Chapter 11 #2
In short, the distraction Greer feared was not one that would only cause difficulties as they broke into Trebarral Castle, it would cause difficulties in Greer’s life, in both of their lives.
They stared each other down over the table for a long while. Penny was not about to back down. He held Greer’s eyes without any intention of letting go until Greer finally sighed and dropped his arms.
“Alright,” Greer said, glancing out the window. “If this has been deemed a two-man job, we’d best keep it that way.”
Penny leaned back in his chair with a smirk. Greer would absolutely attempt to shut him out again. The man was nothing if not stubborn. The poor thing didn’t realize that Penny was just as stubborn, if not more so.
They finished their meal, and as they stood to gather up their things and take their leave, Penny took advantage of the opportunity in front of him.
He pretended to lose his grip on his bag, stumbled against the well-dressed man sitting at the table behind him, then made a thousand apologies as he brushed the man’s coat, slipped a hand into his coat pocket to help himself to a handsome billfold, moved it into his own pocket, then picked up his bag and made half a dozen more apologies before following Greer out to the street.
“I assume I know what that was all about,” Greer glanced to Penny with a smirk as they walked swiftly back up toward the train station, where the nearest coaching inn was probably located.
Penny grinned and showed Greer the fat billfold, picking up their pace. “Travel to Trebarral Castle, courtesy of whatever gentleman that was,” he said.
Greer tried to look disapproving, but ended up laughing. “Brutus and Titus gave us more than enough money for this entire job,” he pointed out.
Penny shrugged. “I’m just proving my worth,” he said, taking the money from the billfold and discarding the leather case that had held it.
If they’d been in London, he would have fenced it, but so far from home, he was loath to be caught in the possession of stolen goods.
The cash, however, was a different matter.
They were dead lucky to catch a coach heading up the coast within half an hour of locating the inn.
If they’d waited too much longer, they would have ended up sitting for hours, vulnerable to the gentleman from The Mermaid searching for them.
Penny decided at once he didn’t particularly like stuffy, rattly, old coaches, but it took them where they needed to go.
They reached the single inn in the small village of Porthcollon just as the sun began sinking toward the horizon in earnest. The tiny, seaside village was perched on a hill that turned into a cliff on the north side.
From the top of the High Street, the imposing sight of Trebarral Castle was just visible, limned in the light of the sunset.
“That’s it?” Penny asked, nodding to the horizon as they stepped down from the coach in front of the inn.
“It must be,” Greer said, studying the distant castle with a frown.
Penny spoke the words Greer must have been thinking. “They did say it was formidable.”
Greer grunted, pulled his gaze away from the castle, then looked at Penny. “Having second thoughts?” he asked.
Penny laughed. “Not on your life.” He winked at Greer, then stepped ahead of him into the inn.
Perhaps because it was the only inn, as far as Penny had been able to tell, in the small town, the place was crowded.
Most of the patrons looked like jolly fishermen enjoying a pint at the end of the day.
There were only a few empty tables, but Penny was able to snag one that, coincidentally, had a lovely view of the castle while Greer sought out the innkeeper to see about a room.
Luck was on Penny’s side. Once he was settled at the table, after a grey-haired woman with an ample bosom had come over to see if he wanted supper and beer, before Greer returned from taking their cases up to whatever room he’d been given, Penny caught a snippet of the conversation one table over.
“Dalhurst wants the whole thing taken care of before the end of the week,” a gruff, beefy man was in the middle of telling a tough, wiry man with pocked skin on his face.
“Moving that kind of cargo isn’t as simple as he seems to think it is,” the pocked man said peevishly.
“Well, it has to be moved,” the beefy man said. “Hammond has reason to believe the cargo has been located and someone who shouldn’t is coming to collect it.”
Penny’s back went stiff. He knew Dalhurst was the man currently holding Lord Fabian prisoner, hoping to sell him on, and Hammond was the leader of the gang, or club or whatever people who fancied themselves posh called criminal operations, in London.
He didn’t like the fact that all those bad men knew he and Greer were coming as well. It could make things tricky.
“I can’t just up and take the boy,” the pocked man said in a low growl. “Not in his condition. Not without somewhere to put him before Underhill is ready for him.”
“And when will Underhill be ready for him?” the beefy man asked.
Penny wanted to know, too, but before the pocked man could answer. Greer strode over to the table. Behind him was the grey-haired woman with her hands full of beer and stew.
“They have a room for us, but it’s not much,” Greer said, taking his seat, completely unaware of the information Penny had been on the brink of discovering.
Of course, Penny couldn’t exactly tell Greer to hush or the woman to go away so he could eavesdrop on the conversation next to them. He wanted to scream in frustration at having vital information so close and then losing it.
“Whatever the conditions, I’m sure I’ve slept in worse,” Penny said with a playful smirk that hid what he truly felt.
“There’s more bread if you fancy,” the woman said, standing back after plunking down their supper. “It’ll cost you a penny per slice.”
“Thank you,” Penny told the woman with his most charming smile.
The men at the table leaned in closer to each other, almost as if they knew they were being overheard now.
Greer picked up his spoon with a tired sigh and started eating as soon as the woman left them. It took him a few bites before he seemed to notice Penny’s mood. “Is something amiss with the stew?” he asked, sniffing the spoon he’d just lifted.
Penny shook his head and took a bite. As he chewed it, he jerked his head slightly to the men at the table next to them.
Greer still didn’t understand, and irritatingly, the two men finished up their meal, then got up to leave.
Penny continued eating as if nothing were wrong, all the while praying that neither of the men had realized he’d been listening or that he knew what they’d been talking about. He didn’t catch them eyeing him before they left, but that did not mean Penny was in the clear.
Even though Greer stared at him all through their meal and clearly knew something was wrong as he tried to start half a dozen small conversations with him before the stew, bread, and beer was gone, he didn’t say anything until they were upstairs in the cramped closet of a room Greer had secured for them.
“Are you still sore that I tried to leave you in Newquay?” Greer asked at last, as they shed their boots and trousers, stripping down to their shirts and drawers for the night.
The walls around them were as thin as paper. Penny could hear someone on the other side of the wall breathing.
“The men at the table beside us earlier work for Dalhurst and Hammond,” he whispered, leaning close to Greer as he pulled back the bedcovers on the small, dubious bed.
Greer’s brow shot up. “How do you know?”
The suggestion that Greer didn’t entirely believe him had Penny’s back up in an instant. “Because they said the names Dalhurst and Hammond and talked about an unusual cargo that needed to be moved,” he grumbled, glaring at Greer.
Greer opened his mouth, like he would argue anyone could have the names Dalhurst or Hammond. He had enough sense to snap his mouth closed again and to let out a breath, shoulders sinking. “What did they say?” he asked.
“That time is wasting,” Penny said. “That someone named Underhill is waiting for Lord Fabian. That he needs to be moved soon.”
Greer’s expression turned serious at once.
Behind him, someone coughed on the other side of the wall, reminding the two of them they were surrounded by potential ears.
Greer glanced over his shoulder, then nodded for Penny to lie in the bed with him. Penny followed the suggestion, squirreling under the thin quilt and eventually plastering his body against Greer’s larger one.
They ended up in the perfect proximity for whispered conversations and plotting. It was the perfect position for other things, too, but none of that was going to happen when they were surrounded by strangers who were as likely to call the constable on them as not.
“We need to get the man out of there as quickly as possible,” Penny whispered, his face so close to Greer’s that he was certain Greer could feel his breath across his lips.
“That was always the case,” Greer said.
“Yes, but this means we will have no time at all to dilly-dally.”
Greer grinned. Penny could just see the flash in his eyes in the darkness. “Were you planning to dilly-dally?” he asked.
Penny couldn’t help himself. He reached a hand between the two of them and brushed it against Greer’s cock. It was soft, but didn’t stay that way. “I always have plans to dilly-dally,” he said in a low, honeyed voice.
Greer grunted, shifting in a way that was perhaps designed to move his body away from Penny’s touch, but actually pressed them closer together. “Not here,” he said.
“Obviously,” Penny murmured in return.
He and Greer stared at each other in the dark for a moment.
The air felt suddenly thick. The heat between them pulsed hotter even than it had when they were both naked and frantic in Greer’s bed.
It seemed impossible, but it was true. It was as if a seed had taken hold in the ground and started to grow.
They were no longer two men who wanted pleasure from each other.
Penny wanted more. He wanted Greer’s respect and confidence. He wanted all of him.
“We must do this thing tomorrow,” he whispered. “There’s no time to waste.”
“We cannot rush in without proper planning,” Greer told him, though Penny was certain he felt the urgency, too.
“And what if we have no time to plan?” Penny asked, shifting his hand to rest over Greer’s beating heart. “What if we can only rush in like fools and pray for the best?”
Greer was silent. He stared at Penny, at Penny’s lips, for so long Penny thought perhaps he hadn’t heard the question. They hadn’t even started, really, and they were already being distracted.
But then Greer said, “We must do what we can. Lord Fabian is depending on us.”
Something warm and captivating unfolded in Penny’s heart. They were about to rush headlong into danger that could potentially get them both killed, but Greer was willing to take the risk to rescue a man he didn’t know. It was not something just any man would do.
“We must do what we can,” Penny repeated. And he would do whatever he could to protect the man he was tumbling into love with from being hurt, too.