Page 40 of A Devilish Element
“Perhaps it won’t be so bad on a second attempt,” Jem suggested, not believing it for a second. “If you snuff the candles—”
“What? I’ll somehow forget it’s my wife I’m about to tup? Not likely, not even in the most Stygian of gloom.” He made a piteous sound, as though he were facing denizens of the underworld and not the pleasures of a woman’s cunt. “There weren’t any candles lit the last time.” His head hit his hands and bowed forward over his knees. “God in heaven, do you think I’d have subjected myself to Bell’s leeches if the matter could be accomplished merely by extinguishing the light? Jem, my prick shrivels at the very thought of exploring her arbour. My cobs retreat so far into my innards they’re in danger of becoming lost there. I’ve thought about this. Turned over every damn possibility. There’s only one means of achieving my burden I have any faith in—”
“There are options.” Damned if they were going to arc straight back to the matter of him performing. “Davy’s gas, and you made mention of a whore who might assist. One capable of getting a rise out of the stubbornest of pricks.”
The idea was waved away at once, and Linfield languished between the swags, pouty and indolent. “It was a thought born of desperation, nothing more. It won’t work. There’s never been a whore yet who could get a rise out of me. Leastways, none of a feminine persuasion. The truth is my prick prefers a different sort of touch. A fellow’s touch. I think we can agree, Jamie, can we not, that I spend best when my porthole is plundered and stretched wide by a thick cremorne? And it’s likely the only way in which I’ll ever manage to impregnate my wife.”
“Linfield, for the hundredth time, I’m not fucking you in a corridor.” The soap shot free of his grasp and plopped into the water, necessitating him going on a hunt for it. What was surprising was that Linfield didn’t immediately dive in with a rebuke, or a counterargument. When Jem finally got a grip on the soap again, and having deposited it over the side, he found Lindfield’s dandelion clock of fine hair bobbing in agreement. “Wait, what? I feel I’ve missed something. You don’t want me to do that anymore?”
“Having had time to mull it over, no.”
Thank you, Lord!
“You’d need to join us in the marriage bed.”
Jem plunged himself deep into the now murky water. Just for a moment there, a fraction of an iota of a second, he’d thought Linfield had seen sense. Fool him for thinking that Lord Nickninny would ever propose something that wasn’t wild, stupid, or deranged.
He came up again once his air ran out, and still exasperated, scrubbed the water off his face. “You’re suggesting I prick you while you prick your wife?”
“Yes. I thought it was rather—”
“Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”
“—elegant.”
“I’m never agreeing to that. It’s a nonsensical idea. More stupid than doing it in the corridor, and letting Bell’s pets feast on your cock, and everything else that’s been suggested or tried all put together.” Although really, he oughtn’t be surprised. When had Linfield ever said anything rational or sensible? Jem struggled to think of an occasion in the entirety of their acquaintance.
“You maintain all my ideas are nonsense, but nearly all of them you’ve gone along with, anyway. Why should this time be any different? Especially when this time, it matters. Really matters. It’s the only hope I have of siring the necessary tailfruit to soothe my sire’s grumbling.”
Jem opened his mouth but found he was profoundly lacking in coherent arguments. “You don’t think she might—”
“Object?” With the turn of a narrow wrist, his employer swept aside the notion as if it were a trifling thing, not a matter of considerable importance. “James, she’s a lady. She’s uninformed. I shall simply explain that a fellow’s goujat is sometimes involved in such matters. It’s not as if you’re going to be touching her, and there’s no deception about the matter, so you can’t object on those grounds. It won’t be like the corridor thing at all. This will be all entirely in the open.”
Evidently his objections were irrelevant, too. “I’m not doing it. You’re insane.”
“I’m perfectly reasoning, and you’re only being objectionable about it because your head’s been turned in another direction, and I might add, Jamie, that I find that extremely irritating. You’re here for me, not to consort with—”
“Don’t,” Jem barked, cutting him off before he said something unforgivable. The outburst earned him a ridiculous pout, the sort that would put a lady of the ton to shame.
“Well, if you weren’t being so tiresome about the matter, we wouldn’t need to have these little ripostes.”
“Better tiresome than a fool. While I agree that Lady Linfield is likely ill-informed of the marriage acts, I question her total ignorance of the matter.” She was Eliza’s dear friend, after all. “I’m not climbing into the bed of a woman who hasn’t explicitly invited me there.”
“Oh, is that the issue?”
“Linfield, no!”
“She’s my wife, Jem. I married her. She’ll do as bid, like the meek and obliging creature she’s been brought up to be. If it’s my decree that another fellow is a necessity in our bed, then that’s the beginning and end of the matter. Be thankful I’m not asking you to do the job for me.” The grin that stretched wide his lips said he’d certainly entertained the notion. “You’re far too swarthy.” The Bellingbrook stock were all wan to the point of anaemia, with heads full of silky near-white hair, and spindly limbs; any deviation from that norm would rouse suspicions and set tongues wagging.
“You’re damned right I’m not. Just what sort of gentleman do you think me?”
A great spurt of water hit him in the face, courtesy of Linfield clapping a hand across the surface. His eyebrows were raised. “James Whistler, I know exactly what manner of man you are. One with similar tastes and weaknesses to myself. That is why we’re friends.” Linfield leaned forward, propping his elbows on the rim of the bath and soaking his coat cuffs. “You’ll help me bed my wife, Jem. You’ll plunge your ramrod so deep in my arse there’ll be no question of me spilling and the act bearing fruit. You’ll do it because if you do not, there will be consequences.”
He refused to play into Linfield’s hand by asking what form those consequences might take; he could imagine well enough. Linfield could break him.
“The answer’s still no.”
Linfield’s nasal huff, followed by a smile full of teeth, made the hairs all over Jem’s body rise. He watched in alarm as Linfield sauntered across the room and gave the bell pull a sharp tug.
