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.”
“Whatisthe 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?”
