Lessons in Discovery by Charlie Cochrane Read Free Book Online Page B

back. “Bit of a problem here, I’ll have to adjust it.” The clip at the back of the braces had worked loose and was starting to snag on the material of his trousers. Orlando deftly worked the
    teeth loose and refastened them, giving the little thing a pat of satisfaction when finished. It was a gesture at once innocent and exceedingly intimate, which made Jonty almost a shivering
    wreck. They hadn’t touched so closely since Orlando’s accident
    and it smacked of earlier, happier times.
    Jonty forced a smile and a “Thank you”, buried his nose in
    the old leaves of parchment and hoped Orlando hadn’t noticed his confusion. They sat working for some time, although Jonty’s
    mind was distracted and when he chanced a glance at his friend,
    he knew he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t concentrate on the
    task in hand.
    “Jonty, I have a question I must put to you.” Orlando sat on
    his settee, surrounded by his notes on various forms of ciphers. “I can’t concentrate on these—” he waved the papers in his hand,
    “—until my mind is at rest.”
    “Ask away, Orlando. We have no secrets between us, or
    used not to have anyway.” Jonty could feel his throat constricting, the terrible urge to cry welling up.
    “I have just had such a clear image come into my mind. It’s
    of your shoulders and a peculiar line of moles across the left one, a bit like Orion’s belt and sword. Why should I know that they are there, or see them so clearly?”
    Jonty laid down his sheaf of letters, turning slowly to his
    friend. The crunch point had come, as he’d known that it must. He could lie, say “We holidayed together, Orlando, you’ve seen me

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    Charlie Cochrane
    getting changed often enough,” but the time had passed for
    continuing economy with the truth. Especially after the way he’d felt himself react to Orlando’s touch.
    He moved over to his friend, sat down, very gently took the
    other man’s hand in his, was encouraged by the lack of reaction to the move, and spoke. “My dearest friend, what I’m going to say to you may well prove a very great shock, but you must understand
    that, as God is my witness, it is nothing but the truth. We’ve been close, this last year, closer than just friends.” He observed the look of bewilderment on Orlando’s face and pressed on
    regardless. “You should know that we’ve been intimate for nearly a year. Lovers. That’s how you know my shoulders so well, as I
    know every mark on your frame.”
    Orlando didn’t speak. He turned deathly pale, shook his head
    but uttered no sound.
    “I can assure you that it’s so. See this ring?” Jonty held aloft his left hand, heart rapidly sinking although desperate to assert itself. “You gave it to me the day of your fall. To celebrate a year since we met and almost as long since we fell in love.”
    Orlando flung his hands from him, rose and stumbled to the
    bathroom, from where Jonty could soon hear him vomiting,
    spewing up, no doubt, both his disgust and his erstwhile lover’s faint hopes of a continuation of their relationship.
    Jonty had thought his heart would never be broken again, but
    he’d been wrong, ridiculously wrong, and the pain he felt now
    was more than he felt he could bear.
    Orlando emerged eventually, wiping his mouth and dabbing
    his face with his handkerchief. There seemed to be no words that either man could find appropriate to the situation.
    Jonty slowly removed the ring from his finger, placed it on
    the desk and left.
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Chapter Four
    Jonty’s eyes were raw from crying. He’d used up most of his
    clean hankies and couldn’t keep from looking at the mark on his
    finger where the ring had been not an hour since. It was the only tangible thing he had left of the glories of the past year and now it had returned to Orlando, along with the last vestiges of any hope of a recommencement of their love affair. Jonty’s thoughts were
    already