-3-

Jem

Jem watched them go, while sucking on his teeth. He'd make a point of finding out what Eliza needed and gathering the ingredients for her when Bell was otherwise engaged. "Did you have to be so frightfully condescending?" he muttered as he pushed past Bell, ignoring his blustering defence.

Eliza, with the same formal training he or Bell had received, would have changed the world by now. She would certainly pass the Oxford exam with a fraction of the trouble Linfield was making of it.

Jem wasn't certain of it, but he'd heard a whisper that his lordship had already attempted and failed it twice, and one of those times, he'd bought the damned answers. Linfield's particular talents didn't run to Greek, Latin, mathematics, or theology—not unless you counted ecstatic screams of ‘Oh God!'. Which was not to say that he was a complete pigwidgeon either. Only that his true forte sat outside of the realms of classical study. Sadly, what he ought to be doing, if one ought to devote themselves to that which they truly excelled, was parting others from their morals and cash.

"What the devil was all that about?" Linfield demanded before Bell even jammed the latch.

"Visitors," Bell replied.

"Your wife, and her guest," Jem elaborated, trying to maintain a neutral countenance, and evidently failing judging by the deep furrow that rooted in the centre of Linfield's brow.

"What did she want?"

"Nothing important." Jem crossed back to where he'd been earlier perched. He noted a couple of the bloodsuckers had so gorged themselves they'd detached and were now fouling the upholstery.

Linfield seeing his line of sight, bellowed, "Bell! Get these confounded things off me. They're not doing a damned thing besides bleeding me dry."

"A few more minutes," Bell responded, prompting Linfield's elastic features to contort into something vicious enough to make Jem jerk his chair back.

"Now, Bell."

Jem winced. Ludlow Bell muttered something indelicate under his breath, then tucked his hands behind his back and said, "Very well, if you insist upon disregarding my advice, but know this, my lord, it could be that even one extra minute is the difference between a cockstand and misery."

"Misery has been a given since I was forced into matrimony. Now, get the bastard things off me. I have had quite enough of your demonic pets. I can say wholeheartedly that they are without a doubt the worst cocksuckers I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. They cannot live up to the best," he caught Jem's eye, "nor even the mediocre."

The doctor sighed. "Of course, my lord. As is your whim, so I shall make it."

Removal proved a trickier feat than positioning. The beasts couldn't be pulled off but instead had to be coaxed into releasing their jaws by sliding a nail under the head end. It was altogether disgusting, made worse by the fact that their hideous, mottled bodies were now bloated with blood. Bell carefully set them on the saucer like delicacies, before wrinkling his nose at Linfield's still entirely flaccid cock.

"It may take more than one tre—"

Linfield waved him away. The doctor took that as his cue to return his bloodsuckers to their jar in the adjoining room.

"I've heard nitrous oxide can—"

Linfield pressed a finger to Jem's lips, then slid his caress over Jem's chin and down his throat, causing Jem to stumble over his words.

"—it can throw one into a theatrical attitude. That is… I've heard it said it makes you tingle in every fingertip, every toe."

Linfield huffed. He touched Jem's lips. "We both know you can do that to me without the assistance of some recently cooked-up noxious emission."

"Could," Jem corrected him, and moved out of reach of his touch.

Linfield sank dramatically into the chaise, allowing his head to loll. "Anatomists, chemists, scholars, what do any of you actually know? I may as well hire a whore and be done with it."

"And where do you propose to find one of those in this godforsaken place?" Jem asked. Batting words back and forth was easier on his brain than attempting a reasoned defence that would fall on deaf ears, anyway.

His lordship merely chuckled. "James… Jem… I invited accordingly."

Their party numbered but half a dozen… seven, with the addition of Miss Wakefield, and none among them prostitutes. Accordingly, he bristled, shoulders lifting.

"Ha!" Linfield slapped the chaise. "You baulk at the label. It is all right, dear Jem, I did not mean you."

Then unless there was a hereto unknown brothel located on their doorstop, he had no idea to whom Linfield attributed the label. Not Bell, or George, or Lady Linfield…

"Did you really think I'd give the serious matter of my cock no thought?"

"On the contrary, I imagine the matter consumes you. As indeed is this beast." Jem pointed down, drawing his friend's attention to the leech half-shadowed by his shirt tails. "It seems the good doctor left one of his pets behind."

"Goddammit! Get it off me."

Jem traced a fingertip along the length of Linfield's thigh to where the leech sat near the root of his bruised and sullen prick. "I'm not certain I know the technique—"

Linfield grabbed his wrist. "Don't play games. Get it off."

It or you? The thought flashed, lightning fast through Jem's brain. Despite Linfield's counter, he still bristled at the implication that he was employed as his lordship's plaything. Jem instead drew a circle around the sanguisuge. "Look at its plump little body. It's thoroughly gorged on your essence. One might even venture tumescent with it." He gave a slow, almost flirtatious blink, then slipped his fingernail beneath the sucker, releasing it. He flicked it away, so that it landed with a splat upon the tea tray between the sugar bowl and a spray of cake crumbs.

Such marks it had left behind; a vibrant mottling of black, blue and red. It was a cruel sight and a barbaric treatment. His anger dispersed, as he reflected on Linfield's dilemma. Would he too, be willing to endure such torture if he found himself in similar straits? Consumed by a sudden wave of guilt, Jem applied his handkerchief to the wound and gently wiped away the smear of blood. "All these marks in such tender places. It seems an extreme measure."

"What choice have I?"

"There must be other ways, the nitrous—"

Linfield clenched his fist around Jem's coat front. "Stuff your science experiments. You and I both know there's one tried-and-true way, and if you cared even half as much as you once professed—"

Love words had never fallen from his lips. "Linfield, no amount of cajoling will change the facts. I told you when you wed, that we were done with all that."

"I'm not done with it. I need you. You've abandoned me when I need you most." His nostrils flared. Then he sucked in a jagged breath. "I… Goddamn you, James. Seriously, just, goddamn you. This is your fault. The whole situation. ‘I can't'," Linfield imitated in a whiny voice. "‘Not with a married man.' Why in hell's name should that make any difference? It's hardly a love match."

"Nevertheless, you made a vow to her." Jem replied, tempted to point out that it had never been a love match between them either. "To love… to keep her… forsaking all others. Swore it before God and in Christ's name, if you recall."

"You speak as if I had any free will in the matter when I had none. Thus, now having been coerced, you abandon me. You condemn me to be a fumbler forever. To feel no more joy, experience no more pleasure—"

"Your wife, I'm sure will provide those—"

"My cobs shrivel at the sight of her, my prick wilts, so that I am forced into this," he gestured at his bruised member. "And it is grossly unfair. And you… you who claim to be my friend, can fix this, but you will not."

They had never been friends. Their relationship was far too lopsided for that. He was the hired help. The man coaxed into performing additional acts through the dangling of carrots.

"Linfield, I cannot. It's not right."

Linfield clasped him tight about the wrist and wrenched his hand over so that it sat firm against his prick.

The effect was instantaneous.

Jem snatched his hand away. "I said I can't. Moreover, I won't."

Linfield's eyes lit with a challenge. His thin mouth puckered into a nasty expression before turning sly. "You don't mean it, though, Jamie. 'Tis only to appease your conscience. But you must put that aside. This is a serious business, and there's no place for squeamishness. I must do my duty, and you, you must perform yours."

"My duty is to teach you equations and languages."

"Te luppiter dique omnes perdent! Quaeso, melius discerem si mentula tua in me exercitio usus es. Please, Jem. You want me to pass the exam, don't you? And somehow it all sticks in the old noggin better when you use non-standard methods."

Jem was saved the effort of articulating a response by Ludlow's return. "Is that a cockstand I see before me?" The physician's smile was utterly conceited and equally undeserved. "Did I not promise?" He took a bow, only for Linfield to fling a wine glass at him. It flew wide and smashed against the wall, sending the good doctor diving for cover.

"Evidently, you need a moment." He scurried off into the depths of the suite he'd carved out for himself, probably to prod at a pickled eyeball or some other grotesque.

"That was a little overdramatic," Jem remarked.

Linfield levelled his gaze at Jem. When it came to emotions, the viscount wore them like a child's first artwork. Happy, sad, angry, bitter. There was no mask, no artifice. "Don't you dare criticise. If you were less squeamish, then I wouldn't be suffering the indignity of having leeches sucking my cock. I could have gone from thee to she, and it could all have been done and over with. As soon as there's a seed planted, I needn't be bothered with her ever again."

It wasn't squeamishness that had prompted Jem to make the decisions he had, rather a notion of fair play coupled with a desire to extract himself from Linfield's clutches. To Linfield he remarked, "I like Lady Linfield." Jane was a sweet girl. A little timid, yes, but oh so very desperate to please.

"Well, that makes one of us."

She didn't deserve the hand she'd been dealt. She and Linfield were hopelessly ill-suited. But, as much as she seemed determined to make a go of it, Linfield seemed equally determined to compound the matter. As for the wedding night, Jem knew exactly how that had gone, for Linfield had burst into his chambers white as a sheet and given him a blow-by-blow recounting of it, before passing into a total stupor.

One might, if they were not as intimately acquainted with the viscount as Jem, have ventured that a little less drink was the obvious solution. While a little abstinence wouldn't have hurt, the source of the issue was far more problematic.

"So go be done with it now," he advised, unable to take his gaze off his lordship's now prominent erection.

He received a petulant sneer in return. "One can't go charging through the house and throw one's wife over the nearest piece of furniture. It's not the done thing, you know. It must be arranged…negotiated."

Stuff and nonsense! Jem turned away from the man. "I wouldn't know," he remarked. He also didn't see why marriage had to preclude passion. "If the purpose of this… interlude, wasn't to make use of," he waved a hand directly over Linfield's groin. "Then what was?"

"To establish that I'm still capable, of course."

Unbelievable . "As if you ever required Bell's pets to do that. You know perfectly well how to achieve a rise."

"Yes. Yes," Linfield repeated himself more softly. "You're right, I do. The solution is right before me. But out of reach, resistant, recalcitrant. Would you have me beg, dear Jamie? I'll prostrate myself if it pleases you."

Brow troubled by a frown; Jem shook his head, leaving them staring hotly at one another again. Honestly, Linfield's marriage had been a godsend. It'd given him a reason to extract himself from a situation that ought never to have even existed.

The problem… and it was a problem, was that Linfield… well… he was fun. And he had a charm, a way about him… He could be ridiculous, mercurial, oft times, mad as a box of frogs. Linfield reminded him of freedom, of pleasures that couldn't be bought, like sunshine and dandelion clocks, and of secrets, the sort that you could taste, and that were sworn over with pricked thumbs, then guarded like precious gems.

He told himself he was here at Cedarton because he was employed to do a job. One, God willing, that would end soon. But really, he hadn't been ready to let go of that precious last breath of adventure. He'd imagined that he'd lost Eliza, not that she'd truly ever been his. He'd seen no reason to truly bank on the possibility of it. He might be smitten, but she… she would not be. Not when she learned what sort of man he really was.

No woman in her right mind wanted a man who also happened to relish the affections of other men.

He shifted uncomfortably. What could he possibly offer?

He was not, thank the Lord, like Linfield, so cursed as to find the feminine form repulsive, quite the opposite, he… He felt desire the same as any red-blooded fellow. He liked bosoms and hips, and the clench of a woman's cunt around his cock. He just also liked pricks and arses, and buggery.

Linfield still hadn't bothered to cover up. In fact, seeing Jem's gaze slide over his cock, he made a fist around it.

"This is the first rise it's seen since… since we… I've missed you, Jem. Is it so wrong to want it, to want to feel something? Why should all our fun end?"

He was stroking himself now, drawing his palm from root to tip and back.

"It's not wrong to want it," Jem conceded.

Linfield reached out to him.

"Only to act on it. It's not simply a matter of thee and me anymore. There are others to think of. Jane did not ask for this, and I won't indulge in something that will inevitably hurt her. It isn't fair."

"It seems to me you care more for her feelings than mine or your own. Are we to sacrifice all joy? What is the point of life if not to enjoy it? Jamie, listen to me, please. I know you're determined to be a saint, but be merciful, and keep your wits. Ask yourself truly, what difference will one more poke make in the grand scheme of things, when we're both already condemned to hell's furnaces?"

"Don't pretend. You don't mean it to be one last time."

One moment of madness had never been enough and never would be. If it had, then they'd have been done with each other after the first time. There would always be a next last time. Always. Into Eternity. Dammit, this was his way out. He didn't want to be Linfield's pawn for the rest of his days. He ought never to have fallen into his clutches in the first place.

If he'd never met Eliza… But he had, and he couldn't regret it. She'd turned his world upside down.

Why wasn't she wed to Rushdale? He'd fled south to avoid heartbreak. Telling himself it was all futile; she wouldn't want him if she knew, and he couldn't offer for her without first letting her know. It had just seemed easier, simpler to concede to the other man. No wonder he'd fallen straight into Linfield's trap.

After no more than a week of study, Linfield had shoved the arithmetic texts aside, and baring his arse as if to receive some schoolboy punishment, given him a sly wink and crooned, "You want to, don't you?"

He ought to have run from that golden imp. Instead, he'd stood there, tension building like a knot in his stomach and his cock swollen and all too eager to divest him of his dignity.

Linfield's breeches weren't around his ankles ready to receive five smart whacks for his badly calculated sums, though Jem had delivered them anyway prior to them fucking all afternoon and into the evening. Linfield had an arse like a peach, and a pucker that seemed designed for no other purpose than to be stretched around Jem's cock.

He couldn't deny he'd enjoyed his abuse of that tightly wrinkled hole. That he enjoyed filling Linfield's arse down to his cobs and spending load after glorious load there.

Linfield wasn't his first. That had been a guest of his aunt and uncle. The man had bent him over a water trough and buggered him. Had practically drowned him too. He'd cast up his assets the moment the deed was done, and then spent three days shivering in bed expecting to be struck by lightning or drop-kicked to the fiery pits of hell for not only allowing it to happen, but enjoying it too.

When that hadn't happened, well… he'd made subsequent forays into madness. It had all been very shifty and clandestine until Linfield. Then he'd pursued the act as if sodomy were neither a crime nor a mortal sin. Again, and again… until there was no pretending he was anything other than a deviant who derived supreme pleasure from swiving other fellow's arses, sucking their pricks or having them do the same unto him.

Tossing himself off in place of nightly prayers wasn't nearly as satisfying.

"I'm desperate, James." Linfield irritably sunk his teeth into his lower lip. "What am I supposed to do if you won't help me? Look at my cock, I'm black and blue. I'm trying." He pouted with his chin bowed towards his chest. "I just know that nothing is going to work, nothing but your hand, your touch."

He clasped Jem's hand and drew it to him, formed around his shaft. "It's been damn lonely without you. I've missed you. Missed us. I'm not cut out for marriage."

"This is madness." Yet even as he said it, Jem's palm covered Linfield curled fist and began to move it in a steady rhythm, causing his lordship's cock stand to thicken further. "Tell me you've missed it too." Linfield leaned into him, not quite close enough for his lips to brush Jem's cheek, but close enough so that his breath warmed the skin and sent anticipatory shivers through Jem's body.

He had missed it—the fucking. Not any other part. Certainly not Linfield's company. Nor his petulance, temper, or general lack of intellect. "It doesn't mean we should—" He pulled his hand away.

"We should." There was no doubt in Linfield's voice. "We should, James. What's the point of being prissy about it? If I'm ever going to tup my wife, then I'm going to need your cock in my hole first. It's a simple fact. Truth is, my prick doesn't care for her. Shrivels to nothing at the mere thought. Yes, she's sweet. Yes, I should be grateful she's no harpy, but if there's nothing there, there's nothing there. And the family demands an heir. Jem, all hell will break loose if I don't provide one. Why do you think we're rusticating here, and not partaking of the comforts of Bellingbrook? A nagging mama is not going to help my situation."

"I thought it over the carriage incident."

Linfield huffed and rolled his eyes. "As if anyone cares about that. No, it is my punishment for my failings. I disappoint. I am not the son my father desires me to be, and no attempt to make me over in his image by providing me with a wife will change that. He desires that I produce a brace of bairns, but…" He took to shaking his head solemnly. "It is not in me, Jem. It's not just her. I've been this way since I emerged from boyhood. Dames can't get a rise out of him."

"But you said—"

Linfield pressed his fingers to Jem's lips, quietening him.

"I'm giving you the facts, Jem. I didn't say I wasn't willing to give it another go. Happens I know of a certain lady with a reputation for being able to secure a rise and release from even the most stubborn of members. I'm willing to put the old tallywhacker in her hands, but I've no more faith in that experiment than I have in Bell's daily leechings."

"Daily?" Jem gulped.

Linfield cupped his hand around Jem's cheek and forced him to meet his piteous gaze. "You see why I seek your mercy. Will you not help me?"

"How?" he asked, against his better judgement. "I won't consent to any scheme that sees you going from my arms to hers."

"Jem…Jem," Linfield sing-songed while swiping his thumb across Jem's lips. "It would only be until the seed was planted. And think on it. If there's no child, who will be blamed? They'll say she's barren. She'll be ridiculed."

"I can't. This is just… It is wrong." He kicked the chair backwards thus jerking himself clear of Linfield's reach, then stumbled to his feet. His lordship followed, clinging to his open breeches.

"Can't you, Jem?"

God, that purr. He hated how much it coiled itself around his being and addled his head. He had to keep a clear mind about this. Realistically, how could it ever work? Even supposing he did as he was asked and fucked Linfield until his cock was iron-hard and weeping, and supposing they managed to disengage in the middle of it… Truly, how far down the corridor would Linfield make it before he turned limp and about turned to Jem's bed?

"It won't work."

"You say that as if you're sure, but how will we know if we don't try?"

"Because everything you have just said tells me so."

His lordship's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps you need time to think on what the consequences of refusing me might be."

Oh, how the spoiled boy hated to be thwarted.

"Are you…? Good God, man. Are you truly threatening me? Because that's so likely to endear me to you."

"Now see here, James. You're looking at this all wrong. Am I not paying you for your services?"

Incredible.

"You're paying me to tutor you through your exam, not to… not to…"

"Go on, say it. Not to bugger me senseless. Weigh it up now, Jem. How much studying and how much fucking have we done? Then tell me what I'm paying you for. Oh, don't look at me like that. What is so very wrong with acknowledging the truth? It's something you've enjoyed without qualms until recently."

"Hardly without qualms." He gasped and cupped hands over his mouth and nose forming a confined space in which to master his outrage. Allowing the lid to fly off his temper would only make him easier to manipulate, and if Linfield was good at anything, it was that.

"Jem… James… Jamie." Linfield's eyes gleamed, and his narrow lips turned upwards into an appeasing smirk. "We both know I learn best when incentivised, but all the knowledge in the world won't matter if I can't provide an heir. Is it really so very great an ask?" He put his hands together as if in prayer. Knelt. "The other options are mere wishes, borne of desperation. Please don't abandon me to Bell's quackery or worse. I'm not asking for anything you haven't given a dozen times before. And it's not as if I'm asking you to bugger me while I'm poised between her thighs…. Although, you know, thinking on it—"

"No!" Jem growled. That suggestion was so ludicrous it ought to have put an end to the appeal.

"No?"

"Most assuredly."

"Perhaps, just outside her door then?"

An equally farcical suggestion. And yet…

There was a certain thrill to be had from pushing one's luck. What sort of euphoria might one achieve from fucking a swain outside his wife's door?

It was madness. Madness to even think on it.

Jem took another pace away from his lordship. "You've a silver tongue, Linfield, I'll not deny it, but—"

"Spare me your rebuttals. James Whistler, are you not always telling me how desperately in need of a sponsor you are? That engine work is an expensive business, quite beyond the funds of one genteel scholar. Do you not think I might be favourably inclined towards the passions of the man who saved me from unimaginable shame?"

Damn him and his thumbscrews.

"You would fund my endeavours?" he said through gritted teeth.

One fair brow arched up Linfield's brow. "Indeed, why not? Should we all not be looking to the future? You've told me, oh so very many times now that steam mechanics is the way forwards. That it's the future, and engineering is set to change things in ways I can hardly imagine. Are you not then the most sensible of investments? Think of the assets at my disposal once I assume the family title."

Jem bit his thumbnail. This was bribery, pure and simple. "I don't care to be manipulated."

Linfield snorted. "Oh, it's hardly that. Come now, this is a business arrangement, one that'll see us both flush." He turned about and draped himself artfully over the chaise. "There's some butter left on the tray."

Jem stared at the arse presented to him. It was a nice arse, beautifully shaped, and he knew the delights of the delicate pink pucker cradled between those two globes only too well. He was tempted. Even knowing Bell was still lurking about, and that Eliza was here in the castle, he was tempted.

With the Bellingbrook resources at his disposal, what scientific wonders could he discover?

He let the dream envelop him a moment, then dismissed it.

"Find yourself a different fool. This discussion is done. I'm going to change for dinner."

Linfield turned his head, his eyes flashing with ire, but then his annoyance melted into a puckish pout. "So cruel. You're a cruel swain, James Whistler."

"Very well, I'm cruel," he agreed, not imagining for a moment this would settle the matter.

Out in the corridor, he found Ludlow Bell leaning against the wall a few feet from the door, arms folded, long legs outstretched. How he had come to be there was a puzzle, though one Jem didn't care to worry over at the present time.

"I suppose you heard all of that," he said.

"It sounds as though the third-floor corridor is the place to be tonight."

Jem kept on walking, only for Bell to fall in beside him.

"You realise that what he says is true. You really are his best option."

Jem pulled up sharp. "Did you not just put leeches on his pizzle? If it wasn't to cure him, what the devil was the purpose of it?"

Bell shrugged. "One needs to act the part if one aspires to remain on retainer. He demanded a treatment; I gave him one. It's a well-documented method. Maybe it even works. We're unlikely to find out, since his lordship isn't impotent."

"He's unable to fuck his wife. Is that not the very definition?"

Bell pursed his lips as though he were sucking eggs. "Technically, it describes an inability to get a rise or spend. Something I believe he manages very well every time you molly him. You may claim it isn't so, but I know what my eyes have seen."

"They've seen nothing."

Bell gave a surprising laugh, then set two fingers to his lips. "Not this time. Past times. Linfield appreciates an audience."

Jem had no words. He'd believed if they had not been entirely discreet then they'd at least been circumspect. But this was… this was… wholly unsurprising, if he was honest.

"Before you imagine me some peeping Tom, it was entirely of Linfield's arranging. His Oxford rooms have more than a few interesting holes in their walls. For my part, I assure you, it is an entirely academic interest. It's fascinating to me. I've never felt that pull for such connection myself, but the parade, the parlays of others…well, so much can be discerned. I wonder, do you ever?" He made a series of intricate and crude gestures with his fingers.

"What business is it of yours?"

"I'm a scholar. Some believe aspects of our personality are reflected in the body. That has not been my experience in those I've examined, though the providence of one's cadavers cannot always be relied upon. Do you think it an anomaly of the brain, or a flaw in the mechanics of the genitalia?"

"I cannot believe you would even ask me such."

"And you call yourself a man of science. The brain, I believe. There are those, men who consider themselves great thinkers, who would have us all believe that it is entirely a matter of choice, a wilful rejection of God's intent, obstinate perversion."

"Whereas you, I suppose, believe it something that can be cut out of one much like a tumour."

"What a fascinating notion. I wonder, James Whistler, if it was, would you,"—he made a scissor like motion with his fingers—"snip it out?"

Jem didn't grace him with a reply, choosing instead to continue his journey to his room. Of all the preposterous notions. He was no fool, he realised he could no more cut that part of himself from his body than he could remove his intellect, compassion, or —God help him—his soul. And why in heaven's name was his capacity to love both sexes equally so vilified? Surely, it was a boon. Didn't the church preach love for one's fellow man?

Love , a little voice in the back of his mind said, not fornication .