Lessons in Discovery (14 page)

sat on his hands so he couldn’t be tempted to swat his friend.

“Can’t you work it out, Dr. Coppersmith? Is this one up for

the lecturers in English? It was Charles Shaa, of course. So that he could do a runner.” And with that, Dr. Full-of-Himself sat back

and cracked a particularly big, succulent-looking Brazil nut.

Orlando was stunned. It was so very obvious. Everyone had

assumed, as they were supposed to, that the body had been Shaa’s and all the theories had been based on that simple fact, no matter how convoluted they had become in their development. If the

body wasn’t that of the Woodville Ward, then all the theories

needed to go out the window. “However did you come up with

this?”

“I had a dream. It was about you, actually.”

Orlando looked skittishly around the SCR in case anyone

had heard the scandalous remark. Jonty must have seen this but as usual took not the slightest notice. “Only it wasn’t really you, it 96

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was some idiot wearing your clothes and that tie pin I bought

you.”

“You bought me the tie pin? I never knew that.”

Jonty looked rather crestfallen. “Oh, I’d thought you’d have

deduced that for yourself. Who else would buy you such things?

Not my mother, she thinks onyx rather dull.”

Orlando snorted. “And this dream led to this deduction?”

“It did eventually, after a bit of thinking. I knew from the

start that it linked to the case but it was only when I’d really thought about it that I twigged. There was no real proof of identity of the body.”

Orlando sat in silence for a minute or two, thinking things

over. As a theory it had a lot going for it—certainly there was

nothing he’d read in the documents about the case that

contradicted it. Shaa appeared in his letters to be a man who was frightened and almost out of touch with reality, looking over his shoulder and seeing shadows that may not have had any substance

to them. What if he’d decided that staging his own disappearance would free him from those who were spying on him? That theory

might also explain why he’d not destroyed the coded letters—he

must have wanted someone to know the truth at some point in the

distant future. It all smacked of an unstable mind which seeks to hide its crime
and
have it made known at the same time. Charles Shaa had come across as intelligent, determined, full of energy

and no pawn to authority. He might just have been cunning

enough, desperate enough, to take things into his own hands.
His
own hands
,
now there was the rub. “Dr. Stewart, there’s just one little problem with your scenario. It’s well known that the

Woodville Ward had suffered a break in his arm shortly before his disappearance. How could he, having sustained such an injury,

manhandle a body down a well?”

Jonty considered, but not for long. “That’s an easy one. He’d

have had help, Dr. Coppersmith, quite possibly Johan Breton as

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they were thick as thieves. If not, any handy lad who came along would have done. So long as he’d do a bit of dirty work and keep his mouth shut afterwards for the right price. I bet Shaa wouldn’t have soiled his hands with that task, though I wouldn’t have put him above the killing itself. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like our foundress’s protégé, and the thought of that arm

being deliberately broken makes my blood run cold.”

Orlando nodded his head slowly, weighing these new ideas.

They weren’t unreasonable. “So who do you think it was, the man

who went into the well?”

“I’ve no idea. The first person who sprang to mind was

Breton, but that’s not a runner as he was too busy writing letters from Lowestoft then going off to sea, getting married and being

buried in Swavesey. I found a picture of his tomb in an ancient

book about the parish my old tutor here gave me that I’d stuffed away at the back of my bookcase. There was a story there, too—I

must have read it years ago but it meant nothing then. Breton had been betrothed to a local girl before he went, but as usual the

father objected, his daughter being too young and her suitor poor as a church mouse. Breton returned from sea rich enough to

square the old man and sweep the girl off her feet. He set himself up as a merchant and lived a very prosperous life. The family

memorial’s an impressive one, Dr. Coppersmith, if the

illustrations are anything to go by. No luck with him.”

Orlando screwed up his brows and looked into the distance,

as if he was trying to telescope the years and see directly into Elizabeth Hall and observe its goings-on. “Who else is there then, Dr. Stewart? It seems that we’ve no chance of clearing things up now, unless those other encrypted letters hide a wealth of clues. It could have been anyone shoved down the well.”

“Not anyone. It would need to be a man of roughly the same

height, build and age as Shaa, or it would be if he’d had any

sense. He relied on the body not being found for a while and I

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dare say that there’d be a fair amount of deterioration to the face in quite a short amount of time. But even if the features weren’t identifiable, putting someone like my dear mama down the well in his place wouldn’t have fooled anyone, not with any amount of

jewellery.”

“That would give us a start, but it still feels like an

impossible task, even more than it did previously.” Orlando

caught sight of Lumley across the SCR, smiled, nodded and

suddenly grinned. “Perhaps it’s not quite so impossible. We know of one man who fits the bill, simply because of the timing. The

chaplain’s ‘poor Stephen’ as he called him, there’s a young lad

who went missing at the time. And Shaa seems to have had an

almost paranoid fear of him. I bet you my salary for the whole of next year that it was Stephen down that well.”

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The journey down from Cambridge was yet another eye-

opener for Orlando, who was wondering whether he’d spend the

next year in a state of continual surprise. First-class carriages and cabs all the way wasn’t something he was used to, nor was the

night in London occupying a suite in a hotel overlooking Park

Lane.
And
a meal in a top-notch restaurant where the price of the wine alone had nearly made Orlando fall off his seat. He knew

Jonty was always flush with funds but he’d no idea of such

opulence being possible for the pair of them. They nearly came to blows over it, much as had happened in their previous courtship, Orlando insisting on paying part of his way and looking most

offended when the offer was tactfully rejected.

Back in their suite, relaxing with a glass of port on a

sumptuous sofa just made for dalliance, Orlando raised the topic yet again, much to Jonty’s annoyance. He was feeling a bit

belligerent, the tears beginning to well, both mainly due to still suffering from the aftereffects of the flu. The illness had hit him hard and, while he would never admit it, he found even the

normal pace of life a bit tiring. It had brought him very low and made him, on occasions, rather emotional.

“Orlando,” he explained for the umpteenth time, “I have

more money than I know what to do with. I’m not boasting, it’s

just a fact, plain and simple. I don’t want to donate it all to

charity—Mama has already siphoned off quite enough of it to

some good cause or other. I want to fritter it away on the things
Lessons in Discovery

that matter to me. You matter most to me and I want to spend it

on us. We’re not being profligate, truly, so your puritanical soul shouldn’t feel offended.”

“I don’t feel guilty about all this eating and drinking. I know

how much you fork out for good causes—Lumley has sung your

praises often enough recently—so you deserve to stay somewhere

as grand as this.” Orlando swept his hand around the room,

indicating delicate watercolours, little ornaments, thick rugs. The hotel suite was far more sumptuous than any of the rooms in the

Coppersmiths’ home. “I just feel uncomfortable that I don’t pick up the tab as often as I should if we are equal.”

“Sad fact is that we’re not equal and never have been, even

in terms of intellect, where you outstrip me by miles. We were

born socially disparate. We were brought up as differently as

chalk and cheese. There’s bags of money and other assets my

grandmother put in my direction, none of which are due to my

particular merits.”

Orlando coloured, began to bridle, but Jonty raised a hand.

“These are simple truths, Orlando. You either accept them and

live with them or there’s simply no point in us even remaining

friends. Our differences have enhanced our relationship, not

detracted from it.”

“I don’t want your charity.” Orlando still wouldn’t be

mollified. Of course he knew their backgrounds were worlds apart but he didn’t like to be reminded of it.

“What I offer you isn’t charity, it’s a logical deployment of

resources. Offered in love, pure and simple. Would you reject my affection?” Jonty could feel a hard lump in his throat, like he’d swallowed all his pride and it had stuck there.

Orlando blushed, shook his head, managed to stammer, “Of

course not.” He remained, head bowed, for several minutes, deep

in thought. Jonty didn’t interrupt him; he understood, more than any other person did, Orlando’s need to consider, to rationalise, to www.lindenbayromance.com 101

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comprehend before proceeding. At last the man looked up. “I’ll

accept that we use your resources on one condition.”

“And what is that?” Jonty felt the slightest shiver ascend his

spine. What strange provisos might be whizzing around Orlando’s

brain?

“That you really do love me. I’ll not argue with you about

money again so long as that remains a fact.” He looked

ridiculously solemn for someone who was uttering such romantic

words.

Resisting all temptation to giggle, Jonty gently reached for

Orlando’s hand, drew it down his own cheek, his neck, held it

over his heart. “This has been yours for the last year. I won’t take it back just because you’ve forgotten it was in your keeping. I’ll keep it safe and sound until you’re ready to claim it again.”

“I’m ready now, Jonty.” Orlando leaned in to kiss his friend

tenderly. “Tell me just once.”

“Tell you what?” Jonty’s brain had become just slightly

befuddled with wine, port and excessive emotion.

“That you love me. You must know, I must have told you,

that not even my parents used to say that. Never. It’s warmed my heart enormously the last few weeks to think that you might have used such words.” The desperate longing for affection shone from Orlando’s eyes. He looked so much like an abandoned child that

Jonty couldn’t gainsay him.

“Orlando, I love you much more than I can possibly express.

I even used to read the sonnets to you to try to find the right way of expressing how deeply and truly and madly I adore you. ‘Thy

sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings, that then I scorn to

change my state with kings’ and all that.” He ruffled Orlando’s

hair, which made the man look even more young and innocent, a

sight that filled Jonty with the most romantic of thoughts. They had a suite for the night and, while there were two bedrooms, it 102

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didn’t take a lot to mess up one bed enough to give the illusion that it had been occupied for the duration. “Come, kiss me.”

Their foreheads drew closer, touching gently, noses rubbing

tenderly against each other, along cheeks, into hair. It was as if they wanted to postpone the congress of a kiss until it became

impossible to resist. Jonty murmured affectionate words into

Orlando’s ear, loosened the studs on his collar, sighed

languorously, became even more excited. He closed his eyes and

drew in the scent of the other man, tasted his hair, the skin of his neck, felt soft flesh.

In the end he became desperate. Finding Orlando’s mouth,

he lost himself entirely. Such a sweet, soft flavour—lips opening and yielding to Jonty’s gentle insistence—lips tasting of apples and port, succulent as the ripest fig.

“Orlando,” he murmured tenderly into his erstwhile lover’s

ear, “do you want me to demonstrate the full extent of my

affection? Hmm?”

Orlando, wide-eyed and in awe, nestled his head on his

friend’s shoulder. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“No, I appreciate that. But you might, very soon. There’s a

lovely big bed in there and we could make the most of it for an

hour or so.” Jonty caressed the nape of his lover’s neck. “I’ll be a safe guide. We’ll go nowhere we’ve not been before.”

Orlando nodded, holding out his hand to be led.

The sheets, made of the finest linen and as fresh as daisies,

were as delightful on Orlando’s skin as the hands that roved over him. This was what he’d been imagining, wondering about, since

that very first time they’d held hands after his fall. His guide had served him well, treading the start of the unknown path with

sensitivity and kindness. They’d lain side by side on what seemed a vast bed, tenderly exchanging kisses and caresses until he’d

broken the contact, wanting to gather his thoughts. Nestling in the crook of Jonty’s arm, head on the man’s chest, listening to the