-6-

Jem

"How exactly is it you're acquainted with the Wakefield woman?" Linfield asked, only to wander over to the side table, apparently disinterested in the answer. Jem wasn't fooled. He knew his lordship too well for that. Understood the nuances of his tone, knew how he tried to disguise his emotions. When he was feigning indifference, he always stuck his head out and pulled his shoulders back, a pose that inevitably resulted in back-ache, of which he would complain. Jem had been expecting the question ever since the ladies departed. It had been foolish of him to draw attention to their prior relationship, but he'd been swept up in the joy of her company.

"Bell?" Linfield waved a decanter at Bell, before pouring a third glass of claret. Cluett had already scurried off, probably afeared, having muttered something about bellyache, that Bell would prescribe a course of purgatives or insist on him swapping wine for milk for a week.

In fact, Bell remained too preoccupied with stoking the fire to have paid George any heed. Linfield put his drink within arm's reach, then came towards Jem. Their fingers brushed more than necessary as the claret was handed over. Foreplay of sorts, Jem supposed it. He was half tempted to run off to his bed, but likely as not Linfield would only see that as an invitation and follow him. There was a definite air of expectation about him this night that Jem found prickled him in a way he intensely disliked.

He'd never actually agreed to Linfield's foolishness. The whole idea that it was all right to fornicate with a wedded man because it was the only means by which he could tup his wife was no more acceptable to him now than it had before he'd understood Linfield's reasoning. And to do so outside the woman's door… Of course, he wasn't going to do that. He'd only entertained the notion because Linfield had this way of addling this thought. In any case, he would not risk Eliza seeing him behaving in such a manner. If Linfield needed a prick up his arse to tup his wife, he could secure some other fellow's.

"Well, what is she to you?" Linfield asked lightly, as if he wasn't about to scratch someone's eyes out to learn every detail.

"Who? Oh, Miss Wakefield," Jem responded, mastering indifference.

That was an altogether more difficult question, particularly so if he wanted to avoid raising his lordship's ire. Who was Eliza Wakefield to him? Why, nothing and everything. A vague acquaintance, but also the fantastical creature who'd stolen his thoughts right through August and September. Usually, the sort of intense pull he felt towards Eliza Wakefield, he only felt towards the great figures in his field. But Eliza… Eliza had felled him without even trying. She'd stolen his breath when she'd looked up at him, a soot-stain upon her pert nose, and set his pulse alight.

There'd never been a woman like Eliza Wakefield before. Not for him. Not a woman he could converse with as an equal, whose mind leapt and landed, who could pull pieces of the universal puzzle together in her mind and assemble them in new and fascinating ways. She reasoned. She spoke his language. He lost his heart to her over a diagram of one of Richard Trevithick's Puffer Whims.

Yet, if not for Eliza, he would never have found himself ensorcelled by Linfield's wiles.

The fact of the matter was, for all that he was besotted, he couldn't have her. He hadn't a bean of his own. He'd lived entirely off his uncle's good will for most of his life, and he wasn't even his uncle's heir. That was his youngest cousin, George-Thomas. Nor had Eliza given him any indication that she'd be amenable to the idea, even if he felt able to ask. What woman wanted a penniless scholar as a life mate? Especially one who sought the attentions of other men as readily as those of women. No woman, that's who. He could not believe Jane Linfield would have made that choice if she'd been aware, and now she was suffering the consequences of it. Besides, even if Eliza were able to reconcile herself to that quirk of his, he was a poor choice for one so brilliant. B'gad he was as astonished as hell to find her still unwed. His head had not been the only one turned that summer, and the other fellow was now the brother-in-law of a marquis and had the funds to keep her in the fashion she deserved.

"Well?" Linfield prompted, his eyes bulging a little. Jem was seriously trying his patience.

He shook off the cobwebs of thought. "We were introduced over the summer. She was among the guests at the house party my aunt and uncle held to celebrate Stephen Crakehall's engagement."

"Who?"

Of course, his lordship knew little of anything outside his own narrow circle of interest, which consisted of racing, pugilism —watching not participating—and dancing Sallinger's round. Crakehall, determined to make his mark, had been rousing the Grenvillite Whigs into a froth in the House over Catholic emancipation.

"No one important," Jem said with a sigh. "Just the fellow who occupies my uncle's second parliamentary seat."

"She's kin?"

"A vague acquaintance."

"And that's the only time you've met? One would have thought you the very best of friends, you were so intimately acquainted with her pursuits."

No one who had seen her after Pennerley fell to that pistol ball could have anything but the utmost admiration for her, and he'd been wholly besotted before that.

"Eliza has an enquiring mind. She likes to study natural philosophy among other things."

Jem shot a glance towards the fireside, anticipating Bell's eyebrow raise and perhaps a bleat of blatant misogyny. Sure enough, there was, the eyebrow arch, though what he said was, "Eliza?"

They were acquainted enough for such permissions, yes, but he chose not to elaborate on the fact.

"We share a mutual love of such things."

"So, you're a natural historian now, are you?" Linfield downed his drink and poured another. "And here I was thinking you were a mathematician. Or was it an engineer? An architect? I find, I'm growing quite confused as to which it is."

"A trug?" Bell ventured under his breath.

"Says the man who always gets his hands dirty," Jem replied, shooting the doctor a thinly veiled scowl. If Bell was going to spit insults, then Jem would trade them with equal currency. After all, who ever heard of a physician who mixed his own medicines and soiled his person with viscera?

"So?" Linfield leaned in, encroaching on Jem's space just enough to be irritating, and to prohibit any further discourse between him and Bell. Linfield steepled his fingers over the top of Jem's glass. "Which is it, Jamie, dear?"

"My skills are many, as too my areas of interest."

Perhaps that hadn't been the wisest response, given what skill he knew his lordship was itching to experience in action.

"Well, I suppose there can be no harm in it, providing you recall whose mind it is you're here to expand."

"Mind," Bell guffawed.

Linfield shot him a look of pure malice along the length of his narrow nose.

Bell shrugged it off as if it were nothing. "What? Is there a problem with my speaking plainly? I wouldn't be a very good doctor if I couldn't discern my patient's mien. I believe—do correct me if I'm wrong—that we are all here at Cedarton, except for the Cluetts, for the same purpose. Fixing your broken prick."

"What is the purpose of the Cluetts?" Jem asked.

"Entertainment," Linfield replied. "Torture cannot be ones whole provenance, and George can always be relied on in such matters. The question I ask myself is, can I say the same of you two? You have both failed me utterly so far."

There was nothing to do but mutter affirmatives. Though, in truth it was questionable if George filled his role quite so perfectly as Linfield implied. Everyone knew he'd been peevish since the day of the race, having lost a fortune when Linfield swooped to triumph. There'd even been speculation that Georgie had paid the lady who'd been run down to deliberately dive into the path of Linfield's phaeton. The tactic hadn't worked. Linfield had neither swerved nor stopped, and George had limped across the finish line in third place down to a magnificent piece of cornering by Wattlesborough.

"Come and sit by me, Jem." Linfield beckoned him over to the fireside. Bell remained on the floor, his long legs stretched out before him, his back to the chaise, full-bottomed wig still artfully curling over his shoulders. Jem settled onto the opposite side of him to Linfield, a move that earned him an instant scowl. He was in no mood to be picked at or provide entertainment, and if he was honest, he was a little afraid of Linfield's intention. He'd hoped to use Bell as a sort of hobble, but after the fellow's earlier remarks, his presence might be as much a stimulus to Linfield chicanery as a means of thwarting it.

"How fairs your prick this evening, my lord?" Bell asked.

"It looks like I've been fellated by a pack of harpies."

"Is that why you haven't bounded straight off to nub your wife? I would have thought you'd be keen to prove yourself now that functionality is restored."

Jem watched his lordship's jaw churn.

"There's time enough for that yet. The hour is young. In any case, it strikes me she may have an opinion on the current appearance of my parts, and as I have no desire to discuss my appendage with her–"

"Snuff the candle." Bell's remark was so dry and condescending in tone that it shocked a snort from Jem. Linfield shot him a death glare. The sort he usually reserved for those he was about to cut, ridicule, or crush.

They were both in his employ and would be wise to remember it.

Linfield sacrificed another wine glass to his temper. "Nothing about this damn marriage is appealing. I said as much before it damned took place, but would the old codger listen? Of course not. My opinion is valueless. It's his will, therefore I must endure."

'Twas a fact that when an earl gave you an ultimatum, you knuckled down to it regardless of how badly it smarted to do so. Perhaps, he was being unkind to judge Linfield so harshly. The situation was not entirely of his making. He was as trapped by circumstances as the rest of them.

Jem was about to mutter something to aid them out of the current quagmire when a shrill scream set all their teeth on edge. A kind of rictus besieged them all, so that they didn't move and barely breathed until the siren's wail ended.

Bell came to first. He flipped onto his feet in a show of athleticism Jem would never have attributed him. "What the devil?"

He had to give the physician his due, Bell never shirked his duty if circumstances arose where it seemed his services would be in demand. Jem had not forgotten that woman's death, the way Bell had handled everything with effortless efficiency. There'd been nothing he could do to save her—she'd been dead by the time he reached her—but the fact that he'd made it his duty to take care of her said much for him, where some of his mannerisms and foibles might have given an opposite impression.

"That is Lady Linfield, if I am not mistaken."

Jem and Linfield caught up with him on the main staircase. A footman was hurrying downwards. "Her ladyship," he gasped. "She's… she's upstairs, by the … Dropped into a dead faint—"

"And you left her?" Jem asked, still on the move.

"Mr Cluett's there."

"With my wife?" Linfield's brows knotted.

"He came out of his room," the footman explained. "And was swift enough to catch her when she swooned."

"Well, I'll be damned. It's not like Georgie to be so quick off the mark. But that must mean she's on the second floor. What the devil is she doing there?"

"Perhaps the questions might wait." Bell was already halfway up the stairs. "You," he pointed at the footman. "Fetch my bag."

By the time Jem reached the upper landing, Bell was already skidding onto his knees. He pushed George aside and took up her ladyship's wrist to feel for a pulse.

"Is she all right?" Linfield had followed him up the stairs, though he seemed keen to maintain some distance.

"A faint. Smelling salts will set her to rights." Bell produced a glass vial from his pocket and uncapped it beneath her nose. Lady Linfield awoke with a start, followed by some flailing and another anguished cry. "Get away. No… no, you shan't have me."

"Lady Linfield… Jane, calm yourself, there's nothing to be alarmed about."

"I saw it. Right there." She pointed dead ahead to where Cluett stood. "Clear as day she was. Oh, she wants me. She means to kill me, I know it. We should not have come to Cedarton. It is cursed…cursed! Such utter folly. Linfield. Tell him we need to leave. Right now, this very moment. We have to leave."

"What the devil is she babbling about? Ghosts and nonsense. Utter tripe," Linfield muttered, prompting Jem to chastise him with a stare. While Lady Linfield was clearly overwrought, there was no need to be so impolite about it. The woman had clearly suffered a major shock, and Jem for one believed there was something to it. No one wound up this terrified without cause.

Linfield was barely cowed.

"What did you see?" George demanded, getting in on the huddle.

Jane didn't respond, her mind seemingly unable to fasten on any one of them for more than a moment, and her body continued to judder in a most unnatural way.

"What I'd like to know is why you were wandering about the second floor in the dark?" Linfield said. "What business led you here? Your rooms are upstairs, madam."

She gaped at him, then clamped her mouth closed, and a furious blush spread over her décolletage. Linfield chewed on his littlest fingernail.

The footman came running, carrying Bell's bag, which the doctor immediately rummaged through, and thus produced a vial of reddish-brown liquid and dropper.

"Perhaps we might move her to some place more comfortable before you administer that." Bell returned a nod, and so Jem lifted her. She was light as a child and easily settled in his arms. "Where to?"

Linfield cleared the way and ushered him towards the stairs. "Her chamber would be best." They all followed in his wake, chittering and speculating as to the cause of her malaise as if she couldn't hear them. He wasn't sure when Henrietta joined them, only that it was her who first raised the notion of dear Jane having seen an apparition, and which set Jane off babbling madness again.

Up until this point, Jem had not taken the notion of a spectral presence at Cedarton remotely seriously. The maid's story could easily be reasoned away, so too Lady Linfield's supposed earlier sighting of the ghoul. They'd attributed it to an overactive imagination, without any attempt to dig into the matter. Jane herself had said she'd not been at all certain of what she'd seen. This time around, that was clearly not the case. The woman in his arms was bleached of colour and quaking so her limbs twitched seemingly of their own volition.

Eliza burst from her room with her hand cupped around a candle flame as he waited for someone to open the door to Jane's chamber. "What happened?" she demanded. "Jem, is she hurt? I heard a cry, but it didn't seem wise to run toward it in the thick of night. Where was she? Did you find her? Jane… Jane, dear, are you all right?"

"Eliza." Jane clasped her friend's hand fast and pulled her closer, making it almost impossible for Jem to move. "I saw it…her, old Lady Cedarton. Oh, Eliza, it was no mistake last time. No hallucination. She was right there before me as plain as you are to me now, yet insubstantial as the breeze. I could see right through her to the other side. Oh, Eliza. She means us harm, I know it, right here in my soul." She tugged her friend's hand to her breast. "We mustn't stay here. You have to convince them. Tell Linfield. I know he won't listen to me. We ought to return to town at once. All of us. Oh, Eliza, I'm so sorry. I should never have brought you here."

"Nonsense, Jane. You need me, and right now you are overwrought. Darling, I know what you think you have seen, but ghosts are not real. They are stories we make up to teach one another the lessons of the past. I'm sure there's a rational explanation for whatever it was you saw. You believe that too, don't you, Jem? And Doctor Bell?"

Their nods of agreement did little to calm Jane's panic. Her eyes were wide as saucers, and her skin so milk pale as to be almost translucent. Nor did Henrietta's sudden cry— "It will wreak bloody vengeance on us all and harvest our souls,"—do anything to soothe matters.

"Cluett," Bell swore through clenched teeth. "I've no desire to attend two patients at once. If you could return your mother to her chamber and stay with her until she's settled. I'm sure a dash of brandy and a well-stoked fire will set her to rights."

"Of course." Cluett gave a bow, then snapped to attention as if he were a solider brought to attention by a senior officer. "Come, mother. There is nothing we can assist with here." He led her away, supporting her against his arm.

Eliza flung wide the door to Jane's chamber. Jem settled her on the bed, then stood back to give Bell the space to do his work.

"Is she deranged?" Linfield remained on the threshold and did not cross it.

"Her heart's racing," Eliza said, which Bell confirmed with the press of his fingers to the pulse point in her throat. Although, it was clear enough that the rise and fall of her chest was unnaturally rapid. A sheen of perspiration peppered her brow and upper lip.

"It's to be expected after a shock. But you must endeavour to gather your wits, Lady Linfield. Such dramatics are undignified in one of your standing."

"She was here, I'm telling you," Jane beseeched him. "Her face…it was." She grasped his coat, though it was not clear if it was to pull him closer or to raise herself up. "Cruel. Hideous, cruel. She wants us gone, all of us, but me especially. This is her house. She means us ill, dreadful ill. You must believe me, doctor…Eliza…husband. Please."

Linfield remained stoically distant. "Might you not sedate her? She's clearly of unsound mind."

Eliza shot Linfield such a look of horror the viscount actually took a step back into the corridor.

"Fetch a glass," Bell instructed. Wine was procured, and added to it, a dropperful of sweet delirium. "Drink this, Lady Linfield. It will help rest your mind." She did so meekly, then fell almost instantly limp against the pillows.

"You really believe an opiate the best recourse?" Eliza snapped, her hand coming to her hips as she faced Bell across the bed. "But then I suppose you're inclined towards your master's viewpoint. Willing to dismiss her alarm as the frailty of her mind, rather than making any attempt to discern the truth of the matter."

"I've a bloodletting knife, if you'd prefer more invasive means. And pray, do not attribute to me views I have in no way expressed. Being in Lord Linfield's employ does not grant him mastery of my mind. I am certain Lady Linfield did see something. As to the nature of that something, as you yourself implied, there is most likely a rational and completely ordinary explanation for it."

Jem could not be certain of it, but he thought he saw a flicker of amusement about the doctor's lips, as if he found in Miss Wakefield some merit where he had not supposed to find it. But didn't he know that all too well himself? Eliza had never been an ordinary miss. Simpering ways and embroidery, warbling like a lark, they were as much of an anathema to her as to the two men of science she currently stood between. "Perhaps we ought to investigate," he remarked. "See if there isn't a simple explanation for whatever she saw." He sought Eliza's gaze, and her approval, but she was busy smoothing the covers over her friend's still form. "If you are done here, Bell?"

"Will you sit with her?" Bell enquired of Eliza. "Or should I have the housekeeper send someone up? It's unlikely she'll stir, but it's best if someone remains with her just in case."

Eliza took a wary perch upon a nearby chair. "I'll stay. I'm not certain there's help enough at Cedarton for any of the maids to be spared."

"But nor can you be expected to tend her the whole night through," Jem said.

"I'll speak to Mrs Honeyfield." Bell asserted. "If her mind is still tender come daybreak, additional help will have to be found, though I'm sure she will wake quite herself again."

"More likely with a head as thick as a woolly mammoth hide, and thoughts like treacle," Eliza huffed under her breath.

Jem found he couldn't disagree with her. He greatly disliked any concoction that meddled with his ability to reason properly. It was why he'd stayed clear of the parties held by Davy and his ilk, who made utter tits of themselves breathing nitrous oxide vapours from a green silk bag. Well, not so much Davy himself; he was far too busy recording the nonsense his experimental gas caused—euphoria, laughter, priapism. "Bell, a word." He followed the doctor out into the corridor. "Did you read Davy's pamphlet on nitrous oxide?"

Ludlow Bell stopped and turned towards him, his gaunt face pulled into a form of rigidity that might be down to derision or fascination, and which caused Jem to hesitate for fear of discovering which. "You're not about to suggest I treat Lady Linfield's malaise with such an analgesic?"

"God no! I was thinking of Linfield's issue. I did mention it to him, and while I don't know if Davy specifically mentions it, I've heard from others that one of the pleasures of the gas comes from the raising of one's flagpole."

His observation was met with a dry chuckle from Bell. "You've a strange mind to think of such things at a moment like this. Are you truly suggesting that I have Linfield inhale and then mount his wife?"

"Is it any more ludicrous an idea than treating him with leeches? Or his suggestions?"

"Indeed not. But your timing is… interesting. Though, I suppose it would also get you out of a tight spot, or should I say from sliding into one. Very well, I will investigate this gas, but as previously discussed, we both know there are simpler methods."

"Out of the question," Jem replied.

"He'd be a happier man for it, and we'd all get away from this place sooner. It's going to be devilish cold once the snow falls."

"Let me state this bluntly, if it's a prick up his arse he needs, it need not be mine. Perhaps as his physician…"

Bell waved aside the notion. "You're the fellow he has on retainer for that purpose."

Jem rounded on him, hand planted flat across the physician's chest. "I'm his tutor. My purpose is to teach him Greek and algebra. You're the one who's employed to keep him in merry health."

Bell remained quiet a moment before releasing a snort. "You're an intriguing case, Mr Whistler. I don't believe you were quite so mired in moral quandaries before today. I'd take care if I were you. A wise man in your situation might choose to downplay their partiality for a certain recent arrival to Cedarton."

Jem shot a look back down the corridor. Jane's door was now closed, but it was the other occupant of that room that his thoughts turned to. He might dislike Bell for it, but the man was right. He would never exchange matrimonial oaths with Eliza, he had nothing to offer her but friendship, and Linfield was already spitting jealous.

"He's a cur, but he's a cur with a near bottomless purse."

"Is he paying you to cajole me?"

The doctor wafted such a suggestion away. "I just fear the consequences for those of us around him if his issue persists."

"What the devil do you mean by that? What consequences?"

"Would you not agree that prior to her arrival here, Lady Linfield was of sound mind and body? Yet now she screams and faints and bleats of apparitions."

An entirely uneasy thought settled in Jem's gullet. The thought had not occurred to him so fully formed before this point, but it loomed large into life now. Linfield's unwillingness to engage, his revulsion. How far would Linfield go to free himself of his current bind and unwanted wife?

"I trust that you'll not stoop so low as to taking part in such a plot?"

Bell halted his long-legged stride. "What is clear to me is that she saw something. As for what that was… We are both men of science, Mr Whistler, I for one cannot entertain the notion that the dead walk abroad, and that leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that this abomination currently hounding our hostess is man-made."

"You think Linfield means to scare his wife out of her wits? Good God, man. You're under his roof. I know he's a cad, but…"

Dammit, the more Jem churned the matter over in his head, the more events seemed to point towards some manner of manipulation.

Bell's pupils blazed black in the poor light. He tore off his wig, revealing hair as black as ebon, shorn short and describing a marked widows peak. "All I'm saying is that it would suit Linfield extraordinarily well if his wife was found to be mentally deficient. She could be removed from his vicinity, and moreover the demands of his family would cease. He would never have to worry over getting a rise to prove himself by planting his seed, and his family would never need to know his true nature as a champion of the windward passage."

Jem sagged from his shoulders to his knees, suddenly weighted by the expulsion of dark thoughts. "You truly think him capable of it?"

"More than. As do you."

"And you'd willingly condemn her."

The man gave him a thin smile. "It may surprise you to learn that I have my own code of morals. I will have no part in such a diagnosis, but if he seeks it, he will secure the necessary evidence. I am but one physician. This country has many, and most will value the tinkle of coins in their pockets over a woman's fate."

"We can't let it happen."

"We can't stop it."

"If it's shown to be a trick, we can. She was nigh to the door of George's chamber when we found her. What if we poked around?"

Bell nodded his consent and followed Jem downstairs to the lower corridor, which stood in the same inky gloom as the rest of Cedarton's environs, and not helped by the dark bowling green hue of the walls, coupled with an excessive array of ancestral portraiture.

"There's nothing here that I can see," Bell remarked, as they pulled back rugs and patted around various picture frames.

"What's in these rooms? The Cluetts are opposite, but where do these other doors lead? And what was she doing along here, anyway?" Jem asked.

"That is a very good question. One must assume some business with the Cluetts, but it's curious that neither made mention of it, nor gave any indication of having seen her before her screech alerted them—"

"We can ask her when she awakens."

Jem turned the handle of the nearest door, which opened on curiously silent hinges. Every other door in the place wailed and groaned like an arthritic old roué bemoaning his inability to function as he had in his youth so, it was a novelty not to hear a screech. "Good lord, there's a whole unused suite of rooms here."

"Two suites, I should say." Bell let himself into the room a little further along the corridor. "Nothing but shrouded furniture."

And little of that, judging by the echoic ring of his voice.

"Likewise, here." The room Jem had entered had been stripped of comforts, retaining only a couple of larger pieces of furniture too cumbersome to remove. Jem peeked beneath one shroud and discovered an old settee, the seat now tattered and wriggling with baby mice. He dropped the cover again and took an idle stroll to the window. It was black out, the clouds sitting low on the moors obscuring anything beyond a few feet. There was no moon.

"Anything?" Bell joined him in the room, swinging the door to behind him after he passed, and thus revealing a second glass-panelled door set at an angle behind the first. He opened it at once and stuck his head inside. "Nothing," he said, emerging immediately. "The same miasma of neglect as the rest, only accompanied this time by the most godawful ox blood stain on the walls. Whoever was responsible for decorating this place had morbid tastes."

"And that coming from an anatomist."

"The body is a fascinating instrument, but I don't endeavour to smear its fluids across the walls of my abode like some sort of demonic slaughterer."

Jem joined the physician in the doorway. The side-chamber was as Bell described it. Devoid of contents except for an old, overturned box, and the stub of a candle in a jar. There was a faint current of something honeyed entwined with the general miasma of neglect in the room, beeswax, perhaps?

"Whatever she saw, there's no sign of it here," Bell remarked. "Perhaps it is that Lady Linfield is simply highly strung and prone to fanciful imaginings."

Jem refused to accept that explanation. Jane had struck him as meek, but hardly of a flighty nature, and certainly not one of the preposterous wailing sirens that society liked to pander to, who absolutely thrived on discord and the attention even the slightest upset could provide them. She was not the type to declare an attack of the nerves and the necessity of a quiet moment with the most amenable of young men to attend her. Still, there seemed little point in arguing the case with Bell, who for all he knew held a similar opinion. He was beginning to think the doctor cultivated a persona, which was not entirely in accord with his inner being. "Let's turn in, there doesn't seem to be anything to be gained by lingering." Except perhaps the prospect of a spider landing on his head, or a mouse scurrying up his leg.