Page 14 of A Devilish Element
“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.”
