Death by Silver (4 page)

Julian checked just for an instant at the name, then finished loosening his tie. He was pleased that his voice stayed light and controlled. “Don’t tell me Victor recommended you. He hated both of us.”

“Damned if I know,” Ned said. “Nevett mentioned that I was at school with him, so – I’ve no idea. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that there’s no curse on the family silver.”

“That surprises me,” Julian said. “I’d have thought people would be lining up to place curses on the Nevetts.”

Ned grinned at that. “I think he felt he was important enough to have one, certainly. Apparently no one else agreed.”

He went on with the story, and they were comfortably at liberty by the time young Digby returned with the ale, sitting in shirt sleeves with their feet up and a cooling breeze blowing in the window. Julian ignored Ned’s look of reproach and sent young Digby back out for a pie from Nickerson’s.

“It’s that or Mrs Digby’s mutton,” he said, purposefully misunderstanding, and Ned shook his head.

“You know that’s not what I meant. You might have told him to get that the first time.”

“I didn’t think of it,” Julian said. “And besides, the ale would have gotten warm.”

He poured a glass for each of them, resolving to tip Harry a little extra for what was admittedly a trouble, and propped his feet on the fender again.

“It’s a week for old schoolmates,” he said. “I had a letter from Wynchcombe yesterday.”

“Oh, yes?” Ned took a long drink of the ale and leaned back in his chair, his head thrown back to show the long line of his throat.

Julian wrenched his gaze away. “He thinks someone’s stolen his father-in-law’s design for their latest automaton. He’s fired the clerk responsible, but he wanted to try to recover the design before it gets into general circulation, and wanted my help if he couldn’t catch the plans before they left Manchester. I got a telegram today saying he’d be in town Friday next, so it’s safe to assume he couldn’t.”

“Jones and Wynchcombe is doing well,” Ned said, but his tone was more dubious than his words.

“You can’t disapprove of Wynchcombe’s automata,” Julian said.

“Well, no, they’re mostly reliable,” Ned said. “Except when they’re not. Isn’t that egg-cooker of yours a Jones and Wynchcombe piece?”

“I bought it second hand,” Julian said. “Who knows what shoddy repair-work’s been done on it?”

“You ought to be able to fix it,” Ned said. “Or – why don’t you ask Wynchcombe while he’s here?”

“It works well enough,” Julian said, with a shrug. He was actually a bit embarrassed to admit to Albert that he couldn’t afford to buy a new piece.

Ned snorted. “Oh, yes, if by ‘well enough’ you mean it hard-boils your eggs when you tell it soft-boiled, and cooks them until they burst if you tell it you want a hard-boiled egg.”

“It only did that once,” Julian said.

“Because you never asked for hard-boiled eggs again,” Ned retorted.

“It’s a useful thing to have around,” Julian said.

“I knew you didn’t risk it.”

Julian ignored him. “Especially with the hours I keep.”

“My landlady’s very obliging,” Ned said, and his smile was faintly smug.

“Yes, because you’re such a nice boy,” Julian mimicked, and Ned’s smile widened.

“It has its uses.”

Harry arrived with the pie, breathless and red-faced, and Julian gave him an extra sixpence before closing the door behind him. After a moment’s hesitation, he locked it, too. He should know better, but – he’d never had any sense where Ned was concerned.

Julian woke from a fitful sleep into a purple twilight, wound around Ned like a vine around an oak. He hadn’t done that in a long time, fallen asleep against Ned’s shoulder, not since their first year at University, and even now that he was too old for it to be innocent comfort – and old enough, experienced enough, to know exactly what he did want – apparently in sleep he hadn’t forgotten old habits. He should disentangle himself, he knew, get up and dress and offer whiskey or coffee to ease the transition, but he lay still, his chin on Ned’s collarbones, breathing in sweat and sex and Ned’s cologne. The breeze was cool on his naked back, shiveringly erotic on the top of his hips where his clothes were still pushed down in disarray. He’d at least managed to get most of Ned’s clothes off him this time – he had discovered that nudity was one of the great luxuries, bared skin on skin – but then they’d been too far gone to wait.

Ned shifted under him, stretching, and Julian loosened his hold. Ned reached for his watch, glamored so that it spilled light over the tumbled sheets, and grimaced at the time.

“Have a drink before you go,” Julian said, and rolled over to begin putting himself to rights.

He turned up the gaslights in the parlor, poured them each a whiskey and soda while Ned washed hands and face, and came out of the tiny closet knotting his tie. The air from the street was almost cold, and a carriage rattled past, wheels loud on the cobblestones. Ned was by no means beautiful, Julian thought, striving for objectivity; he was too large, too well-built for that, and his features were merely handsome enough, regular and attractive but not extraordinary.
Amiable
, Giles had said at University, with an expressive curl of the lip that relegated Ned to the rest of the hearties, and it was true that Ned was generally good-natured, easy-going and obliging, but there was an inner man possessed of unexpected steel. One meddled with that at one’s peril.

They chatted while they drank, curses and silver and automata, but when Ned seemed inclined to linger, Julian pretended not to notice, and the other man soon took his leave. Julian closed the door behind him, leaning his weight against the heavy oak. The room seemed very quiet with him gone, and that was beyond unreasonable. Ned had made his feelings clear at University:
don’t you think we’re a little old for this?
he’d asked, even as they lay sprawled on Julian’s bed, sweating in spite of the November wind whistling through the gaps in the window frame, and had gone on to prove it by becoming a much sought-after escort for any number of young ladies. Julian took a long swallow of his whiskey. He had no idea why Ned had chosen to resume their friendship, or to allow his advances, or, indeed, make advances of his own, but – it needed to stop. Next time – next time he wouldn’t succumb.

He had told himself that before, but he put that knowledge resolutely aside, poured a splash more whiskey. He didn’t envy Ned his latest job. Any dealing with the Nevetts was too much – Victor had been the worst, but neither Reggie nor Frederick had been any prize. Nevett Senior sounded as though he was what one would expect in Victor’s father – Julian shook himself, and reached resolutely for the
Newgate Calendar
. He would not think about the Nevetts. Nor Victor Nevett in particular.

Supper was always a trial at Toms’, the masters busy among themselves, leaving the house tables to the prefects. Julian had learned in the first week that New Men kept their heads down and ate their bread and butter as quickly as possible, not just because second helpings were only intermittently available, and only to the swift, but because it was the prefects’ privilege to end the meal, and no one cared whether the New Men were finished or not. Luckily, Ned Mathey, who was rapidly becoming his first true friend, had discovered a knack for slipping his first slice of bread into his pocket without being seen, and they’d found half a dozen quiet corners where they could share their spoils in peace.

Today, however, there were jam tarts, and James Strachan, known even to his juniors as James the Less, had seen to it that the distribution was fair. One each for the New Men, one and a half for the Senior Men, two for the prefects, and the trays were bare. Julian closed his eyes to savor each bite, crumbling buttery crust and sweet sticky filing, and realized that he had no idea what had occasioned this bounty. And that could be disastrous: Sts Thomas was one of the oldest schools in England, with a maze of arcane customs and its own treacherous catechism, forgetfulness in which earned not damnation but six of the best from the nearest prefect. He had managed not to be beaten so far, though he’d suffered his share of kicks and pinches and had his ears boxed for asking the score in a house match between Beckett and Cranmer – he owed Ned for forbidding him to bring a book to the pitch – but by dint of a good memory and resentful application to the Canon Book he’d managed to avoid being caned. He nudged Ned.

“Mathey. Why the treat?”

Ned glanced quickly at the prefects’ end of the table, his own expression suddenly wary. “I don’t know. Is it a fas day?”

Julian closed his eyes, conjuring up the table of school holidays – the fas days, though strictly speaking they ought to be nefas days, because regular work was altered, as on days of ill-omen. But, no, the next one was still four days away, and he shook his head.

“I don’t think so. Did we win something?”

Ned winced, and reached for the last slice of bread and butter. “No. There weren’t any matches.”

“Oh. Then why – ?”

“A gift of the gods?” Ned said, and Julian grinned.

A gift of the gods and not to be questioned.
That was possibly the only sensible or useful bit of the Canon, and made as much sense as anything. He slurped at his milky tea, glad that at least Beckett didn’t skimp on the sugar.

“Lynes.”

The voice came from the head of the table, a prefect’s cracking voice, and Julian looked up, realizing too late that it might have been better to keep his eyes on his plate. Victor Nevett stared back at him, smiling slightly, his dark forelock hanging damply on his forehead. Julian was aware that everyone was looking at him, some with undisguised glee, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ned’s hand close into a fist.

“Pass the salt,” Victor said.

There was a sudden silence, broken only by a nervous titter, quickly squelched. Beckett’s house master looked up from his plate at the unwonted quiet, saw nothing, and resumed his conversation. Julian sat frozen. He knew the answer perfectly well, it was one of the most memorable bits of the Canon, but it was also one of the trickiest, because the proper answer was “Aroint thee, worm.” Said to an equal or an inferior, it was a good joke; he’d giggled himself when another unwary New Man had asked for salt and been summarily arointed. Said to a prefect, it was six of the best. And if you didn’t answer, it was the same for forgetting the Canon. He’d put a great deal of effort into not being beaten so far, and he fiercely resented being trapped like this.

And Victor knew it. It was clear in his smirk, in the grins of the other prefects. Even James the Less looked distinctly amused. Very well, there was no avoiding it, and, if so, he might as well get what satisfaction he could from the offense.

“Aroint thee, worm,” he said, in a voice that carried, clear and firm, and passed the salt decorously down the table. The other boys handed it on scramblingly, as though it might contaminate them by touch, and Ned made a small sound like a groan. James the Less lifted an eyebrow.

“See me later, Lynes,” Victor said, after a moment, and Julian nodded. Ned kicked him under the table, and he made himself say it.

“Yes, sir.”

Canings were administered after supper and before the evening study period, on the theory that the sight of the sufferers would deter further misbehavior. Ned walked with him as far as the stairs and clasped his hand at its foot.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Julian answered, because that was what you were supposed to say, but he hung on to Ned’s hand just a little longer, and thought that Ned understood.

The prefects’ parlor was warm and shabby, the bookshelves crammed higgledy-piggledy with dictionaries and exam books and novels; there was a fire in the grate, and a tea set on the table, and two straight-backed chairs placed back to back in the center of the room. There was a faint smell of tobacco, as though the prefects smoked in there sometimes, even though that was strictly forbidden. They were all there, James the Less and Victor Nevett and Staniforth and Strange and Evelyn, all staring at him as he took off his hat.