Page 97 of A Devilish Element
“What the devil are you about, woman?” The doctor hollered on seeing her rummaging through the dead man’s pockets.
“An unrelated matter.” She plucked the folded parchment from a concealed inner pocket in Linfield’s soiled coat. It appeared to be as George alleged: a deed to a London property.
“Eliza, I’m not sure you should give that to George,” Jem insisted on seeing what she held. He remained in the doorway, as if an invisible barrier were set across it of the sort one marked out with salt to dissuade boggarts and other fae folk from entering your abode.
“’Tis Jane’s decision, not mine.”
“Why are you giving anything to George?” Bell loomed over her, blocking her route to the exit.
Eliza simply about turned, and opened the hidden door instead, startling a coarse exclamation from the leech’s throat.
“Because Cluett is blackmailing her, and this is what he demanded in exchange for his silence regarding a certain matter of legitimacy,” she explained.
“Whose legitimacy? Not the Hans in kelder’s?”
“The marriage.”
Eliza didn’t wait for Bell’s response to that. She’d lingered overlong already. “I’m going to find Jane, gentlemen. I shall appraise her of what we’ve learned, and then once I am assured, she is safe, I intend to send a man for the magistrate since it seems I cannot rely on either of you to do so.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jem blurted, seeming quite put out by the accusation. “Eliza, take care.” He was milling on the room’s threshold but refused to cross it. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer me to accompany you?”
“I am not at risk, Jane is, and only for so long as the guilty party walks free. If you want to be of use, then send for the magistrate, and put Mrs Honeyfield under lock and key.”
“Bell?” Jem asked.
The last of their words she caught was a resigned sigh from the quacksalver. “’Tis your call. I intend to restore Lord Linfield’s bowels to his body afore your beloved bluestocking brings the power of the law down on us. I fear the presence of my lord’s glowing entrails on the countertop will not go over well with whatever local bumpkin arrives. Our murderer will walk free because they’re too busy shackling me on the charge of desecrating his corpse.”
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Eliza
Eliza raced through the concealed passageways as though the devil—or at least a knife-wielding lunatic—were at her heels. She burst into her bedchamber through the armoire to find the room dark and entirely deserted. The fire that had burned bright earlier was now no more than white dusted coals. The charred remains of Jane’s room were equally void of inhabitants. Her foray into Bell’s domain had taken far too long. Jane should have been back here by now, wearing a groove in the already uneven floor with her nervous pacing.
“Where are you?” she huffed, hand to her mouth, her mind awhirl with all manner of ill-fated nonsense. She had to be practical… logical about this, not give in to fear and fantasy. Jane had been bound for Linfield’s room. It seemed unlikely that she would still be there, but she had made mention too of her new chambers. She must surely be there. Though where that was, and how the room was reached she was far less certain about. Still, find it she must. Thus, Eliza tumbled into the corridor, tripping over her feet in her haste, to find a figure standing there. The maid, Betsy, idling, backlit by moonlight, in the looming maw of the hideous iron-pinned door.
“What in heavens?” Eliza asked, approaching cautiously. “Why is this door unlatched? Whatever are you doing?”
The sky outside was the black of coals, clouds so fearsome dark as to be almost indistinguishable from the heavens. The shell of the tower gleamed like the withered bones of a slumped giant, where a frosty rime clung to its remains.
“Begging your pardon, Miss, but… my mistress asked me t’ keep watch.”
“Your mistress? Whatever is there to keep watch for out there?”
“Oh, Miss, Old Lady Cedarton’s ghost. Terrible, she is, and milord’s death only proves it. She’ll see us all into our graves if she can.”
“Nonsense.” Eliza dismissed the notion before the tale grew any longer. She had to wonder if Mrs Honeyfield hadn’t a hand in raising that spectre. “What are you really about, girl?” There was something about outwardly bright and bonny Betsy that tickled in Eliza’s mind and raised her suspicions. A certain slyness to her pale eyes. Something about the defiant tilt of her chin. It was then she saw the rope and her heart jumped right into her throat. Tied, it was, to a spoke on the lintel just beyond the door, and she feared at once what she would find dangling from that hempen horror. A fool may have rushed forward to determine what or who hung there, but Eliza had wits aplenty, and had no intention of placing herself in a position where she might be pushed. She remained well back from the ledge.
“What are you about?” she asked again.
This time visible wroth crossed Betsy’s features before it was masked by a studied servitude. “Nowt that needs be any concern of yours,” she snapped, before adding a reluctant, “Miss.” She pushed the door to then, but didn’t, Eliza observed, fasten any of the many bolts. “Does’t need me for summat?”
“Yes,” Eliza replied cautiously. “You can tell me where I might find your mistress.”
At least the girl’s gaze did not stray towards the end of that wretched rope.
“Went ’up ta ’er new chamber. Mrs Honeyfield showed ’er.”
“How long ago?” Her heart was hammering, bile flooding her throat. If that monster had hurt her dearest Jane….
