-25-

Jem

Of course, it had been Linfield's intention all along to sever the growing ties between him and Eliza. That they had already been down to the last few hours of him being blessed by her regard was of no consequence.

Linfield had maintained his position before Jem until he'd had his clothing back in place, but it didn't matter. It was damned obvious what had gone on. Perhaps to the Cluetts, to Bell, even Lady Linfield, their proximity was only the sign of an intimate chat. But Eliza knew. She knew. He could see it in her face. And then Linfield addressed her and made it damned obvious by sucking his fingers clean.

He watched the light in her eyes die. The smile fall from her pink lips.

"Eliza?" he said, reaching out, but she pulled her arms tight to herself and looked straight through him, as if he were as insubstantial as the ghost rumoured to walk these halls.

"I'm sorry," he tried.

"Sorry?" That won her attention. "What is it you're sorry for, Jem?"

Through the open doorway to the dining room, he could see Linfield smirking.

"Could you be referring to the fact that you mean to spend the night in my best friend's bed chamber alongside her and her husband, or that… that you've been his…his catamite all along and you're only sorry that I got to observe that fact with my own eyes?"

He couldn't deny the truth of either accusation.

"Yes," he mumbled. "Eliza, truly, I'm sorry. I tried… you don't understand."

"Oh, I understand perfectly. You're a liar, James Whistler. I thought… I thought I could trust you, that perhaps…" She bowed her head.

He wanted her to continue, to finish that sentence in the manner he wished it to end, with the possibility of a future for them both, but that dream, if it had ever existed, was over. She couldn't even formulate the words to express her outrage with sufficient derision.

"Pray don't speak to me again."

He bowed, and allowed her to pass, knowing his cause was already lost, and that Linfield was still watching him, making sure the wind had turned in the direction he'd commanded it. "Happy now?" He mouthed to that miscreant.

Linfield's grin was enough to make it clear the answer was deliriously so.

"Stop dithering, Whistler. Let Miss Wakefield pass, so we may eat."

He had no desire to sit at the table and eat, but nor would Linfield allow him to leave. No matter that he wanted to flee and throw himself into a ditch where he could wallow in the inkpot of his own misery.

"Don't get any crazy ideas now."

Crazy? Like perhaps throwing himself from one of Cedarton's lofty towers?

He was wounded not mad.

A vision hit him then, of himself hurrying away across the misty moors, and Linfield chasing after him with his dogs. He didn't have any dogs, but that was hardly the point. The point was that there was no sense in running because he'd just get hauled back here. The more Jem resisted; the harder Linfield would fight to hold on to him. He knew then that only when Linfield tired of him would he win his actual freedom.

This evening's spread consisted of broiled mackerel, roast beef, coxcomb skewers, asparagus, and shallots, along with some manner of fruit trifle the cook had clearly tried to dress up with a few beheaded winter pansies. He could summon no appetite for anything bar the sherry, and following that, the wine.

Linfield chattered. The rest of them were dour to a soul—Eliza, the Cluetts, Bell always looked like he'd just been winkled from a coffin, and as for their hostess… Actually, Lady Linfield bore more colour than she had in recent days. Was she? Merciful lord, she couldn't be excited by the prospect of what was to come later this evening? That thought horrified him almost as much as being expected to rise to the occasion.

It mattered not that Eliza now despised him. The threat of Linfield orchestrating some slight to her reputation remained real. Thus, he would do as he was bid.

Eliza, he noted, speared a single asparagus stalk, but did no more than cut it into narrow slices, none of which passed her lips.

"I can explain," he wanted to say to her. They were seated much too far apart to attempt actual conversation, a fact he could likely attribute to Linfield's manipulation. "I know how it looks, but I don't want you to think—"

"Are you, or aren't you accompanying Lord and Lady Linfield to her bedchamber this evening?"

"I am, but—" He tugged at the knot of his cravat. The damn thing was strangling him. "Only because there's no other choice. I'm a fool, Eliza, I readily admit that. I've handled everything badly, and now I've brought this down on our heads. I can't let him ruin you. I can't. And he will. I'm sorry. Truly, I'm sorry. If there were any other way."

As long as Linfield lived, he'd never be free.

"I love you, Eliza. I want you to know that's real despite all the rest. I wish I knew how to make things right. I wish it didn't have to end like this. I wish you'd never had to see this part of me."

He wished it were still August, and they were back at Stags Fell. That the brief moments of bliss they'd found in the gardens at Lauwine hadn't drifted by so quickly. That Joshua wasn't Joshua, and he wasn't himself. That he didn't find himself as attracted to men as he was to women. That he hadn't been a gentleman and had fucked her when he'd had the chance. At least he had the memory of her taste on his tongue, and the soft warmth of her within his arms to look back on.

From his right, Linfield shot out a hand and clamped it fast about Jem's wrist as if he could hear Jem's thoughts and sought to show his disapproval of them. Jem swung his gaze to him as he fought to withdraw his hand, but stilled at the look on Linfield's face. From across the table, Lady Linfield gave an alarmed cry and shoved back her chair, which toppled a glassful of wine all over her plate.

"Linfield," she gasped, bending to him like a flower to the sun.

Jem could not quite explain it, but there was certainly a bilious glow to his lordship's features, particularly around the mouth. He looked…he looked… stricken. Agonised. As if some foul wyrm were gnawing on him from the inside. He made a choking sound, his free hand rising to his throat.

"Good God, help him," George insisted, pushing back his chair. "He must have a fishbone stuck."

Linfield's grip only tightened as Jem rose to his feet. He had to peel back Linfield's fingers to release his grip. He raised his hand to strike between his lordship's shoulders, but before the heel of his hand could connect, Linfield spewed copious amounts of scarlet blood over the table linens.

The remaining two gentlemen stood at once. Eliza too was half out of her chair. Henrietta fell into a swoon.

"Bell!" Jane cried, seizing up her napkin to offer Linfield it, only to then use it to wipe the splatter from her face. Linfield seemed blind to their reactions.

The physician had hardly moved a foot when Linfield disgorged a second gout of blood.

"What's happening to him?" Jem still stood with his hands raised, uncertain as to where to put them. "Ulcer?"

The doctor shook his head, as if afraid to make his diagnosis. His brows were drawn into deep furrows, and he seemed as bewildered as the rest of them over what to do. "I think he's been…" He shook his head again, as if he couldn't equate what was happening before him with what his mind was telling him. Jem didn't want to fill in what he suspected Bell had been about to say either, but the evidence was there before them. The scarlet splatter was too bright against the table linen. Linfield's bilious hue, the haze of wrongness around him.

Jane howled and clutched her belly as if she too were about to cast up her assets. "No, no. This can't be."

As if awaiting the cue of her cry, Linfield buckled at the knees. Both Jem and Bell failed to catch him. Instead, they watched horrified as he bounced off both the table and his chair before landing with a thud, dragging the table linens with him. Only Eliza had the presence of mind to grasp the cloth as it slithered away, jostling the bone China and all the dishes into an ear-splitting clatter.

Bell followed his patient down to the floor.

Jem too bent to his knees, "Tell me what I can do? There must be something… Will a drink help?"

Bell cut him off with a succinct shake of the head. "It's too late." He withdrew his hand from his patient's pulse point in his throat. "He's gone."

"What?" That could not be so. It could not be… "Are you sure?" he blurted. A nonsensical question. Bell knew his art, and he could see there was no breath left in Linfield's chest, which left him staring at his former patron's slumped and bloodied corpse uncomprehending, until Jane shoved him aside. A sob erupted violently from her mouth.

"No. No, he cannot be. He cannot. Doctor, you must do something. How can he be dead? He was well just two minutes ago." Her tears began to spill thick and fast. "Do something." She clutched at Bell's coat front and the ends of his periwig, but there was nothing to be done. Linfield was already past help.

"I'm sorry. Lady Linfield, please," Bell attempted, his atrocious bedside manner failing to rise to the occasion. To be fair, he looked almost as distraught as Jane, and every bit as addled as Jem felt. He did manage to free himself of her insistent grip and straighten his hair. "Madam, there's no remedy I can give. I'm sorry, but your husband is with his God now."

She howled. Howled like a banshee. Like the old Lady Cedarton was rumoured to have done before she leapt from the wreckage of the Lady's Tower. A moment later, she was risen to her full height and spitting red-eyed ire at them all as the shock melted away her usual meekness. "Who has done this? Which of you has taken him from me?"

Heads swivelled in her direction, each of the stares more wild-eyed than the last. Jem saw only shock in their faces. If one among them was guilty, then they were hiding it well. George slapped his own cheeks as if to rouse himself from a daze. Bell uneasily shifted his weight from one sole to the other, Eliza stood too still, and Henrietta, having roused from her faint of her own accord, perhaps having realised she was no one's centre of attention, turned her bottle of smelling salts between her fingers as if she anticipated needing them again promptly.

"One of you has done this. You have tormented me and poisoned him. Drugged his food, his wine…"

"I cannot think what you mean to imply." Henrietta set her hand firmly on her son's forearm. Jem suspected she did it to prove to herself that her offspring remained alive and vital, but the touch served to single him out.

"You," Jane accused.

"Not I," he insisted. "'Tis one of you. Level your accusatory stares elsewhere."

"You did quarrel most vociferously, George. It's natural that would make people suspicious."

"Let go of me, mother." George shook off her grip. "That matter was settled between us. We'd reached an accord, and I am hardly the only one among us with whom he had a quarrel. Who among us had not felt the lash of his spite? Perhaps, madam," his gaze settled firmly on Jane, "you considered the slight of his afternoon activities too great to tolerate and chose to show your displeasure. You are right at his hand, in a prime position to taint his drink, after all, and likewise, Mr Whistler, who has done nothing but scowl at him since we sat down to dine."

Jem couldn't deny it was so, all too conscious of the malicious thoughts he'd been entertaining. Thoughts borne of anger, but which he'd never have acted on. And thoughts didn't kill people, only deeds did that, and looking around at them, they all had motive, each and every one of them.

Jane retaliated with further accusations of her own, and she and George got into a spat.

"Stop this," Bell called over them. "A man has died. Can we not manage a little decorum?" They continued to lob accusations around him. "Lord Bellingbrook must be informed, and the magistrate summoned." He rang for a servant, and Mrs Honeyfield answered, her jaw swollen out of all proportion. "The master is dead." Bell informed her. "Please instruct his valet. Word must be sent to Bellingbrook at once, and who is the justice of the peace in these parts? The coroner?"

No one paying any attention seemed certain.

"Which is the nearest large estate? Send someone there, they will surely know. Meanwhile, I will preserve the body."

Now the initial shock was done, Bell seemed to have found his feet and spun into the same sort of efficiency he'd done after that fateful day of the carriage race. Jem too vividly remembered the bend of the woman's neck and his own longing to correct all that lay askew. Linfield's body lay blood splattered, his mouth open and scarlet ringed. He reached for a napkin, meaning to wipe away the mess, but Bell stayed him with a hand to his shoulder.

"Don't."

He relinquished. It didn't seem right that his tormentor could be gone. He kept expecting him to blink or break into a twistical grin, and roar with laughter over their alarm. Instead, he remained still. Jem formed his fingers around Linfield's. Their warmth was already leaving them.

Above him, Jane continued to spit accusations. "Snakes. Maggots. Leeches. Why are you here?" she cried, wound into hysteria. Tears scored her cheeks. "Who among you has deprived my son of his father?"

The hair across Jem's body rose at her words. Bell too became rigid. It was Cluetts though who bleated the incomprehensibility they all felt.

"Your son? But it can't be. You can't be." Henreitta spluttered.

A statement Jem swore every person gathered was also thinking. If Jane was already swelling with Linfield's child, then the leeches, his torment, Davy's gas, Henrietta on her knees, Linfield's fight with George; none of it had been necessary. Either Linfield had played them all for utter fools, or his wife was a liar…or deluded…? Perhaps it was wishful thinking, like a woman facing the noose, eagerly making a plea of her belly to spare herself that dreadful fate.

"'Tain't legitimately his," George declared, shaking his sandy head. "Even supposing he sired it, which—"

"How dare you? What are you accusing me of?" Jane wrapped her arms protectively around herself. "Of course, it is his. I have never been unfaithful to my husband. I can't believe you would accuse me of such… We've only been wed eight weeks."

Jem was damned certain Linfield wouldn't have borne leeches on his prick if the deed was done. Perhaps Jane was merely inexperienced enough that she believed the act accomplished. Whatever the case, this did not seem the moment to tease forth the truth. Linfield was not yet cold. Better they spent a few moments reflecting on the fragility of existence and considering what was important.

Eliza appeared before him. She must have crawled under the table. She was curiously composed as she double-checked Linfield's pulse and confirmed Bell's diagnosis of death for herself. Jem covered his mouth with his hand, still struggling to comprehend that the man was gone. For all his faults, his blackmail attempts, and manipulations, there had been good times back before the carriage race, before his marriage, when Jem had been far less reticent about their loving. When it had all been a grand lark, and there weren't ties and expectations binding them. When he'd been only too happy to escape his memories of this woman who he knew he couldn't have.

He felt a splash against his hand and was startled to find that he was weeping. A hole seemed burned through his chest. Eliza leaned over the body and whispered something. He wasn't sure what she said, but she pressed a kerchief into his fist.

Then she rose. "Quiet, all of you." The sharp bark of her voice won her the silence of the other guests. "Is this any way to behave? His lordship is dead, and you are screeching at one another like crows at a feast. Save your speculations and accusations for the coroner and his jurors. There will be a time for such things, but right now, we should afford him some dignity. Doctor Bell, you among us are most familiar with death. Is it best to leave him here or remove him to his bedchamber, perhaps?"

Bell twitched with unease. This was no natural death, and if it was murder, then the body ought to be left in place to be examined by those summoned to see justice done, but Bell was also a practical man. Not the sort to hand over the investigation of an aristocrat's death to a dozen or so of the parish's finest, and whose discretion was definitely not guaranteed. The earl would be ill disposed to the family being embroiled in a scandal, and that man was now their direct paymaster. Moreover, if the actual culprit were to be found, Bell was far more likely to find him with his science than a few local well to dos sniffing around and mulling their findings in the back room of the local ale house.

To that effect, Bell drew a cloak of humility about his person. "It would seem that Lord Linfield has suffered an acute malaise of the alimentary tract.

Every ear in the room strained in his direction. Every head turned.

Bell kept his head bowed.

Jane squinted sceptically at him, then down at her husband's blood splattered corpse. "A malaise of the alimentary tract?"

"Yes, or a tumour. Or an ulcer. Mayhaps, even a malady of the liver. If you grant me permission, then I can definitively determine which of those things it is."

"The old crow wants to carve him up," George chortled.

Jane paled and bit her lips. "I'm not sure… I don't think the earl would like to hear that his son had been dismembered."

"The earl will be pleased to know what has caused the death, and I think we can all agree that it is in our best interests to determine that quickly, without outside interference. I can assure you, Lady Linfield, that your husband will be treated with the uttermost care and dignity, and suitably preserved for his casket."

"Yes, I suppose." The meek, marrowless incarnation of Jane had returned. Her fire drained now that the possibility of murder had been cast aside. "What you say, does make sense."

Bell bowed rather stiffly. "I humbly request that I be allowed to move Lord Linfield's body to my surgery. It is much cooler in that part of the house, and hence better suited to the task of preservation, and I can better fulfil my investigations there."

She nodded, before sagging into a chair.

The Cluetts too, both slumped. George grasped the sherry decanter. Bell summoned the male servants and had them set about the task of improvising a stretcher.

"Jane?" Eliza came to her friend on her knees. "You must write to the earl. Shall I assist you?"

"Please. Yes," she replied soggily.

"Then, let us go to the library and use the desk there."

Eliza turned her head to Bell on the threshold. "I'll see she gets to bed afterwards, and I'll stay with her." She might as well have said that she didn't trust any of the castle's other inhabitants, Jem among them, but if she had to put her faith in someone, then the doctor was it.

The Cluetts lingered after the two women left. George watching the proceedings with sharp eyes as Linfield was lifted onto the stretcher and borne away.

"Perhaps best not to touch the remaining victuals," Bell remarked to the servants, which prompted George to set the sherry decanter he was in the act of pouring from down with a thud. He gave Bell a shrewd squint.

"A malaise?"

"Yes."

"Caused by?"

Bell chewed over the question but didn't supply an answer.

"I'll find an alternative." George galloped toward the exit, round face flushed and a pinch betwixt his brows that concertinaed the flesh. Henrietta trailed after him.

"'Tis no doubt the work of that horrid ghost," Jem overheard her saying. "He ought to have heeded the warnings. We'd be wise to all of us heed the warnings. The old mistress doesn't approve of us invading her domain and is determined to drive us out."

"Do curb your tongue, mother. I wish you wouldn't prattle on so with the maids. Drive us out!" He huffed. "Where would you have us go? The exchange was to be made this evening. All is not yet well and may never be well if we don't secure that—"

"I am perfectly apprised of the situation, George, and whose fault it is."

"Mother," George turned about sharply to face her, bringing the plump dove to an abrupt halt. "Cease, please. I don't wish to spend Christmastide in a cell. Neither for debt nor murder."

"The doctor said it was a problem with his gut."

"Aye, and he also claims that bloodletting can't possibly cure a headache, meat is bad for you, and that human beings do not contain a soul."

Suitably outraged, she huffed and strutted off towards the hall.

"Poison?" Jem ventured once there was only the two of them left. "You may have removed the onus on us to preserve the scene and provide testaments by refusing to speak your suspicions, but it's what you actually believe, isn't it?"

"Walk with me, Whistler." Ludlow led them out and to the stairs to his basement lair. "There's only one way to prove the matter. And—"

"You can spare me the explanation. I know perfectly well why you called off the hounds."

Bell nodded, and the two of them followed the body down to his surgery, where Bell instructed the servants to rest him on the table in the back room, where a sheet was draped over his still form. Jem collapsed onto the chaise in the main room. The skeletal remnants of his chemistry remained half-assembled on the table; the silk balloons gathered in a wooden crate beside them. He was tempted to stick his head into one and let the gas snuff him into insensibility.

Bell dropped to one knee before him and felt his pulse, before turning to his shelf of ingredients. He returned a moment later with a glass of amber liquid. "Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Cognac. One of the poor sod's best."

Jem took the glass. "What have you dissolved in it?"

Bell shook his head. "Not a goddamned thing. I need you lucid. God knows, you've reasons aplenty to be responsible for this, but it doesn't make sense that it would be you."

A sob erupted from his body, causing him to clap a hand over his mouth. Bell nodded at the glass, and Jem swallowed the contents. If Bell was drugging him, then there was no taste of it in the smooth liquid as it heated his throat.

"Better?"

"Not in the slightest. If not me, then who is it you think has done this?"

Bell steepled his long fingers and tapped them to his lips. "I don't know. Nor am I sure it will serve us any purpose to speculate at this point, not until I'm confident as to the cause of death."

"So, you do mean to cut him open?"

"I'd make for a very poor anatomist if I did not, and time is not on my side at this point."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that if he is dead by virtue of something other than ill fortune, he is dead for a reason, and that as I do not know that reason, it's impossible to say whether the person who meted out such justice is satisfied with the result. They may strike again. Also, I feel it is of note that it is Lord and not Lady Linfield who lies next door, whereas all the ghastly visitations that have occurred since we arrived here have been targeted at her."

"I'm not sure what you're suggesting." Jem nevertheless felt that Bell was scratching at a scab. Nay, not a scab, more like a festering sore. "Are you suggesting that perhaps Linfield wasn't the intended target?"

Bell did not reply, though both his brows raised in a meaningful sort of way.

"But wait… Wasn't Linfield our chief suspect for orchestrating his wife's misery? He would hardly deliberately poison himself, and while I agree the man lacked wits, he was not so dumb as to be lackadaisical about drinking from a poisoned chalice, or whatever means by which you presume the substance was delivered." Indeed, Linfield had exhibited a talent for self-preservation, frequently at the expense of others. His entire philosophy was founded on the principle of putting himself first and not giving a damn about everyone else.

"Jem, I'm not suggesting anything, merely noting the deviation from the sequence. No doubt you can provide me with the statistical probability of that anomaly."

On another day at another time, perhaps. Currently, he couldn't fathom how one and one even made two.

"Please tell me this isn't some harebrained jape."

"His death is not a ruse, Jem. He is not about to spring up and shout ‘Surprise!'"

"You would say that, even if he were, so as not to spoil the punchline."

Bell bowed his head and nodded at his chest. "Go next door and confirm it for yourself if you need to. I assure you; he's gone. Maybe you need a few moments before I set to work, to say whatever you need to say to him."

He wasn't sure he had anything to say to the man, nevertheless Jem left Bell in favour of the body in the inner sanctum.