’s a port town. They’re more used to strangers than somewhere farther inland.”
Penny supposed he was right, but he was still on edge as they traveled down a sloping road toward what looked like the waterfront.
As soon as they reached the docks at the end of the road, Penny’s concerns about whether they would stand out were superseded by the pure wonder of all there was to see.
He knew what docks were, of course. He’d been down to London’s dockland more times than he could count to see the ships of all sorts sailing in and out to deliver or retrieve their cargos.
The docks of Newquay floored him, though. Beyond the warehouses, marinas, and ships wasn’t Southwark, it was nothing. Pure, wide expanse of sea that stretched right off to the horizon.
“It’s the end of the world,” he said in awe as Greer turned their steps toward a pub called The Mermaid.
Greer laughed at him. “It’s not the end of the world,” he said. “Keep going that way and you’ll reach Ireland.” He pointed to Penny’s right. “Travel on that way and you’ll eventually land in America.” He pointed to one side.
Penny had to fight not to let his mouth drop open.
He wasn’t a green fool. He’d read enough books to know the world was far wider than London.
London had been his everything, though, and it had always seemed so big.
Being faced with the cusp of the entire rest of the world made him feel tiny.
It was disconcerting, since he’d always thought he was more important than not.
The Mermaid was a nice enough pub. It was too early for the place to have much custom, so Penny and Greer had very little problem securing a table in one of the windows, where Penny could gaze out at the ships, the sea birds, and the undulating sea.
“Trebarral Castle is half a day’s ride from here,” Greer said once they’d been served generous plates of eggs, ham, sausage, and toast. “We’ll have to find a coach heading up the coast, and then it would behoove us to find an inn for the night so we can scout the castle itself before making any attempts to breach it.
Penny nodded along in agreement, chewing on a sausage as he watched a fisherman of some sort gather up a length of rope attached to a net.
“Once we’re established, we should move as swiftly as possible to break into the castle and extract Lord Fabian,” Greer went on.
A small, brown dog scampered back and forth on the dock, begging the fishermen for a portion of their catch. One of the sailors started playing with it, tossing a fish in the air to see if the dog would jump up and catch it.
“We should sleep in a proper bed at some point,” Greer continued. “We’ll need to act in the middle of the night, and as always with these things, it’s best to be fully rested before jumping in.”
Penny laughed out loud when a second, larger dog tried to rush in and take the brown dog’s fish, but the brown dog barked and bared his teeth and scared him off.
“Of course,” Greer said slowly, in a sly tone that snagged Penny’s attention more than the dogs, the fishermen, the waves, or the food, “I could always leave you here in Newquay to explore the seaside, since this is your first time seeing the ocean.”
Penny snapped his gaze to Greer, brow shooting up. “I beg your pardon?” he asked with pretend offence, although a part of his offence was not pretend at all.
Greer grinned fondly at him, but there was calculation in his eyes.
He shrugged one shoulder, leaned back in his chair with his coffee, and casually said, “You could stay here and enjoy yourself. I wouldn’t tell Brutus and Titus you took a holiday instead of helping with the housebreak.
I would be able to work alone as I always do, you could have a jolly old time cavorting in the waves, Helen would still be safe, and we would all be happy. ”
Rather than feeling happy, Penny felt as though Greer had punched him in the gut.
“I’m not letting you cast me off,” he said, frowning and stabbing hard at the ham on his plate. “I didn’t agree to this job only to have you treat me like a green boy at the first turn.”
Greer also lost his smile. “You don’t have the experience it takes to break into a castle,” he said quietly, since a trio of men had just taken a seat at the table behind them.
“I have more experience than you’re giving me credit for,” Penny growled. “Also, it’s a castle, not some nob’s house in Mayfair. Brutus and Titus insisted we work together for a reason.”
“Brutus and Titus do not know what the job will truly entail,” Greer argued.
“Right,” Penny said, pointing a forkful of ham at him. “For all they know, it might be so difficult they should have sent four men instead of us two.”
Greer sighed and crossed his arms, like arguing the point was an irritation. “You’ve done one job,” he said, eyeing the barmaid who passed their table warily, “and that was nearly a disaster because of distractions.”
Penny suddenly grinned. “Distractions,” he said, then ate the piece of ham from his fork. “Meaning you couldn’t keep your tongue in your own mouth when you saw how brilliant I was at housebreaking on my first try.”
Greer attempted to silence him with a quick, “Shh!” That only made Penny laugh more.
He swallowed his bite, leaned across the table, and said, “Admit it. You don’t want me coming with you because you think you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.” He winked.
Greer crossed his arms tighter and glowered at him. Which, of course, meant Penny was right.
It was more than that, however. Their journey from London had been more than a trip of expediency.
Penny’s heart still felt tender after the things they’d shared with each other about their pasts.
He could still feel the warmth of Greer’s body against his own as they’d rocked their way through the night.
The affection that had welled in him was everything he’d been told he should not feel for another man, and he was certain Greer grappled with the same emotions.