For the Love of Luke Page 17

  A large television screen was wheeled in front of Luke. The screen glowed into life, and Luke could see the image of a man and a woman holding hands. The image was replaced with one showing the same couple kissing. This happened several more times with images of different couples.

  A picture of two men holding hands appeared on the screen, and Luke felt a strange tingling sensation in his forearms. With difficulty, he peered down at them. The leather strap holding his head against the back of the chair restricted him, but he could see wires had been attached to his forearms. The tingling sensation stopped. He looked up at the screen. The image had been replaced with that of a man and a woman holding hands. It stayed on the screen for several seconds before being replaced with a picture of the same two men. This time they were kissing. The tingling sensation in his arms was much stronger. Painful. Luke fought hard against the leather straps, but he could not break free.

  “Don’t resist, Luke,” said the voice in his head. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  Luke tried to close his eyes, but his eyelids were held open by some kind of clamp. The image on the screen grew bigger. At the same time, the pain in his arms grew even stronger. His whole body shuddered with the intensity of the pain. The image on the screen was not only growing larger, but the entire screen was moving toward him. He strained his arms against the leather straps that secured them, and his neck felt ready to break as he pulled against the strap holding his head. All the while, the pain in his arms grew more severe.

  In terror, he yelled out, “Stop it! Stop it. Please! Stop it!”

  He felt hands grasp his shoulders and the weight of a body on top of him. He tried to push hard against it and found his arms were now free. He flailed about, hitting the man who sat astride him.

  “Luke! Luke! Wake up!”

  The voice was like a shock of cold water. Luke opened his eyes to see Rupert sitting on his chest. He held Luke’s shoulders down against the bed, and there was a look of panic on his face. Luke blinked several times and stopped flailing his arms. He was exhausted, and his chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath. Rupert relaxed his grip on Luke’s shoulders, collapsed, and rolled to lie alongside Luke.

  “Don’t do things like that,” said Rupert. He wrapped his arm over Luke’s chest. “You scared the life out of me.”

  The two men lay in silence for several minutes. Rupert massaged Luke’s shoulder as Luke’s breathing settled back into a regular rhythm. Finally, Rupert spoke.

  “Can you tell me about it now?” he asked quietly.

  Luke took Rupert’s hand in his and kissed it. He rolled onto his side to snuggle back into Rupert’s embrace. The two men curled into each other, and Rupert’s arm wrapped reassuringly around Luke’s waist.

  “It scared the shit out of me,” said Luke. “It was like the scariest horror movie you’ve ever been to. And then some. There was a man sitting in an armchair with his back to me. In a room somewhere.”

  “Did you know the place?” asked Rupert. He pressed his mouth close to Luke’s ear. “Have you been there before?”

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was a big room. In an old house. There was a fireplace. Old, heavy furniture. Then they strapped me to this chair and attached electrodes. I was being tortured. Electric shocks—”

  “Fuck,” said Rupert. “No wonder you were screaming. Who were they?”

  Luke shut his eyes and tried to see his dream again. But it was fading rapidly. He struggled to picture the room and the men in it. The room was dark, and the faces of the men were indistinct. Luke concentrated hard on the fireplace. He remembered now. There were candleholders on either side of the fireplace. Each one held three candles, and the candles in them had almost completely burned down. They flickered and guttered as they struggled to remain alight. Above the fireplace, illuminated by the sputtering candlelight, was a picture in a frame. There was something about the picture. It was large and imposing, and the frame was ornate and gilded.

  Luke sat up and turned to Rupert. “I gotta get my portfolio case. I gotta draw it. I can see something now, but it’s fading rapidly.”

  He climbed out of the bed and ran down the stairs to the small living room of the cottage. His portfolio case was where he had dropped it by the front door. He picked it up and ran back up the stairs to the bedroom. Rupert was sitting up in bed and had turned on the bedside light. Luke sat on the end of the bed and unzipped the portfolio case. He pulled out a pad of paper and some pencils and began to sketch rapidly.

  “That’s a sight I don’t think this old cottage has ever seen,” said Rupert. He knelt behind Luke and looked over his shoulder at the emerging image on the sketchpad. “A naked artist running up the stairs at two in the morning.” He rested his chin on Luke’s shoulder and nibbled his ear. Luke’s pencil darted across the surface of the sketchpad.

  After several minutes, Luke leaned back against Rupert and stared at what he had drawn. Was it from his dream, or was it from a long-forgotten memory? The two seemed inextricably intertwined. On the paper, he had sketched the gilt frame of the picture. Within the frame was a shield, across which was a chain, broken in the middle. Something like a lightning bolt arose from the break in the chain. A long, curved banner beneath the shield bore the words Libe Uni VA.

  “Shit, Luke,” whispered Rupert in his ear. “I know what that is.”

  He jumped off the bed, reached for his mobile phone, and began typing. He carried the phone over to the window and stared at the screen with increasing frustration.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he said and waved the phone above his head. “Why can I never get a bloody signal in the countryside? It’s like the nineteenth century down here.”

  He lowered his arm and looked again at the screen. His face took on a look of triumph, and he turned the phone around for Luke to see. “That’s what you’ve drawn. The lettering’s incomplete, but it’s clear. That’s the crest for the Liberated University. It’s in Virginia.”

  Rupert walked back to the bed, sat down beside Luke, and put an arm around his shoulder. “That university is linked with a series of suicides here in the UK.” He squeezed tight on Luke’s shoulder. “I don’t think that was a dream you had, my beautiful American,” Rupert went on. “Some bastards actually did that to you. The question is, who?”

  Chapter 24

  THE AFTERNOON sun burned down relentlessly on the brown, parched lawns at Pendley House. Lying under the shade of a willow tree, close to the small stream that crossed the estate, Luke was pleasantly exhausted by the heat. He had stripped to the waist and wore a pair of faded khaki shorts Rupert had lent him. His head rested on Rupert’s chest, and he stared up into the canopy of the willow tree. Rupert’s arm lay across his chest, his thumb hooked into the waistband of Luke’s shorts.

  “Is it always this hot in Britain?” asked Luke, batting away a wasp drawn to the remains of their picnic. “I thought it rained a lot.”

  “Oh no,” said Rupert. “We’re a tropical country really. We just put these stories of lousy weather around to keep the crazy Americans out.”

  Luke rolled over to squat astride Rupert. He grabbed Rupert’s arms and pinned them to the ground. “Well, you failed with this particular crazy American.” He inclined his head to kiss Rupert’s bare chest. “You’ll have to find another tactic to get rid of me.”

  Rupert wriggled free from Luke’s grasp and started to tickle him around the waist. Luke fell back on the grass and pulled his knees to his chest. His face was contorted with laughter.

  “No, no!” he cried. “I surrender. Anything but that.”

  Rupert relented. He rolled over and laid his head on Luke’s chest. Luke reached down and gently massaged Rupert’s nipple.

  “Oh wow, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Rupert, and he exhaled deeply. “Not this close to the house, anyway. You know what that does to me. What if Mother hears?”

  Luke turned to look at the rear of Pendley House. It was a huge, Victor
ian gothic structure, with extravagant, castellated walls and turrets at either end of the building. A vast conservatory, probably built in the twentieth century, opened onto a veranda. This led to a formal garden and then to the lawns on which Luke and Rupert lay, close to the stream.

  “It’s nearly a hundred yards to the house,” protested Luke. He turned back to Rupert. “Are you getting bashful, Rupert Pendley-Evans? And I thought you were such an experienced man. Then you go all coy as soon as Mom and Pop are nearby.”

  Luke took Rupert’s nipple firmly in his fingers and began to massage it. Rupert groaned in appreciation and grasped Luke’s wrist.

  “No, no,” said Rupert again. “Not here. I just don’t think they’re quite ready for all this yet.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Luke. He intertwined his fingers with Rupert’s. “Your mom’s been real sweet to me today. She chatted and asked me about stuff—”

  “What stuff?” asked Rupert.

  “Oh, you know. Where I’m from. And what I do. How long we’ve known each other, and whether we’re going to have kids—”

  This time it was Rupert who rolled on top of Luke. He placed his arms on Luke’s chest and rested his head on them. “You can’t joke about stuff like that. Not the way my parents are. I’m sure Mother’s still waiting for me to ‘grow out of my little phase.’ As she’d probably put it.”

  Luke reached forward to kiss Rupert, then lay back on the grass and gazed up at the willow branches. The tree’s green leaves dappled the blue of the sky.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” replied Luke after a moment of contemplation. “She seemed pretty cool with me today. I like her. She might be more modern than you think.”

  “Modern?” Rupert sat up. “Modern? You’ve got to be kidding. Nothing’s modern in Middle Claydon. You’re trapped in ye olde England here, my dear deluded American.” Rupert stood up and held out his hand to Luke. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk. I’m going to show you something.”

  RUPERT PUSHED open the gate and gestured Luke through. They entered the churchyard, and Rupert closed the gate behind him. The late-afternoon sun reflected off the yellow sandstone of All Saints Church and gave it a look of burnished gold. The two men paused to admire the building. A square tower at the east end had a castellated top and buttresses at either corner. The main body of the church extended to the west. There were narrow, slit-like windows and a shallow sloping roof.

  “Gee, it’s beautiful,” said Luke.

  “This is why I could never think of Mother as modern,” said Rupert. “This is part of our heritage. And she’s fiercely proud of it.”

  “Well, she sure should be. I’d guess thirteenth century? Maybe fourteenth? Post Norman anyway. The start of European Gothic. What the Victorians tried to copy five hundred years later.”

  Rupert looked at Luke and raised his eyebrows. “You know your stuff.”

  “Yeah, well,” replied Luke. “Don’t assume all Americans are dumb when it comes to history. Come on. I wanna see inside.”

  “One of the advantages of being part of the Pendley-Evans family,” said Rupert as they arrived at the imposing oak entrance door of the church, “is that we have keys to the churches around the estate.” He pulled a large black wrought iron key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. “That’s strange. Seems like I didn’t need it. Someone must be here already.”

  He pushed open the heavy door, and they stepped into the church.

  The sudden drop in temperature as they entered contrasted with the late-afternoon heat. Luke shivered. The building smelled of floor polish and mustiness. Like a secondhand bookstore. A shaft of light flooded through the west window and glinted off the golden cross and candlesticks on the altar ahead of them.

  “Oh my,” said Luke. “This is something else.”

  “I was christened in this church,” said Rupert. “So was every generation of my family. It’s actually part of the Claydon House estate. My family was too poor to have its own church—”

  “You gotta be kidding,” said Luke.

  “Well. More likely too mean,” acknowledged Rupert. “This church was originally adopted by the Verney family. They’ve been in Middle Claydon since the sixteen hundreds—”

  “Wow,” said Luke. “I guess that beats you guys.”

  “Oh yes. The Pendley-Evanses are new money by comparison. My many greats grandfather made his fortune from slavery in the eighteenth century. He bought the farm, I guess, to try to gain respectability.”

  “No shit?” said Luke. “What’s it like to be the descendant of a man who exploited my ancestors?”

  Rupert shrugged. “Not great. But there’s not a lot I can do about it. By contrast, the Verneys were good people. I’ll show you.”

  He closed the door behind him and led Luke down the central aisle of the church. They walked past rows of wooden pews until they reached one near the front. Rupert stopped and invited Luke to sit. Rupert sat alongside him and pointed to a plaque fixed to the pew opposite.

  “That’s where Lady Verney would have sat with her husband, Sir Henry Verney. He was a liberal Member of Parliament for this area in Victorian times. And alongside them would sit Lady Verney’s sister, Florence Nightingale.”

  “You mean the Lady with the Lamp?” asked Luke. “No way.”

  “That’s right. The founder of modern nursing and the Red Cross was a regular here.”

  “Is it true she was gay?” asked Luke.

  Again, Rupert looked at Luke with astonishment. “Your history’s amazing.” He leaned back against the pew. “It’s difficult to say. Lesbians didn’t officially exist in Victorian Britain. The Victorians refused to believe a woman could love another woman. But in Florence’s writings, people say she made it pretty clear she loved women.”

  Luke put his arm around Rupert’s neck. Rupert turned, and Luke kissed him slowly on the lips. “Thank you, Rupert,” he said. “This is just so perfect. I really don’t want this to end.”

  “And it doesn’t have to,” said Rupert. He kissed Luke again.

  “There you are, darlings,” said a voice from the front of the church. “Are you boys having a nice time?”

  “Oh bloody hell,” Rupert gasped. “Mother must be here with the flower committee.”

  Luke followed his glance to the altar. Rupert’s mother had brought in a large armful of flowers and placed them on the floor. Rupert stood up and stepped into the aisle of the church.

  “Come on,” he whispered to Luke. “I really don’t want to stick around.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that,” Luke whispered back. “She’s just being friendly.”

  “I’ll just finish arranging these,” said Lady Pendley-Evans in a loud voice. “Then we can walk back together.”

  “No way,” Rupert hissed in a low voice.

  “Don’t be so mean to her,” Luke said. “She’s trying real hard to be friendly.” But Rupert ignored him and stalked back down the aisle of the church.

  Lady Pendley-Evans looked up when the main door slammed shut.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “Rupert’s in an awful hurry again. Luke, darling. Could you possibly give me a hand with these? The vases are terribly heavy.”

  Luke stood and joined her by the altar.

  “You know,” said Lady Pendley-Evans. “Rupert is being most awfully silly about all this. I’ve watched you two today. Rupert’s the happiest I’ve seen him for years.” She turned to Luke and fixed him with a clear, unblinking gaze. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to my son in a long time.”

  Luke was taken aback. He had not expected to hear this from Rupert’s mother.

  “Lady Pendley-Evans—” he began.

  “Please call me Cynthia. We really don’t need to be so formal.”

  “Cynthia,” Luke corrected himself. “Rupert thinks you don’t approve of him for—”

  “Being gay?” asked Cynthia. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Like all mothers, I just want my son to be happy. Rupert�
�s father and I took a dim view of his gallivanting around, sowing his wild oats hither and thither. But maybe you can finally bring some common sense and stability into his life.”

  Luke laughed. “Gee, I never thought I’d hear myself being described as someone who could bring common sense—”

  “Why on earth not?” interrupted Cynthia. “You seem like a sensible fellow. Rupert needs to settle down.”

  “But Rupert was angry because you didn’t want us to sleep together in the house last night—”

  “Oh, what a lot of nonsense.” Cynthia’s laugh was hearty and deep, like a man’s. “I remember when Clarence and I were courting. The last thing we wanted was to sleep in the big house with his ghastly parents. What if they’d heard us having rumpy-pumpy?”

  Luke could not believe his ears.

  “Don’t look so surprised, young man,” said Cynthia. “We might be dried up old prunes now, but Clarence and I could go all night in our younger days. We always stayed in the old cottage. So much more sensible. Clarence is awfully noisy in the bedroom department. That’s why I put you two down there rather than in Rupert’s room.”

  She knelt to pick up a long iris stem and began to strip leaves from the lower part of its stalk. “Now be a dear and fetch me one of those large vases over there.” She peered up at Luke and gave him a knowing look. “We can let Rupert have his little sulk while we have a lovely chat together, can’t we?”

  LUKE RETURNED to the cottage at six thirty that evening. Rupert was in the living room, drying himself with a towel after his shower. His mobile phone was on the mantelpiece, and it played a bluesy rock track. Luke paused to admire the sway of Rupert’s hips as he danced.

  “Hey,” said Luke. “Nice action.”

  Rupert turned. There was a sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have walked out like that. But meeting Mother in the church rather caught me off guard—”