Title: To Hold a Hidden Pearl
Series: Rossingley, Book One
Author: Fearne Hill
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 05/24/2021
Length: 73500
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, doctors, in the closet, coming out, cross dressing, sexual tension, grieving
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Description
Dr Jay Sorrentino is getting married in ten days’ time to the girl of his dreams, so what the hell is he doing in a gay London club with a stupidly handsome stranger? As if calling off the wedding and alienating his friends and family isn’t enough, Jay also has to contend with starting a new job at a new hospital. So the last thing he needs is for the bloke from the club to be his prickly supervisor.
Dr Lucien Avery is a difficult colleague. He’s also the unexpected and reluctant heir to the vast Rossingley estate. Reclusive and miserable, he hates most of his colleagues, people who eat packed lunches, and supervising junior doctors. That is, until the delectable Dr Sorrentino turns up on his doorstep.
A light-hearted M/M contemporary romance, Rossingley takes place in Southern England and is centred around a fictional country house and estate by the same name. The first in the series, it can be read as a standalone.
To Hold a Hidden Pearl
Fearne Hill © 2021
All Rights Reserved
The curry house is busy, and we are given a table for two near the back. Lucien, with his shock of white hair, killer cheekbones, and tasteful make-up attracts attention, to which he appears utterly oblivious. I’ve decided to stop being so parochial when I’m out with him, so I try to be completely oblivious too. Acutely aware of every set of middle-class suburban eyes on us as we are led to our seats, I’ve still got some way to go to achieve his level of nonchalance. If Lucien weren’t so striking, we’d look like any other gay couple having dinner together, and I’m a lot more comfortable with that notion than I thought I’d be. After ordering a couple of Cobra beers and a pile of poppadum crackers, we settle down.
“So, talk me through the girlfriend thing, Jay. Or should I say ex-fiancée?”
Well, that’s a direct approach. “It’s not good etiquette, Lucien, to discuss previous partners on a first date.”
“I think that as a peer of the realm, I know a teensy bit about etiquette,” he teases. “I have a whole page in Debretts, don’t you know? But tell me about it anyway.”
I need more than one bottle of beer to get through this conversation, but seeing that Lucien has witnessed me absolutely slaughtered twice now in the space of little more than a fortnight, I don’t want him to get the impression I’m a raging alcoholic.
“After my little—what did you call it?—‘extracurricular activity’ in Spangles, I went home the next day and called the wedding off.”
That made it sound a hell of a lot more straightforward than it was.
“Doing…what I did…with you in that club,” I continued, “it clarified what deep inside I already knew but had been trying to ignore for years. There was no way I could go through with the wedding; just the thought of it made me feel ill. And equally as important, it wasn’t fair on Ellie.”
I swallowed down a mouthful of beer, reliving the hellish twenty-four hours that followed my encounter with Lucien in Spangles. Twice I’d stopped the car on the trip back to Allenmouth, convinced I would puke all over myself while I was driving. I’d parked in a layby for what felt like hours, desperately trying to work out how I’d break the news to Ellie.
“We were six days away from getting married, so as you can imagine, calling a halt to the wedding went down like a cup of cold sick. If I have to fucking apologise to everyone one more time, though, I think I shall scream.”
Lucien was a good listener; he hadn’t interrupted once. Another swig of beer. “Since then, my parents have virtually disowned me, her dad and brother have threatened to kill me, and all of my friends, apart from my best man, seem to have deleted me from their contacts. Ellie…well, Ellie is living at the other end of the house. And it’s a very small house.”
“Why are you both still living there? Can’t you go somewhere else?”
It’s a good question. “I’m still there because I can’t afford to move out, rent another place, and manage to pay my half of the bills and mortgage. Ellie initially moved back to her parents’ house for three days and then came back. ‘You’ve done this, you fucker, and I’ll be fucked if I’m the one who fucking moves out’, I think, was her exact rationale.”
“Oh. Gosh.”
I’m getting into my stride now. “Gosh indeed. So, as the current situation stands, I’m a social leper. We’ve put the house on the market, and when it’s sold, she’ll have her share plus all of the money we lost on the wedding. Which is thousands, by the way. And typically, I chose to have my homosexual epiphany during a slump in the housing market, so it looks like we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.”
I fiddle with the label on my beer bottle, and very soon it’s a neat pile of paper strips on the white linen tablecloth. Lucien looks at me thoughtfully.
“Does she think you’ll change your mind? Will she have you back?”
I nod my head resignedly. “Yes to both, I think. She’s devastated. Both of our families are, too, particularly as I haven’t come up with a good explanation for calling it off. They all think I’ve just got cold feet and will come around.”
“Do you love her?” Lucien asked gently.
I shook my head immediately. “No, I don’t. Not as much as I should. I love her as a friend. Which isn’t enough to build the rest of our lives together, is it?”
He smiled, almost sadly. “The only marriage I’ve ever witnessed at close quarters was my parents. Looking back, I realise they were besotted with each other, even after all those years together. So, no, you’re right, I don’t think it is enough.”
Our evening was taking a melancholy turn, which wasn’t my aim at all. “My best man is convinced I’ll come to my senses, that she’ll forgive me, and we’ll all find this episode absolutely hilarious in about twenty years’ time.”
“Jay, darling, you’ve mentioned your best man twice now, and it’s beginning to hurt my feelings. I think you are going to have to start referring to him as your second-best man from now on, don’t you think?”
As he coquettishly flutters his eyelashes at me, I find myself blushing.
“And?” he continues, “Is your second-best man correct? Do you think you will come to your senses?”
“No.”
I shake my head. “My second-best man is not correct. Absolutely not. I’m gay, Lucien, maybe bisexual at a push. And at some point, I’m going to have to explain that to everybody. But not until I’m ready. I’m not ashamed of it or anything, or even wishing I was straight. I just want to come out on my terms, not anyone else’s.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You’re doing it.” I smile back at him. “Being with me. You’re very…um…distracting. My life feels all a bit weird at the moment. Right now, I should be writing thank you letters for wedding presents, not having a prawn jalfrezi with my educational supervisor.”
Lucien frowns slightly. “I’m curious that you’ve reached the grand old age of, what, nearly thirty? Before you’ve worked it out, I mean.”
So we talk about that, too, but there isn’t much to say, apart from that I’ve joined the party at least a decade late. My lack of ability to explain it is as frustrating for me as it will be for anyone to understand when I think the time is right to come out. I can tell he’s quite pleased that my brief encounter with him in the club is the entire extent of my gay sexual experience. As he seeks clarification, I blush even more.
“What, no rumpy pumpy?”
Only Lucien could use the ridiculous euphemism rumpy pumpy and make it sound like the most seductive sexual act ever. Unfortunately, I’m not so silky-tongued.
“No, but I have shagged a couple of girls up the bum,” I qualify unnecessarily.
He guffaws with laughter, splattering beer down his chin. It’s the most inelegant thing I’ve ever seen him do, and it’s a while before he can stop laughing enough to speak. “Gosh, you make it sound terribly romantic, darling.”
“I’m making it sound a lot more romantic that it was.”
He giggles again. “Well, thank you for insightfully establishing your gay credentials, Jay. You make a boy quite dizzy with anticipation.”
Blushing once more, I’m rescued by the arrival of our poppadum crackers, and I make short work of mine while he breaks his carefully into smaller pieces.
“Have you ever, you know, done it with a girl, Lucien?”
“Gosh, yes, plenty of times,” he replies, surprising me. “I had quite a few girlfriends when I was younger. I suppose I swung both ways for a while. I even had a vaguely serious relationship with one for a year when I was at university.”
“Oh really? What happened?”
“She found me and her brother playing hide the soap in the shower one day. We sort of drifted apart after that.”
He holds up a piece of his poppadum. “What shaped country is that?”
The cracker is broken into a sort of lumpy, squarish shape.
“I don’t know, er…Germany?”
“No, silly, it’s Spain.” He dips it in the little pot of mango chutney and passes it to me. “You have to eat it if you get the answer wrong.”
He concentrates on nibbling the edges of another piece before holding it up. “Which country?”
This piece is bigger and mostly triangular.
“Ooh, I know this one. It’s India.”
“Nope,” he replies with satisfaction, dipping it again and putting it in my hand. “Eat up. It’s clearly too narrow to be India; it’s Argentina.”
The third country is Venezuela, the next Chad. Kazakhstan is after that.
“I’m not going to get any of these right, am I?” I say, smiling at him. I’ve polished off most of the poppadums. I’m not sure he’s eaten anything.
“Probably not.” He grins mischievously and holds another piece up. It’s tiny, but I’ll be damned if it’s not a perfect replica of Wales.
“Hah! I’m so right with this one. It’s Wales,” I say triumphantly.
“Don’t be silly,” he tuts. “It’s way too small! Anyone can see that’s Lichtenstein.” After dipping it in the remainder of the chutney, he puts it in my hand, which is resting on the table between us. “Gosh, sorry, I’ve made your fingers all sticky.”
And with that, he brings my hand to his mouth and sucks each sticky finger, one at a time, very gently. I’m utterly paralysed, unable to drag my eyes away from the wet tip of his pink tongue, licking and nibbling all the sweet gluey chutney off my bloody fingers. Compilers of anatomy textbooks have made a big error, a huge omission, as only now am I learning of the existence of a nerve travelling directly from the fingertips to the penis. A nerve I’ve never seen described, ever, but must exist, because him sucking on my fingers is making me rock hard under the table. If I’m still capable of coherent thought after this evening, I’ll write it up in a medical journal: the lesser-known ‘penodigital’ nerve.
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Fearne Hill lives deep in the southern British countryside with three untamed sons, varying numbers of hens, a few tortoises, and a beautiful cocker spaniel.
When she is not overseeing her small menagerie, she enjoys writing contemporary romantic fiction. And when she is not doing either of those things, she works as an anaesthesiologist.
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