Page 20 of A Devilish Element
She believed that, even if she couldn’t entirely depend upon Linfield himself. Like any man, he could not be relied on to do anything that wasn’t in his own self-interest. Even though it would be utterly wrong to abandon Jane to the isolation of Cedarton, she had no trouble imagining him doing it. Moreover, what could she or Jane do to prevent it? Men had all the power, both in and outside of marriage.
“Then you must do whatever you can to ensure he doesn’t.”
Jane worried her swollen lips with her front teeth. “Do you think?” she began hesitantly. “What if I… went to him. Do you think that would make this better or worse? I fear if I wait for him to make the next move I shall expire before our marriage is ever consummated. And it must be, Eliza…must. It’s God’s will. The very point of forming such a bond.”
“I thought you feared he thought you too forward?” Eliza said.
“I don’t really know. ’Tis only a theory. Perhaps if I promise to lie as stiff as he likes and not make a single murmur.”
“As long as you realise—.” Eliza stilled her tongue. If she primed Jane to be ready for rejection, then it would be even more likely to materialise. In any case, Jane was already on her feet, and pulling her shawl around her shoulders. “You mean to go to him this minute?”
Her friend confirmed it with a vigorous nod. “I shall lose my nerve if I don’t act now.”
“He may still be entertaining.” Surely, Jane did not mean to barge into the gentlemen’s after dinner conversation and proposition Linfield? That would be most extraordinary.
“If he is at his port, then I will wait in his chamber. Goodnight, Eliza. I hope you will not mind that I’m not right next door when you choose to turn in, but I must do this to secure my future.”
“I quite understand,” Eliza said, not understanding at all. Jane kissed her goodnight and left. The hall was echoic and lonely without a companion to share the fireside with, so Eliza banked the coals and took up a candle. She would not turn in just yet, but she would retire to her room. She had a feeling that Jane might yet need her again before the night was through.
-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.”
