-29-

Eliza

Doctor Bell could claim there was no phosphorus on his shelves all he liked, but Eliza knew differently. She hurriedly searched along the rows of bottles and tightly packed drawers in Bell's surgery, with Jem beside her, trying to lend a hand, but seeming bewildered over what precisely they were looking for.

"Kunckel's pills," she informed him. "I swear they were here. They're usually prescribed for colic or gout, not that they work, but nor do half the things most quacks recommend."

"I heard that."

Despite his spurious use of leeches, she was prepared to accept Bell wasn't a typical quacksalver. He mostly knew what he was talking about and endeavoured to back up his practice with evidence. This matter clearly had him shaken though.

"Where are you?" Eliza tore several bottles from the shelves in case the jar had been jostled to the back. "I know it was here. You definitely had some," she called to Bell. "I remember seeing them, and they're phosphorous based. Coated in something. Silver, I think."

"If they're not there, I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea," he called back, before following them both through, with what she thought might be a kidney still in his hands. "I think it's worth noting that our poisoner must be in possession of some degree of specialised knowledge and intelligence if they're apprised of the composition of various medicines and remedies."

"That rules Cluett out, he's a fool," Jem huffed. "His mother too. Have you considered it might be Jane behind this, Eliza?"

She had, but a handful of minutes gone. "It is not unless she has become a particularly adept actress. Besides she was always a mediocre herbalist, and I'm sure she didn't set her own bed alight." Nor did it make sense for her to have done so. Linfield's death had left her in a pickle. Although, she hadn't known George Cluett was going to assault her with the possibility of her marriage being unsound.

"It weren't Lady Linfield who I was thinking of," Bell remarked, his gaunt features pulled into a thoughtful pucker. "It's interesting how familiar you are with the contents of my shelves, Miss Wakefield."

"Ludlow!"

"I'm observant, and Mrs Honeyfield needed a remedy, which is why I'm acquainted with your shelves. Yes, I came in here and mixed it. A fact I'm sure you already knew. Besides, what motive have I? I've only known him a handful of days."

Bell gave her a tight smile. "Perhaps he was annoying enough that a few days were more than plenty? And as to reasons, there are two rather obvious ones. Perhaps you felt you needed to protect Lady Linfield. He was beastly to her, and you don't believe for a moment those attacks on her were caused by a ghost. And secondly, one could certainly argue that jealousy might prompt your hand. Anger at being played for a fool, not to mention that he was blackmailing your beloved into fornicating with him."

The doctor had obviously overheard every damned word of their earlier conversation while he'd been at work on Mrs Honeyfield's tooth.

"Perhaps you thought that if you removed Linfield, it would free Jem of his burden of protecting you."

"Ludlow!" Jem snapped, ahead of burying his head in his hands.

"What? Are we pretending you weren't going to bugger the bastard to preserve her reputation?"

A shiver of horror ran through Eliza's slender frame as she repeated the repulsive word under her breath. Her gaze shot to Jem's face as he peeped over his fingertips. "The noose he was holding over you was your relationship with me?"

Jem chewed his tongue, then covered his face again, clearly unable to face her. "You might have held your tongue, Ludlow."

"Jem, tell me." She pulled his hands away from his face.

"I'd wriggled free of him, but then he saw how I looked at you, and that was enough for him to know he could demand my compliance. Eliza, the truth of the matter was irrelevant. He knew only of my infatuation. That I cared for you. All he had to do was make a few remarks in a select few ears and you'd have been stripped of your reputation… ostracised. Your sisters too. I couldn't allow that to happen."

"And why did you not appraise me of this threat?"

"Because as we have already established, I am a fool. I meant to come clean about my situation and how I felt when I followed you down here the other morning, but then you said what you said, and I agreed to what I agreed. Eliza, I meant to do whatever I could to make you happy. I was not about to ask you to wed me, the only way I could actually have protected you, when you'd just explicitly stated you never wanted to be shackled by wedding vows."

"You meant to ask for my hand?" Her incredulity made her voice turn shrill. "But aren't you just a penniless tutor dependent on his uncle's goodwill?"

"Yes, but I wondered if maybe that didn't matter. That perhaps you were willing to overlook it, given that you hadn't wed Joshua Rushdale, when I was positive that you would have done, and he has all the funds you could want. I'd like to clarify, that I didn't expect you to accept. I was ready to be let down. Resigned to it even."

"So, when I offered an alternative, of course you grasped it. But then that enabled Linfield to get his clutches on you."

He bowed his head and nodded. "You said it, we men always muck things up."

"Ahem," Bell cleared his throat. "I believe we were discussing poisons and murder. If you're both done proclaiming, might we get back to that?"

They both levelled him with their glares.

Jem tugged on his cuffs. "Perhaps don't blurt out facts that are irrelevant to the investigation if you don't wish us to discuss them."

"And we're not done," Eliza snapped. "Did you really mean to propose?"

"I know. I know I'm a fool, and it's not the future you want."

"But you truly meant to ask?"

"Oh, good grief and damnation!" Bell resumed Eliza's search of his shelves. "Kunckel's pills, right? Evidently as elusive as brains in the sight of love. They're not here."

"Well, they were. I saw them." Eliza shadowed Bell's traversing of the shelves.

"Maybe you're mistaken."

"I'm not. I clearly saw them. It was when I came down to mix the remedy, and Mrs Honeyfield… Wait! That's it, she picked the bottle off the shelf, and I told her it wouldn't relieve her toothache, but she was loathe to relinquish them. Do you remember, Jem?"

"I don't think I saw any bottle," he said, semi-choked on emotion, and evidently still stuck on their possible futures.

He tried to catch her eye, but Eliza refused to be drawn in by a soulful plea. Now wasn't the moment; they had to concentrate on the task at hand.

"I do recall you speaking to her, but I couldn't say for certain what about."

That was right, he'd stayed hidden in the other room, while she'd stepped through to speak to the housekeeper, lest they were witnessed together, and rumours arose. They may as well not have bothered since everyone seemed perfectly apprised of their attachment.

"She must have come back and taken them."

"Wait, you're proposing the housekeeper's responsible?" Bell scoffed. "Why the devil would his housekeeper wish him dead?"

She didn't have the faintest clue. "Did you not say just a few minutes ago that everyone in this house likely had a motive to murder him?"

Bell confirmed his words with a tilt of his head. "I did say that, but I was referring to the guests, not the servants. They're irrelevant. Only Linfield's valet has been with him any length of time, and he is well compensated for his troubles. The rest are recent additions to the household. You may as well say some rogue ventured in off the moors and did for him, or the elusive Cedarton white lady."

"Why should the length of service matter? And how can you declare them irrelevant? They are here among us when others refused to be."

"Perhaps they're just not so given to superstitious twaddle," Bell suggested.

"Betsy spouts superstitious twaddle every time she opens her mouth," Eliza countered.

"Apart from when she's just plain surly," Jem added.

"Or they valued a decent wage," Bell continued. "One thing I think Whistler and I can both attest to is that Linfield was generous in that regard."

"Perhaps they knew one another previously."

"No!" Both men adamantly asserted.

"Eliza, he had no inclinations of that sort. Not for maids."

"Well, perhaps she made an advance, and he spurned her."

Bell rolled his eyes, clearly not persuaded. "Would one really poison someone for that? I should think she'd be relieved he didn't dismiss her on the spot."

Well, they might both claim Linfield had no interest in the fairer sex, but that didn't explain the nonsense with Henrietta. Jane certainly hadn't been mistaken about what she'd witnessed. Linfield's cock had certainly been inside that woman's mouth. She made the point with passion, which won her a response of, "Desperation," from both men.

"He was willing to try anything, and you realise she was a bawd," Bell said.

Jem nodded. "T'was once said she was the lady to see if one wanted that particular service, especially if you had a reluctant member. It's what he told me, anyway. Even showed me the entry in Grose's almanack. George pretends he doesn't know about it, but he knows. He doesn't know who his father is, mind. Poor sod."

"Lots of rumours though," Bell added. "One of which starts with B—"

"Linfield's father is also Cluett's?" Eliza gaped at the physician.

"'Tis but a rumour, Miss Wakefield. Now, if we're through with the gossip, I propose returning to conversing with the corpse. It's more likely to yield something sound instead of a lot of speculation about nothing."

While Bell took himself off, Jem reached for her.

"Don't." Eliza smacked Jem's hands away.

Resigned, he let his hands fall to his sides. Eliza made another quick survey of the shelves, to make sure she hadn't missed the bottle. It was definitely missing, and while she admitted, stealing a bottle of medicine was hardly a solid basis for a declaration of guilt, there remained enough of a tickle in her mind for her to refuse to let the notion go.

Truthfully, she was mad at Jem too, mad at having been deceived, and madder still knowing she'd been in possession of his affections and somehow lost them. It rankled to learn his compliance to Linfield's wishes had been won using her as leverage. And Doctor Bell had known and not done a thing about it.

"The rest of us have rather more valid motives for putting him in the ground," Jem said gently.

"Mayhaps, she does too."

The bruised parts of her soul certainly agreed.

"I'm right about the phosphorus."

"Aye," Jem agreed. "That you can't dispute."

"And she's the one who had it, and she'd likely know something of its properties. She told me her husband was an apothecary."

Bell, on the threshold of the other room, about turned. "Mrs Honeyfield told you that?"

"Yes, what of it?"

The colour had drained from the doctor's face. He remained eerily still for a moment, then the ringlets of his wig quivered as a shiver ran through his wiry body. He set aside the gristly lump of meat he still carried, scalpel too, and steepled his blood-stained fingers before him, though whether that was in prayer or thought, Eliza couldn't determine.

"Ludlow, what is it?" Jem cautiously approached.

"Nothing, most likely. In fact, it's almost certainly nothing. A coincidence. But… then again if it's not…"

He looked to Eliza, then Jem. "Jesus, I warned him at the time there'd be repercussions. Would he listen? Of course not. It was a miracle enough that he even had the sense to vacate town for a while, the blind fool."

"You're not making a great deal of sense, Ludlow, my friend." Jem remarked, echoing Eliza's thoughts as they both drew level with him. "Maybe you could explain whatever it is that's got you in its grip. A theory of some manner. What is it you warned him about? You're referring to Linfield, right?"

"It's not a matter I wish to get into. Not without consulting the earl."

"The earl ain't here, but a murderer is. For heaven's sake, man, tell us what you know."

Eliza encouraged him with a nod too, desperate to hear. "Please. You look as if you've seen a ghost. A thought has clearly occurred to you."

"It's apt you should mention ghosts at this point, Miss Wakefield, for it's not so long ago that I saw one. Not the white lady that roams this accursed castle but a face out of my past in unexpected circumstances." He stumbled a few paces then and fell heavily on to the chaise longue. "I should not speak of this. He would curse me for it, and not just dock me pennies, but likely throw me out. I swore an oath of silence." His gaze snapped to the open doorway. Through that portal, Eliza could just make out the outline of Linfield's body, and the sickly green glow of his exposed organs.

"He's no longer in a position to punish you, nor is he about to rise from eternal slumber to do so. The dead don't walk, Doctor."

Bell nodded appreciative of her sensibility. "It was still an oath."

"But if it relates to his murder…" Jem interjected, both brows raised encouragingly.

"It can't be. Surely."

"Ludlow, for the love of Christ, what do you know? Are we still talking about Mrs Honeyfield, or something else?"

"Perhaps," he muttered, confusingly. "Did she ever happen to mention her husband's name?"

"Lord, I don't know," Eliza cried, her frustration with the physician flanking Jem's. "Why is it important?"

"Because I fear Linfield was entirely responsible for his demise."

"What?" She rocked back on her heels.

"You had better explain what you mean," Jem said.

The pair of them tilted forward onto their toes in readiness of hearing him.

Bell waved for more liquor, which he swallowed without delay. "Jem, you'll recall that ridiculous carriage race."

"All too vividly," he replied, shoulders hitching towards his ears. "But that was a woman who died—"

Bell made a noise in his throat that rather suggested Jem was mistaken.

"The newspaper reported it was a woman too," Eliza added. "I read about it before I ever came here and found it to show to Jane. She wanted to know what had necessitated the move to Cedarton for Linfield had never told her, merely insisted on it."

"It was definitely a woman," Jem confirmed. "I had a rather closer view of her than I cared to if you recall, Ludlow. I took notes for you, before you had her carted off to your address to do whatever you needed to do. There were plenty of witnesses to that race and the accident. One hardly needed the services of a professional to determine the cause of death."

"That was not the reason I whisked the body away. I was preserving Linfield's reputation, not to mention making sure an old friend wasn't made the subject of the scandal sheets in perpetuity. At least what reports reached the newspapers recorded the passing in a way that would've pleased him. As much as any report of a tragedy could."

The darks of his eyes reflected their eager faces when he looked up. "What you saw, Jem, was precisely what the person wished you to see. However, if you had peeled back the layers of their disguise, then the body you uncovered would have revealed a different tale. The woman who died, Janie Faintree, was not born with that name. I knew them first as John. John Faintree. We met while I was attached to St Thomas's Hospital, and he was working as a dresser. A good one too. Knew his stuff. Very nimble with his hands. Dainty for a man, but he made up for it with wit."

"A cross dresser," Eliza gasped.

Bell nodded. "It's not as uncommon as you might suppose."

"I did not suppose any such thing. I have eyes and I read. I'm aware there are mollies in every town."

"Aye, indeed, there are."

"Don't look at me," Jem decried. "I've never knowingly set foot inside such an establishment."

Bell looked sheepish. Eliza couldn't help some measure of scepticism from bleeding into her expression. Still, Bell returned to his tale. "We lost touch when I moved on from St Thomas's, but I heard through a mutual acquaintance, that John had passed the apothecaries exam and determined to set up practice rather than complete another year to become a physician. One supposed he'd done it for love. He'd married when he was barely old enough to do so, and gossip suggested she wished them to set up home together. She'd remained in the countryside in service while he trained, so I was given to understand, but the family for whom she worked had learned of her marriage and dismissed her in favour of an unwed girl."

"God forbid that a married woman earns her way," Eliza muttered. When Bell glared at her over the interruption, she waved him to continue.

"Our paths crossed again this last summer when I was brought into the employ of the earl of Bellingbrook. I will not describe the circumstances of that meeting other than to say he, or rather she, was in the company of Lord Linfield, and I'd been tasked by the earl to locate his errant son and encourage him back to his studies."

"Lovers," Jem muttered under his breath.

"Rather more than that. They were cohabiting as man and wife."

"Was Linfield a molly too?" Eliza asked.

Bell ignored her.

"If you mean, did he dress in women's clothes, then not so far as I know," Jem said out of the corner of his mouth. "But if you mean, did he prefer to take a man over a mistress, then you already know the answer to that, and he liked to be taken as if he were… No matter, never mind. It's hardly relevant to the point of all this."

It seemed to Eliza it was very much the point of all this.

"Linfield, as you can imagine, was resistant to his father's request." Bell gave an expressive sniff, which conjured visions of many a long argument, and objects being thrown about, followed by arduous strained silences. "In the end, I was obliged to ride away and report my failure. Though, as it turned out, Linfield returned to Oxford of his own accord not long after. I believe there'd been a quarrel between the two lovers that led to a parting of ways. Back at Oxford, Linfield fell straight into his old roistering ways, and soon found himself some new sport," he nodded in Jem's direction. "Janie, or rather, John, returned to his wife and shop though he did not settle there long. I had to see him off at Linfield's request more than a few times. I suspect whatever the pair of them shared during those months together wasn't so easily put aside for the other party as they were for Linfield. It's my belief that's what prompted the appearance at the carriage race. Alas, the heartfelt plea resulted in tragedy."

Jem snorted. "A fine yarn, Ludlow, except the ending is over kind. I witnessed that race. Linfield never even tried to swerve to avoid the collision. He rode her down, and while he bleated about having had no time to react, I never quite believed it. I'd seen him weave his phaeton between obstacles a steeplechaser might decry over."

"Nevertheless, I don't think his intention was murder, more that, in the spur of the moment, he chose not to act as swiftly as he might. Perhaps that was out of surprise, perhaps a form of self-preservation. We'll never truly know."

"The only thing it makes clear to me is what that Jamie nonsense was about," Jem retorted. "I have never in my life been Jamie, until these last few days when he was all glib-tongued and determined to cajole me into doing his bidding. I think he hadn't so completely moved on from his past love as you'd have us believe, Bell. Wasn't it Janie or Jamie he cried out for in his last moments too? I don't think any of us believe it was his wife he was calling for."

The physician shrugged. "His mind and counsel were his own. We did not speak of the matter. Ever. I arranged the burial and such like so that no questions might be asked. As for his relations with his wife, I'm afraid Lady Linfield's finer qualities were largely lost on him."

"Well, I still don't know that I am rightly following all this." Eliza perfectly understood the part about John and Janie being the same person, but it was its relevance to the current case she was woolly over. "Are you suggesting that Mrs Honeyfield is the wife Faintree abandoned in the countryside so that he might live in sin with Lord Linfield?"

"Possibly," the physician replied uncertainly. "You'll admit it's a motive—the theft of her husband and her dignity. And not forgetting her livelihood. The shop would have to close if there was no longer a licenced practitioner attached to it."

"Aye." Jem nodded sagely. "No matter her knowledge."

"Never mind, aye." Eliza swore, batting him with her elbow. "If this is what you suspect, why are we all sat here like three limp noodles? The magistrate must be called, and she detained." Her words propelled Bell onto his feet again, but he did not hasten into action.

"It is simply a hypothesis, Miss Wakefield. Are we so certain we wish to stir this hornets' nest."

Eliza gawped at him thoroughly aghast. "Don't tell me you are dithering over a confrontation, sir! She has murdered an earl's heir. I think confining her to her room is the very least of what we should do. Nor is there longer a question over sending for the magistrate. If neither of you two men will attend to it, then I will do so. She needs to be restrained before she takes it into her head to harm anyone else."

"Harm anyone else…?" Bell's eyebrows drew low over his beady eyes. "Why the devil would she? Her revenge, if she is even guilty of the crime, and we have no proof of it, is already served. She cannot kill him twice over."

Lord save her from dim-witted men. Eliza slapped her brow. "No, she cannot, but she might seek to rid the world of his heir, and thus butcher the line."

If her mind had turned to such action, it would mean Jane was in peril. Jane, who had already been the target of untold ghastliness. It was she who had been haunted, and near burned alive, and whom Eliza had left alone far too long. Why she had only meant to be down here for a moment. To find the wretched papers that Mr Cluett demanded and return to Jane with them.

"Linfield deprived her of the opportunity to grow a family, might not she seek to deprive him of the same? Can you not see that? I know if I'd had the man I loved snatched from me, then I would wish to make those responsible pay."

The declaration earned her four raised eyebrows.

"I'm now positively afeared," Bell backed away from her warily. "What alarming creatures you women are, so driven to volatility."

"Did you even give the man a headstone?"

"Of course. Well, I gave Janie a decent burial and a proper marker. We had once been confreres. However, I think you a little hasty in your judgements. We cannot prove, nor reveal any of this. Also, you still haven't entirely dissuaded me that you're not equally likely the culprit. I think you have motives aplenty between Linfield's treatment of your friend, and him blackmailing Jem into questionable acts."

"Except that I was unaware of the latter, and I would never act in a manner that would harm Jane. Plus, disposing of Linfield would hardly help her current situation."

"With him gone, there is no one to contest her immaculate conception."

Jem pushed his way between them. "Ludlow, it's not her. You know it's not her. And your delaying makes me question your motives."

"It is fine, Jem." Eliza shoved him aside. "I am more than capable of fighting my own battles. If he wants to act like a fatuous old quack, then it is his prerogative." She tore open the knot in her borrowed apron and cast it aside. A whole hour must surely have passed since she and Jane parted ways in the library, and she hadn't yet retrieved the one thing she'd come here looking for. It was well past time she left. Thus, she hurried into the rear room and sought the clothing Bell had taken from his lordship's corpse.

"What the devil are you about, woman?" The doctor hollered on seeing her rummaging through the dead man's pockets.

"An unrelated matter." She plucked the folded parchment from a concealed inner pocket in Linfield's soiled coat. It appeared to be as George alleged: a deed to a London property.

"Eliza, I'm not sure you should give that to George," Jem insisted on seeing what she held. He remained in the doorway, as if an invisible barrier were set across it of the sort one marked out with salt to dissuade boggarts and other fae folk from entering your abode.

"'Tis Jane's decision, not mine."

"Why are you giving anything to George?" Bell loomed over her, blocking her route to the exit.

Eliza simply about turned, and opened the hidden door instead, startling a coarse exclamation from the leech's throat.

"Because Cluett is blackmailing her, and this is what he demanded in exchange for his silence regarding a certain matter of legitimacy," she explained.

"Whose legitimacy? Not the Hans in kelder's?"

"The marriage."

Eliza didn't wait for Bell's response to that. She'd lingered overlong already. "I'm going to find Jane, gentlemen. I shall appraise her of what we've learned, and then once I am assured, she is safe, I intend to send a man for the magistrate since it seems I cannot rely on either of you to do so."

"I didn't say that," Jem blurted, seeming quite put out by the accusation. "Eliza, take care." He was milling on the room's threshold but refused to cross it. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer me to accompany you?"

"I am not at risk, Jane is, and only for so long as the guilty party walks free. If you want to be of use, then send for the magistrate, and put Mrs Honeyfield under lock and key."

"Bell?" Jem asked.

The last of their words she caught was a resigned sigh from the quacksalver. "'Tis your call. I intend to restore Lord Linfield's bowels to his body afore your beloved bluestocking brings the power of the law down on us. I fear the presence of my lord's glowing entrails on the countertop will not go over well with whatever local bumpkin arrives. Our murderer will walk free because they're too busy shackling me on the charge of desecrating his corpse."