Page 37 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
“I’m so sorry,” Penny said.
He then did the worst thing he could have possibly done. He pushed out of his own seat and slipped into the seat beside Greer. Without another word, he circled his arms around Greer, placing one hand on the back of his head, and nudging him to rest his head against his shoulder.
It was the most difficult thing Greer had ever done not to weep then and there. It would have been shameful and ridiculous if he had. Those events had transpired nearly twenty-five years before. He’d moved on with his life, mourned his losses, and built something entirely different for himself. And he’d done as he’d vowed during that night, when he’d been hiding in a corner of the barn outside the inn. He’d never trusted anyone, never allowed anyone to take advantage of him or wheedle their way into his heart since that day.
Until Penny.
What would he do if the brilliant, clever, aggravating young man who silently held him, neither questioning nor provoking his pain, was ever stolen from him the way his mother and sister had been? How could he have been so foolish as to make himselfvulnerable to the sort of anguish he’d thought he’d conquered well over two-thirds of his life ago?
He wanted to push away from Penny and return to his own seat. He wanted to close his eyes and forget his world had been turned upside-down by a red-headed thief a decade younger than him with a brilliant mouth. But before he could do anything to protect himself from the inevitable heartbreak of his lapse, the warmth and steadiness of Penny’s breath against his forehead lulled him into sleep.
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.
