reviews_and_ramblings | Excerpt: Lessons in Discovery by Charlie Cochrane

Lessons in Discovery by Charlie Cochrane
Release Date: 09/2009
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-60504-748-5
Buy Link: http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/lessons-in-discovery

Amazon Kindle: Lessons in Discovery: Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 3

Blurb: Orlando’s broken memory may break his lover’s heart. Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book 3. Cambridge, 1906. On the very day Jonty Stewart proposes that he and Orlando Coppersmith move in together, Fate trips them up. Rather, it trips Orlando, sending him down a flight of stairs and leaving him with an injury that erases his memory. Instead of taking the next step in their relationship, they’re back to square one. It’s bad enough that Orlando doesn’t remember being intimate with Jonty—he doesn’t remember Jonty at all. Back inside the introverted, sexually innocent shell he inhabited before he met Jonty, Orlando is faced with two puzzles. Not only does he need to recover the lost pieces of his past, he’s also been tasked by the Master to solve a four-hundred-year-old murder before the end of term. The college’s reputation is riding on it. Crushed that his lover doesn’t remember him, Jonty puts aside his grief to help decode old documents for clues to the murder. But a greater mystery remains—one involving the human heart. To solve it, Orlando must hear the truth about himself—even if it means he may not fall in love with Jonty the second time around…

Excerpt:

Jonty finished shaving and looked at himself in the mirror. There was still a trace of redness around his eyes and some bags under them, reflecting the fact that his weeping had happened on and off all night. The doctor had promised that Orlando would be all right, although doctors had a habit of saying any old rot if you weren´t watchful, so it wasn´t just a matter of worrying himself sick about the condition of his friend´s skull. He´d also spent the hours wondering about Orlando´s mental state.

The best possible outcome would be returning to the sick bay to find that all Orlando´s memories had come back, and being greeted with a huge smile and a "Jonty, what kept you?" He wouldn´t let himself seriously contemplate this possibility. That would be to tempt fate.

The worst case would see his lover still without recall of the last year and not wanting to have any more to do with this friend who had been foisted upon him unasked. Orlando had survived for many years without a close companion, so why should he opt to choose the same route as he had done a year previously, risking everything by letting himself become close to another person? Jonty wouldn´t contemplate this eventuality either. Self-fulfilling prophesy and all that.

He stiffened his upper lip and put on his most dazzling suit of clothes. If he was to begin wooing all over again then he might as well show himself to the best advantage, so he added a little flower to his buttonhole before he set off for Nurse Hatfield´s den.

He was greeted by a pinny starched to almost ramrod straightness that seemed to enter the hallway hours before its owner, pushed forward by a bosom of such magnificence that, if he hadn´t been immune to feminine charms, would have made him breathless. There was many a poor undergraduate who had been treated unnecessarily for laboured breathing when all he had visited Nurse Hatfield for was to have his ears syringed. She was a widow, with much speculation among the students about the reason for her husband´s demise, suffocation being the favourite.

Jonty was rather crestfallen when Nurse H informed him the doctor had insisted Dr. Coppersmith have no visitors for the next few days. "Now, I don´t count you as a visitor really, more like one of the family. You can see him as often as you like if you promise not to tire him."

She ushered him into the little private room where his friend had been ensconced, although not without first checking that he wasn´t bringing in anything unsuitable that might be detrimental to her patient´s condition. Jonty was puzzled at this, as he wasn´t sure what she could have been looking for. A bottle of whisky? A catapult? He was pleased that he´d hidden a packet of sweets away in his inside pocket, being certain that she would have disapproved had she found them, whisking them off with much shaking of both head and bosom. He was hopeful that they would remain secure in their little sanctuary, unless she were to insist on a body search.

Orlando was sitting up surrounded by plump pillows, browsing through the day´s newspaper, no doubt trying to come to terms with what had happened to 1906. He looked up as Jonty entered, producing something like a smile of recognition, if not yet one of love.

At least, Jonty reflected, I´ve been remembered since yesterday.

Orlando looked pale in the meagre light which was trying to penetrate the small leaded window, but he didn´t appear to be on the brink of pegging out. His eyes seemed bright and there was no dullness in his speech or other worrying sign.

"Dr. Stewart, good morning."

"And to you, Dr. Coppersmith." Jonty perched on the chair by the bed, relieved to find Orlando much perkier today. "Nurse Hatfield, may we have a cup of tea, please?"

The nurse beamed at them. She loved well-behaved and well-mannered little boys, which is exactly how she regarded these two. "Of course, and I´ll rustle up a biscuit or three. You both look like you need nourishment."

Once she had gone, Jonty couldn´t resist a laugh. "What is it about ladies of a certain age? How does their eyesight change that they can look at a muscular frame and see only the sort of stick men that children draw? You may need building up after your mishap but no one could accuse me of being thin." Jonty patted his muscular stomach and Orlando smiled wanly. "And before the sergeant major gets back I thought you could hide these somewhere." He produced a packet of bullseyes from his jacket. "Put them where she won´t find them or else we´ll both be in trouble."

"My favourites! How did you-sorry." Orlando stopped short. "You would have known, wouldn´t you? If we were friends. If we are friends, I mean."

Jonty tried to provide reassurance. "That´s perfectly all right. It´s going to take a bit of time to get the old status quo back, while we wait for that brain of yours to get itself organised." He thought about the surprises that would be in store for his friend-his lover-and felt a sudden qualm.

"I feel at such a disadvantage, Dr. Stewart. You must know so much about me, yet I know nothing of you." Orlando managed another constrained smile.

Indeed, the location of every mole on your body, the taste of your hair, the words you use in darkest despair or deepest ecstasy. Jonty shook himself, trying to set aside such thoughts.

Excerpt: Lessons in Discovery by Charlie Cochrane

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