“Much better. You don’t want any more.”
Penrose blinked at Jonah, and sagged back. Ben took his weight in a friendly hold that secured the man’s arms. He supposed he should disapprove of Jonah using fluence, but he’d dealt with enough belligerent drunks in his time to take the pragmatic view. “Yes, you come on, sir. Any mate of Mr. Penrose ready to walk him home?”
“Nicely done,” said Mrs. Linney after Ben had seen the drunken man off the premises, arm round his more sober brother’s shoulders. “He’s trouble in his cups, Bill Penrose. Not more’n I can handle, but you and your Jonah did well. Thank’ee.”
“Our pleasure,” Ben assured her, and did not stop to wonder about “your Jonah” until much later.
Chapter Twelve
They collapsed into bed that night too exhausted for awkwardness, let alone anything more. Ben slept deeply, after a day’s work topped by a full evening on his feet, and woke to a steaming mug of tea brandished perilously near his face.
“Awake, sleeping beauty,” Jonah said with a grin. “It’s Sunday, the inn is shut thank God, and Dora’s declared a holiday.”
“Dora?”
“Mrs. Linney. She’s pleased with us, after last night’s takings, and the lack of damaged furniture or deflowered daughters.” Jonah’s eyes crinkled. “Barman and doorkeeper, who’d have thought it.”
Ben sat up and took the mug. “Born to it. When you say holiday…”
“I want to go up the coast.” Jonah sat on the bed. “Look at the sea and smell the air and walk, Ben.” His eyes were wide with anticipation. “I need to stretch my legs. Can we? Will you come?”
A holiday. A day out with Jonah, a walk along the clifftops, so dangerously like those long rambling walks they’d shared last year…
Ben couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do.
They set off after a good breakfast. Mrs. Linney—Dora—warned Jonah dryly not to fall off a cliff. Agnes extracted a promise from Ben that he would read The Pickwick Papers that evening. Bethany was lost in dreams of her planned meeting with Aaron, to be chaperoned by her mother, but she spared a smiling glance for Ben, obviously appreciating his minor assistance in her romance.
It was a glorious morning, with the Cornish sun, somehow so much brighter than London’s, making the heaving sea glitter. Ben watched it with fascination as they walked together over springy turf, scents of salt and thyme and gorse in his nose. Jonah was quivering as he inhaled the sparkling air, nostrils flared, head reared into the wind, and after they had walked for half an hour or so he flung his head and arms back and let out a wild yelp.
“Nettle?” asked Ben, laughing.
“Freedom.” Jonah turned on the spot, arms wide, with the unfocussed look that Ben was coming to recognise. He gave a sudden, mad grin, and leapt into the air.
“Jonah!”
Jonah hit the ground lightly. “Nobody about for miles. Just us and the seagulls. And I can feel the wind.”
Then he was off, sprinting a few steps, the scent of bruised thyme rising where his feet crushed the plants, and leaping upwards. He spun, impossibly suspended in the air for a second, head tipped back to feel the sun, then dropped, bounded and darted up again. He swung by one hand from the empty air, throwing himself forward and catching on nothing.
Ben only realised his mouth was open when a bee almost flew into it.
He waved the insect away, unable to stop watching Jonah as he played like a puppy, his face transfigured with pure joy. It shivered through Ben, the pure bliss he radiated, the reckless freedom of every movement, and he found he was laughing along with Jonah, standing on the tips of his toes as though he too could dance with the wind.
Jonah looked down, grinned wildly and dropped about ten feet. Ben yelped, instinctively, and found Jonah on the grass before him, flushed with pleasure.
“Want a go?”
“Me?” Jonah gave him a gleeful, conspiratorial nod, and Ben let go of possibility and sense and everything else. “God, yes. What do I do?”
“Anything. Jump. Hands or feet. I’ll keep you up.” His eyes were blazing blue.
“All right,” Ben said, laughing, because it was so absurd, and leapt as Jonah had. His foot met the air, held. He took another step forward, hesitated, and found himself hitting the ground with a jarring thud.
“Sorry, sorry!” Jonah waved his hands. “But you have to keep moving, remember? Keep running or you fall.”