Page 98 of A Devilish Element
The maid’s gaze went to the door again, but she fixed on a smile. “Need ta know where ’tis?”
“Yes.”
Surprisingly, directions were provided in a swift and straightforward fashion. Eliza recited them back and received a nod in return. She did not like to leave another mystery behind her, but Jane had to remain her goal, and she had to believe that whatever mischief Betsy was about, it wasn’t murder, but a lesser sin. Theft, perhaps. Was there more to her scaremongering tattle than a typical maid’s delight for the macabre? Cedarton had stood empty for years. It wasn’t far-fetched to believe it had attracted other inhabitants over that time. Folk for whom the ghostly rumours about the place made it an attractive proposition. Again, it was a riddle for another moment. She had to remain focused on reaching Jane.
Eliza’s travel took her through portions of the castle as yet explored with swiftness that fast extinguished the candle she’d lit from the fireplace. Eliza left it abandoned on a window ledge. Through the glass she saw the groundsman’s crooked form, pitched almost double as he wheeled a small barrow before him towards the tower. “Theft,” she repeated to herself. It was almost a prayer. It was too horrid to think of her dear friend being taken from her. No, she would find her yet, and deliver her from the monster who’d dwelled beside them all.
Once again, she cursed Linfield for the wretched cur he’d been. What manner of man placed his wife’s chambers this many acres away from all the other inhabitants?
One with secrets, that’s whom. He’d meant to conduct his sinful business without fear of being observed or overheard, though with Cluett already in possession of that worrisome record of a previous marriage, ’twas a wonder he even bothered to try and hide the matter at all. For certain the drawing room tattletales would have decried his antics, but she did not suppose the bucks would have done so. Two men sharing a woman was hardly unheard of. Such possibilities had after all reached her tender ears. The scandal here was more to do with the woman in question being his wife. No one would imagine sodomy to be involved. And as for the possibility of him already been wed to another… Well, one might say he was only copying the Prince Regent.
When she found the room, the only one at the end of a tediously long corridor, and some very narrow stairs, she burst in without making any sort of knock. “Jane… Jane, are you there?”
A smoky fire burned in the grate, providing the main light source. Although twin candelabras were also lit and burned atop a chest of drawers. The hexagonal room, which seemed to occupy the whole top floor of this turret was far better appointed than Jane’s previous room. It was warm and comfortable, draped all in red velvet and old fringed brocade. As for her friend, Eliza’s heart leapt to find her curled beneath the eiderdown. She dived towards her crying, “Jane? My Jane.”
Pale hair curled against a cheek that remained rosy. Relief seeped through Eliza’s veins. Jane remained very much whole and hearty.
Released from her doze by Eliza’s shaking, Jane roused with a sigh, then sat, and sleepily rubbed her eyes.
“Eliza.” She blinked. “I’m sorry, I’ve found not a thing.” She yawned again, only at the last remembering to cover her mouth. “I must have dozed off. What of you? You’ve been ever so long.”
Eliza crushed her in a fierce embrace. “Jane, thank the Lord. You’re well. When Betsy said Mrs Honeyfield had showed you here—”
“She did, but she left right away. The poor woman is in the most dreadfully poor state, Eliza. She’s only abroad so that she might help drape the mirrors. Is there not anything you can do for her?”
Eliza both nodded and shook her head. “Bell has extracted the problem tooth. But Jane, tell me, you haven’t eaten or drunk anything? Especially nothing that Mrs Honeyfield has brought to you. Pray tell me that’s so. Please, Jane. It is so, isn’t it?” She looked around for evidence but spied neither crockery nor crumbs.
“Eliza?” Jane’s brow crumpled in confusion. “Heavens, you’re in a tither, and you’re making very poor sense. Has something happened? Something more? Could you not find the deed?”
The document was forthwith pressed into her hands. “Hidden in his coat pocket. Jane, there is so much foulness afoot I hardly know where to begin, but you must not call for or accept anything from Mrs Honeyfield. In fact, if you’ve men at your command who can do it, she should be placed under lock and key.”
“Mrs Honeyfield? Eliza, why? Whatever for? Wait, you can’t think—” Scepticism twisted her bonny features.
“But Jane, I do, and there’s evidence for it. Bell has performed his autopsy. I shan’t burden you with the details of it, but it was… It was both ghastly and enlightening. There’s no question that Linfield was poisoned. You must summon the magistrate and inform the earl at once that his son has been murdered.”
Jane leapt up immediately, but she did not reach for the bell pull to summon anyone. “I cannot quite believe it, even if you are quite sure.” She shook herself, and began to wring her hands, the very picture of indecision and distress. “Oh, what to do? Linfield’s man has already departed for Bellingbrook with my letter, and I can hardly spare another to tear off after him. Unless one of the gentlemen were to go, but then what if you are wrong, and I am letting the culprit go free? You have to admit, they are each more likely to want Linfield dead than our housekeeper.”
“I don’t admit that.”
“But Mrs Honeyfield? Truly?”
Why was it so hard a notion to grasp?
“What would even prompt her to such action? ’Tis more likely George, or Henrietta, or your Mr Whistler, or you or I than her.”
“And yet it is her. Jane, I am certain of it. I don’t know that I can rightly prove it to you, but there is cause, if all I’ve learned is true. Your husband was responsible for the death of hers. She is here for revenge, and I fear for your safety, and that of the bairn. I shouldn’t wonder if you weren’t in her sights from the beginning. Think Jane, someone has meant you ill from the moment you arrived here, and she has been here throughout, passing by without notice. I bet she used the pills to set your bed alight. It would be easily done. One would only have to seed them among the sheets or the curtains, and time would do the rest.”
“Eliza?” Jane shook her head. “Truly? You are clever and beloved, but the bed fire was just as likely a result of an upset candle. Such things are easily done. Nor do I see how pills can cause a fire. Things don’t spontaneously ignite.”
Except that sometimes they did. Eliza wasn’t in the mood to conduct a lesson. It would be daybreak before Jane likely wrapped her head around it. Not because she didn’t have the mental capacity for science, rather she would interrupt and take them off along tangents so that the fundamental facts about phosphorus were entirely lost in amongst the sixteen other subjects they had conversed on while Eliza attempted to explain the basic chemistry of the matter.
“Explain away the ghost you saw, then,” she challenged instead.
Her friend shook her head.
“The pills—” Eliza insisted.
“I didn’t take any pi—”
