Lessons in Discovery (9 page)

them. She only hoped that they wouldn’t be parted before their

time, as she’d been from her own sweetheart.

“I’ve cut a nice piece of cake for you, Dr. Coppersmith. You

always seem very thin, so you’d better have a double ration. Dr.

Stewart—” Miss Peters passed a smaller piece to Jonty, “—you

don’t need building up at all so you can make do with this. I never put on an ounce so I’ll have a double ration too. Lemuel can lump it if he can’t be bothered to get here.”

Whether this was entirely fair, given that her brother had a

meeting with the vice chancellor and had sent his apologies for

tea, was a moot point. Jonty and Orlando just smiled, knowing

full well how fond their guest was of her brother and sure that he would be getting the very largest slice of the cake.

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“How are we progressing with the Woodville Ward? Early

days, I suppose?”

Jonty motioned them to his best armchairs, perching himself

down on the rug.

“Indeed, Miss Peters. We’ve been getting ourselves up to

date with all the pertinent points and I suppose we’ve as many of the established facts at our fingertips as anybody has ever had.”

Orlando also had cake crumbs at his fingertips and was

surreptitiously licking them off.

“What about these new papers?”

“Those letters make very interesting reading,” Jonty

interjected. “Orlando doesn’t agree with me but I have a feeling that Johan Breton is somehow involved in the case. The simple

fact that no one else has him down for a suspect seems to me very odd.”

“You’ve not said a truer word. Especially considering that

just about everyone else alive at the time has been accused by

some theorist or other.” Miss Peters produced her anti-historian snort.

“Which theory do you think would win the prize for the

most outlandish?” Jonty asked. “We must all have one we admire

for its sheer audacity and we should share them. I have a

particular fondness for something concocted by one of my fellow

undergraduates—he wasn’t a historian, I hasten to add, so

wouldn’t have gone straight into Miss Peters’ bad books.”

“And will you enlighten us with it?” Orlando smiled at Jonty

then raised an eyebrow at their guest.

“Not until Miss Peters has told us hers, as I think mine

would out-trump both of your offerings.” Jonty looked as if he

was trying to appear innocent and not quite succeeding.

“I’m always happy to share my opinions, as you well know,

gentlemen, so I’ll begin. I doubt that Dr. Stewart’s friend’s theory can be as farfetched as my favourite but I’ll attempt to present it www.lindenbayromance.com 61

Charlie Cochrane

as it came. Him—Dr. Smarmy Owens—now no longer with us.

Oh, I don’t mean he’s dropped dead, more’s the pity; still

infesting the college next door, although I suppose that amounts to the same thing.”

“Swine,” Orlando muttered.

“As I was saying, he’d allegedly studied all the evidence

then to hand in great detail, and his conclusion was that Richard III had committed the deed.” It was a known fact in the college

that the only thing the Master’s sister and her great rival Nurse Hatfield had in common was a fondness for the house of York and

particularly for its most notorious member.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Jonty spluttered. “He died in 1485,

long before Charles Shaa disappeared.”

“Indeed he did, cut off in his glorious prime, but Ramsey

didn’t believe that fact for one moment. As far as he was

concerned, Richard had ridden away from Bosworth with his tail

between his legs and hidden in the priory at Thetford. From there he finally emerged to start taking revenge on his Tudor

adversaries and any Woodvilles who remained for him to get his

hands on. The queen being seemingly untouchable, he killed her

ward to spite her. Stuff and nonsense of course, but not unusual among the sort of things that Woodville Ward theorists come up

with.” Miss Peters snorted and drained her glass, which was

straightaway refilled with champagne.

Orlando was impressed. “Now that’s novel. I’ve not come

across that in any of the library’s papers. If asked for my most ridiculous theorem I’ll ignore the one that puts Shaa as a woman.

As if you would find one of those at Bride’s!”

Jonty started to choke on his drink. Miss Peters slapped his

back and Orlando went red, mortified at his faux pas. “Oh I say, I didn’t mean to insult you, Miss Peters. I regard you as almost one of us, I mean—”

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“Dr. Coppersmith—” the lady’s cheeks were flushed with

suppressed laughter, “—I must go home and get my excavating

tools so that you can dig an even bigger hole for yourself. I’ve taken no offence at your remark nor do I intend to. Please carry on.”

Orlando gathered his thoughts. “In the library there’s a paper

dating from 1821 written by a Lord Exbury. He appeared to

believe that Shaa had been the victim of a predatory admiral, or whatever the equivalent medieval rank was, who’d visited the

college in early 1497, taken a shine to the lad and been rebuffed.

Exbury said the admiral took such umbrage at the refusal that he belted Shaa over the head in his own room with his own cutlass

and carried him bodily to the well at dead of night, being

possessed of muscles like Dr. Stewart here.” He stopped,

embarrassed.

“I can appreciate that. I saw Dr. Stewart on the rugby field

when he was an undergraduate and he was built like the

Dreadnought
then.” Miss Peters smiled a rather wicked little smile, assumed a look of innocence, then continued. “Why should

he have been so offended at being refused, this admiral or

whatever he was? What suggestion had he made?”

Jonty regarded his guest out of the corner of his eye.
The

hussy, she’s doing this deliberately to wind Orlando up. Who’d
have thought the old girl had such a spark of mischief in her?

Recognising that Orlando was floundering, he leapt to the rescue.

“Miss Peters, I suspect that if you have to ask the question, you might not understand the answer. Suffice it to say I’ll warrant it was a proposal of an intimate nature and that Shaa would have

been mortally offended. Seems rather farfetched though.”

“It does indeed.” Orlando was slowly regaining his

composure. “Especially as the college had a rule for the first

ninety years of its existence that no sailors of any sort were

allowed through its portal, our foundress not liking the breed at www.lindenbayromance.com 63

Charlie Cochrane

all. That’s probably part of the reason why she was so loath for her ward to go to sea and why he was so keen to get going, to be spiting her. I think there was some friction between Shaa and

Queen Elizabeth.”

“Well it’s not outrageous as theories go, Dr. Coppersmith,

but it certainly qualifies as being ridiculous on the grounds of lack of research. Who was this Exbury? A historian?” Miss Peters

rolled her eyes every time she mentioned the name of the

untouchable caste, as she called them.

“As I understand it he was a distinguished admiral himself,”

Jonty suddenly chipped in, astounding them all with his

knowledge. “Probably had muscles like mine as well, if the stories about him are anything to go by. Very courageous, if not sound on his medieval history.”

“Ah,” said Miss Peters wistfully, “a sailor. How delightful.

Then I can forgive him anything.”

“And what is this theory you have come across that is so

outrageous it had to be told last? Little green men from Mars

wafting Shaa away with them and leaving a changeling in

return?” Orlando had indulged in a second glass of champagne

and was becoming bold.

Jonty carefully emptied the rest of the bottle equally between

his guest’s glass and his own. Any more for Orlando and the man

would be wanting to strip his clothes off again. Jonty had a

suspicion Ariadne Peters might insist on staying and witnessing

the show.

“Not quite as bad as that, but pretty close. There was a lad

here when I was an undergraduate, a
zoologist
, you will note, Miss Peters, who was convinced, utterly certain, that the

Woodville Ward had been killed by William Shakespeare himself

and that the death is alluded to in the master’s works.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Two voices chimed in unison.

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“Even
I
know that Shakespeare couldn’t have been alive

then.” Orlando rolled his eyes in disbelief. “He must have been

born fifty years later.”

“Nearer seventy, but that didn’t matter to Kit Vincent. You

see he didn’t believe that the man we know as Shakespeare had

written the plays at all. He was certain that the Master of

Elizabeth Hall in Shaa’s time, a Doctor Deboyne, had written all the works then hidden them away for a future generation to

publish. All stuff and nonsense of course but relevant to his

theory.”

“And what, I dread to ask, constituted the references to the

Woodville Ward’s murder? ‘To be or not to be’ and all that?”

Miss Peters had a glint of mischief in her eye again. She

remembered Stewart’s japes when he was a student—the chances

were this was another one.

“The first piece was the title of the play
All’s Well That Ends
Well
, a pun of course on where Shaa’s body was deposited.

‘Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear’ is a line from it, and Kit pointed out that the Master had been very eloquent in lamenting the loss of such a talented pupil when Shaa first

disappeared.”

“That’s a bit thin. There must have been more, surely?”

Jonty had the feeling his guest knew exactly what he was up

to and was egging him on to greater heights, or depths, of

silliness. “There were many references, or so Vincent assured me when he bored me stiff one wet Sunday afternoon. There was

Richard III
.” Jonty was warming to his subject and the pace was stepping up. “‘So wise so young, they say, do never live long’
was supposed to be an obvious reference to his victim, and of course the whole play had been written to please the Tudors.”

“And how did this Doctor Deboyne write
Henry VIII
? Was

he a clairvoyant?”

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Charlie Cochrane

Stewart blanched then stopped in his tracks, amazed at how

quickly Miss Peters had come up with this little dart. He’d never anticipated such a question when he’d begun his little charade and some quick thinking was required. “Kit always alleged that
Henry
VIII
was the only play that Shakespeare
did
write, which is why it is so lacking in grandeur compared to the others. Not a

collaboration, as so many assert, but the work of a lesser

playwright. A poor thing but his own.” Jonty smiled in relief at having taken the fence so nimbly.

Ariadne Peters burst into her hearty laugh. “Dr. Stewart, I’ll

have to tell that to Lemuel once he’s home. The real Shakespeare indeed. You are such a wag!”

Orlando looked from one to the other, his face a picture of

bewilderment. It was a face Jonty could read like a book from

almost the first time they’d met and now the book said plainly that Orlando had taken everything he’d said at face value. It then

seemed to strike him that his friend was putting one over on his guests. Jonty was frightened at what his reaction might be—if

Orlando had no memory of their larking about, their joshing each other, he might respond in the same aggressive way the Orlando

of a year previously would have done. Much to Jonty’s relief,

Orlando simply laughed and cuffed his shoulder, with no doubt as hard a blow as could be construed as friendly but still show the man’s displeasure. Clearly many traits of the ‘new’ Orlando

hadn’t been lost alongside his memories, and Jonty was very

grateful for the fact.

“Now, my dear friends,” Miss Peters’ cheeks were flushed

from champagne and laughter, “I must leave you. I don’t want to

interrupt your work.” She indicated the Woodville Ward papers,

which had been sorted, marked and awaiting attention. “The

honour of the college is at stake.”

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“We’ll try our best not to fail you. No one wants to see the

glory going
there
.” Jonty pointed vaguely in the direction of the vile establishment next door.

“Lemuel would be so grateful. So would I.” A sudden,

unaccustomedly serious look came into Miss Peters’ eyes. “I’m

not one to bear a grudge—”

Jonty wondered whether Nurse Hatfield would agree with

that statement.

“—but I have good reason with Dr. Owens. He…he…”

Orlando had never known his guest lost for words. “You

needn’t tell us if you don’t wish to. It’s enough to know that we’ll be serving your honour as well as St. Bride’s.”

“Dr. Coppersmith, you make me feel like a maiden in a fairy

tale, and you’re my knight in shining armour.”

Not only did Jonty agree with the sentiment, the blush it

produced on Orlando’s face was the highlight of his day. The

party broke up in good humour, leaving the men to look rather