Page 53 of A Devilish Element
“Jane. Thank the Lord, you’re awake. I was starting to think you’d never open your eyes again.”
Dawn had arrived and passed. The morning was swaddled in mist again, the mullioned windows blanketed in yet more drizzle. Eliza had slept fitfully in the chair, though she’d turned to the wardrobe smiling each time she’d woke and clenched her inner muscles. The sensation of being stretched by Jem’s fingers lingered long after he’d departed.
“It’ll raise suspicions if I’m missing too long,” he said, recalling to her the fact he was midway through a game of hide and seek with Linfield and his fellow guests when she’d tried to coax him to stay and let her have her wicked way with him. His cock had been standing ramrod stiff behind the placket of his breeches, and she’d found it near impossible not to reach for it, to run her fingers over it, and rub it.
Jane blinked rheumily at her but struggled into a sitting position. “How long have I slept?” she asked, as Eliza fussed and plumped the pillows behind her. She gave a rather extravagant yawn.
“A whole day and then some.” Eliza smoothed the covers over her friend’s lap, then perched on the side of the bed. “Doctor Bell gave you some drops. Do you recall any of what happened before that?”
Jane frowned at her so that furrows appeared in her usually unlined brow. “My head is so thick I can almost taste the wool in my thoughts. I’m not sure.”
“You don’t recall what you saw on the second-floor corridor?”
Her friend’s expression further clouded. “I don’t,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “At least I don’t think I do. What did I see? Not Lady Cedarton’s gho—Wait!” She gave a sudden sniff. “Whatever is burning? Can you smell smoke? Eliza, is that fire? Is something… the castle alight?”
“Rest easy, friend. That drama is over. There was—there was an incident while you were resting, but no one was hurt. Only furnishings were damaged, specifically, your bed. That is why you are in mine.”
She watched Jane turn her head to look around her, taking in her surroundings. Her frown deepened, and her jaw worked as though she was chewing over the problem. “I think you had better tell me all that I have missed, for it seems to be rather a lot.”
“I’m not sure it’s wise to overtax your mind at present. You’ve only just woken.”
“Eliza Wakefield, if you will not tell me, then I shall summon Mrs Honeyfield and compel her to talk. What in heaven’s name has gone on?”
Eliza clasped her hand and explained both about the ghostly figure and the burning bed with as little drama as possible so as not to excite Jane’s nerves. Her friend listened intently, with hardly an interruption. When the tale was told, she put her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook. “Jane?” Eliza reached for her in alarm, intending to swaddle her in an embrace, but Jane lifted her head, and Eliza realised that she was laughing.
Admittedly, it was a dry, hysterical sort of laugh. “What a hideous mountain of nonsense I’ve got myself ravelled in,” she declared, “And all because of one foolish, foolish mistake.” She pulled one of the pillows out from behind her back and beat her fist into it. “I never wanted to marry Linfield, Eliza. In any other circumstances I would not have, but my situation left me with little choice.”
“What situation? Whatever do you mean, Jane?”
Jane opened her mouth, failed to speak, choked, and set her fist to her lips.
“Now, now,” Eliza soothed, muttering comforting inanities, while attempting to brush Jane’s hair back from her damp brow.
“You don’t understand, and I should not tell you this, because you will think very ill of me indeed, but—” She clasped tight Eliza’s hand and only mouthed her next words. “I’m increasing.”
Eliza frowned. She pried her hand loose from Jane’s overtight grip. “I don’t understand. How is that possible? I don’t mean… What I mean is, how? You said you and Lord Linfield hadn’t consummated the marriage yet.” Realisation struck the moment she’d spoken the words aloud. “Ah! That is why you are in such a pickle over his failure to bed you. You need him to believe it is his.”
“You see. Now you think me monstrous,” Jane wailed. She scrubbed at her face, as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “I know… I know it is dishonest of me. You mustn’t think I don’t know my own deceitfulness, but…. Oh, Eliza. I didn’t know what else to do. My parents are unaware. They negotiated the marriage with the earl and presented it to me as the greatest of triumphs. I don’t suppose they gave any thought at all to Linfield’s reputation, only to how it would elevate us in the eyes of society. There was no possibly way I could refuse, especially when it seemed such an obvious way out of a terrible pickle.”
In Eliza’s mind a pickle was something of a trivial nature, which could hardly describe the current situation.
“Jane, you need to tell me what happened. Were you attacked? Forced? Is this why you left Scarborough in such haste? I thought there must have been something, after all you had said about loving it there. And who knows? Someone one must know.”
Jane hid her face again. “The situation is entirely born of my own folly. I was blind, duped… Understand, that I loved him, Eliza. Utterly. Devotedly. Even now, I cannot look back on that time and regret a single moment of it.”
“Did he make you promises?”
Jane swiftly shook her head. “He did not, but I was certain he would ask for me. How naïve I was. He never intended such a thing. Nor was it in his provenance to do such a thing.”
Little by little a picture was building in Eliza’s head. “He has a wife already?”
Jane, sniffling into her sleeve, looked up and nodded. “I’m so ashamed. He thought from the outset that I was a wanton. And it is true. I was all too willing to give myself to him.”
Eliza found herself blushing, thinking back to all the things she’d said to Jem just a short time ago. If there was a wanton among them, then she deserved the title as much as Jane, perhaps doubly so, for she had been forthright about the fulfilment of her desire, while being equally dismissive of the notion of matrimony.
“You are quiet,” Jane said. “You believe it too, as does Linfield. It is why he will not lie with me. Is it something about my aspect that announces it? I confess, I was horribly enamoured of tupping. It’s so… so utterly distracting. I suppose the sin must show on my face.”
All Eliza could do was shake her head. “Yours is a lovely face, Jane. I have never once looked at you and seen a single trace of sin about you.”
