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Jem

As Jem digested the scene before him, he heartily wished that he'd remained below stairs in Bell's surgery, Eliza in his arms and his experiment bubbling away in the background, for it took only moments of listening to Linfield and George shouting into one another's faces to establish the facts of what had occurred.

He had wondered over Mrs Cluett's inclusion in their numbers. The answer now was delivered without preamble. The lady was present as she had no other place to go, George having thrown the deeds of her abode into the pot as his stakes for that disastrous carriage race. George, naturally, had a scheme in play to rectify his loss. Meanwhile, his mother had plans of her own to restore their property, and Jem couldn't even be sorry about her attempt. If it had worked, then it would have absolved him of the martyrdom currently in his future. As it was, the billiards room and much of the entry hall stood wrecked, pictures and vases smashed, and billiard balls scattered about the place as though lawn bowls were being played.

"You had no right, George. Nor have you any to interfere now. I earned that property on my back, and if it pleases me to restore it to my ownership in the same manner, then it is no business of yours."

Henrietta in her fury was certainly a sight to behold, puffed up and red in the face. If he was not mistaken, her accent had taken on different inflections too, betraying perhaps the area of her birth. It was neither local nor London born.

George was not heeding his mother's calls; despite the fact she was simultaneously hanging onto his arm while batting him with her reticule. No, his focus was all on his former bosom companion, who had yet to exhaust the supply of billiard balls and was still pitching them at George's head, displaying considerable skill in the process. Evidently, he'd have made a fine cricketer if his passion had not been subsumed by carriage racing.

"What manner of scoundrel preys on a fellow's mother?"

Linfield, his floss-like hair springing out from his head in hereto unprecedented fluffiness, was reared in spiteful glory, his shoulders back, chest out, and a hopelessly malevolent sneer on his aristocrat lips. "What manner of fool gambles his mater's bed out from under her? I, in my benevolence as your friend, was assisting in righting your wrongs, providing the lady with an opportunity to rectify your mistakes."

"You are the one responsible for her situation. You need not have called in the debt."

"George, if I choose to work—"

"Mother!" He shook her off and made a futile attempt to waft her from the room, succeeding only in propelling her as far as a chair. This she perched on like a turtle dove, all plump elegance and not an ounce of remorse about her. George turned from her and made a spring for Linfield's throat. Clearly, not having expected things to progress quite so rapidly, he succeeded in knocking Linfield off his lordly feet with a blow to the chin that sent him careening backwards into an ancient and rather rusted suit of armour. Both mail and master crashed noisily to the floor, while George swung his foot back to deliver a boot to Linfield's arse, only to be stopped by his mother's shriek.

Henrietta had lost all her studied congeniality and harkened at him like a fish wife—or at least fisherman's daughter. "For goodness sakes, George, pull yourself together. Are you trying to have us banished from polite society forever, not to mention turned out into this godforsaken wilderness that surrounds us? We have no place to go, and no money, thanks to your efforts. You should be licking his arse, not trying to ram your foot up it. I kept you out of my business when you were small, but I do sometimes wonder if that was the right course. You'd have a better head on your shoulders if you'd been an apprentice of ill fortune as I was, rather than that of the pampered toff you aspire to be. I should never had sent you to that ridiculous establishment. What did they teach you save ciphering and sums you could have picked up at Sunday school? And all for an exorbitant fee. It has left you with neither brains nor brawn to speak of, nor the wherewithal to even woo yourself one of the scores of widows with more money than teeth to keep us flush. You are truly hopeless. A failure. At least if I'd kept you with me, you'd know when being prepared to get on your knees and open your mouth was to your net advantage, instead of being the overstuffed buffoon that you are. All this mither and mayhem you've created, and for what? For one measly suck that would have saved our fortunes."

At this point, she sniffed, and turned imperiously to Lord Linfield, whom Bell had had the presence to assist to his feet. He was sporting a rather long gash to his cheek, at which he was dabbing gently with a fresh handkerchief, also supplied by Bell.

"My lord, I hope you will excuse my dimwit of a son. The offer remains, perhaps we could retire elsewhere and—"

"Mother, I am not about to let you—"

"Let me, George?" Oh, she was terrifying in her ire. Terrifying and magnificent. On her feet again and spitting like a swan. "There is no letting me about it, George Hector Cluett. You are not my master. If it pleases me to suck the knob of every goldfinch you know to better our lot, then I will do it. I'll spread my legs too, if it pleases, but as it happens, a suck would have done. The deeds, George, the ones you lost. They'd have been mine if not for your interfering and Jane and her ghastly howling. And all for the price of one paltry spending. I gave you one simple task. One. To ensure the maid stayed at her making, but you could not even handle that. I did not realise it was so damnably difficult to turn a key in a lock."

She sank again, into a disconsolate rage and scowled into her handkerchief. Jem could not precisely ascertain if she was truly overwrought or simply making a good display of it. Linfield remained unmoved by the display. His lips pinched into a sour glout, which served to make his thin nose more pointed and his voice emerge reedy. "I will not retire elsewhere with you, madam. In fact, I think it best if you and your son leave this house."

Henrietta wailed. "Fool. See what you've done."

George pulled his shoulders back. "What you have done, mother. It was not necessary to debase yourself. I have things in hand. We will not be leaving." He turned his attention back to Linfield. "My lord forgets something."

"You will leave," Linfield insisted.

"Truly? That is your final edict on the matter?" George speculatively cocked a brow.

Interestingly, Linfield quailed. "You wouldn't."

George responded with a sly " Hm" , whereupon he licked his lips.

Linfield pitched another ball at his head. It arched wide, struck the wainscotting and dropped to the ground with a thud.

"Should we retire to your study to negotiate, Eustace, or would you prefer all these souls be privy to the matter?"

After a moment of mincing vacillation, Linfield mutinously charged past George with his head held high and a bitter sneer on his narrow lips. Cluett swung at once to follow him, and the two disappeared into the west wing, presumably to negotiate matters in a manner satisfactory to them both. Henrietta watched them leave with a calculating expression, if ever Jem had seen one.

"Well, I suppose it saves me the bother," she muttered. "It wasn't as if he was readily upstanding."

She was speaking to herself rather than them, but her utterance still sent Jem into gloom. If one experienced in the arts of pleasure could not get Linfield to rise, then it was unlikely Linfield would be upstanding even after partaking of the laughing gas. The frightening possibility of his lordship hauling Jem directly into his wife's boudoir loomed larger.

That was assuming this afternoon's activities hadn't put a blight on the whole notion of fornicating. Jane would hardly be receptive to Linfield's advances after catching him with his breeches down and one of their guests sucking on his knob.

Henrietta left a moment later. Jem turned to Bell and found the cadaver carver arranging the suit of mail on the floor. "What just happened?" he asked.

Ludlow gave him a bony shrug. "Damned if I know, but it may have bought you a reprieve for a night or two. Be thankful for that and don't question it. I'm sure your mind is better applied to other matters."

On both points, that remained to be seen. It was equally likely that Linfield would use the discord as an excuse to hasten matters. He liked nothing better than to fuck after a bout of drama. As to the application of his brain, he wasn't of a mood to fathom equations, and there was hardly a rush to do so since he would have no time to apply himself to building his puffing devil until Linfield had passed the Oxford exam.

"Pass me that cuisse," Bell waved him at a piece of the fallen knight, which Jem dutifully retrieved. They spent the next half hour or so reassembling the metal skeleton on its stand. At the end of which, Bell remarked, "You're playing with fire, dallying with that lass, and before you mutter anything nonsensical about love and future commitments, I'll remind you of your current circumstances."

Of those Jem remained painfully aware.

"I'll also thank you not to use my surgery as your trysting place. If he discovers you, there'll be hell to pay, and I don't intend to be tangled up in your folly. He might be as thick as clarts, but his patronage is well worth the bother of tolerating his whims. Perhaps you ought to remind yourself of that."

He reminded himself upwards of a dozen times a day. "Being coerced into acts I find distasteful rather puts a blight on things."

"You did not always find them so distasteful," Bell correctly observed.

The knight properly restored to the stand, they both ambled towards the basement surgery again.

"There was something in it for both of us at the start." Escapism, primarily, but it'd been something. "That is no longer the case. He has me cornered, Ludlow. I can wish it otherwise, but it is not. These events of this afternoon will not have changed a thing. Henrietta's testament reached my ears even if it didn't reach yours. She couldn't get a rise out of him. Thus, he will destroy whatever future I imagine, whether it was ever anything more than idle fancy or otherwise." Only when Bell's brows almost vanished under his wig did he add, "She'll not want me after she hears of me buggering him in her devoted friend's marriage bed."

His friend's naturally stern face softened around the eyes. "True enough. He has you by the bollocks. I suppose he has threatened to ruin her if you don't comply."

"Ha, it is almost as if you know the man."

They both of them shook their heads.

"What he lacks in genuine intelligence he makes up for in raw cunning and cruelty," Bell expanded. "'Tis a pity there is no examination for that, for he would excel, and the earl would be delighted to learn his son is in fact a wit and not a twit."

Jem laughed despite the churning in his guts. He supposed black humour was what he ought to expect from a fellow who cut up bodies for fun.

"I could share my collection of pickled scrotums with you to lift your spirits if you like."

Jem pinched the base of his nose. Bell was an odd fellow, but he was learning to appreciate him. "I pray you jest."

Bell treated him to a rictus grin in return, leaving him still in doubt.

"I think I will spare myself the joy, though I will come and attend to the gases I have bubbling. I think there is probably more than enough now to send every person in the place into raptures."

"Then I will attend my leeches. I've a batch newly hatched this morning, and eager for a meal."

"Well don't look at me."

"No?" Bell flashed him another of those death grins. "Very well, I will ask Cook for some liver. Anon." He turned to the kitchen, leaving Jem to trudge back along the rat-run alone.