“Do you take travellers still?” Jonah asked. “We’re exhausted. Oh, and I don’t know if we might need to leave early, so could I pay you now?”
The ready cash was obviously a reassurance, to the landlady if not to Ben, but she grimaced, looking from one to the other. “We’ve only the one room fit for use, and that’s a big bed. It does very well for two if you don’t mind doubling up. It’s old-fashioned ways, I know, but it keeps you warm.”
“That will do very well,” Jonah assured her. “Honestly, that will be marvellous. Now, don’t fuss, Ben, I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable.”
Ben opened his mouth at that baseless accusation and shut it as he realised what Jonah was doing. The idea of sharing a bed with Jonah was—many things, too much to consider now. But it was the landlady’s suggestion, in the common way of these old inns, and nobody could possibly question it.
Not that anything would happen. Absolutely not.
“Bethany, a warming pan for the bedroom,” the landlady ordered her daughter, and turned back to Jonah’s chatter.
Ben couldn’t listen. He wasn’t sure why Jonah seemed to be so interested in her. Maybe it was simply that he was interested in everything, that jackdaw mind of his as quick to seize on anything as to drop it. That wasn’t Ben’s concern.
He had accompanied Jonah in the dreamlike haze of utter exhaustion that had possessed him ever since Reading bridge. He’d barely been able to consider the present, let alone remember the past or plan the future. Waking up, feeling himself once more, had brought back all the things he hadn’t dwelled on for two days, and he rather missed the state of numbness.
They were going to share a bed again. He pushed that tempting thought away. It wouldn’t go. But it had to, because it brought their last encounter back to his mind, making him sweat, and not with desire.
He hadn’t made himself face that dreadful, shameful night in Runciman’s since it had happened. The impossible rescue, the windwalking, yes, but not what he had wanted to do to Jonah. What he had come so close to. What he had done, in hatred and anger, to the man who’d loved him all along, no matter how badly things had gone. The thought sickened and shamed him, so much that his mind flinched away from it. The Ben who might have done that thing seemed to be a madman now.
A madman with his face. How could Jonah forgive that? How could Ben?
He had no right to touch Jonah even if he wanted to. That fact allowed him to shove away the question of whether he wanted to.
He sat in silence, drinking his ale and another, eating without tasting, letting Jonah’s chatter and the landlady’s more taciturn responses wash over him. A few other men came in, and she went off to serve them, leaving Jonah to sit with him in silence. Finally the drinks were finished. Jonah gave an indicative nod, and they moved together to the bedroom that they were to share.
Men shared beds all the time. There was nothing to blush about.
The room was in the back part of the inn, on the ground floor. It was of decent size but very plain. The rough whitewashed stone walls were somewhat yellowed with dust or age, and had a couple of great black iron hasps sticking out of them. A huge dark wood wardrobe loomed in the corner. The floor was stone flags, likely cold in winter, and there was no fire lit in the hearth, but a basin and an earthenware jug of hot water were waiting on the night stand. Jonah made a noise of intense pleasure, seeing it.
“Thank God, water.” He locked the door. “I am desperate to be clean.”
So was Ben, after days in the same clothes. He stripped without thought, using the thin towels provided to rub himself all over, until he felt the fug of long travel and fear-sweat lift from his skin. Beside him, Jonah was doing the same, so much more gracefully, his darkly furred chest glistening with damp, nipples hard in the chill air.
Ben couldn’t stop watching.
Jonah didn’t seem to notice. He ran the wet cloth under his arms, over his chest, and lower, over his muscular thighs, the nest of black curls. He was half-hard as he rinsed the cloth, wiped it over himself, rinsed it again. His skin shone with damp in the candlelight.
He wasn’t looking at Ben. If he had, if he just looked…
Ben stood, helpless, staring. Jonah’s body was as compact and muscular as ever. He looked so quick and sleek clothed, so powerful naked. Ben had wrapped his legs over those strong shoulders so often…
No. That was madness.
Ben moved to the big bed. It was a four-poster, evidently once equipped with curtains to pull round and keep the heat in. They had doubtless long rotted away. There was just a pile of quilts and blankets now, sheets warmed by a pan of coals, a bolster, and enough room for two.