-22-

Eliza

Her agitation was too great for Eliza to remain to hear out the remainder of Jane and Linfield's discourse. She slipped from the little room via the other exit, and thus back through the various rooms and chambers she and Jane had passed through to avoid the hallway. Her mind was awhirl, and no doubt Jane would need her. She would wish to discuss this development, for Eliza to state opinions, and alleviate her mind. To say, yes, I've heard tell of such a thing, it's nothing to be alarmed by. Not that it would matter either way. Jane would not refuse Linfield's demands, no matter how strange or unconventional they were. She would go along with practically anything at this point to ensure, rightly or wrongly, that Linfield believed the child she was carrying to be his.

Eliza, though… She could not find any bright sparks in this request. Indeed, she wished she could cut what she'd overheard from her memory. She'd been so sure of Jem's affections. So certain of him. Surely it was not possible that Linfield had concocted this plan without Jem's accord. Linfield would not tell Jane he intended to bring another man into their bed without the other fellow being aware of and amenable to the prospect.

Would he?

The obvious thing to do was to seek Jem out and ask him straight out what he knew of the matter. Yet, how would she even broach the topic?

Jem, I've overheard the most curious thing. Linfield and Jane were talking, and I'm not rightly sure how to even ask this, but is it true you are to attend him while he…while he tups his wife?

How would she compose herself if he said yes? Would he even be truthful about the matter? How could she trust anything he said?

Jem, damn you, why would you agree to such a thing?

He was no licentious rakehell. Not the sort to thrive on merriment and mayhem. Unless her judgement of him was seriously awry. Had she misread the signs?

She was not sure where she would find him. Perhaps in Doctor Bell's surgery again. Yet she shied from returning there, and her feet took her upstairs instead, along corridors, and through deserted rooms, until she stumbled on a narrow spiral staircase within a spindly tower. This she followed to a hexagonal room at its summit, where she found George on a narrow balcony overlooking the misty world beyond Cedarton's borders.

"Miss Wakefield," he greeted her, raising a bottle, of what she surmised to be port from the stains on his lips, in her direction.

"Sir, I did not realise the room was occupied."

"Aye, and I suppose my company is too distasteful to contemplate. Might tarnish your reputation, being seen to associate with the son of a whore, but I'll not be leaving. His chit can rattle and squawk all she wishes; Linfield knows the stakes."

And what were they, she couldn't help but wonder? Exposure, of some sort? The proliferation of rumours?

George grinned at her and patted his pocket.

"Staying, are ye?" George seemed as surprised as her that she hadn't already about turned, but having climbed the stairs, and now felt the breeze on her face, Eliza was in no hurry to flee. Besides, she wanted answers, and being as well into his cups as he was, maybe George could provide them. She moved over to the balcony and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The tower stood high enough to have lifted them above the mist, so that some of their surroundings could even be seen. Rolling green fields, stone walls and denuded trees, mist clinging to the valleys like drifts of snow. She could just about make out the steeple of the village church, though the base of the tower in which they stood was wholly obscured.

George offered her the bottle. "A tipple? The vintage is not the best, but the taste grows on one after the first few swallows."

It struck Eliza that she had dabbled in enough substances that meddled with the mind for one day, nor did she desire such anodyne oblivion, merely explanations and the truth. "Is your quarrel with our host settled now?" One assumed it, given the Cluetts continued presence.

"Ah," George replied, sagely stroking his bare chin. Seeing that she wasn't about to accept his offering, he took a long swallow instead. "I suppose you might call it more of a stalemate."

"What you mean is that you have some hold over him." She could not get the memories of him creeping about Linfield's study from her mind. She might not have thought of it again if it weren't for the mention of Jane. She would not have her friend threatened. It was bad enough she was tied to Linfield and forced to endure his whims.

George snorted, then turned so that he could take in her profile. "How forthright you are! And how poorly you think of us all. Tell me, Miss Wakefield, are my actions truly so ghastly? What have I done, besides requesting recompense for certain slights?"

"Your mother was willing."

"Who said we were speaking of my mother? Though I shall not deny he deserves a beating for his actions this afternoon. That he should so take advantage of her… The man is a fiend." He swallowed hard. His grip whitening his knuckles. "But we shall not speak of that. It is by and by. We each know what the other wants, and I have given him until dinner to provide it. It is more than ample time."

"And if he does not?" Eliza asked.

Again, George's focus tightened on her, creating a furrow at the apex of his nose and a fat dimple in his chin. He blew over the rim of the bottle, making it whistle. "That is hardly your concern."

Except that it was, insomuch as that she felt certain it would affect Jane.

"Lady Linfield wishes you gone."

"Lady Linfield can rot in hell. I will not depart empty-handed and condemn my mother to the gutter or whatever bogles occupy the hellscape beyond these walls. It was Linfield who created this woe. Why should I suffer for his mistakes? No, restitution is due. He will see reason; else he'll be made to."

"And if he does not?"

George gave a nasty laugh. "Then we will see what the gossips have to say of the matter. If he's any sense…" His mouth formed the sort of gurn that'd sour milk. "Well, I ask for so little. Only a fool would baulk at giving it."

"Blackmail," she muttered, turning away from him in disgust. "He is your host, and your friend."

"He's a pompous turd, a rat's arse of a man, and hardly an innocent. We all do what we must, Miss Wakefield. Your brother would tell you that."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean." Nor was she aware of Mr Cluett being an acquaintance of her brother, Frederick.

His laugh became even more hateful. "Oh, come now. Weren't he the army man who married an orphaned heiress who promptly croaked abroad?"

Outraged, she reared away from him. "Freddy loved Louisa." She had seen them before they departed for India, so desperately, desperately in love, and she'd seen the shell of a man who'd returned, broken, and with a babe in his arms.

"Of course, he did." George waggled the bottle before him in a meaningful sort of way that made his disbelief all too apparent. "Or perhaps it was convenient for you to believe that, given how you and your sisters have benefited from the funds she poured into his accounts. No need for you all to become paid companions and governesses anymore, or to dress in hand-me-downs from the last century. You didn't learn those healing skills for fun, now did you, dear? I'm sure they paid more regularly than having to sing or embroider for one's supper, although perhaps not so handsomely as if you'd opened your legs."

Eliza slapped him, causing him to lose his grip on the bottle as he reached to relieve the sting in his face. It fell, crashing and shattering against the castle wall as it tumbled.

"Dammit, woman. There was still a half bottle left. 'Tweren't worth sacrificing because you're oversensitive to the truth."

"You don't know a thing about my family." Nothing of Freddy and poor Louisa, and how her brother still mourned her passing.

"I know enough," he said. "You wouldn't be so fired up if my words didn't hit so true, and it's clear enough what you are. You can dress yourself up, but you're no simpering society miss who's never known hardship and thinks the worst fate that might befall someone is to have to wear the same dress twice in a row or miss the Aldershot's ball."

"Who are the Aldershot's?"

He waved away the remark. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. Only that they might have a ball, and that one might be forced to miss it. You've shivered and starved. Tell me truthfully that isn't so. You know plain enough that love doesn't fill your belly or stave off the winter frost. Only the flush and our giddy, glorious poets bind themselves for love, and idolise impoverishment. You are more practical. You are like the rest of us gathered here, eager to prove your worth, but the truth is that we're all just pawns… playthings, here for his entertainment and nothing more."

Angered, Eliza retreated from him. "Sir, I don't know what you mean to achieve by lecturing me like this, but I shan't stand idle and listen to it. I should think after today, you might value a sympathetic ally, and not be so ready with your vitriol."

"Is it vitriolic of me to state the truth?" He cast her aside with a turn of his now empty hand. "Linfield will see you gone afore long. 'Tis only because he seeks to keep his wife sweet that you've remained this far. Once he has what he wants from her, then… then I should watch out for yourself, Miss Wakefield. Linfield is jealous of his pets, and you've been playing far too greedily with his favourite."

~Ж~

Eliza returned to her chamber, and from there to the soot-stained ruin of Jane's room. The ceiling and walls were blackened, and the old bedframe burned through in the middle so that the two ends leaned together like two wraiths clutching one another's spindly limbs. She no more understood George's venom towards her than she did Jem's motives, or the cause of the fire that had almost consumed her friend, yet she felt certain that they were in some way connected. That all the mysteries of Cedarton were somehow linked, and if she could only fathom the common thread, then everything would make sense again.

The little maid Edith arrived not long after. "I'm t' fetch Lady Linfield's things, Miss. Mrs Honeyfield says she's t' be moved in ta old mistress's suite afore dinner's done. Master's orders. Like there ain't enough for us all t' do what wi serving dinner, and of course, none of us much wants ta go in there. There's a chill in tha' room, Miss, I'll tell ya. Freeze's ya reet down t' marrow it does. But I suppose it's only habitable room left. Canna say as I'd much fancy sleepin' there."

"Where is this room?" Eliza asked, refusing to buy in to the maid superstitious nonsense which had no doubt reached her ears by way of Betsy's tongue.

"Why 'tis in t' Lady's Tower, miss."

"I thought that was no more than a burned shell."

"Aye, mostly 'tis, but not alls of it. Gordy, t' gardener, Miss, has quarters there and there's a few rooms at top what escaped the blaze, like." She began to busy herself, collecting Jane's few undamaged things into baskets to be moved, allowing Eliza a moment to ruminate on the matter. Had Jane truly agreed to this move? What motivated it? And of all the chambers she might move to, was old Lady Cedarton's room truly where she meant to rest her head? But then, perhaps she did not mean to sleep there, only to entertain Linfield's husbandly demands.

It soured Eliza's mind to think of it, and Jem's role in what ought purely to be a matter of man and wife. Perhaps that was the reasoning behind the odd choice of chamber. The unconventional arrangement would not be seen or overheard. The thought left an even sourer taste on her tongue.

"Mrs Honeyfield's in ever so much pain," Edith was saying. She seemed most determined to fill the silence, rattling on regardless of whether Eliza was paying her any heed.

Which, indeed, she had not been.

"Cookie's had her rinse 'er mouth out wi' a gargle a lemon juice an' salt water, but she looks ever such a state. The whole reet side of 'er jaw's swollen exactly like me sister's bairn when 'e 'ad t' mumps. All cockeyed, she is. Ah thought ya tooth powder was sure t' sort 'er, but it dun't seem ta 'ave done a thing."

"She'll have to have it pulled," Eliza remarked offhandedly. Presently, there wasn't space in her thoughts for the dilemmas of others. She would have to speak to Jem. Tell him what she'd overheard and listen to his side of the matter, but the dinner bell sounded at that very moment, and she realised there wasn't time to see him before the meal. Would there be an opportunity afterward? Knowing Linfield, he'd march them all off to their beds the moment the last fork touched a plate.

"Oh, it can't be tha' time already," Edith complained. "I need another four hands ta deal with all this, and t'mistress'll need changin', and you t'—"

"I can attend to my own attire," Eliza reassured her. She left the maid, retrieving what could be retrieved from the wreckage of Jane's former room, and slipped through the little dressing room to her own chamber. Jane was already present.

"Eliza, wherever did you go? I thought you were only next door, but once Linfield had gone, I looked for you, and you'd vanished." She took hold of Eliza's hands and guided her to the bed so that they might sit facing one another. "You'll be pleased to learn that all is to be well between Linfield and me. An assignation has been arranged for tonight. The details of it are a little strange, but I can't tell you how relieved I am." She stroked a hand over her belly.

"I'm glad for you." Eliza leapt up at once and busied herself with her attire. She repinned her hair and changed her long-sleeved day dress for an evening dress and gloves. She knew Jane wanted to discuss the details of what had passed between her and Linfield, but she couldn't. She just couldn't hear it and not feel every word of it as a personal attack. Jem was hers. She was his. They hadn't stated it like that. In fact, she'd probably made him think that she wanted nothing more than a passing affair. Had perhaps even implied that she only considered him worthy of that…

Had she done that? Made him feel small, unvalued in some way. Oh, but he had been less than candid with her. This… this whatever it was that existed between him and Lord Linfield, it wasn't new. She felt certain of that, and while he had not lied to her, he had, she was certain, been circumspect with the truth.

"I'm going to head down. It'll give you space to change without us tripping over one another," she insisted, relieved that Edith waddled through from the adjoining room at that moment, for Jane was hovering around her, desperate to find an opening to step in and engage her about her husband's odd demands. "I'm glad for you, Jane." She squeezed her hands. "Truly, I'm glad that all is mended between you and that all will be well. You know I dearly wish you to be happy."

Jane followed her to the door, but she wouldn't speak in front of the maid, and so Eliza was able to slip away. Out in the corridor, the tears that she'd been holding back erupted in a sob. This was all too much. This house. Its inhabitants. Hope she hadn't realised she harboured now muddled her thoughts.

It seemed apparent that the connection between her and Jem had been so much less of a bond than she'd thought. She'd let herself be bowled over by physical pleasure, and then equated it to love.

But he wasn't in love with her. Not truly. Not if he meant to attend the Linfields.

She'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Show a woman a little affection, and she'll think you a prince right out of a faerie tale. Lord, she was a gullible as every other unwed girl in the land.

Eliza had to remain in the corridor for several minutes, swallowing down the bitter lump lodged in her throat before she could pull herself together enough to descend.

She was here in this damned castle for Jane's sake and would remain, but presently, she longed dearly for her shared room and shared bed in Bluebell Lane, and the comfort of her sisters' embraces.