-34-

Eliza

After Bell had been dispatched to retrieve Jane and a suspicious pot of marmalade, and Edith, then Betsy, and finally Gordy to deal with Mrs Honeyfield's body, and various wounds had been dressed, and the matter of Jem's pocket fire and the earlier spontaneous ignition of Jane's bed-curtains been thoroughly discussed and pontificated on, and sensible conclusions drawn was Eliza free to go with Jane to address the Cluetts.

The mayhem of the evening seemed to have entirely passed them by, for neither mother nor son had left their rooms.

Henrietta, not George, opened the door to their shared sitting room when Eliza knocked. It struck Eliza how much more comfortable these rooms were compared to the ones Linfield had given his wife. Beast! She was finding it difficult to mourn his passing. At root, all the woe they'd suffered was down to him.

George sprang out of an armchair at their arrival. He was in his shirtsleeves. His sandy hair damp at the front and curling, while his lips were port stained. "What is it? I hope you're not here to haggle over terms, for I made my part of this bargain entirely plain, and I won't move on it."

"Now, George," Henrietta chastened. "Don't be disagreeable. We are still Lady Linfield's guests, and she has suffered the appalling loss of her husband this evening. I think we'd do well to be civil."

"I'm not here to negotiate." Jane ignored the chair Henrietta offered in favour of remaining on her feet, though she clung to the back of it. Eliza could see the tremble of nervousness running through her. "I simply see no reason to delay matters. Tonight has been entirely too trying…. Well, never mind that."

"You have it?" George's eyes bulged in a greedy way, reminding Eliza of a moneylender on payday. It saddened her that her first perceptions of him were so lacking. She'd thought him a wastrel, but at least a good-natured one. In truth, he was as mean as the next man, and willing to do any awful thing imaginable if he believed it to his benefit. He was preying on Jane, when he ought to have been providing comfort and support as her husband's alleged best friend. "If you haven't, then we have nothing to say."

She heartily wished they were not so pressed for time, for then she might have counselled Jane against this exchange. Bell had laughed at the very notion that Linfield was already wed. Had flat out said it was impossible, as well as preposterous.

"I have it," Jane confirmed, her tone weary. "But you'll forgive me if I don't altogether trust you. What assurance do I have that you won't spread your horrid tales, anyway?"

George gave her a studiously lazy shrug. "What would be the point in that? I'd have no evidence, for you will have that, and I imagine you'll destroy it. Nor do I wish to earn the wrath of the earl. I simply want what is mine."

Henrietta gave a cough.

"What is mine and my mother's returned to us. Once that's settled, there need not be any animosity between us. We'll be happy to leave as soon as the day breaks." At least he did not offer to stay and fake regard for Jane's welfare during her time of loss.

"You may wish to make it sooner," Eliza advised. "If you want to avoid dealings with the magistrate. I imagine he'll want to hear testimonies from everyone present."

She rather hoped that matter might be resolved with a simple presentation of the bodies. Victim, culprit, et voilà . The Cluetts need not feature in the narrative. Only the earl needed to hear the full details of his son's death. Bell would no doubt report them, hopefully minus the parts about Jane's cuckoo.

"Eliza? How should we manage this?" her friend asked.

"Give both papers to me." She extended her uninjured hand. "I will confirm they are what you each claim them to be, and then I shall pass them over simultaneously. Is that agreeable?"

George huffed and shook his head. "You are her friend. What's to say you haven't concocted a plan to swindle me?"

"George," Henrietta chastened again. "I think you're forgetting who you are dealing with. They're two honest, god-fearing young ladies of decent upbringing, not the sharps you usually associate with."

Actually, two young ladies of dubious morality who had just dealt with a murderess, and now intended to white-lie to a magistrate.

"However, I will examine the papers too, as Miss Wakefield does. That will make things all fair and equal, will it not?"

Fair, perhaps, but it meant yet another person was privy to the knowledge that Linfield was already wed when he took Jane to wife. Although, likely enough George had already shared that gossip with his mother. "Jane?"

"I suppose."

George agreed with a grumble, and the papers were passed to Eliza for inspection, Henrietta observing them over her shoulder. They were both precisely as they were supposed to be. A deed for a London property, and the record of a marriage, signed by both parties and properly witnessed.

Eliza extended them to the requisite recipients. "If any mention of this gets out, we shall know the source, and make sure the earl does too."

"It won't." Henrietta snatched the deed from her son's hands, and the pair set about quarrelling over ownership of the paper. In comparison, Jane paled to the roots of her golden hair, prompting Eliza to catch her around the waist and hurry her from the room.

"Eliza, what am I to do? One only has to look at this to see that my marriage is void. He was already wed." She tore at the soft skin of her face, leaving scratch marks across her brow. "Oh, Lord! I am ruined."

"Burn it."

Jane's teary gaze met hers, and Eliza saw straight into the depths of her friend's soul. Saw all her fears and the swirling maelstrom of anxieties. The belief that her own sin and folly had led her here and that perhaps she was deserving of the misfortune.

"That will not suffice. People know of it. There are witnesses out there." Their names written in browning ink on the parchment she held onto so tightly. "There's the priest too. What if they come forward? The notice of Linfield's death is sure to appear in the newspapers, and they will see it and realise there is a story to be sold."

"Jane, they won't." She drew her friend along the corridor, and downstairs to the Lady's Parlour. The fire had burned out, but the room retained the heat. The curtains were drawn and someone had finally covered the mirror above the mantle.

Eliza urged Jane into a chair and settled on a footstool by her side. Ignoring the clamminess of Jane's hands, she gave them a reassuring squeeze. "None of that will come to pass—"

"It will."

"It won't, Jane. Look again at the certificate. Mr Cluett may believe this a legitimate record, but it isn't. It can't be. The person here,"—she ran her finger under the woman's name—"doesn't exist. Never has, at least in accordance with the laws of the land. Janie Faintree is the name Mrs Honeyfield's husband took when he went off with Lord Linfield. It's therefore not a legal union, because two men can't be wed. And even supposing they could, Janie died before you ever married Linfield. It was in the newspapers if you recall."

Jane stopped her sobbing and wiped her face clean with the back of her hand. The palms were blistered. "I'm not going to pretend to understand all the revelations of this evening. Eliza, I couldn't take in the half of what Mrs Honeyfield was saying to me. I just want to know that this bairn's future is safe."

"It's safe, Jane. All is going to be well. Your marriage is legitimate, no one can say or prove otherwise, and while this paper if it got out certainly has the makings of a scandal, it's not going to get out, because I'm putting it on the fire now." She tugged it from Jane's fingers, and did just that, using the bellows to persuade some fresh bits of kindling to catch, then chew on the edges of the parchment.

They watched as the tiny flames crawled across the vellum, slowly devouring one inked word after another, until the little slice of history that had recorded the union of Lord Eustace, Viscount Linfield and a spinster named Miss Janie Faintree was no more.

"I cannot be sad that he is gone," Jane confessed, retreating from the hearth once the last curl of parchment had been consumed. "I realise that makes me seem horrid, but I was nothing but a nuisance to him. A yoke around his neck. I didn't love him, and he didn't love me. And the sort of love he didn't feel was sure to bring us to ruin eventually. I'll mourn him as society dictates, of course, and raise his son."

"And bring his killer to justice," Eliza prompted.

Jane kicked off her shoes and curled into the armchair as if she hadn't heard.

"I expect I'm too overwrought to meddle in such things. I'll leave that to Doctor Bell and my new father-in-law. Oh, don't put on so. It suits me to have him think I'm a pea-brained imbecile incapable of anything but birthing his grandson. Men like that. They enjoy playing the grand protector, and thinking is dreadfully tiring. I don't know why you're so enamoured of it."

"Because men are ninnies," she retorted reflexively.

Except, that wasn't entirely true. There was one, who for definite had his faults, but she wouldn't be here now if not for him.

"What will you do now?" she asked Jane, putting thoughts of Jem aside, so that she didn't give herself away with an involuntary grin.

"I'll go to Bellingbrook," Jane insisted, her pale bow-shaped lips barely moving to form the words. "Hopefully, they'll welcome me. Whatever happens, I shan't go back to my parents."

Eliza nodded. She could see why Jane had no desire to do that.

"And Cedarton?"

Jane glanced around at the walls and windows before her gaze settled on the hearth. "I'll see that it's shuttered and left to rot as it ought to have been in the first place."

"That might be for the best," Eliza agreed. Now probably wasn't the time to mention the castle happened to be the primary store of a local smuggling gang.

~Ж~

Sir Cyril arrived shortly after the Cluetts took their leave. They'd taken the hint about the prospect of having to provide testaments and relieved themselves of the bother of it. Dawn was still a long way off, but the dreadful mist that had swaddled Cedarton and its surroundings had finally lifted, leaving behind only a ghostly rime around the moon as the remainder of their party huddled together on the entryway steps to meet the magistrate.

Jane welcomed him and dropped a curtsey, but it was Doctor Bell who took charge of matters and imparted all the details of the case in his succinct and utterly dry way. The two men went off to examine the bodies of Lord Linfield and Mrs Honeyfield together, while the rest of them dallied in the hallway.

"I wonder if I might avail myself of your bed, Eliza," Jane said, in between swallowing yawns. "I can barely keep my eyes open any more, and a swarm of angry bees are buzzing in my head. I'm sure if Sir Cyril desires to interview me, he might wait until I'm risen again. I'm not sure I could count past five right now, let alone get all that has happened straight enough not to sound like a complete lunatic.

"Go. You should rest," Eliza encouraged. "Shall you need my help?"

Despite her sore palms, Jane shook her head. "I think I'd like a few minutes alone in which to collect myself, and this dress is easy enough to unpin."

Eliza pulled her into a quick embrace, then released her and watched her up the stairs. Jem was lingering by the solitary suit of mail when she finally turned away from the stairs.

"Will you join Doctor Bell and Sir Cyril?" she asked.

Jem shook his head. "I've had more than my fill of adventures for one night, and I've no desire to be tugged into a conversation over either body. I think I might follow in Lady Linfield's footsteps and see if I can catch forty winks before anyone asks me to relate what has happened. What about you, Eliza? Do you intend to go down and make sure that facts are being presented as you wish them?"

A part of her was certainly being tugged in that direction, but another was eager for a soft pillow and the respite offered by an eiderdown. "I should give Jane a few moments," she said, committing to neither. Of course, there were other beds in other rooms she might avail herself of, but that would feel like an imposition, even though Jane would never scold her for it. Besides, she wasn't certain she wanted to close her eyes, for she was sure to tumble headlong in memories of the balcony tipping beneath her feet and the ground rushing fast towards her. It was a wonder that she'd survived. Jem would probably be able to show her the mechanics of it. How her trajectory accounted for the fact she'd survived bruised but unbroken whereas Mrs Honeyfield had met with an undignified end, but she wasn't ready to relive it yet.

"I might pen a letter." It would help untangle her thoughts to have to pin them fast to the page, and it would entertain her sisters to hear of her adventures. Although, she would omit certain factors, and definitely miss seeing their reactions as they read. Would they believe it? She was sure she would not if she were presented with such an account. They would wince and laugh and clap their hands in delight though over the many twists and turns, and Maria would claim to have known from the start who was responsible. Her other sisters would nod, but not believe her, while Frederick would insist on voicing that fact, and then a squabble would break out and little Leesa would join in the tableau, her toddler voice out screeching them all.

All at once, she was dismally homesick for the familiar comforts of Bluebell Lane and her kin. Their warmth, their presence, and their fierce love for one another.

"Goodnight, then," Jem bowed his head to her, then took to the stairs. "Eliza?" He paused part way up, one hand clasped to his side, reminding her of his injury. None of them had survived the evening unscathed.

"Good night," she returned, allowing him to nod and depart.

She stood for some minutes looking at the step where he'd been, feeling like a piece had been cut from her reality, a certain sliver that was vitally important, and with that realisation she knew precisely where she wanted to be. It was not with Jane, or her family, nor with Bell in his basement surgery, but next to the man she loved. The man who had been there when she'd needed him to be. Who wasn't perfect in any way, but who was perhaps perfect for her.

She ran up the stairs and straight to his room. Nor did she wait after she wrapped her knuckles against the door, but brazenly barrelled right in. He stood stripped to his skin on top, candlelight painting bronze shadows over his creamy skin. A large section of his abdomen was bandaged, and he was as bruised and scraped as she knew herself to be, but he was also undeniable lovely, and she loved him.

"Eliza! Whatever's the matter?"

"Nothing." She laughed, moving the bottle of brandy that lay on his quilt to the bedside table. "It'll make the bed awful lumpy," she said by way of explanation.

"I don't… What are you doing here?"

She shrugged. "I just realised where I wanted to be, and it wasn't home, or with Jane. It wasn't even down in Bell's surgery or buried in the pages of a scientific treatise. It's with you. I love you too, Jem. I still don't know that I want to get married, but I do love you, and I want… I want at least this night."

"Just this one?" He'd found a smile too now, of the quick nervous variety as if he didn't quite dare believe in what he was hearing yet.

"Oh, I don't know. Shall we see what tomorrow brings? I mean, boggarts might assault us, or one of us might discover we're actually the heir to a far-flung realm…or I might discover you snore most horrifically and decide that Joshua Rushdale is by far a better prospect." She imitated a potential such sound.

"I do, exactly like that, and he definitely is."

But Joshua was also not gazing at her like she was a queen among maids, nor had he ever made her heart leap in quite the same way, or hinted he was prepared to hike across the globe with her, or stargaze, or mix noxious gases in a makeshift laboratory or recite mathematical equations to her in a husky tone that made her toes curl.

He was, more importantly, not here, and semi-naked, and he'd never made her heart leap in the way that Jem did when he leaned in close, and the scent of him caught in her nostrils, and his touch washed heat through her skin. He'd never fingered her until her heart felt like it would explode or pushed her to spend over his face.

"I'm glad to see you're considering it properly."

"Oh, I am," she agreed. "Perhaps we could convince him into being part of a triumvirate, like the Marquis of Pennerley and—"

"You know it's only speculated that he and Viscount Marlinscar—"

"Fie, I know the Marchioness. She and my sister Caroline exchange letters practically every other day. There are definitely three of them in that relationship. So, perhaps—"

"You'll recall Joshua shot the Marquis in the leg," Jem said.

"I do," she said, "But he could hardly let it go in front of such an audience, and he really was protesting to the fact he'd been flaunting her as his mistress and planted a penny in her pudding. It wouldn't be at all like that between us. We'd cajole him with iron filings and axle grease and belching pufferoos."

"I don't know what one of those is."

"Oh," she waved with her uninjured arm and hand. "Nor do I, I just thought of the word, but we could invent it together, or you could with Joshua, while I—"

"Dissect corpses, birth babies, and cure the morbid sore throat."

"Precisely." She nodded.

"Careful," he said. "I might start believing in this utopian future."

"It could be ours, Jem," she said, laying her hand against his bare chest, and grinning when the smattering of hairs there tickled her palm. "But for tonight, the only thing I want you to believe is that I want you as much as you ever wanted me, and that I don't mind if you've lain with other men, or other women, or both. And I won't mind if you still look on them and think they're lovely, because who doesn't look on lovely things and admire them."

"Eliza." He pressed a finger to her lips, quietening her. "You've already said all you ever needed to say." He put his hand over hers where it still lay against his chest. "I'm yours. You enchant me… And I'm very relieved I won't have to poke out my eyes with a stick, because the world is full of lovely things."

"Never on my account."

"I'll never belittle you, Eliza. You're the cleverest person I know."

Now he was making her blush. "I think you're cleverer."

He dipped his head and kissed her nose. "I'm really not, you know."

She kissed his jaw. "I intend to stay tonight." Then the side of his throat.

"Hm, scandalous. You know, I won't be clever at all if you keep pressing your lips to me."

"I don't want you clever, I want you hard. No. No… Actually, I want you both." She let her hand fall from where it rested, so that it traversed a line down to the falls of his breeches. "I think I have the essence of how to accomplish the one, which leaves you to handle the other."

"Proving my cleverness," he huffed. "You realise it's rather hard to think when you're touching me there."

"I bet you can still conjugate Latin verbs for me. No. No, wait. Explain to me Boyle's Law."

"Ah, yes," he began licking his lips, as Eliza licked something else entirely. "It's really quite simple. If you take a fixed mass of gas at a constant temperature, then the volume it inhabits is inversely proportional to…"

"Go on."

"Is inversely proportional to the pressure!" He near squeaked the last as she ran her tongue over the crown of his cock. "And that is quite enough of that. I think we should concentrate on some biological sciences for a while, don't you?"

Her mouth was too full to reply.

~Ж~