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Offset from the coast proper though the house is, the air here still smacks of salt as it rises up the cliffs and sweeps over the headland. For all that Francis intends that neither he nor any other within this house should sail any longer, the smell of the sea comforts him yet, in much the same way that the sound of English on a stranger’s tongue had comforted him on his long malaise-ridden tour of the Mediterranean, even though he had not then been able to countenance returning to Britain. It is pleasant to know that one’s - home, for want of a better word - continues to exist, even as you yourself plant vegetables and keep fine roses, or write long, rambling, self-pitying letters to James Clark Ross.
And though the rolling clifftops obscure the sea itself, this window is not a poor one from which to smell the sea. The cottage is rather small and difficult to keep warm, with its fine slate flagstones and solid stone walls - Francis has been heartily assured that in the heat of summer it regulates the temperature admirably, although he is inclined to privately question how often, exactly, South Wales conjures such a heat - but all in all it is a sweet, squat little building and nicely appointed. From this first-floor window, elbows propped on the sill and window open to allow the salty breeze entrance, Francis can see the rolling turf as it stretches away toward the clifftops, giving way to the heather that clings by its fingernails to the rocks and scree - and then, there is only the vast bright open sky, so well-lit and cloudless that it is not blue but white-gold and stretching endlessly in every direction. Below it somewhere is the sea, crashing and sparkling against the rocks; within it, perhaps dolphins, or swift fat seals with sharp white teeth and soft dog-like eyes. Francis thinks he and James might take a small skiff out, in the next few days, to see the pretty puffins peeping from their burrows on a nearby island: James will have seen gulls and cormorants and guillemots before, but - perhaps - Francis will spot a razorbill and point it out and tell, haltingly, some little uncertain story with no real denouement about seeing one dive when he was a little boy visiting relatives on the coast. And, perhaps, James will smile at him, and nod, and understand that the birds had looked so free and at ease at sea, and that Francis had wanted that very desperately as a boy, and that they might never have met were it not for seabirds. James is a clever chap; he ought to figure it out.
“You are indulging me.”
Francis tamps out the bowl of his pipe with his thumb - he has been neglecting it terribly, it is barely even still warm, but it is something to do with his hands as he admires the view - and turns to put the window at his back. “Certainly not,” he says briskly, waiting for his eyes to adjust after the astonishing sunlight. As expected, the invalid is attempting not to glower at him without very much success and Francis bites down on a smile: what authority he had once had as captain appears to have waned, for where Jopson had once insisted that Francis should not care for him in his sickness, he now insists that Francis must not do so. Unfortunately, Jopson is simply not tremendously well, at present; he has caught a spring cold which has laid him rather low, and for all his fury and indignation at being ill over the very weekend in which Francis and James were due to call upon him and Little for the very first time, there is little that anyone can do but keep him in comfort and company and wait for the illness to pass. Jopson indulges in a bad temper over it all, and Little in some terrible fretting, but for his part Francis is neither worried nor put-out. There is no real danger, the doctor has assured them all, and he had come to spend time with Jopson and Little and James, all together in comfort and safety, and that has not changed. So he raises an eyebrow at Jopson, and says, “I am admiring the countryside at my leisure. Your window has a fine view.”
Jopson sniffs suspiciously and pulls the sheet a little tighter to his chin. He looks rather childishly sorry for himself and Francis almost wants to sit on the side of the bed and tidy his hair, as he had once done in the terrible, sick-smelling days before their rescue, but he doesn’t want to upset Jopson either. Those were difficult times, and perhaps Jopson will not want to be reminded of them. “There is a better view from the headland,” he points out and is not, probably, wrong.
But Francis shrugs. “There will be time for it yet.”
Jopson shifts slightly. “But the weather may not hold,” he argues. “Sir, you should go now - perhaps Edward will take you and Captain Fitzjames on the horses.”
“Perhaps he and James have already gone,” Francis suggests lightly, and without any expectation of being correct. After lunch, James had claimed a twinge in his knee and a desire to sit and nurse it on the sofa with a book, and Lieutenant Little’s company, if he would surrender it? And poor Ned had sunk so bonelessly into the sofa opposite that he had listed worryingly to the side, and hoped that Francis might take Jopson a cup of tea and look in on him briefly, and then he would be quite happy to sit with Fitzjames. Francis reckons that Ned last slept a full night through some time last week, what with fretting for Francis and James arriving in state and then for Jopson, and would be greatly surprised if James and Ned are not precisely where he left them. “Besides, if Edward should see my very mediocre horsemanship he might lose all respect for me.”
This, at last, wrests half a smile from Jopson. “Did you not once ride a cow?”
Francis barks a laugh and gives in. He settles carefully on the edge of Jopson’s mattress, sitting in the space Jopson makes by shifting his hips sideways to accommodate him, and carefully tidies a few strands of hair out of his eyes. Jopson seems almost to settle with it, as though he had been waiting and hoping for some comfort, or for some concession that Francis is here to care for him in his illness - that Jopson is ill, and allowed to feel poorly, and will in time feel better again. “Not, you’ll recall, for very long,” Francis points out, fussing ineffectually at his bedding. “A fall like that, at my age - you and James would have poor Edward’s head on a spike, and then we should all be bedridden, James having come up with some ailment so as not to feel left out.”
Jopson grins and Francis allows himself to smile fondly back. “A poor holiday, sir,” he says.
“But in good company,” Francis says firmly, laying his hand flat on Jopson’s sternum, “which would compensate for any number of disabling accidents.”
At last, Jopson appears to understand exactly what it is that Francis is getting at and settles loosely into his pillows. “Thank you,” he says very softly, and Francis watches his own fingers tap gently against the counterpane over his chest, and nods awkwardly. “But - if you do not mind, sir - if I sleep now, then I shall be well enough to sit with you all for dinner.”
Jopson has a determined slant to his gaze on this matter, and Francis recognises that he shall not be swayed. “All right, then,” he says gently and levers himself carefully to his feet. “Sleep well.”
Very much as expected, James and Ned are both exactly where Francis had left them - or, at the very least, James is. He has tucked his legs up under him, draping his torso sideways over the arm of the sofa with his long face leant elegantly against one hand and the other holding open a slim volume of verse. The book is slightly too far away from his face to be held comfortably and James is peering at it, as he is wont to do when his spectacles are inconveniently out of arm’s reach. The sight is, in itself, not unfamiliar to Francis but, like other men who were brought up gentlemen, James always keeps his feet off the furniture unless he is certain that the only person who might catch him doing otherwise is Francis. He reckons it has something to do with the presence of spaniels in the family home; Francis had once been greatly entertained when, on a visit to the Rosses, Anne had chided her singularly brainless pet with the single short exhortation to get off the sofa and, though the animal had done so, James Ross, his little boy, and Francis’ own James had all been unable to resist planting their feet squarely on the floor as well. It appeared to be quite instinctual: Anne and Francis, for their part the childhood owners of a pair of lazy rabbits and a particularly unbiddable tomcat respectively, had found themselves both immune and deeply amused.
James looks up at his step and smiles, closing the book around his thumb. “How’s the patient?” he inquires quietly.
“Rather impatient,” Francis murmurs, approaching slowly and accepting the hand that is reached out to him. It is difficult not to revel in the open affection; Little must have gone out for a while. “He’s sleeping - seems to think he’ll be up and about by teatime.”
James hums in fond amusement and rubs his thumb gently over Francis’ knuckles. “I’m not opposed to dining late,” he says. “But I rather think you and I might have to produce the dinner itself, my dear: Edward was telling me all about the recipe Jopson has instructed him to follow, by which I mean that he told me there was one, but that he could not for the life of him remember where it is, what the process would involve, or even what the meal would ultimately be.” Francis raises a rather worried eyebrow at James, who presses his hand in comfort and tips his head at the other sofa, previously obscured by the angle of the room. “I thought I’d leave off the difficult questions after that.”
Ned is, indeed, on the sofa where Francis had left him, only perhaps a little more horizontal. His head is tipped back to an angle which would likely be uncomfortable, were it not for the small pillow placed against the headrest to support his neck, and there is a brightly-coloured patchwork blanket spread over his knees. With his face slack, mouth fallen slightly open, a lot of the tension has eased from Ned, but he looks like nothing so much as a fallen doll, or a puppet with its strings cut. But then, by his side and incongruously neat, is a closed book with a strip of faded lilac silk embroidered with careful, slightly childish flowers to mark his page, and Francis lifts James’ hand to his mouth and kisses his fingers.
“Thought something terrible had happened to him,” James murmurs rather cheerfully, but the tips of his ears have gone slightly red as if embarrassed that Francis has caught him looking after Ned. “But he snores every now and then, so I’ve perfect faith in a full recovery. You, after all, snore like anything and are the very picture of good health.”
Francis offers him a gentle glower and James smiles winningly back. They disagree on little, these days, but both of them are prepared to swear up and down that only the other snores. Francis is certain James only does it to wind him up. But for now, he lets that gauntlet lie. “Thank you,” he rumbles solemnly, mouth still pressed gently to James’ hand. James tosses his head a little awkwardly and gives him half a shrug - but he does then reach out his index finger and slide it gently down Francis’ craggy cheek.
He supposes it must be a little difficult for James. Francis, Ned and Jopson have simply spent so much longer living in one another’s pockets, as officers and stewards on a crowded ship are wont to do, and by virtue of occupying Erebus James had revolved in a slightly separate circle. Any man might feel a little apart in his circumstance, but then - well - James himself had said it best, Francis thinks. Curled up together in their bed at home, the curtains comfortingly closed against the outside world and its consequences, James had said quite calmly that he did not find it at all surprising that Jopson and Little were so keen for him, Francis, to visit and pronounce his judgement of their living situation, nor that Francis himself was so keen to attend them - more so than any captain and crew, regardless of the peril faced together, ought really to be.
“Sir John would have been father to us all, I think,” James in the darkness had said quietly and gently, and in deference to the note of sadness still lingering in his voice Francis refrains from making any expression of what he thinks of that. “But even then, I think he knew: Little and Jopson were ever your sons, Francis.” And Francis neither could nor would deny it.
He thinks that James has ever known himself well enough to foresee that fatherhood was a decidedly unlikely part of his future. Stepfather to grown men, then - well, it would be no less than Francis deserves, if James were to declare the whole sorry business entirely outside his wants and desires and wash his hands of them all.
Francis flattens James’ palm against his cheek and presses a kiss to the heel of it. Almost instinctively, James’ fingertips curl to cradle the hinge of his jaw, and Francis’ eyes briefly close as he presses into the contact. “Thank you,” he murmurs again, pressing the words into the meat of James’ thumb.
“It was really barely anything,” James says, almost chiding - as if Francis were making a fuss for nothing. But he says so whilst relaxing into the slightly aged but very well-kept sofa of people Francis has obliged him to visit, and it does not seem like nothing. James taps his thumb against Francis’ cheekbone. “I like Ned and Thomas,” he says firmly. “I always have, remember? I don’t do this for you, dear heart.”
He knows that. Ned had valourised James rather annoyingly, at first, but they had eventually settled into a mutual and less fervent regard which, for a time, Francis had found no less irritating; James and Jopson had ever interacted with politeness and respect, even when Francis had come between them in a rage. “That is, in fact, why I am grateful,” Francis manages rather stiltedly, and James smiles gently.
“Then whom are you thanking? I am not God, Francis - I did not make us to like one another.”
Francis shrugs. “May I not simply be generally grateful?”
James tilts his head on one side and his gaze drops slightly to the point where his hand meets Francis’ skin. “You may,” he pronounces carefully, “but you do not need to be. It is not...too much to ask for, Francis, that one’s friends and relatives should like one another. Not - not all things must be difficult for you. I am sorry that you think that should be the norm.”
Francis closes his eyes and affixes his attention of the feel of James’ fingers stroking gently at the corner of his jaw. When the unnameable emotion within has subsided to a manageable level, he looks back at James, who smiles to see him as if he had left for a day and not simply shut down for a moment. He clears his throat carefully. “You should not say - difficult - we have not yet seen the recipe Jopson has left us.”
James huffs, amused. “I’m sure we shall shift for ourselves well enough. This is Jopson, after all.”
Francis nods in concession. “A man more inclined to management there has never been.”
“And have we not, in our time,” James says, levering himself up from the sofa, “been bachelors on half pay? Desperation being the mother and such - is there a more culinary class of man anywhere in Britain?”
Francis glances briefly at the oblivious form of Ned and catches James’ face between his palms, pressing close for a sudden and swift kiss. James looks pleased, and very slightly confused; Francis shrugs in helpless explanation and thumbs at the deepening lines at the corners of James’ eyes. “You did not even find your own spectacles,” he says softly.
Their culinary efforts go much as James had predicted: they are not experts, but nor are they entirely inexperienced; and the recipe proves to be a Mrs Beeton clipping liberally annotated and adjusted in Jopson’s neat hand, to the degree that James observes dryly that very little of that venerable lady’s original vision appears to have survived Jopson’s pen. With the combined wisdom of these domestic powerhouses, they manage to produce a quite passable dinner and maintain a debate over the Ship of Theseus paradox as regards the recipe, although every so often this must be disrupted to cast an eye over Little and Jopson: James holds that the recipe began as Mrs Beeton’s and so, though most parts be altered, Mrs Beeton’s it must remain; Francis retorts with a certain amount of partiality that it is now entirely Jopson’s work, and that James oughtn’t argue anyway since he can barely read the thing.
“I can read it well enough,” James objects, levelling Francis with a look of amused annoyance. “ You oughtn’t dismiss my ideas simply because I might have forgotten my specs at home.”
“Failure to prepare, James,” Francis intones with mocking solemnity as he peels and dices carrots, “is preparation to fail.” And then he has to duck, or get a strand of carrot peel in his hair.
“Oh hush,” James tells him firmly. And then he cocks his head, and presses a fingertip to his lips.
There is, now James has pointed it out, a murmuring in the other room. Francis leans back in his seat to angle his gaze through the gap in the door - open, but pushed half-to - between the kitchen and sitting room and get an idea of what’s occurring: if Jopson is up and about, he must be feeling a little better, but perhaps he needs something…?
Little is awake, now, and blinking blearily at Jopson. Thomas is sitting beside him and doing his best to tidy up what is a truly awful bedhead - who knew Ned had so much hair to ruffle in every direction? - but they both look reasonably well, if a little pale on Thomas’ side and half asleep on Ned’s. Thomas is frowning, however, and the noise carries well enough in this quiet little cottage that Francis cannot help overhearing.
“-should have said something,” Jopson is telling Ned, sounding rather worried. “I didn’t mean for you to get unwell caring for me.”
“‘M not unwell,” Ned manages, sitting up a little straighter and wrangling a hand out from under the blanket - it had been pinned in place, for Thomas is sitting so close to Ned that he is partially on the patchwork. “Just - needed a little nap, is all. Don’t fret, Thomas.”
“But you would tell me-”
Ned reaches out and catches Jopson’s hand, giving it a deft squeeze and leaving them joined in Thomas’ lap. “Of course, love,” he soothes, and Thomas heaves out a great huffing breath. His eyes flutter closed and his forehead thuds into Ned’s shoulder; Ned’s arm immediately rises to embrace him. Ned ducks his chin and tilts his head, angling for a look at Thomas’ face. “And you’re really feeling up to dinner? No-one would begrudge you, if you’re not.”
Thomas leans back slightly, still resting in the circle of Ned’s arm, and nods. “I am feeling better now - I think the sleep did me good. You too, I should imagine, o gallant host,” he adds, with a grin of such mischievous delight that Francis almost wouldn’t recognise his solemn, sensible steward.
Ned flushes crimson and pulls a face. “I did try,” he says defensively, and Thomas laughs gently.
And then looks horrified. “Oh lord, no-one’s started dinner.”
Francis tears his gaze away and looks at James: James, who has been listening too and has, by the look of it, come to the same conclusion as Francis about the exact nature of Jopson and Little’s relationship. He had suspected, of course, but never asked; Francis expects that Jopson and Little have speculated similarly about himself and James, but for the sake of politeness all parties had allowed it to remain an uncertain, open secret. Personally, Francis would like to leave all as it is, but James is looking at him with that determined slant to his gaze, and though there might be little danger in them knowing it -
Francis shoots James a warning look and carefully drops his knife onto the table with a clatter. Taking the hint, James turns back to his pan and starts humming as he stirs, just a little louder than he really needs to be. All as intended, Jopson and Little appear in the doorway, Ned still attempting to flatten his curls. “Sirs,” Jopson begins. “You really needn’t - Ned and I can take over now, it’s no trouble.”
“Not at all,” James says brightly. “We’ve nearly finished and are feeling rather proud of ourselves, if I do say so myself. Though I suppose we ought to credit the recipe, really; you and Mrs Beeton make quite the team.”
“Oh, I change very little,” Thomas demurs graciously.
“He’s re-written every recipe in the house,” Ned says firmly, ignoring the slightly sharp look Jopson sends him. “Poor Mrs Beeton hardly gets a look-in.” He offers Thomas a quick lop-sided grin and Thomas purses his lips, like he’s trying not to smile, and then shoulders past Ned to find crockery and cutlery without looking back.
He leaves Ned beaming after him in the doorway, oblivious to all else; Francis, grinning down at his chopping board; and James, trying very hard to catch Francis’ eye.
It really is, Francis must concede, a splendid view. From the twin vantage of headland and horse, the sea spreads so far in almost every direction that it appears as a shining white-blue country of its own, heaving gently and flecked with diamond light. To the south, Devon appears as the barest dark smudge on the horizon; to the west, there is nothing but the great wide Atlantic; to the northwest, Ireland, if he could see so far. Behind them to the east are the hills and valleys of Wales, rolling away to break against the Brecon Beacons and settle at last into England and London and all that comes with that - but here, he and Ned put their backs to all this and turn their noses into the salt-smelling wind.
“I am - that is, thank you for coming,” Ned says, rather uncertainly; his horse shifts slightly beneath him as if it would like to dance away, but he manages the animal intuitively. Francis has been given the horse that is, ostensibly, Jopson’s - although, of course, the horses are entirely Ned’s domain and delight - and so it is more inclined to stand calmly and crop at the turf than Ned’s fine stallion, Jopson being a more inexperienced horseman even than Francis.
Francis pats the horse’s neck firmly. “It is our pleasure, Ned,” he says quite honestly. “We must thank you for hosting us.”
“It has been no trouble,” Ned says almost miserably, hanging his head, “for we did not even have to give up a room for you.”
Francis turns his gaze back out to sea, squinting into the light, and sighs. Ostensibly he and James had been placed in Jopson’s room and prevailed upon to share the one bed, if they did not mind it - they did not, indeed - and Ned and Thomas would be forced to share the other bedroom. Such had been the story upon their arrival, and so Francis and James had curled together as they were ever wont to do in a room almost entirely devoid of personal effects. Perhaps Jopson had simply tidied them all away with incredible precision; it was believable.
But then, last night, they had all sat together in the sitting room, James a little too close to Francis for propriety on the sofa and Ned and Thomas sharing the other a little more carefully. And James had laughed at something Francis had said, and clapped his hand affectionately against Francis’ leg - and then left it there, his long fingers spread possessively and curling around the tenderest point at the inside of his thigh.
“James-” Francis had murmured in warning, and moved his hand to shift James’ away. But, in the moment, when his hand had met James’ warm, thin skin, he had found himself simply wrapping his own battered, calloused fingers around James’ hand and holding him there. There was simply no avoiding it.
He had looked up to see Jopson looking politely away but smiling slightly, pleasure edged with slight relief as though some weight or worry had been lifted from him. Before Francis could unravel that, however, Ned’s expression of surprise and habitual worry had hardened into some kind of determination: he had swiftly put down his wine glass, taken poor startled Thomas’ face in his broad palms, and kissed him fully on the mouth. Then he’d gone bright red and almost knocked over his glass in his clumsy attempt to retrieve it and hide his face in its depths.
James had laughed, helplessly, a bark of astonished delight; Thomas had sat gaping at them all; and Francis had just shaken his head in mystification and suggested that perhaps, for all their sakes, he put a cork in the wine for the evening before Ned and James could get at any more of it, hmm? And that had been all. What more was there to be said?
This, apparently. Francis breathes slowly, thoughtfully, and dismounts. He walks over, standing at Ned’s knee where Ned cannot help but meet his eye, and raises an eyebrow at him. “And James and I have not - have not had to part either,” he says, aiming for firm but still fumbling over the admission itself. It is still alien to him, for all that most of their friends and family are familiar with the idea that he and James come as a matched set, to say as much out loud. “How fortunate we all are, then.”
Ned shifts in the saddle, fixing his eyes on the ground on the other side of the horse. He looks truly, deeply unhappy - Francis cannot fathom why. Francis watches him chew his lip, none too gently, and waits. “No-one else knows,” Ned says at last.
Ah. Francis nods and gives Ned’s calf, safely ensconced in leather riding boots, a comforting pat. Perhaps, between being Uncle Francis to James’ nieces and nephew, being joint guests of the Rosses, Blankys and Sophia, and generally revelling in the quiet approval of their friends and family, Francis has forgotten what it is to be hidden. Of course it should be frightening: Ned’s world, here in this little cottage with its well-kept stable and its well-beloved occupant, is now no longer entirely his own; it is natural that he should want to defend his castle from intruders.
“All right, Ned,” Francis says, gently as though he might spook. “All right.”
Ned sighs massively and fixes his melancholy gaze upon the sea. His whole attitude is one of deep, drooping sadness, as if the weight of it physically oppresses him; he is not half the proud horseman he had been as he and Francis had saddled up in the small yard between the cottage and the far newer and far finer stables which almost exceed the house’s size. Thomas had held Ned’s horse as he mounted, although to look at Ned around the animals it was probably unnecessary; he clearly rides as well as he sails, and possibly better. But Thomas and James were really there to see them off before retreating to the back garden to sit in the sunshine and continue Thomas’ recuperation, and Ned had seemed to appreciate the steadying hand. James had been of no use whatsoever, preferring to stand some way distant and shade his eyes with one hand, telling Francis in perfectly serious but rather merry tones what a fine figure of a man he made on horseback. Francis had glowered at him for jesting, and at Jopson for smiling, although without a great deal of venom.
But now, Ned is all nerves and sorrow once more, and Francis doesn’t know what to do about it. “I cannot even-” Ned begins, and then breaks off with an explanatory gesture of his hand. “I cannot even write to my brothers and sisters about it.”
Francis pats Ned’s leg in a way which he desperately hopes is comforting; some symbol that, though others are not, Francis is here. Familial approbation, though hardest won, is often most appreciated, Francis has found. Certainly, speaking to his own siblings of James is fraught with uncertainty, and though Ellen - ever his sharpest and most perceptive sister - definitely knows or suspects something, he cannot imagine ever simply sitting them all down and telling them of what James and he are to one another. How alike he and Ned perhaps are.
The idea blossoms slowly, like a frosted flower unfurling or a hand made a crabbed fist by cold loosening with the thaw. Francis reaches out, carefully, and squeezes Ned’s ankle until he looks away from the sea and meets his gaze. “My father,” he begins, “was not a good man. Whatever his intentions - I never knew them - he made himself...difficult, I suppose, to know, and harder to esteem. He never merited my good opinion - nor I his, I imagine. But it was still frequently - painful. To lack his...blessing.”
Francis hears Ned inhale sharply. The horse dances slightly under him, but Ned tugs carefully on the reins and Francis is neither trampled nor forced to let go his hold on Ned’s ankle. Little is frowning, almost frightened, but he doesn’t move away.
“I found,” Francis continues carefully, allowing his gaze to rest on Ned’s saddle and feeling very much that he is entering this conversation with tiny, shuffling steps as one might traverse a floor which could at any moment give way, “that approbation could come from other quarters. The captains and lieutenants with whom I served as a boy offered me praise I had not known at home; it was not the same, I grant you, and the - hurt remained. But. It was not nothing, to me. Perhaps it would not be nothing to you.”
There is a moment of quiet, in which Francis listens to the wind and the water and the horses, breathing gently. His own is cropping the grass behind him, exactly where he left it; it is as if nothing has changed.
Ned clears his throat awkwardly. “And - who will give me approval, sir?” he asks rather gruffly.
Francis looks up at him and shakes his foot, staring him straight in the eye. “I will,” he says. “I will, Edward - and if ever I have not, it is a failing of my own, for you have never not deserved it. You are a good man, Edward, and I - I marvel at the joy you bring out of Jopson. I would not entrust the care of one I like so well to anyone less worthy: him to you, and you to him. Ned, I-” Francis casts about desperately for some clarity of expression; when he looks back at Ned’s face, he finds him seemingly close to tears. But his shoulders are set back with pride, and he is smiling.
“Will you give us your blessing, sir?” Ned inquires, voice rather rough.
Francis smiles bracingly. “Wholeheartedly, Ned: I give you and Jopson my blessing, and I wish you joy of one another.” Ned laughs a little wetly in rather surprised delight and Francis moves his hand up to pat that part of Ned’s back which he can reach. “Now, shake my hand as good gentlemen ought, else I shall be forced to embrace you.”
Ned beams and drops the reins, but before Francis can so much as extend his hand Ned has swung his leg over the horse and almost bowled him over. Francis has a few inches on his lieutenant, but Ned is remarkably broad of shoulder and the embrace is a little akin to being rugby tackled; Francis resolves to simply cling.
“Thank you,” Ned mumbles into the crook of his neck.
Francis pats his back. “There, now,” he manages a little awkwardly. He feels rather as though he has used all his words: any further meaning must be pressed upon Ned through the palms of his hands, the barrel of his chest, the angle of chin to shoulder. He cannot now remember exactly what James had said, anyway - only that he was right. “No need for all that.”
Ned helps him back on his horse and together they head leisurely back towards the cottage, talking of little and nothing but sustaining a conversation well. It is ever pleasant, Francis finds, to speak without urgency with those of whom he is fond; it is pleasant, too, to see Ned speak without tension. James and Thomas are awaiting them in the sun-trap yard in kitchen chairs dragged into the light: they both have books in their laps, and the light shines off a pair of spectacles perched neatly on James’ nose.
“Francis!” he says with delight and gestures at his own face. “Look what Thomas has cleverly hunted out for me. I dare say the man could resupply everything of importance to a person within an afternoon - I am inclined to not pack at all, in future, just so see what he comes up with.” James turns his brilliant, mischievous smile on Jopson, who smiles and demurs admirably.
“You are welcome to take them with you, if you will want them on the train,” Thomas offers, eyes flicking between his guests and Ned as he tallies up the near imperceptible differences enacted by the ride.
Francis nods at James, shifting in the saddle. He is not as young as he was, and a little sore. “You ought to leave them here,” he tells James, “for when you forget them next time we visit. Otherwise, we’ll end up with heaps of the things at home, all stolen from poor Thomas.”
James offers him a pout at this slight on his memory, but Jopson cannot quite duck his head fast enough to hide a grin. Francis shifts again and Ned leaps adeptly from the saddle to hold his horse’s head while he dismounts. “Here, sir.”
“Thank you,” Francis says, getting down rather stiffly with a grunt. “You’re certainly quick about it.”
Ned tilts his head and looks to the side. “When I was a boy,” he says hesitantly, “I used to ride a lot. I helped my father, and then we would ride together about the estate and into the countryside.”
This much Francis already knows, or could easily gather - but then he sees Thomas glance between Ned and him, Francis, with the tiniest unconscious smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and James looking fondly at them both with the borrowed spectacles folded up in his palm. Francis waits for Ned to look at him again, and then nods. “That sounds nice.”
Ned nods too. “It was.”