Death by Silver (5 page)

“Well?” James the Less said, and Julian stared back at him. “Who are you here to see?”

“Mr Nevett. Sir.” The words were bitter in his mouth.

“He’s all yours, Nevett.” James the Less turned away to pour himself a cup of tea.

“Julian Lynes,” Victor said. “You are an extraordinarily poor specimen of a New Man and a disgrace to Martyr’s, but that’s not why I propose to beat you. I propose to beat you because you cheeked me at supper. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Julian couldn’t stop himself. “It was the Canon answer. Sir.”

“It’s still cheek,” Evelyn said.

“There,” Victor said. “You hear that? It’s still cheek, and six of the best is the remedy.”

There was nothing to say to that. Julian waited, not knowing what to do, and Staniforth pointed to the chairs. “Kneel on that, take your trousers down, and bend over the back.”

Julian checked at that, unable to help himself, and Victor lifted an eyebrow.

“Go on.”

There wasn’t a choice. Julian did as he was told, reluctantly sliding trousers and drawers down to expose his buttocks, and bent forward, the narrow chair-backs digging into his stomach. He couldn’t see anything in that position except Staniforth’s shoes, and his whole body tightened in shameful fear. He could hear the prefects moving around, a soft mutter of conversation, as though this was nothing – which of course it was, something they did every day.

The first blow struck home, square across his bared arse, and he yelped in spite of himself. The prefects burst out laughing.

“A virgin, by God,” Strange said.

“Nonsense.” That was Staniforth. “Where’d you go to grammar school, Lynes?”

“I didn’t,” Julian said. “I had a tutor. At home.”

There was more laughter, laced with contempt, and this time Julian managed not to make a sound when the cane landed. It hurt, it hurt shockingly much, and he squeezed his eyes shut, ducked his head between his arms, and managed to endure the next four strokes without a sound.

“Right,” James the Less said. “Be off with you.”

Julian pulled himself upright, eyes watering, dragged his clothes up again.

“What do you say?” Victor asked.

Julian had no idea what he meant, looked from him to the other prefects.

“You have to thank him,” James the Less said.

“No.” Julian hadn’t meant to say it, felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. But he’d said it, and he wasn’t going to take it back, no matter what they did. It was too late to take it back, anyway.

“Cheek!” Victor said, with glee. “And, what’s more, refusing an order. Six more, Lynes, and count yourself lucky.”

Somehow he got through the next six without making a sound, though the tears were rolling down his cheeks as he put himself to rights. He managed a sullen thank-you, and there was a terrifying moment before James the Less declared it acceptable.

“You may go,” he said. “But mind your manners, Lynes. We’ve got our eye on you.”

Julian shoved himself out of his chair, sending the
Newgate Calendar
flying, and poured himself a second, stiffer drink. His hand was shaking, and he glared at it, forcing himself under control. He wasn’t twelve any more; Victor Nevett was someone else’s problem – not even Ned’s, Ned’s client was Victor’s father, and, anyway, it was nothing to do with Julian. He’d had the satisfaction of taking most of the scholarship prizes in his year, and at Oxford he’d heard that Victor had been sent down for gambling. It had been surprisingly satisfying to hear, and he and Ned had toasted the news over a celebratory meal. But – he still wanted to see Victor dead.

At the sound of the door to the hall opening, Ned hastily finished dressing, and emerged into his small parlor as his landlady was setting down the breakfast tray. He’d slept badly, which he wasn’t sure whether to attribute to too much reminiscing over school days or to his growing certainty that Julian was avoiding him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to provoke that, either, and was trying to avoid the conclusion that he was simply incapable of holding Julian’s attention.

“Good morning, Mrs Clewett,” he said. She and the single maid both scrambled up and down stairs in the morning delivering breakfasts, but Mrs Clewett brought Ned’s up herself more often than not, and made it one of the first served, which he took as a mark of favor. He tried not to look woeful, to fend off a benevolent interrogation about whether he was suffering the debilitating effect of overwork or had been unlucky in the pursuit of some entirely nonexistent young lady. The last was too close to the truth for comfort, anyway

“I’ve brought you a nice egg,” she said. “And some more of the ham. It wouldn’t do you any harm to have a bit more meat on your bones.”**************

“So you always say,” Ned said. He took up the
Chronicle
that was propped on one side of the breakfast tray and poured the tea one-handed. It was still steaming, the spell on the pot keeping it warm but not hot enough for it to stew.

“At least sit down and eat properly,” Mrs Clewett chided him, pulling out his chair and throwing open the windows, a stout figure in constant, brisk motion. Both sound and smell carried from the street outside, but it was going to be a warm enough day that the cool breeze was welcome. She shook her head at the sound of another lodger’s bell ringing a story below. “Always someone in a hurry, this time of morning, as if we weren’t all. Will you be in for supper?”

“You needn’t bother,” Ned said. “I’ll stop at the Commons, or go to my club.”

“You’ll ruin your good health that way, young man, mark my words,” Mrs Clewett said.

“I think I’ll survive,” Ned said mildly as she bustled out. The Mercury Club laid a decent table, if tending toward chops and baked potatoes, but Mrs Clewett seemed to think it her mission to mother him until he could be safely delivered into the state of matrimony, at which point presumably his wife would see that he was properly fed and didn’t get run over by an omnibus by imprudently crossing the street.

As Ned had no intention of matrimony at any time in the future, he appreciated Mrs Clewett for keeping a neat house and employing a reliable cook, and felt he didn’t entirely mind a certain amount of cosseting. Certainly his own mother had never been so inclined.

He put that thought out of his mind as unprofitable, and unfolded the paper, propping it against the toast rack as he attacked his egg with the egg scissors. He’d ascertained early in his stay at Mrs Clewett’s that the toast racks were properly magicked to stay warm without burning fingers. And the eggs had been boiled in the kitchen, in the normal fashion, and wouldn’t explode without considerable outside assistance.

If Julian didn’t bedevil his landlady to the point of providing sullen service and scanty provisions, he might not have to rely on camping out in his rooms as if he were still at Oxford, trying to find a way to roast eggs in a coal fire. Even then, there had been perfectly reasonable meals served in the dining room, requiring only the small effort of putting on a gown, but then it had seemed an adventure to try to cook in their rooms. Ned felt he’d reached an age where he didn’t need his domestic arrangements to be an adventure.

It didn’t really make him feel better to remind himself of all Julian’s less desirable qualities, unfortunately. He’d known since they were twelve years old that Julian was relentlessly stubborn and uninterested in conventional domestic tranquility, and it had never made Ned a fraction less devoted. He’d believed in those days that his feelings were returned, but now…

It had been different since Oxford, he thought unhappily, setting to his breakfast while he brooded over it. Julian had found friends of his own there for the first time, dramatic young men who were scathingly clever and made bantering references to poetry Ned hadn’t read and wore green carnations, or at least talked about wearing them. He made a few attempts to join them, but found himself more often the butt of their wit than in on the joke. They made it clear what they thought of men who were interested in sport rather than amateur theater – “dullards” was the best of it – and it had stung sharply when Julian didn’t speak up to the contrary.

They’d never actually quarreled about it, but they’d seen less and less of each other in an effort not to quarrel, which Ned had tried to accept as for the best. It was one thing to indulge in schoolboy vices, but Ned hadn’t wanted to let that distract him from the business of finding a wife. There were a number of young ladies at Oxford, and he’d found that he thoroughly enjoyed squiring them about, going punting on the river in a party of friends and then picnicking on the banks, or playing cricket with a young lady in the stands to clap admiringly at the right moments.

He’d been dismayed to discover that the young ladies in question were entertaining to talk to and generally pleasant company, but that the idea of undressing them or performing marital duties left him – and vital parts necessarily involved – entirely unmoved. He wasn’t even interested in stealing kisses, even when one or two of the young ladies took to tripping and falling so that he would have to catch them or swaying dramatically against him and complaining of a touch of the sun.

Worse, he’d been unable to dismiss impure thoughts occasioned by seeing his cricket teammates undressed. He didn’t think any of them would be amenable to advances, but watching Harper pull his shirt off to change into cricket whites, the muscles of his shoulders working, Ned’s eye was drawn relentlessly down the plane of his back, and he had to turn abruptly away, his face heating.

It wasn’t until his last year at Oxford that he took an omnibus to Piccadilly Circus for the first time, having heard rumors that he hadn’t been able to put out of his mind. It was late, and he walked aimlessly for a while, feeling silly and thinking that the best thing in the world would be to go home. Then a young man – not younger than some of the boys at Oxford, he told himself, his conscience prickling – leaned casually against a wall in front of him and smiled.

“Would you fancy a drink with me?” Ned asked, surprised that he could find his voice at all.

“Gladly, guv,” the boy said. “You look like the generous sort.”

“I expect you know a place,” Ned said, and when the boy led the way with businesslike haste, Ned followed him with his heart pounding.

Afterwards, back in his rooming-house and having endured a lecture from his landlady about students who came in at all hours smelling of drink, he had curled up on his bed in a tired and unhappy heap, wishing more than anything that he could talk to Julian about it. That was the last thing he could do, though, as he felt sure that whatever Julian was up to with his friends, he wouldn’t sink so low as to pay someone for what should surely be freely given. They’d talked a bit about the ancient Greeks and their
erastai
and
erômenoi
, and he’d never felt further from that ideal of heroic love.

What he couldn’t deny he felt was physically satisfied, in a way that he hadn’t been since the last year they were in school. He hadn’t been aware of how intense his frustration was until it was slaked, and now the idea of returning to it seemed hard to bear. And that was what marriage would be, unless he broke his vows in the most unspeakable of ways.

Besides, he was starting to suspect that despite the advice of the most reputable medical authorities, most young women of his acquaintance actually did have some expectations in the marriage bed. He hadn’t noticed a complete lack of passion on the part of Oxford women, and while perhaps their unusual intellectual development led to overdevelopment in that area as well, he wasn’t sure any of them would take well to celibacy in marriage.

It was surprisingly painful to give up the idea of ever having a settled home of his own, but the idea of a marriage full of painful scenes or bitter coldness was far worse. No, better to put that firmly away, face a life as a confirmed bachelor, and find what compensations there might be. If he couldn’t marry, he might at least find someone of similar tastes for company.