House of Doors (20 page)

She grunted non-committally. He stretched himself slowly beside her, almost lasciviously against her, relishing all the length of her, head to head and toe to toe in her narrow bed; and said, ‘Not safe to leave, then. Not after all that fuss below, they'll be coming and going all night.'

He wanted desperately to be right, she realized. Not to have to leave after all. That little moment of near discovery had changed something in him, or between them. Perhaps he too felt his schooldays resurgent, the thrill of near discovery, the kick of relief.

She wanted him to be wrong, but he wasn't. He couldn't leave now. Not for a while yet.

He said, ‘Could we, you know  . . . do it again?'

And she had somehow not expected that, which was stupid. She should have felt it in him; she could feel it now. He had no arts of disguise, no thought of tempering his desire to the moment.

She sighed, perhaps, a little, and never thought of saying no. So long as they were here, held here and like this, it would be ridiculous.

Instead, sternly, she said, ‘Can you be very quiet?'

‘As a mouse,' he promised, on a breath. And rolled himself over to lie above her, taking his weight on his one good elbow; and she did briefly think
you'll have to learn other ways than this, my lad. Have you no imagination?

No, of course he hadn't. Or he had, rather, he had too much, but he'd need to be taught to use it. And not by her. She was resolved on that. This was treatment, like physiotherapy. One session, one night to make it possible. After this, he was on his own. She was not, was
not
going to be his doxy.

His or anyone's. No.

There wasn't much she could do in the way of training or advice, when they had to strive for silence: except in subtle ways, trying to let him know what felt good and what did not. She was surprised how quick he was to pick up on those cues. Less self-involved than she'd expected, now he was past the first raw shock of it. More interested in her. Her pleasure, her satisfaction.

One-handed and mismouthed, sweating breathless and biting his own strange lip when he must otherwise have cried out, inexperienced and distracted and awkward in more ways than one, still he managed to bring her somewhere she had not thought to go, through a door she thought locked and lost and forgotten; and,
oh, Michael  . . .

And so there was a second time, and then he was asleep. Cradled like a boy in her arms, his head on her shoulder, his maltreated face quite hidden and all his hurts fallen away, for this little time. She could feel not proud but pleased at her own wise remedy, a way to bring him sleep without dreams and without drugs, a way to soothe away his night fears and his needs.

Something woke him, none the less. Before she thought he should have woken, before he was ready for the day or she for him. Another kind of need, or just desire, stirring in his sleeping body. Stirred by her, perhaps. A shift in her, or just the smell of her, the fact of her, the presence. Speaking to something in him below the level of his conscious mind, an awareness, physical, animal  . . .

He stirred and woke, swift and silent, all predator. And looked at her, at her wakefulness. And his hand on her back was all male, enquiring, demanding. Animal.

No words this time: only her own body saying yes, shifting to accommodate. Her leg sliding over his, her hips lifting, sidling, settling.

His eyes, stretching in wonder at finding her on top.

Oh, you
–
you boy. Had you never even thought  . . .?

Apparently, he hadn't. Apparently he was delighted to discover something else that was new, when he thought already that he knew it all.

She did
like
this boy, she couldn't help it. He had all the gloss and artifice of his class and breeding, but underneath that he was still delightful, in ways that couldn't be so readily manufactured. And he was biddable and complaisant, even when he wanted to take charge; and extraordinarily willing to share beneath all that superficial ego and selfishness, and  . . .

And so there was a third time; and still no sleep after that because now he wasn't sleepy, he only wanted to be awake and stroke her, touch her, find ways that he could hold her and touch her at the same time. With a shyness and a boldness and a doubting and a certainty all at once, all these things. She could marvel, a little, at how he had changed, how grown, how this one night had changed him. She only had room for a little, because mostly the rest of her was marvelling at herself.

This was not what she had come for, nothing that she had sought. Not what she had promised, to herself or to Peter. Or to his ghost. Not what she felt that life had promised her.

Still, it didn't feel like breach of promise either; more like a step beyond, into a place no former promise could contain. She lay in the crook of Michael's arm – his bad arm, because he could apparently manage this without hurt if they were careful, and that left his good hand free to roam, to his pleasure and to hers – and thought that she betrayed nobody in the doing of it.

And knew that almost nobody would agree with her, or believe her. Worried a little, whether Michael understood that too. He was so delighted with himself and with her, so enraptured, she thought it had perhaps slipped his mind that he could never tell anyone else about them. Not brag, not share, not confess. It was very much in his nature, she thought, to do all three, at sundry times in sundry situations. As it might be with his colleagues, with his closest girl-cousin, with his mother.

She did worry, then, but only a little. Only as much as she had room for. She had begun the evening feeling oh, so much older than he was, older by an eternity; now she thought she was acting even younger, kitten-young and absurd with it, unable to hold anything in her head that was not immediate and delightful, not here and now, not him.

This was meant to be treatment for a broken boy, nothing more. It wasn't meant to touch her, change her, move her too.

She had surely known that she was broken too, but she'd meant to stay that way. She'd thought herself irreparable.

Now? Well.

Now his hand was on her breast and her bed was filled with the shape and weight of him, her head with the smell of him; it seemed to be enough.

She took a breath, touched his lips with her own –
in our end is our beginning
– and shaped the word more than said it.

‘Enough.'

He blinked, slowly and effortfully. Thought for a moment, thought he understood her, took his hand away. ‘I wasn't—'

‘No. No, you weren't,' though she had to reach for his wrist, draw his hand back, replace it before he was reassured. Oh, how could he
be
so young? And why was she suddenly having to be the grown-up all over again? ‘But we have to get you out of here somehow, and back to your own proper bed; and soon enough –'
too soon
– ‘that corridor out there is going to be busy again. Far too busy to smuggle a young man out of a nurse's room unnoticed.' He was, perhaps, beginning to smirk a little at the way she said that, with all its implications; she added, ‘It would ruin me.' Quietly, sincerely spoken.

Nice boy: he sobered on the instant, nodded once, tossed back the sheet that covered them. And struggled a little to rise on his bad arm, until she kissed him again and called him an idiot, pointed out that she was lying on it.

She sorted herself out first and then him, helping him quite unnecessarily to his feet. They dressed together in the small space, and now they did have to help each other, finding clothes where they had been dropped or strewn, passing them from one to the other. Mostly she helped Michael, because dressing would be awkward for him even with room enough; and also – if she were honest, which she didn't need to be because there was almost a ukase against talking – because she enjoyed it. These little intimacies seemed to bridge the gulf between the one thing and the other, between lover and nurse; she could be both, it seemed, and also something not quite either.

Together, then – with all the easy physical intimacy of nurse and patient overlaid with something more, a weary wonder that did keep drawing them back into contact even when she thought it should have been exhausted – they stood by her door as she swung it cautiously open.

Realized, as she did so, that she was still expecting to find Peter there. Outside, shut out, rejected.

At her back, Michael huffed with relief at the empty corridor. Relief coloured by a breathless giggle, because, however solemn he tried to be and however dreadful the weight of scandal that he might dimly sense hanging over her, he was still a young man at the latter end of an astonishment, an adventure barely hoped for and surely not foreseen. He wanted to whoop and caper, she knew that, she could feel it in him: all the tension of restraint, the sheer simple effort of adulthood. Perhaps he could learn to love that too, to be pleased with his own maturity, but he might need her help to see it.

She reached behind her to take his hand, simply for ease of guidance.

When she turned right out of her door, though, towards the stairs she knew, he tugged her the other way. The little window here barely let in any light; she frowned monumentally, just to be sure that he could see it.

He nodded, laid a finger on her lips, tugged again.
Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

If he did, it was the first time tonight. She blessed the dark that hid her smile and followed him down towards the dead end of the corridor. Past one door and another and another, any or all of which might hide colleagues no longer sleeping, blundering about in the half light for dressing gown and sponge bag, hand reaching for the latch.

If she was holding her breath, she wasn't going to admit it. Not to him, and not to herself either.

If she was baffled by him, well. So she should be. She was utterly baffled by herself tonight.

Almost utterly.

Here, now, where he stopped, here was no door at all. A stretch of wainscot wall, no more, opposite another mean little window.

Until he slipped his hand free of hers, reached out and pressed the planking, and she saw it swing back into a greater darkness. A door after all, on hinges hidden in gaps between the boards; and then a light, quite startling, as he pressed a switch.

In, then, in, if that's where we're going; quick, before someone rouses.
Her hands chivvied him through, and she followed. Learning to duck as she went because he did, because the door was cut low and the ceiling beyond was lower, the drop of the roof, but here were stairs leading steeply down.

She pushed the door hastily closed behind them, to block in the light. She was more than grateful for it – these stairs were difficult despite it, difficult for her and surely more so for him ahead – but it could betray them as easily as it helped them. She thought that was the nature of the world, that the gifts it offered were always a betrayal of something that had come before.

She followed his shadow down, and around a twisting corner and down again. They passed another door on to another floor, and he ignored it. Down to the ground, then, all the way; and here he did open a door, and here they were coming out behind the grander sweep of the East Staircase.

‘Stop, Michael, wait a moment  . . .' He had misbuttoned his shirt. Before they left the privacy and the light of that hidden stair, she straightened it for him. And tucked it in like a nanny, and took advantage of the moment to kiss him like a sister, on the cheek. ‘Now you'll do. Will I do?'

‘You'll do grandly,' he assured her. Hand on her hip, until she batted it away.

‘Not now. You have to be good now. My reputation is in your hands,' not her body any more. She needed to be sure he understood that. ‘But – Michael, what is this? I know every great house needs its secret passages, but still. Stairs behind stairs?'

‘Servants' ways,' he said. ‘Wouldn't want to meet the housemaid on the family stairs, now would you? There's a whole network of passages like this. Not quite secret, but not much used.'

‘Except by you, apparently.' No surprise there. ‘And presumably those like you, your brother officers, your brother
patients
, sneaking hither and yon when you're meant to be in your beds?'

‘It's known to exist,' he confessed cheerfully. ‘We might have explored it, a little,' meaning that they had mapped its extent entirely, and knew far more about it than anyone who worked here. ‘I mean, you know. We're not really patients. Not bed-bound, often. Not
sick
. Though I'd like to be bed-bound with you more often. Bound for your bed.' His new face wasn't good at showing subtle emotions – humour, anticipation – but his eyes made up for that. His eyes sparked with them.

That way danger lay. She had to force herself to focus on his features, not to be seduced by youth and yearning and the tumultuous thrill of achievement. That was her, his achievement: her body, her self. She had been achieved. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.

This, though, she was quite sure about this. ‘Michael, you shouldn't expect that. You mustn't.' They were walking through the ballroom, Major Black's territory; thank goodness he had opted not to switch on the lights. One swift courtesy, more than nice manners: a delicacy, a degree of tact she wouldn't have expected. She'd have thought him too young. Perhaps he didn't know where the switches were, any more than she did.

Deliberate or otherwise, this darkness meant that she needn't look at his face, watch his eyes, measure his disappointment. The depths of her betrayal.

She had promised him nothing. It wasn't a betrayal. That was absurd. But he would see it so: a door opened, and then slammed shut. In his face. He could hardly do otherwise.

In the dark, her feet stumbled over something, she didn't like to think what. By instinct or training, his or hers, she was the right side of him, his good side; his arm found her elbow, even in the dark.