Lessons in Seduction available now!
Feb. 16th, 2010 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneOver at MBAM.
The suspected murder of the king’s ex-mistress is Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart’s most prestigious case yet. And the most challenging, since clues are as hard to come by as the killer’s possible motive.
At the hotel where the body was found, Orlando goes undercover as a professional dancing partner while Jonty checks in as a guest. It helps the investigation, but it also means limiting their communication to glances across the dance floor. It’s sheer agony.
A series of anonymous letters warns the sleuths they’ll be sorry if they don’t drop the investigation. When another murder follows, Jonty is convinced their involvement might have caused the victim’s death. Yet they can’t stop, for this second killing brings to light a wealth of hidden secrets.
For Orlando, the letters pose a more personal threat. He worries that someone will blow his cover and discover their own deepest secret… The intimate relationship he enjoys with Jonty could not only get them thrown out of Cambridge, but arrested for indecency.
Snippet:
Jonty almost danced all the way back up the Madingley Road, full of the prospect of the seaside, dancing and high society.
“Of course, you’ll love every moment of this investigation.” Orlando took a swipe at a branch which had dared to get in his way.
“Absolutely. And so will you. Don’t pretend you won’t be thrilled to have a murder to solve. You like them as much as your beloved mathematical puzzles.” Jonty’s broad, handsome grin made him look like a boy at Christmas, bouncing with excitement at the prospect of the weeks ahead.
“I suppose so. Only…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering—” Orlando felt himself colour, not just with annoyance, “—what a gigolo actually does.”
“I love Miss Peters more than any other woman to whom I’m not related, but I could cheerfully have killed her today, coming in and saying that. In front of the bursar and all. You will not be a gigolo.” Jonty sighed. “No one expects you to be anything more than a professional dancing partner at the hotel.”
“Why can’t you do the gigolo bit? Why does everyone say it has to be me?”
Jonty threw up his hands. “If we were going to the farthest-flung parts of the empire perhaps, but some of these people will have met me. Besides, look here.” He turned Orlando’s face towards his own. “This face, the Jonty Stewart fizzog, it’s a case of once seen never forgotten, isn’t it?”
Orlando looked at his lover’s fine profile as if seeing it for the first time. The bright blue eyes were as stunning and unnerving as when they’d first met, the nose perfectly formed and the mouth full of promise. He snorted. “It’s a face getting too big for its own flannel if you ask me.”
“For once I wasn’t being vain. My mother and father are both striking-looking creatures and anyone who’d met them would take one look at me and think there’s a Stewart sprog if I ever saw one. It just can’t be done.”
“But I’m hopeless with women. I can’t flirt or make small talk. They’ll turn their noses up at me.”
“You don’t have to flirt. You can dance, can’t you?”
Orlando nodded.
“In fact you dance very well. That’s all you’ll need to do, dance with them and talk a little about current affairs. You’ll be stern, aloof and handsome and it will drive them absolutely insane, just like it did me when we first met. They’ll be like putty in your hands and you’ll get all sorts of information out of them.” He drew closer to Orlando, laid his hands briefly on the man’s lapels and looked into his eyes. “Besides, you look absolutely gorgeous in a dinner suit. If there are any women who don’t fall in love with you they’ll either be followers of Sappho or have hearts of absolute stone.” He quickly spoke again, grinning as he did so. “And I won’t under any circumstances give an explanation as to the significance of that minx.”
They’d reached their house, a little Tudor cottage with a lot of recent refurbishment, and turned in by the gate and through the door into their haven of security from a world which wouldn’t approve of how they lived.
“But that can’t be all a gigolo does or why would everyone keep smirking when the term is used?”
Jonty produced a radiant smile. “Ah, well, you see, it’s a term that can also be applied to a man who—um—sells his services to women.”
“What sort of services?”
“If you have to ask the question I’m not sure you’ll understand the answer. Bed. You know.” Jonty tipped his head towards the stairs and winked.
Orlando worked his mouth, temporarily unable to speak. This was scandalous. “They never do.”
“Oh yes, it goes on all over the place. I told you when we were in Bath that there had always been male and female prostitutes.”
“But I assumed they were like the boys we came across in the course of solving that very first murder. Sold themselves to men, I mean.”
“They don’t restrict themselves to that, although whether it’s the same chaps doing the selling, or others, I have no idea and don’t want to find out. Women pay and these men oblige.”
“Well, I’m shocked. The absolute cads. And however did Miss Peters learn such a disgraceful term?”
The suspected murder of the king’s ex-mistress is Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart’s most prestigious case yet. And the most challenging, since clues are as hard to come by as the killer’s possible motive.
At the hotel where the body was found, Orlando goes undercover as a professional dancing partner while Jonty checks in as a guest. It helps the investigation, but it also means limiting their communication to glances across the dance floor. It’s sheer agony.
A series of anonymous letters warns the sleuths they’ll be sorry if they don’t drop the investigation. When another murder follows, Jonty is convinced their involvement might have caused the victim’s death. Yet they can’t stop, for this second killing brings to light a wealth of hidden secrets.
For Orlando, the letters pose a more personal threat. He worries that someone will blow his cover and discover their own deepest secret… The intimate relationship he enjoys with Jonty could not only get them thrown out of Cambridge, but arrested for indecency.
Snippet:
Jonty almost danced all the way back up the Madingley Road, full of the prospect of the seaside, dancing and high society.
“Of course, you’ll love every moment of this investigation.” Orlando took a swipe at a branch which had dared to get in his way.
“Absolutely. And so will you. Don’t pretend you won’t be thrilled to have a murder to solve. You like them as much as your beloved mathematical puzzles.” Jonty’s broad, handsome grin made him look like a boy at Christmas, bouncing with excitement at the prospect of the weeks ahead.
“I suppose so. Only…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering—” Orlando felt himself colour, not just with annoyance, “—what a gigolo actually does.”
“I love Miss Peters more than any other woman to whom I’m not related, but I could cheerfully have killed her today, coming in and saying that. In front of the bursar and all. You will not be a gigolo.” Jonty sighed. “No one expects you to be anything more than a professional dancing partner at the hotel.”
“Why can’t you do the gigolo bit? Why does everyone say it has to be me?”
Jonty threw up his hands. “If we were going to the farthest-flung parts of the empire perhaps, but some of these people will have met me. Besides, look here.” He turned Orlando’s face towards his own. “This face, the Jonty Stewart fizzog, it’s a case of once seen never forgotten, isn’t it?”
Orlando looked at his lover’s fine profile as if seeing it for the first time. The bright blue eyes were as stunning and unnerving as when they’d first met, the nose perfectly formed and the mouth full of promise. He snorted. “It’s a face getting too big for its own flannel if you ask me.”
“For once I wasn’t being vain. My mother and father are both striking-looking creatures and anyone who’d met them would take one look at me and think there’s a Stewart sprog if I ever saw one. It just can’t be done.”
“But I’m hopeless with women. I can’t flirt or make small talk. They’ll turn their noses up at me.”
“You don’t have to flirt. You can dance, can’t you?”
Orlando nodded.
“In fact you dance very well. That’s all you’ll need to do, dance with them and talk a little about current affairs. You’ll be stern, aloof and handsome and it will drive them absolutely insane, just like it did me when we first met. They’ll be like putty in your hands and you’ll get all sorts of information out of them.” He drew closer to Orlando, laid his hands briefly on the man’s lapels and looked into his eyes. “Besides, you look absolutely gorgeous in a dinner suit. If there are any women who don’t fall in love with you they’ll either be followers of Sappho or have hearts of absolute stone.” He quickly spoke again, grinning as he did so. “And I won’t under any circumstances give an explanation as to the significance of that minx.”
They’d reached their house, a little Tudor cottage with a lot of recent refurbishment, and turned in by the gate and through the door into their haven of security from a world which wouldn’t approve of how they lived.
“But that can’t be all a gigolo does or why would everyone keep smirking when the term is used?”
Jonty produced a radiant smile. “Ah, well, you see, it’s a term that can also be applied to a man who—um—sells his services to women.”
“What sort of services?”
“If you have to ask the question I’m not sure you’ll understand the answer. Bed. You know.” Jonty tipped his head towards the stairs and winked.
Orlando worked his mouth, temporarily unable to speak. This was scandalous. “They never do.”
“Oh yes, it goes on all over the place. I told you when we were in Bath that there had always been male and female prostitutes.”
“But I assumed they were like the boys we came across in the course of solving that very first murder. Sold themselves to men, I mean.”
“They don’t restrict themselves to that, although whether it’s the same chaps doing the selling, or others, I have no idea and don’t want to find out. Women pay and these men oblige.”
“Well, I’m shocked. The absolute cads. And however did Miss Peters learn such a disgraceful term?”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 02:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 05:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-16 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-17 11:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-17 02:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-17 04:09 pm (UTC)And no, orlando has no idea about how women might go about such things. Bless him.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-17 06:07 pm (UTC)