-15-

Eliza

"Jane. Thank the Lord, you're awake. I was starting to think you'd never open your eyes again."

Dawn had arrived and passed. The morning was swaddled in mist again, the mullioned windows blanketed in yet more drizzle. Eliza had slept fitfully in the chair, though she'd turned to the wardrobe smiling each time she'd woke and clenched her inner muscles. The sensation of being stretched by Jem's fingers lingered long after he'd departed.

"It'll raise suspicions if I'm missing too long," he said, recalling to her the fact he was midway through a game of hide and seek with Linfield and his fellow guests when she'd tried to coax him to stay and let her have her wicked way with him. His cock had been standing ramrod stiff behind the placket of his breeches, and she'd found it near impossible not to reach for it, to run her fingers over it, and rub it.

Jane blinked rheumily at her but struggled into a sitting position. "How long have I slept?" she asked, as Eliza fussed and plumped the pillows behind her. She gave a rather extravagant yawn.

"A whole day and then some." Eliza smoothed the covers over her friend's lap, then perched on the side of the bed. "Doctor Bell gave you some drops. Do you recall any of what happened before that?"

Jane frowned at her so that furrows appeared in her usually unlined brow. "My head is so thick I can almost taste the wool in my thoughts. I'm not sure."

"You don't recall what you saw on the second-floor corridor?"

Her friend's expression further clouded. "I don't," she said after a moment's consideration. "At least I don't think I do. What did I see? Not Lady Cedarton's gho—Wait!" She gave a sudden sniff. "Whatever is burning? Can you smell smoke? Eliza, is that fire? Is something… the castle alight?"

"Rest easy, friend. That drama is over. There was—there was an incident while you were resting, but no one was hurt. Only furnishings were damaged, specifically, your bed. That is why you are in mine."

She watched Jane turn her head to look around her, taking in her surroundings. Her frown deepened, and her jaw worked as though she was chewing over the problem. "I think you had better tell me all that I have missed, for it seems to be rather a lot."

"I'm not sure it's wise to overtax your mind at present. You've only just woken."

"Eliza Wakefield, if you will not tell me, then I shall summon Mrs Honeyfield and compel her to talk. What in heaven's name has gone on?"

Eliza clasped her hand and explained both about the ghostly figure and the burning bed with as little drama as possible so as not to excite Jane's nerves. Her friend listened intently, with hardly an interruption. When the tale was told, she put her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook. "Jane?" Eliza reached for her in alarm, intending to swaddle her in an embrace, but Jane lifted her head, and Eliza realised that she was laughing.

Admittedly, it was a dry, hysterical sort of laugh. "What a hideous mountain of nonsense I've got myself ravelled in," she declared, "And all because of one foolish, foolish mistake." She pulled one of the pillows out from behind her back and beat her fist into it. "I never wanted to marry Linfield, Eliza. In any other circumstances I would not have, but my situation left me with little choice."

"What situation? Whatever do you mean, Jane?"

Jane opened her mouth, failed to speak, choked, and set her fist to her lips.

"Now, now," Eliza soothed, muttering comforting inanities, while attempting to brush Jane's hair back from her damp brow.

"You don't understand, and I should not tell you this, because you will think very ill of me indeed, but—" She clasped tight Eliza's hand and only mouthed her next words. "I'm increasing."

Eliza frowned. She pried her hand loose from Jane's overtight grip. "I don't understand. How is that possible? I don't mean… What I mean is, how? You said you and Lord Linfield hadn't consummated the marriage yet." Realisation struck the moment she'd spoken the words aloud. "Ah! That is why you are in such a pickle over his failure to bed you. You need him to believe it is his."

"You see. Now you think me monstrous," Jane wailed. She scrubbed at her face, as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. "I know… I know it is dishonest of me. You mustn't think I don't know my own deceitfulness, but…. Oh, Eliza. I didn't know what else to do. My parents are unaware. They negotiated the marriage with the earl and presented it to me as the greatest of triumphs. I don't suppose they gave any thought at all to Linfield's reputation, only to how it would elevate us in the eyes of society. There was no possibly way I could refuse, especially when it seemed such an obvious way out of a terrible pickle."

In Eliza's mind a pickle was something of a trivial nature, which could hardly describe the current situation.

"Jane, you need to tell me what happened. Were you attacked? Forced? Is this why you left Scarborough in such haste? I thought there must have been something, after all you had said about loving it there. And who knows? Someone one must know."

Jane hid her face again. "The situation is entirely born of my own folly. I was blind, duped… Understand, that I loved him, Eliza. Utterly. Devotedly. Even now, I cannot look back on that time and regret a single moment of it."

"Did he make you promises?"

Jane swiftly shook her head. "He did not, but I was certain he would ask for me. How na?ve I was. He never intended such a thing. Nor was it in his provenance to do such a thing."

Little by little a picture was building in Eliza's head. "He has a wife already?"

Jane, sniffling into her sleeve, looked up and nodded. "I'm so ashamed. He thought from the outset that I was a wanton. And it is true. I was all too willing to give myself to him."

Eliza found herself blushing, thinking back to all the things she'd said to Jem just a short time ago. If there was a wanton among them, then she deserved the title as much as Jane, perhaps doubly so, for she had been forthright about the fulfilment of her desire, while being equally dismissive of the notion of matrimony.

"You are quiet," Jane said. "You believe it too, as does Linfield. It is why he will not lie with me. Is it something about my aspect that announces it? I confess, I was horribly enamoured of tupping. It's so… so utterly distracting. I suppose the sin must show on my face."

All Eliza could do was shake her head. "Yours is a lovely face, Jane. I have never once looked at you and seen a single trace of sin about you."

"You are a dear," Jane replied mutinously, clearly unwilling to believe herself anything other than monstrously disfigured. "But perhaps it is only that you are so good yourself that you cannot discern such things in others. Linfield sees it. I cannot rid myself of his disgust. It clings to me. He was appalled by every aspect of my person. He would not look at my breasts, was utterly horrified that I was in anyway eager for the coupling."

"Yet, he is no saint to judge you."

"Things are different for men."

"Only because we allow them to be. I am quite certain nothing you have done prompted his revulsion, rather some flaw of his."

Jane remained unpersuaded, shaking her head so vigorously she was sure to give herself a headache. "I cannot erase his disgust from my mind. Truly, I think he detests me."

Eliza resorted to biting her lip. Based on what she had witnessed, it was difficult to refute that notion. He'd shown the least concern of any of them over Jane's safety and had been all too eager to have Bell dose her with laudanum.

"To think, I intended to wait naked for him in his bed. What madness persuaded me that was the best course of action? I can see now it would have been utter folly. It is no wonder that Lady Cedarton appeared to thwart me. I'm not a worthy mistress of this house."

"Jane, you are being overdramatic. I'm certain that there's a plain explanation for what you saw, which I'm quite certain was no phantasm. It seems rather there is someone here who means you ill."

This surprisingly stilled Jane's tears. "Whatever do you mean?"

"That you are being targeted. The sightings, the fire… Someone means to scare you out of your wits, or worse."

"But why? Unless they know." She pressed her hand to her stomach. "How could they? I've told no one besides you, and I've taken every care to disguise it. Besides, 'tis not as if anyone else knows that he hasn't performed his duty. Whoever heard of a man reluctant to bed his bride?"

"Someone must know. A maid. Your lover."

Jane shook her head even more vigorously. "I've bled. I've made sure of it. Mrs Honeyfield has even commented on it, since it's been her job to see to sending out the laundry until we can take on more servants. I think she meant to be kind. 'Tis everyone's assumption that a newlywed woman is consumed with the task of producing a brood. As for him… He would not tell anyone. It would lessen his standing to admit he'd sired a by-blow. Besides, I doubt he even knows that I am wed."

"Well, someone means you harm, and if it isn't to do with your—" Eliza inclined her head towards Jane's midriff. "Then what is behind it?"

"Have you a theory?" Jane asked, clasping her hands into her lap, precisely as she'd done when they'd been schoolgirls together at the start of whatever philosophising Eliza had been about to embark on.

"I don't know that you're taking this entirely seriously. Jane, you were almost burned alive, and you are the only one besides the maid who left who has seen the ghost."

"It's not that I mean to be flippant, it's just all so preposterous, it's difficult to be serious. And Eliza, we are so pitifully few here, do you really mean to imply that one of my guests wishes for my death? Whatever motive do you prescribe them?"

That was the part that truly had her stumped. The Cluetts were gossips, but not malicious as such. Although she had witnessed that exchange between George and Lord Linfield in the library. Perhaps if she could get a glimpse of that paper they'd fought over, it might shed some light, though she hardly saw how. Jane's death wouldn't benefit them in any case. As for the rest of their party, Doctor Bell and Jem were both employed by Lord Linfield. She trusted Jem implicitly, and Bell had no obvious motive. As for Linfield himself…did he truly despise his wife that much? What would her death possibly gain him? Jane's possessions, her very body were already his to do with as he pleased.

"Perhaps he has a mistress," Jane mused.

"Here? Right now, at Cedarton? Wherever do you imagine he's hiding her?"

"Oh, you! I was only speculating aloud. However, would it not explain so much? What's not to say the ghost I saw was in fact his mistress?"

"I would say that this is not a novel by Mrs Radcliffe." Although to be fair, it was becoming almost as far-fetched as one.

"And yet you cannot entirely dismiss the notion. I was almost burned to death in my own bed while drugged into an opium stupor, we are entirely isolated by the fog, and you at least believe my husband a villain."

"I think your mind's addled by the ludicrous dose of opiates Bell gave you," Eliza huffed. "I never once said he was a villain."

"But he is your primary suspect, or is it Bell? I'm confused. Perhaps they're in coalition?"

"Jane, I neither said nor implied—"

Her friend's impish smile lit up her whole face. "You didn't not say it, either. Nor do you entirely deny the possibility."

"It is true that Bell left breakfast with the express intention of going straight up to see you, but he was not here whence I arrived." She would have to check with Edith and Mrs Honeyfield to see if he had been and gone. "I suppose that might be construed as suspicious."

"Perhaps he required something from his rooms first?"

"No—I would have seen him. I went down there right after he left to come up to you to make Mrs Honeyfield the remedy I'd promised her."

"How is she today, do you know? Toothache is quite the worst."

"Not entirely the worst," Eliza muttered. She'd had it from enough to believe it that there was at least one thing worse, and probably a good many if she were to really compile a list.

"I'm going to rise now," Jane insisted, casting back the covers. "If there's a rotter about, then I'll at least face them with my stockings on." She was most of the way through dressing, Eliza serving as her maid, to assist her with the pinning of her bib-fronted bodice when she suddenly went rigidly stiff.

"You don't think he's bedding the maid, do you? And that she's some notion that if she removes me then he'll be entirely free to dote on her?"

"Jane." Eliza dismissed the notion immediately. It wasn't even worthy of speculation. "Linfield's a snob. Do you really think he'd lower himself to—?"

"I think he might take what he figured he was entitled to. He's a reputation as a wretch, after all."

"He's a reputation for wild escapades involving wheeled vehicles, and drunken behaviour, not as a whoremonger. Besides, he has a willing bride all too ready to tup him any time or in way he might choose, but he's not showing any appetite for it. So, no, I don't think he has a mistress. In fact, I think he lacks the sort of urges—"

"Oh…oh," Jane frantically tapped Eliza's forearm interrupting her. Then squeezed it so tight it left a mark. "What if it's Henrietta?"

Eliza laughed, but found her mirth faded quickly. "You think Henrietta is his mistress?"

Jane replied in hushed tones. "Well don't you find it odd that a gentleman brought his mother along to a house party? It's not that sort of house party. There are no young women here seeking husbands. There's no one for her to talk to, or chaperone. It's entirely odd."

"Yes, but his bosom friend's mother!"

"Perhaps he prefers older women? Perhaps she has it in for me? Maybe she expected to be his viscountess, and our marriage has robbed her of that. It was all arranged quite without our input, negotiated between my father and the earl. It would explain Linfield's behaviour too. Why he's so loath to bed me and being so mutinous in general."

As explanations went, it was far-fetched, but no more implausible than any other. Agitated by the course of her thoughts, Jane proceeded to march back and forth worrying the sides of her frock.

"We should take tea with her, don't you think?"

"That depends. You don't mean to ask her outright if she's your husband's mistress, do you, Jane?" Like many of the meek creatures Eliza had encountered, when cornered and roused, Jane could be decidedly plainspoken and vicious. But this was not the moment for candour.

"Gracious heavens, no. I think I can manage more subtlety than that. But I shall talk to her of Linfield, and we will see where that leads. One thing I have observed is that once Henrietta sets off, she goes on and on for as long as you've a mind to listen to her."

"Perhaps she might know what happened in town that prompted Linfield's exodus to the countryside too?"

"Exactly. I would like to know that too."

And what her son and their host had fought so violently over the night afore last.

Jane rang the bell, and by and by a maid arrived. It was not Edith but Betsy. "Please ask Mrs Cluett to join us for tea in the drawing room. We'll go down there now."

Curiously, the maid's face brightened at this announcement. "Reet away, me lady," she agreed and took herself off swifter than Eliza had previously imagined her capable.