Lessons in Discovery (21 page)

unexpected skill that, at one particularly chilling point, the parlour maid shrieked. The evening ended, most appropriately, with

“Good King Wenceslas”
and “God save the King”, followed by sherry and mince pies and a happy meandering off to bedrooms.

Jonty knocked, didn’t wait for an answer, stuck his head

around the door. “Any room in your bed for a poor lonely sailor

who could do with some comfort?”

“If there was one of them here, there might be, but seeing as

it’s you, I’m not so sure.”

Jonty chuckled. From the first evening they’d met when

Orlando had almost made a joke—almost, but not quite—Jonty

had realised that this man just needed a prod or two to make his sense of humour, buried since childhood, bubble up to the surface.

“I’ll go back to my own if you want, there might be a sailor

waiting there.” A pillow collided with his head.

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Charlie Cochrane

“Twit. Come on in before that draught from the door puts

the fire out.”

“Need a hurricane to douse that.” Jonty nodded at the hearth,

where a healthy blaze was chucking out warmth. “Aren’t you

sweltering?”

“I am. I built it up partly in anticipation of your arrival as I don’t want to have to rely on hiding under the covers. I’d like to see all of you.” Orlando’s eyes burned as fiercely as the blaze, full of longing.

Jonty realised, with a huge leap of his heart, that Orlando’s

inner tiger had at last been unleashed again and he didn’t want it tamed. “Better oblige then, hadn’t I?” He took off his dressing

gown and pyjamas, springing onto and crawling over the bed to

where his lover lay. He tugged at Orlando’s clothes. “Letting the side down here, aren’t we?”

Orlando looked solemn, a smouldering in his eyes making

Jonty’s heart turn over again. “You take them off for me, if you’d please.”

“Of course.” Jonty could find no more adequate words to

reply, not just to the request, but to the look in his lover’s eyes. He undid Orlando’s buttons one by one, caressing the smooth flesh as it was exposed. “Glad that you’re happy to keep the light on.

Richard Marsters never was. He didn’t want me to see him naked

or to look on me.” Jonty concentrated hard on the pyjama cord to hide the distress this memory still caused. He’d never understood why Richard had such an aversion to bare flesh.

“That’s stupid.” Orlando ran his hand down the fine lines of

Jonty’s chest. “Like taking the statue of David and hiding it under a blanket.” He gently pushed Jonty onto the bed and drew lazy

curves along his skin. “You’re perfect, you know, like some

classical statue of Apollo. I thought that, when you were ill. You looked made of marble then.”

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“I’m far from perfect, Orlando. I lack several inches in

height and the muscles at the top of my arms are far too

prominent. But if you wish to compare me to statuary then I am

truly honoured. Now shut up and kiss me.”

Orlando leaned down and kissed him, slowly, voluptuously.

“I do love you, Jonty. Were you to desire a repeat of two nights ago, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”

“I think you’ve already made that rather plain, sweetheart—

that leonine look in your eye when I walked in made all words

pointless.”

Jonty drew his lover down to kiss him time after time, hands

roaming through his hair, carefully avoiding the scar where

Orlando’s skull still remained tender. He pondered on the

expectation that had built up within him over the day, the looks they’d exchanged, the brief touches and tender words, all

perfectly acceptable in company, but each with a meaning of its

own that only they knew. Every act this night had added to the

expectation, the crossing of the hallway and knocking at the door producing as much of a frisson of excitement as disrobing and

mounting the bed had done. Making love was as much about

anticipating what was to come as enjoying what was in progress.

“I was so frightened this would never happen again.” Jonty’s

hands roved freely, encountering no resistance, just a happy

acquiescence to whatever he wanted to do.

“If you were a mathematician you’d not have had such

doubts. A replication of circumstances is sure to bring about a

duplication of results. If we fell in love the first time, we were bound to repeat the deed.”

Stewart luxuriated in Orlando’s pomposity, knowing that it

simply showed the depths of the man’s feelings. “You should

have written the sonnets. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s

day’ will sound like the rag-and-bone man’s call to my ears now.”

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Charlie Cochrane

breath on skin which was already overexcited. “I’m not sure I can hold out much longer. All getting a bit close, you know.”

“‘Well, if it were done, then ’twere well it were done

quickly.’” Orlando’s mouth twisted up into a shy smile.

Jonty’s heart melted at the phrase—quick, clever words

which must have been learned for just such an occasion. Trust

Orlando, adorable innocent Orlando, to hit straight at the heart of things. “Then make it so, please. ‘More is thy due than more than all can pay.’ I can’t ever repay you for the love you’ve shown me, or the happiness you’ve brought. All I have is this…” Jonty kissed his lover again and moved his hands to where they could best

settle up accounts.

They lay together afterwards, gossiping and giggling,

enjoying the wonderful familiarity with each other’s bodies they were reconstructing. “Think of it, Orlando. Tonight, above stairs, there will be three couples sharing beds. And I bet only one of

them won’t be sharing the last favours in some form or other.”

“Jonty! Are you suggesting that your sister…?”

“No, I’m actually suggesting that my mama and papa will be

canoodling tonight. They had a wild look in their eyes, the pair of them. I suspect that father’s brush with this flu has made mother realise anew how much he means to her and that she needs to take every opportunity of reminding him. It’ll be poor Ralph who’ll get nothing but a cuddle tonight.”

“How can you assume that? Doesn’t Lavinia like him?”

“Orlando, she’s crazy for him, but she had such a terrible

shock on her wedding night, no idea how men were built or what

the parts were designed to achieve. Came crying home to Mama,

who’d neglected to tell her about things, rather like the countess my grandmother had neglected to tell her own only daughter.

Although father would be a rather different kettle of fish, I guess, for a girl who knew little but was eager to learn.”

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Orlando thought of the kindness and patience that Jonty had

shown to him two nights before and realised that there was a

wealth of empathy and consideration in the Stewart blood. If Mr.

Stewart had been as tender and careful with his wife as Jonty had been with him… He stopped thinking such thoughts abruptly,

horrified at the
News of the World
type speculation they were embroiling him in. “Are you staying the night?”

“I’m sorry, Orlando?”

“Will you spend the night in my bed or are you off to your

own?”

“Well, if you’ll have me, I’m
staying
, you great clot.” Jonty rolled off the bed, fetched his favourite pyjamas and slid into

them. The silk felt cool against his heated skin, another simple pleasure for which he was truly grateful, as he was for Orlando’s arm that slipped around him as he snuggled down under the

covers.

They didn’t speak any further, content with the crackling of

the fire and the rattling of the windows in the wind. There were no protestations of endless love or deathless devotion to each other alone. Such things weren’t needed.

December the twenty-seventh and Richard Stewart was

bouncing around the house like a puppy. The ban had been lifted

and the Woodville Ward papers could be studied again. There

were four of them at it now, Ralph adding his not inconsiderable brains to the task. Despite the fact that Mrs. Stewart had allowed no discussion of the case nor secret workings on the letters, she’d not been able to infiltrate her husband’s brain and make him not
think
about it.

“And I’ve remembered a book I bought about the famous

patrons of Swavesey church when I was a student. A privately

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Charlie Cochrane

to the Breton family and their patriarch, Johan. I’ve been

surreptitiously looking for it—don’t you dare tell Helena—but to little avail.”

The attentions of the four men turned from mince pies and

cold cuts of meat to codes and letters, so effectively that by the middle of the afternoon they’d cracked another one. To Orlando’s continued disappointment it was Ralph and Jonty working in

tandem who succeeded.

Nothing new was revealed in this translation, although it

appeared to support many of their theories. Predating the letter which Jonty had cracked a few days earlier, this one spoke of

Gaveson being identified as the king’s spy and Shaa’s speculation that the man was being employed to gain incriminating evidence

to disgrace him. It emphasised the need for the true story to be recorded, albeit in coded form, so that future generations might know the truth.

Ralph had received a full briefing on the case not long after

breakfast and had put his finger straight on the crucial point. He raised it again now. “There are four men here, the
key players
we can call them, and I suspect that we can discard all the rest,

certainly on the grounds of lack of evidence. Shaa, Breton,

Gaveson, Stephen, four to start with and then just two. Breton on his boat off to start a new life and one body down a well, whom

we can safely assume, wasn’t Shaa. Unless we consider the

possibility that this all went wrong and the intended victim

became the murderer.”

Orlando groaned. “I’ve certainly considered that possibility

and if these letters produce nothing more then we must present it to Dr. Peters as an option. Although at least we could then put a possible name to the killer.”

The others nodded, although if it turned out to be such a

damp squib, they’d never live down the shame.

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Ralph continued. “So we have two men we still can’t

account for and we’ll assume that they’re Shaa and Stephen.

Where do they go? It’s clear they effectively disappear and are

recorded as missing but what happened to them? I can imagine

that poor Stephen got tipped down a mineshaft or over a cliff by Shaa, who wouldn’t have wanted any stray witnesses to his

misdemeanour left around to idly discuss it. Except it’s hard to lose a body permanently—you have to be either very clever or

very lucky. Unless you tip your victim overboard in a weighted

sack.”

They all went back to their studying, feeling unnaturally

depressed until a great shout of triumph split the air, making three men start, dropping their papers and the fourth, the one making

the noise, blush profusely. “I’m so sorry, it’s just that I seem to have got somewhere with my letter. Just the first line so far but it makes sense, so the rest must follow, if you’ll give me a while to finish it.” Richard Stewart was obviously trying very hard not to beam in his triumph.

“Shall we help, Mr. Stewart?” Orlando offered. “If you have

the key word we could use it on our copies.”

Jonty drew him off to one side, ostensibly to look at his own

endeavours on the one remaining letter which eluded all their

efforts to translate it. “Kind of you to offer, old man, but Father could do with cracking one of these all on his own. He misses

playing with the youngsters, you know. Could do with a bit of

fun.”

Jonty could see that Orlando was desperately frustrated that,

yet again, he’d been beaten to the decryption and he needed to

appeal to his friend’s goodwill to overcome the disappointment.

And the fact that Lent term seemed horribly close wasn’t helping anyone’s tempers. They made a point of concentrating on their

own affairs until their host produced the completed manuscript. It was worth waiting for.

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Charlie Cochrane

“
Damnation!
” Mr. Stewart began to read.

“Strong stuff, Papa, hope the ladies don’t join us if it gets

any worse.” Jonty bore a conspiratorial grin.

His father smiled. “That’s the worst of it, assuming I’ve

translated correctly. Not the end of the shocks, though.
Gaveson is
gone and now what is to become of our plans? Stephen says that
we will not see his return.
”

“Well, that’s our theories out the window, if it’s true.” Jonty

felt more than confused. He listened while his father read out the details of Gaveson’s departure. The man had allegedly received a warning letter which made him panic, Stephen had seen him,

looking scared out of his wits, carrying all his belongings and

seeking to hire a horse. By the time Stephen had found Shaa to

inform him, it was far too late.

“
He is gone; the spy has gone back to his master I’ll

warrant, carrying all his deceit and spite with him.
”