Chapter 5: Boiler Room

The boiler room was under the east wing, down fourteen steps, behind a door marked NO ENTRY in a hand three hundred years old.

Cadoc had the key.

He did not say so.

He only stood at the top of the stairs at one in the morning with the key hanging off one finger, and I walked past him and went down.

It was hot as a bread oven.

A great iron boiler ticked and sighed against the far wall, and a thick pipe ran from it across the ceiling and down into the floor.

The pipe glowed dull red at the joints.

I took my jacket off and hung it on a nail, and I did not look back, and I heard the key turn.

"Nothing in the dorm," I said.

"We're not in the dorm," Cadoc said.

"Nothing in daylight."

"It's one in the morning, Treharne."

"Gwyn," I said.

"Gwyn," he said, and I heard what it cost him not to say the other.

He came across the stone floor in his shirtsleeves.

The heat had already put a shine on his throat.

He stopped a foot from me with his hands at his sides, and he waited.

I realised that he was going to do nothing at all until I told him.

I hated how much I liked that.

"You had your hand on my chest in front of three hundred boys," I said.

"I know."

"You held me against a wall like a sack of meal."

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I haven't forgiven it," I said.

"Then I'll earn it," he said.

"You'll start now."

I took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him against me.

He came with a short, rough breath.

His mouth landed on mine, hard and hot, and it tasted of tea and smoke, and I got both hands into his gold hair.

I made a noise I had never made before.

He answered it, deep in his chest, and his hands came up to my face and held it as if I might break.

Then he stopped.

"Gwyn," he said against my lips. "How do you want this?"

"Take this off me."

I pulled at the binding under my shirt.

"Let me," he said.

"No. I'll do it."

I stepped back.

I stripped off my shirt, and I unpicked the pins at the side of the binding with shaking fingers.

I unwound it, round and round, a long strip of grey linen falling to the stone floor in loops.

My breasts came free.

I stood in the red light of the boiler with my arms at my sides.

I let him see the marks the cloth had left, two red lines across my ribs.

Cadoc looked at me and did not say a word.