Lessons in Discovery (17 page)

with a great fork of blue lightning which rent the sky in two over the Stewarts’ country home. It was followed by a crash of thunder that sounded like a great broadside going off. The whole sky

resembled some sea battle fought at night among fleets of

particular vehemence in line of battle. Hail the size of pennies smashed down onto the ground, bouncing, leaping like cats on hot tiles, taking out the odd pane of glass in the hothouses and

cloches. Then the snow came—huge flakes like lace curtains

veiling the night, settling so quickly that within minutes it seemed the place had a carpet of white.

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As the first clap of thunder had shaken the eaves, Orlando

had innately known that he had to find Jonty. There hadn’t been a storm such as this since he’d lost his memory and he had no clear recollection of why he should have to locate his friend, was just drawn to his room by some instinctive understanding. Jonty sat by the window; pale, shivering, staring at the flashes in the sky with unseeing eyes.

“Jonty.” Orlando’s voice was as soft as a cooing dove,

hardly audible above the rumbles. “Jonty, it’s me, your Orlando.”

There was no response, except for Jonty cocking his head to

one side as if he heard a noise but didn’t know what had caused it.

Orlando gently came over, took his hands, turned him around and

sat him on the cushions that graced the deep windowsill. Cold air emanating from the glass fought the warmth the fire was still

giving out, low as it had burned. It was cool to sit there yet not unpleasant.

“What unsettles you so much, Jonty?” Orlando had never

asked this question. Even while he had his memory he’d assumed

this strange reaction was linked to Jonty’s experiences at school and he’d been scared then to reopen old wounds. He didn’t have

that knowledge now and was desperate to understand what was

going on. “Is it the noise? Were you frightened by a cannon or

something when you were younger?”

Jonty shook himself, as if casting off some foul dream; his

eyes began to focus on the present again. “I’m sorry, Orlando, did you ask something?”

“I just wondered why you react to storms. Were you alarmed

as a boy?”

“No, not that. Not at all.” He shivered. “Come, I’m getting

cold sitting here.” He rose, took Orlando’s hand. “Will you sit on the bed with me? The fire’s warmth will reach us better there and we can snuggle down in the covers if you want.”

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Orlando nodded, letting himself be led once more, as he had

at the hotel. They were both in silk pyjamas, warm enough to

wear under the thick quilts and blankets that topped the four-

poster beds, but insufficient for the cooling night air. Jonty

offered to stoke up the fire but Orlando preferred the woollen

warmth to hot air. He usually liked to sleep in a cold room, feeling the air pinch at his nose and ears while the rest of him luxuriated under the bedcovers. They sat under the topmost eiderdown, close although not touching each other.

“The time has come to enlighten you on one of the least

pleasant aspects of my life.” Jonty reached over and took his

friend’s hand. “When I was at school, just thirteen, I was taken from my bed by two of the older boys on a stormy night such as

this one.”

Orlando nodded. He imagined that what would follow would

be a tale of bullying and cruelty—similar things had happened at his school, although he knew little of them, being a day boy. The worst punishments had been doled out at night.

“They took me to their room and…and they used me. That

first night one of them, then a few days later the other. Then

nothing until the next term, when the same thing happened again.

It went on for over a year, until they left.”

“Jonty, I know that I’m being stupid, more than stupid, but

please explain to me what actually happened, if you can. I don’t understand.”

“Orlando, do you remember what I told you about the boy

Trumper? How his problems all derived from being hurt and

abused at school? They used him against his consent, for pleasure.

Do you understand that?”

Orlando didn’t. He’d pretended to, when Jonty had first

explained about the St. Bride’s murders, because his friend had

been so insistent that he didn’t want to go into detail. And he’d pretended again, at the hotel, that he had some idea of where that 120

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evening might have ended if Jonty hadn’t suffered a fit of

coughing. He still couldn’t trust himself to speak.

“And that’s how they used me, too. It was truly horrible and

hurt like stink, you know, but it wasn’t just about the pain and the bleeding. I felt dirty all over afterwards and had to keep washing myself, trying to scrub away the shame. I felt so very humiliated.”

Jonty studied his hands, held gently in Orlando’s long, nimble

ones.

“Did you never seek help from your brothers? Weren’t you

all at school together?” Orlando couldn’t understand why this

close-knit family hadn’t pulled together to overcome the common

foe.

“These boys were clever, Orlando. They waited until

Clarence had left the school and took advantage of the fact that Sheridan was suffering from rheumatic fever so he had to be

educated at home for a while. He ended up being a day boy near

here as he was too weak to board again. So I was alone—I had no

particularly close friends at that point.” He shook his head, and Orlando was sure he was full of sadness and remorse for the little boy he’d been and the innocence that had been stolen from him.

“But couldn’t you have talked to your housemaster?

Wouldn’t he have been duty bound to protect you?”

Jonty snorted. “He was used to turning a blind eye to it,

Orlando. As I understand it I wasn’t the first victim nor were

those boys the first predators in his house. He was in cahoots with them, I suspect, probably watching it all going on, too scared to take part himself. Dear God, it’s all so very sickening.”

“And did you never tell your parents? Your mother…”

“Would have gladly taken a knitting needle to the brains of

both of them, like Mrs. Tattersall did on Jersey. Indeed, Orlando, she would have reckoned that too good for them. No, I never told my parents until much later and then I swore them to silence. It would have caused a scandal to our family and I’m not sure that it www.lindenbayromance.com 121

Charlie Cochrane

would in any way have made life easier for me. Those boys

threatened that they’d say I made them do it, led them on, and

Rhodes the housemaster would have backed them up, of that I’m

sure. It was hopeless and I just had to wait for them to go.”

“Weren’t you frightened that your housemaster would have

just urged someone else to come and torment you?”

“I’d begun to take action of my own, dearest. I was

determined not just to be a victim. I’d started to fill out anyway—

I’d been a skinny little runt at thirteen but by fifteen I’d begun to put on muscle, helped by taking up rugby and hanging around

with the lads who did boxing. By the Christmas of the next year

no one was likely to mess around with a boy built like me and

through being such a magnificent scrum half I’d made good

friends. I could call on them to help me if I got threatened and some of them were twice my size. Rhodes didn’t risk finding a

new pair of hounds to course me, although I often wondered if

someone else suffered in my stead.”

“Is this Rhodes man still alive? I’d love to find him.”

Orlando was surprised at how vengeful he felt.

“I bet you would, just like my father. He has those boys and

their ringleader quite firmly in his sights, but at present I won’t tell you their names. I don’t want to lose you to the hangman’s

noose. Too precious by half.” Jonty drew his fingers down

Orlando’s cheek. “And before you ask, my beloved housemaster

left the school before I did so I’d have no idea where he is now. I don’t think I even care anymore, only when it gets too
close
, like listening to that poor lad Trumper who suffered the same way. Or when it thunders.” Jonty pulled back the covers, manoeuvred

himself into the bed properly and snuggled down. “Want to stay

the night, Orlando? Share this bed? Oh, don’t blush, I just meant for us to sleep close and in comfort. No bodily contact intended if not required. Just friendship this night.”

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Orlando tried hard not to show his disappointment about the

prospect of a sojourn in Jonty’s bed with no more than a kiss

between them. He’d hoped so much that this renewed invitation to his friend’s couch would promise more, like the one in the hotel had before he’d spoiled things.

Jonty often said he could read his friend’s face like a book.

“I’m sorry, that must have sounded like the very worst kind of

brush-off. I just assumed that you weren’t ready for anything

more than kisses yet. It seemed to take such a long time when we were first…”

Orlando smiled. “No, that’s not it at all. It’s been delightful, without doubt, since that first time you let me kiss you. Well,

more than delightful, it’s been phenomenal. I just believed that you didn’t want me to be—” he frowned as he tried to work out

how to express himself, wondering how he’d ever been able to

say this the first time around, “—close, intimate, making love to you. Are those the right words?”

Jonty laughed, face aglow with anticipation, all appearance

of fear gone. “They are indeed. Of course I want you to. I’ve

never refused your affection, except after that poor young man

took his life in my room. It took a while to get back onto an even keel then. Now’s a different matter. Whatever you want tonight,

I’ll oblige.”

“Truly? Even with that thunder still rolling around? After all

those things you said about what happened to you?”

“Of course, you muffin. I know that it’s you and that I’m

entirely safe in your hands. Put out the light and we’ll make do with the fire’s glow; that would be rather nice.”

Orlando obliged, taking a last look out the window in the

process, astonished at how deep the snow already lay. “It’ll be

drifts by the morning, I’ll warrant.”

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“I’ve no doubt. It’s just what we need, Orlando, a white

Christmas. Can’t think of anything nicer. Except you taking off

your pyjama jacket, of course.”

Orlando obliged in this as well, sitting on the bed and baring

his chest. He no longer felt embarrassed at his lack of physique as it didn’t seem to bother his lover.
Lover.
He savoured the word in his mind as he had once savoured
friend.
“You’ll have to show me exactly what to do.” Orlando held Jonty’s other hand to his lips, spoke to his fingers.

“That depends on how far we take it, my love. Not too far

tonight, I think. We don’t want another coughing fit and Mama

running in here in her shift to give me the kiss of life.”

Orlando blanched. “Are you sure it’ll be all right?”

“Oh, she’ll never hear. They sleep half the court and many

feet’s thickness of wall away.”

“I don’t mean your mother and her super-efficient hearing, I

mean you. Are you well enough to indulge in anything more?”

“I’m going to give it a try, Orlando. I’m beginning to think

it’s essential to my recovery.” Jonty grinned. “Don’t worry, the physical demands will be very small, we’ll just play with each

other. It’s easy enough if you know how.”

“But that’s the problem. I’ve no idea at all what I’m

supposed to be doing.” They’d come to the crux of things.

Orlando’s worries about his friend, genuine as they were, had also acted as a smokescreen for his own anxieties.

“Well you were a quick learner last time, you didn’t need

showing twice.” Jonty leaned over, drew his hand down his

friend’s chest again, ventured a kiss.

Orlando responded magnificently, drawing Jonty down onto

the bed, kissing and caressing any part of his lover’s frame that he could get his lips or hands on. This was pleasure indeed, and

strangely enough he felt not the slightest pang of guilt. Orlando’s parents had drummed it into him that the body was a thing to be

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tamed and kept mortified. That whatever a woman had to do in

the marital bed, and they were never very forthcoming about the

details of that, was a matter of her duty and there could be no

gratification in it. At one point his mother had even said that men had “dirty habits they get into” and that a wife “had to grit her teeth and bear it”. What he was doing with Jonty made no sense

when measured against those constraints. This wasn’t a duty, this was an act of adoration and no one had to grit their teeth here.

Perhaps there were other more shameful things that would happen

at some later point, to horrify him, but for now all was sweet and lovely. And rather disturbing in how good it made him feel.

Jonty seemed to know exactly when and where to touch,

when to leave off stroking or caressing, when to start again.

Orlando realised that this man held an enormous power over

him—he could produce the most intense sensations by the