Temptation ~ The second novelette from "Different Desire", a Gay Victorian Romance and Erotic novelette collection

he had been mistaken. Although, in the end, Oliver realized that it was not really perhaps only Adam that he missed, if he was being perfectly honest to himself. It was not even the stolen nights when he climbed the college wall, mortally afraid of getting caught by the night watch , to meet Adam in his coll e ge room for a sinful night together. And it was not even what they did together in Adam’s narrow student bed that had never been designed for two people.
    It was the emptiness of not having someone to lie close to. Or listening to his heartbeat as his lover fell asleep. And the fragile feeling of being loved, if only just a little.
    Oliver allowed himself to drift away in the bittersweet memory, when the table clock on top of the Bombe commode suddenly chimed and brought him hastily back to reality. Half past eight? Already? Oliver thought. That is odd. Now where was Winston?
    The day before they had – after a lot of grumbling from Win ston’s side – completed a list of subjects that Winston needed to focus on the most , and they had agreed to meet at eight o’clock to start their morning lessons. There must have been a misunderstanding. Perhaps Winston had thought we were to meet at nine o’clock? Oh, well. There is nothing else to do about it than to go and find him, Oliver reasoned. Slightly irritated, he left the parlour room.
    He meant to set a firm example to his unorganized student , and there was no need to let Winston get away with being late on their first day.
     
    *
     
    After asking for directions from one of the housemaids, a rather shy girl who did not dare to meet his eyes and who spoke in nearly a whisper, Oliver went down to the morning room where he assumed that he would find Winston.
    However, when Oliver entered the morning room, he only found Lord Henley , who sat at the end of a long table , waiting for his tea to be refilled by the silent butler next to him. A row of portraits of the former v iscounts and other members of the Henley family decorated both sides of the long walls of the room , and the fir e by the fireplace had been lit, although it was summer.
    “Excuse me, sir. I mean , my lord, but do you know where Mr Henley is?” Oliver said before he managed to stop himself. He was not sure who managed to frown the hardest at him, the butler or the viscount, but it nearly caused him to take a couple of steps backwards , and he regretted speaking at all. Even the painted portraits on the walls seemed to frown at him.
    “I believe, Mr Sanders, ” Lord Henley said coldly and pronounced his name slowly as if he was trying to remember just exactly w hy he had hired him in the first place. “That if my son is not here, then he is presumabl y still in bed . ”
    “I-I see,” Oliver stutt ered.
    “Should you not have lessons by now?” Lord Henley enquired with an arched eyebrow.
    “Y- y es. Of course. There … there has been a misunderstanding!” Oliver said and added with a touch of desperation. “I will go an d find him straight away!”
    “I think you better do,” Lord Henley encouraged him icily , and his butler ’s unfriendly gaze told Oliver to stop pestering his master at breakfast.
    “I-I shall. I will. Thank you, my lord,” Oliver said. He bowed and hastily left the room.
     
    *
     
    “Mr Henley!” Oliver said loudly and once again knocked on the sturdy door to Winston’s room. “Mr Henley, are you in there? You are late for our lesson!”
    He rapped harder on the door and was rewarded by some kind of unidentified, muffled sound from within that could either belong to Winston or a stressed and suffocating animal.
    Encouraged by the sound from the other side of the door, Oliver boldly opened it and entered the room. If he had to , he would drag his student out of bed, Oliver had decided on his way to Winston’s room. A small part of his mind told him that he should not enter another man’s bedchamber, but Oliver paid no notice to it. He would do anything in his power to get his student to collaborate with him, however unwillin g and reluctant Winston would prove to be. The opportunity to research the Wycliffe Castle old library would most likely never come again, and now , after Oliver had seen the book collection , he was determined to stay.
    There are no limits to desperation, Oliver decided and promptly walked over to the windows , and without mercy or even a second glance towards the massive four-poster bed , he swiftly pulled the thick, dark