Lessons in Discovery (18 page)

simplest of touches and Orlando was as helpless as a babe in his arms. But he felt safe, that was the key. Not once was he

frightened that Jonty might do anything to hurt or distress him, not even when Orlando felt peculiar, potent urges and a deep-rooted burning that seemed to threaten to engulf him.

A hand tugged gently at his pyjama cord. “Think these

should come off as well.” Jonty’s voice was deep and unusually

hoarse, and Orlando, no semblance of shyness left about his body, removed the offending items, as did his friend. When he’d

thought of this before, trying to imagine what it would be like to make love, he’d imagined times of great elation—scoring the

winning try, getting full marks on a paper that was said to be

impossible—but none of these had come anywhere near the

reality. His senses were swamped and he’d lost all ability to think rationally.

He feasted his eyes on Jonty’s frame, the gentle contours

burnished by the firelight, and the sumptuousness was something

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Charlie Cochrane

savouring the soft and responsive flesh. But he’d not anticipated how extraordinary their intimacy of contact would prove. How

Jonty’s taste, his fragrance—sweat, lavender soap, cologne—

would be as exciting as the sight of him lying naked. How a single moan or whisper would provoke as much reaction as a kiss.

“What happens now, beloved?”

Jonty tenderly stroked his lover’s hair. “What do you do

when you have a big bag of mixed sweets?”

Orlando thought that the most stupid question he’d ever

heard, although he answered all the same. “I leave the best ones for last.”

“That’s just the same here. This is going to be like one of the

juiciest, tastiest sweets in the whole shop. Or it would be if you’d stop laughing.”

Incongruously, madly, Orlando was possessed by a fit of the

giggles. Whether it was a nervous reaction in such a tense

situation or a response to Jonty’s stupid pronouncement, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t control the laughter. “Are you always as

idiotic as this when we’re…?” Orlando couldn’t think of a

suitable word.

“Making love? Sometimes.” Jonty stroked his lover’s cheek,

his neck, his chest. “And at other times we’re deadly serious. This is powerful stuff, Orlando.” He moved his hand lower, caressing

his friend’s abdomen. “Shakespeare knew it, but it might come as a surprise to a poor mathematician. One of the most potent driving forces in the world.”

His hand slid lower still and suddenly Orlando understood.

This was extraordinary, a sensation unlike any other he’d

experienced—a burning, tingling, aching feeling that spread all

over, making him want to laugh and squirm at the same time.

“This is the best sweetie I’ve ever had.” Orlando could hear

the hoarse tone in his own voice, wondered where on earth such a 126

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Lessons in Discovery

timbre could come from. “And there’s not a piece of differential calculus I’d swap for it.”

“Now who’s an idiot?” Jonty kissed his lover fervently.

“And this is nothing, Orlando, not compared to what’s to come,

tonight or in the nights to follow. Hang on to your hat, my love, it’s time to do your duty.”

“Duty? I…” The words confused Orlando, this sudden talk

of responsibility making him bridle.

“That’s what you called it, before. Making love was ‘doing

your duty’.” Jonty gently traced the words on his lover’s chest.

“Did I think it an obligation, then?” The worried tone in

Orlando’s voice made Jonty stop doodling.

“No. Oh dear God, no. It was never a case of something that

had to be done to oblige me, if that’s what’s troubling you. No—”

he began again to scribe words of love on his friend’s skin, “—not like my sister Lavinia and the constraints she feels to lie back and think of England. Not that she ever does, poor lamb. You called it that because you said it was the right thing to do, the correct way of expressing our love. It was our duty to our affection.”

“Ah.” Orlando understood now, more than he’d understood

at any point the last few weeks. “Then teach me my duty, Jonty, I think I’ve forgotten it.”

And Jonty taught him, with as much patience as a mother

might show a child learning to swim. Orlando took each new

stroke tentatively and then with more confidence, his fear of the unknown being submerged beneath the waves of pleasure that

were beginning to crash over him. It was slow progress, from the shallows of kisses and caresses to the depths of passion, when

Jonty took him by a particularly intimate part of the anatomy and started to do the most incredible things. He knew by then he had to respond in kind, hard as it was to focus on anything other than his own rapture. They barely passed a word between them, just

tender sighs and moans, and one or two quiet assurances of love.

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Charlie Cochrane

The strange, stunning, delightful end came too soon and yet

not soon enough, the whole sensation being paradoxical. It was

satisfying, undoubtedly, messy—incredibly—and then they were

left in a glow of affection that all the thunder in the world couldn’t spoil.

“Jonty?”

“Hmm? What is it, Orlando? Not anything to do with

numbers greater than infinity?”

“What are you blethering on about?” Orlando’s head felt

strangely fuzzy but he still understood his maths. Or at least some of the more obvious parts.

“When we first did this you had a dream afterwards that

you’d won the Nobel Prize for mathematics because you’d found

a whole series of numbers greater than infinity, you told me all about it. Not at the time, but months afterwards.” Jonty snuggled into the crook of his lover’s arm.

“That’s nonsense. There isn’t a Nobel Prize for maths.”

Orlando caressed the golden head that lay on him, wondering

whether they always followed such an incredible explosion of

ecstasy with peculiar conversations.

“Well we both know that, Dr. Coppersmith, but your dream

didn’t. Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“You’ve been very patient with me, Jonty. Could you bear

another stupid question?”

“None of your questions have been really stupid. There’s so

much you’ve lost and I’m glad to help find it again.” Jonty’s

fingers played with the one or two hairs he could find on

Orlando’s barren chest.

“What was it like before? Was it like this?” Orlando could

feel his thoughts turning back to what they’d just done and even the mathematical part of his brain began to have naughty

thoughts.

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Lessons in Discovery

“Of course, just as rewarding. You were adorable, Orlando,

sweet, shy, skittish and rather jealous. This has hardly been a re-run of the first time we did this. You’re so much more, hmm…I

think the term is
grown up
. Whatever else you’ve lost, that maturity has remained—we’ve both recognised that.”

“But it wasn’t your first time, was it, before? Your first time

willingly,” Orlando corrected himself, regretting his clumsiness as soon as the words were spoken.

Jonty sighed. “No, it’s my one regret that it was not. But

perhaps if it hadn’t been for Richard Marsters I wouldn’t have

made it through my time at St. Bride’s. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need at all for you to be apologetic. You

couldn’t very well say ‘I’m saving myself for someone I haven’t

even met yet’
.
” They both shook their heads at the stupid notion of always living your life in case something better was around the corner. “Shame it couldn’t have been me instead of him, though,

to help you through.”

“I’m not sure the Orlando Coppersmith of a year and a bit

ago could have worked that wonder, let alone the one of nearly

ten years past. Better we met when and where we did.”

Jonty kissed his lover kindheartedly, rolled off the bed to go

and find his dressing gown, then wandered to the bathroom,

leaving Orlando with some amazing thoughts, none of them

mathematical. Except for the one about what the minimum

interval between events could be in this case.

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The dawn seemed to break reluctantly, the rosy colour of the

sky spreading unhurriedly from the horizon and developing into a glorious golden hue. The snow had stopped, now lying thick as

five of Mrs. Stewart’s best eiderdowns over the fields and woods, the trees bending and straining under the weight.

Orlando had woken early, wrapped himself in a fur coat he’d

found hanging on the back of the door, and sat in one of the

arrow-slit bays to watch the spectacle. There was something

magical about the sight, the sun reflecting off the mist lying down in the river valley, deer seeking desperately for some vegetation that had escaped the onslaught of the weather, birds fluffed out and searching for warmth.

“The rising of the sun and the running of the deer, eh,

Orlando?” Jonty was now awake and had dragged the quilt from

the bed in order to enfold them both. “Whoever wrote that must

have been very fond of England in winter.”

“No one could look out at this and fail to be moved.”

Orlando took Jonty’s hand, gently caressing it. “Wonderful that

we can share it.”

“Indeed. And the playing of the merry organ and sweet

singing in the choir to look forward to as well.” Jonty saw the

less-than-happy anticipation in Orlando’s face and laughed. “Ah

well, at least there’ll be snow for Christmas so you’ll be able to enjoy the trudge to the church and back, even if you’re too

heathen to appreciate midnight service itself.”

Lessons in Discovery

Orlando tried hard to grimace, but failed. “Actually, I’m in a

glorious mood after last night and very little can dampen my

spirits.” The sound of activity out in the courtyard suddenly

brought him up with a round turn. “Jonty, the valet will be here with the tea at any moment. He could be in my room now and

he’ll think I’ve gone off to the bathroom or something then he’ll come here instead and see the bed and—”

Jonty leaned in and stopped his mouth with a kiss, just as

Orlando had done when Jonty had been recovering from the flu.

“Please don’t fret so. It’s the same man who looked after us last summer. Mama chose him particularly. If he found the pair of us

in bed he’d just leave both trays and bow politely.”

Orlando felt as if the world had turned upside down. “Your

mother knows about us?”

“Of course she does. So does Papa. And as a result have you

noticed anything but affection and respect from them? Well,

Mama does rather treat us as if we’re still little boys of about seven and a half, but there’s no disapproval. We are totally

accepted.”

Orlando couldn’t find the words to reply. He knew he must

have been through all this before, perhaps more than once, but it was beyond his understanding that a set of parents could love their child so much as to accept with impunity that he broke the laws of the church and the king. “A star danced when you were born,

Jonty. I don’t know who was more blessed, you in your parents or them in you.”

Jonty smiled contentedly. “You were never as poetic as this

before, Orlando. If and when you get that memory of yours back,

please don’t lose the flowery words.”

“I’ll try not to.” He reached for Jonty’s hand, dropping it

abruptly when someone knocked on the door.

The manservant entered with a cheery “Good morning to

you both, sir,” bearing two trays, which he placed on the table.

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Charlie Cochrane

“Thank you, Macgregor.” Jonty rose from the sill and went

over to pour the very welcome brew. “Tell the rest of the staff it’s much appreciated that you’re all still preparing this, given these inclement conditions, then trudging through the snow to deliver it to us.”

One of the oddities of the Manor’s construction was its

partially finished state, cut off in development at the same time as its original owner’s head. The kitchens and servants’ quarters

were in the main building, half the court—a very snowy court—

away from the guest wing.

Macgregor inclined his head, “My pleasure, sir.” His accent

was an incongruous mixture of Welsh and cockney that wasn’t in

accord with his name. “But the mistress insisted that the passages through the cellars be kept well lit so that none of us need brave the weather.” He retreated quietly, leaving the men to their tea and a selection of small sugary biscuits, Mrs. Stewart also insisting that the poor convalescent lads should be built up.

Christmas Eve had started pleasantly although it soon

brought bitter disappointments. The snow at the Manor may have

been deep and crisp and even but it was a mere sprinkle compared to other parts of the country. A crackly telephone call informed Mrs. Stewart that her eldest son wouldn’t be able to travel down to join them for the holidays. Not only was the snow drifted six feet deep not a hundred yards from his door, but his eldest son

(the one with the penchant for practical jokes, who liked nasty

presents from his uncle Jonty) had been out in it at midnight, quite without parental permission, and broken his foot. This particular branch of the Stewarts was staying put for the present.