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.
-4-
Eliza
They were to gather in the drawing room ready for dinner. Fashionably late. Linfield insisted on London hours. No one seemed to have mentioned that dinner was served earlier in the countryside. It made Eliza glad of all the parkin Jane had plied her with earlier, for she was so famished her stomach was engaged in some unladylike gurgling. If not for that, she might have taken the opportunity of being ready a little early in order to return to the still room. Doctor Bell would surely be elsewhere. Even quacksalvers were expected to dress for dinner.
She shook, trying to dislodge the feeling of irritation he’d wrought, so arrogant, so dismissive. Her intellect was in no way diminished by virtue of being a woman, only less-honed, as she had been largely deprived of tuition and barred entry into the seats of learning he was welcomed into.
All at once, she missed her still room and garden at Bluebell Lane with its pungent aromas and seas of blooms that flourished from March to November. Within its confines were so many miracles of nature. After dinner, she would make time, find an opportunity to slip away and mix that powder for Mrs Honeyfield. The poor woman probably already imagined herself forgotten by the gentry she served.
For too much of her life, the Wakefield’s had only been one step away from destitution themselves, and the fact that Freddy had changed that did not always feel like a boon. Now, her tolerated foibles—bookishness, healing, and the vindication of women—were no longer considered accomplishments. All anyone cared about was whether she could embroider, sing, paint, and produce something delicate on the ear upon the harp or pianoforte. As it happened, she could not.
Next door, she could still hear Jane bustling about with her toilette. Feeling stifled, Eliza determined to make her own way down to dinner. The castle’s layout was really not so very confusing as it had first seemed. She found the red drawing room with ease and entered to find a couple already present: a young buck with sandy hair and a ruddy complexion, round of face, but long-limbed, and a lady—a relation, if twin snub noses were to be relied upon. Her hair was bound beneath a brightly striped turban and dressed with a plume of feathers Eliza thought probably better suited their original owner.
The buck leapt from his seat at once on spying her and darted forward, all courtly charm. He dipped into a bow.
“Good evening, you must be Lady Linfield’s friend.”
Eliza allowed him to brush his lips against her knuckles. The stock he wore was so large that it almost swallowed his head as he bowed. “Excuse the presumption, but as our hosts are not yet down, allow me to introduce myself. I’m George Cluett. Linfield and I are old school chums. I’m told that is how you and Lady Linfield are acquainted. What a hoot! And this lady here is my mother, Mrs Cluett.”
Her suspicions were correct.
The lady rose, graceful as a ballet dancer though she was plump as a French hen, with cheeks a cherub would have envied. There was a bloom about her that maturity hadn’t stolen. If Eliza had not just had it confirmed, she would not have believed her old enough to have an adult son. “Henrietta, please dear,” she chastened in good humour. “I can’t abide pointless formality. We are thrust here together in the wilds, and such a cosy party, I expect we will all know one another very well soon enough.” To Eliza she added. “You are Miss Wakefield, I believe.”
