-13-

Jem

"…unbuttoned my breeches,

My prick in full vigour does stand;

Don't be like affected coy bitches,

But lake it while stiff, in your hand."

"Bravo," Cluett called, drumming his hands on the tabletop, as Linfield raised a glass in a salute to himself and his successful rendition of Bumper Allnight's verse. The recital had been in full swing for around twenty minutes, following an irritating game that involved making lewd noises with one's armpits. It was the sort of schoolboy nonsense Jem had indulged in with his cousins when they were barely out of their skeleton suits.

Bell gave dry applause, while Jem found his fingertips curled into his thighs. The evening was progressing about as well as he'd imagined it would when he'd arrived at dinner and noted the absence of the ladies.

Some three bottles of port apiece farther into the evening, Linfield was at his treacherous worst, and Cluett was barely able to put three words together in a comprehensible order.

"Drink up, drink up laddies." Linfield encouraged. Jem rose his glass and took first a sip and then a draft under his host's beady observation. He was already a bottle and a half behind. Even Bell was ahead of him. His lips were stained crimson and the blush in his cadaverous, sunken cheeks was more vibrant than that of a maiden's in a brothel.

"Do you not like my rhyme?" Linfield stalked around the table and put his lips irritatingly close to Jem's ear. The man reeked of sour grapes and desperation. "Must I learn it in Latin to meet your approval, Sir Tutor?

" Meus phallus in vigore stat; vena osculum me et accipe me in manu tua."

Cluett applied his knuckles to the table again. Bell rolled his eyes, while Jem made a show of befuddlement. The man's Latin was atrocious.

He'd felt the man's gaze too viscerally throughout the recital as it was. He didn't require a further agonising rendition, having perfectly understood both the writer and Linfield's intent. The former imagined women as things for men's entertainment, while Linfield attributed Jem the role. Clearly having got his way earlier, his lordship was now convinced of his victory and envisaged them fucking like bunnies in the not-too-distant future. Except Jem was not won over to the cause. His prick shrivelled at the very thought. He had capitulated in one instance to give himself time to navigate himself out of the current dilemma. God dammit, if it weren't for Eliza and what he feared might happen if he left her in this place unprotected, then he'd have taken his chances in the mists already and left both Cedarton and Linfield behind without a backwards glance.

He could scrape by without Linfield's coins in his purse. He was never going to starve. There was always a place for him under his uncle's roof. It just came with expectations of a different variety…namely, his auntie Mary's desire to saddle him with a bride.

Right now, that seemed preferable to staying here. Not to mention that his arse still smarted a little from earlier.

"Should we away to bed?" Linfield purred, like he was already having his prick sucked.

Lord, no. He'd rather stay awake until dawn listening to his compatriots performing one of Beethoven's piano sonatas on their armpit trombones. "Growing old, my lord? We're still some minutes shy of witching hour. Surely we don't need to toddle off yet, or do we need to secure you a bath chair and ear trumpet?"

"Ah, showing your teeth, dog." Linfield slapped Jem on the back, good naturedly, before leaning in uncomfortably close, and snarling. "Watch your tongue, tutor. Recall, I'm acquainted with your weaknesses, and you will spend the night precisely where I bid you to spend it." He straightened and seized up the bottle standing by Jem's glass. "Drink up, you filthy laggards." The rim of the bottle was rudely thrust against Jem's lips. "Down it. Down it. Down the whole damn lot." With Linfield's clawed fingers digging into his shoulder, Jem had little choice but to do as instructed and swallow the syrupy liquid.

The swill sat heavily in his belly and left a musty taste on his tongue, which he tried to remove with the back of his hand, while Linfield set the empty bottle spinning on its side.

"I think it's time for a game, gentlemen."

"If it's cards, you may count me out," Bell remarked.

George deflated at the dismissal, but roused immediately to cry out, "A game of chance."

"No, one of stealth. Do you think you can outwit us, Georgie dear?"

"Easily." The keen fool was already half out of his chair. Stealth! If he could still walk ten paces in a straight line it would be a miracle, but George didn't let that curtail his faith in himself. He straightened himself up, holding onto the table. "What do I have to do?"

"Evade us, of course. We'll have a ghost hunt. You'll play the part, and we'll stalk you. You must look the part, of course."

"A ghost hunt?" George's beady eyes crossed. "I hardly need to play the part, this place is already crawling with them according to your wife."

"Women are such fanciful creatures. Here…"

Linfield had clearly planned in advance, for he gave his man a nod, and the valet produced a woman's nightrail.

"Put your costume on, George."

George pulled the white cloth over his head.

"Not like that, you dolt. Whoever saw a woman with a coat and cravat under her shift?"

"Mercy, my lord," George protested, all fingers and thumbs. He'd managed to poke his head through one of the voluminous sleeves. "The ones I've been acquainted with have worn nowt but stockings and skin beneath. I'll freeze my nads off if I run about this place like that. Your halls are colder than a witch's tit outside of this snug."

"Then you'll have to run swift enough to keep the chill off. You may keep your stockings and shoes."

As if that were any concession.

George grumbled and groaned, but nevertheless stripped off his clothing and donned the nightrail over his birthday suit, while Jem and Bell averted their gazes. Linfield produced a mob-cap for George to pull down over his hair.

"Perfect," he announced.

"And now I suppose you expect us to tear around after him?" Bell gave his eyes a laconic roll. The man could move swiftly enough, when pressed or caught up in a matter that excited him, but he was not the sort for childishness or unnecessary exertion, and he'd endured a deal of the former this evening already.

"That is generally what a hunt entails, Ludlow, my dear fellow. Oblige me, this once, won't you, and I shan't bat an eyelid when you next bring a corpse through my door. Up now. Up, varmints!" Linfield propelled them onto their feet, with a series of gesticulations worthy of an orchestral conductor. "Georgie, get ready. Gentlemen, all is fair game within the bounds of Cedarton's walls. The first to capture the ghost, may claim the victory. George, if you've managed to evade and outwit us by the time the clock strikes one, then…"

"Then?" All three of them prompted in unison. Open-ended agreements weren't something one wanted to agree to, especially with the likes of Linfield, who was a known snake, and couldn't be trusted to play fairly.

"Then the victory is his?"

"That's it?" George grumbled. "No prize other than a pat on the back? I'm foxed, but not foxed enough to risk a chill for less than a guinea apiece."

"I can think of better things to do with my guineas," Jem muttered. In hindsight, he ought to have kept his mouth shut. Protesting only served to make Linfield more determined they would all run around like blind mice to suit his whim. "Ten guineas to the victor."

Dammit, that would mean coughing up over three guineas apiece, money he could do without throwing into George Cluett's pockets. Naturally, George brightened. An avaricious smile snaked across his face, and he started skipping from one foot to the other in readiness. Bell continued to hesitate, which at least served to make Jem's own reluctance less remarkable.

"What's the issue, gentlemen? Afraid you might meet our resident white lady and piddle yourselves with fright?" Linfield gave a raucous, nerve fraying laugh. "She's not real, muttonheads. She's merely a delusion of my wife's. Start running, George. I'm going to start counting now." He did just that, beginning a droning amble towards a hundred that sped as the digits increased. George vanished from sight as the count climbed towards thirty, whereupon both Jem and Bell were obliged to find their feet. The physician positioned himself at the exit that led towards the stairs. Jem hesitated, wondering if it was safer to follow his lead, or flee in the opposite direction. Linfield was already shooting him lascivious looks that spelled his intent out all too plainly.

It was the perfect reason not to linger. If he managed to outpace Linfield far enough at the start of the chase, then he ought to be able to stay out of his grasp for the duration, particularly if he ventured into the parts of the castle that were dank with ruin and best left to fester in peace.

"Ninety-nine, one hundred," Linfield finished.

Jem sprinted for the glass-scattered remains of the former solarium via a circuitous route through the first floor rooms. From that chamber he would be able to circle around the outside of the building, then enter again through the window into the dining room with the dodgy latch. Then… then with luck he'd make it down to Bell's surgery, and from there into the tunnel between the walls where he could hopefully wait out the hour unmolested.

That was assuming Linfield didn't know about the hidden passageway, but even if he did, he had no idea that Jem knew. Hopefully, he'd be busy stalking corridors and looking under beds and inside closets.

The first part of the chase was the most precarious. Unfortunately, George seemed to have had a similar path mapped out, for Jem caught sight of him as he nipped across the entrance hall. The last thing he wanted was to actually catch the man and then endure a second bout of this nonsense, or worse, whatever Linfield's mind conjured next.

He took a right into the Lady's Parlour and hefted open one of the sash windows, then slipped out and lowered himself onto the window ledge below, and thence into the channel that bordered nearly the whole of the property. With the window pulled down once more, hopefully Linfield wouldn't notice it was unlatched. Jem then snuck around to the west facing side of the castle. The mist that had swaddled the property for days still sat heavy on the surrounding moorlands. Coupled with the dark, it made it difficult to scry more than a few feet ahead. Once or twice, he thought he saw lights amid the gloom, or heard the whisper of voices, but he dismissed them as phantoms of the fog. The walls were a certainty, so he stuck to them, making sure to take care when passing any windows.

He slid in through the back entrance onto the boot room, then skirted the servants' quarters to reach the tunnel that lead to Bell's domain.

Would Bell himself be there? Would he find him at his studies, rather than humouring Linfield by chasing around the castle? Would Linfield have struck out in this direction thinking it a likely place to find Jem?

The rooms were blissfully silent as he passed through and slid into the concealed passageway.

Of course, he had not accounted for the lack of a light source, leaving him to navigate the inky darkness by touch alone. He got turned about at the first junction and found himself in a suite of rooms he'd never seen before. Cobwebs hung like sails from the ceiling and black mildew had created a canvas of lurid figures across the whole of one wall. The chamber was sparsely furnished. Jem pulled aside one dust-drape and uncovered a child's rocking horse. Deeper into the chamber sat a replica of the castle, inhabited by a miniature lord and lady, though most of the maids and footmen had been knocked to the floor and trampled. Both a cleaver and flame had been taken to the Lady's Tower so that it stood as soot blackened and damaged as the real tower. He noticed himself then, positioned in his chamber, and Bell in his surgery downstairs, Jane, Eliza and both the Cluetts all positioned just so. Lady Linfield's bed had been burned in the middle, and her dolly's face damaged so the face was melted on one side and her golden hair singed back to her waxen scalp.

He stepped back from the horrid display with a yelp.

What devilry was this? Someone's recreation of the events after the fact, or the place where they had plotted their actions?

Who even knew of this chamber besides him? Linfield claimed to never have set foot inside Cedarton prior to the party's arrival here, but they had only his word for that, and his word was hardly reliable.

What if he truly had come here to enact some dastardly plan to rid himself of his unwanted wife, and not just to avoid the aftermath of that disastrous carriage chase.

If he murdered her, he'd likely get away with it. He'd claim the privilege of the peerage and the House of Lords would acquit him without punishment. They mercilessly honoured their own.

Was Linfield really capable of such villainy? He was a tyrant to be sure, but more mischief than miscreant in Jem's experience. And would he really subject himself to Bell's leeches if he meant to do away with his wife? Her death would rather render the need for a cockstand unnecessary.

But if it was not Linfield behind this ghastliness, then who? And why? Who could possibly wish Lady Linfield such ill? And why create such a rendition of the castle? The rooms were arranged to the last detail, including the deserted area he and Bell had explored hunting for clues as to what Lady Linfield had seen, right down to the mice and the candle left in the middle of that dark painted otherwise empty room. Even this suite tucked away at the rear of the west tower was reconstructed with its cobwebs and replica house.

Perhaps he needed to further question Eliza on her friend's past.

Jem found a candle stub among the detritus, and with a trick for making sparks he'd learned as a child, kindled a flame to light his way through the concealed passageway. He did not attempt to exit the suite via its actual door, being too afraid of finding Linfield on the other side irate over having his secret lair uncovered. Although, in truth it was not a very Linfield sort of room. Cedarton's master was a creature of comfort and privilege. He disliked filth, sneezed over the tiniest bit of dust, and was not overly fond of eight-legged beasties.

Truthfully, Jem was more worried about being found and pressed into some manner of fornication. Much better not to risk it, and to remain out of sight.