Page 66 of A Devilish Element
Jane laughed. It was a laugh bordering on mania. “Is that the only part of this you find far-fetched? That he should make merry with his mistress in our hallway rather than a bedchamber or another room with more comforts?”
“Jane, that is not at all what was in my thoughts. I merely question what you think you saw.”
“Yes, as everybody does. I see spirits after all. I am most unreliable. He… Linfield has already tried that line with me, but it is no fallacy. I know very well what I saw. I am not mistaken, and if you try to convince me otherwise, I will know you are no longer my true friend.”
That was just enough of a retort that a rush of heat bloomed across Eliza’s cheeks. “I don’t mean to call your judgement into question.” She simply wished to calm her down. Jane’s limbs were aquiver, her heels drumming against the floor, and her poor lower lip was now bitten into ruddiness. “It’s only that I have such a scant understanding of what has occurred, that it all seems outlandish. Perhaps if you give me a fuller picture.”
“I do not see how much fuller a picture I can give. Eliza, she was kneeling before him, and had her hands on his…”
“Prick,” Eliza suggested.
“His…prick…yes.” Jane dragged her tongue over her teeth as if to remove the stain of the word from their surface. “And she was bent as to kiss it. He was encouraging her, while she whispered all manner of sweet talk to him.” Emotions getting the better of her, Jane slapped her hand against the back of a chair, only to wince at the impact and curl her fingers before bringing them to her lips and spilling a fresh round of tears over them.
“How horrid for you. I wish it were otherwise and that your husband has not proved himself the rogue his reputation foretold. However, it does not follow that one incident equates to an ongoing arrangement.”
“What else would it be? He spurns my affections, and now it is clear why. What use has he for them when he has his whore staying alongside us under this very roof? Did we not… did we not both observe that it was an oddity for a man to bring along his mother to such a gathering? Well, now I should say the purpose of it is entirely clear. Oh, I hate this place. Hate it, and despair of it. Nothing but calamity has befallen me since entering this accursed castle.”
Then clutching her belly, she burst into another round of angry sobs. “’Tis all bad. I am ruined. How shall I ever convince him the child is his, when he is untempted by my person, and our marriage remains unconsummated? He has her. Does not need me. Is only disgusted by me. I should scratch her eyes out if I could. Why must she be here? Why must she have his love?”
“Jane, you do not know that is the case. You are shocked and overwrought, and with sound reason, but you jump to conclusions that may not be facts. Come sit.” Eliza drew out two chairs from the dining table and having positioned them facing one another propelled Jane into the first, before settling in the second. Thence, she clasped Jane’s icy fingers and held them in a comforting grasp. It was deuced cold in this chamber, and she longed for a warmer locale to have this conversation but having only just managed to get Jane to settle, she did not want to divert her attention even to secure them both some warmth.
“Tell me from the point that I left you at your lacemaking all that occurred. Do not leave anything out. Do not speculate. Tell me simply all as it occurred.”
Jane mopped her face with her kerchief. “Linfield claims my mind is addled, that he was merely taking a piss in a chamber pot. As if I am so foolish to believe that. Does he imagine me blind? Am I to suppose Henrietta was holding it for him? It is so preposterous.”
“Jane,” Eliza coaxed softly. “From the beginning.”
Jane’s thoughts were soon wrangled into a narrative, one in which she’d been engrossed with her bobbins and making steady progress. Mrs Honeyfield had brought her more tea, along with marmalade and bread, but she had not eaten because she’d been disturbed by the sound of footsteps hurrying about, and the banging and creaking of many doors. “Trust me, I was most wary of investigating, for Cedarton has proved itself an unfriendly place, particularly to me, but I will not be enfeebled, or made to tiptoe about the place in fear of being alone. I cannot ask you always to be here with me.” She squeezed Eliza’s fingers tightly. “I may not like it here, but it is my home, and my right as Lady Cedarton to live here. Anyway, I lingered a while, wary of investigating. I was sure that you would return afore long, and then we might look together. Cedarton is not so extensive that you would not be able to traverse the whole of it inside an hour, not even if you had ventured into the ruins of the Lady Tower. You did not, did you, Eliza? It is quite unsafe, and the rain has been so utterly relentless this afternoon.”
“I did not. You need not fear.”
“That is good.” She tried to pat Eliza’s knee while still clinging tight to her fingers. “But the hour passed, and you did not come, but the noises continued. I felt quite sure that someone was meaning to frighten me with a trick, so I did some tiptoeing of my own. You’ll recall that I can be quite light on my feet. Was I not often applauded at school for the lightness of my gait when the dance tutor came?”
“You were, Jane. Often and heartily. You always had the lightest step amongst us.”
“Precisely, and so they did not hear me.” She shot a gaze at the door onto the hallway. “Eliza, they were in the Billiards Room together. Linfield had his back to the table and Henrietta was knelt on a footstool alongside him. She must have fetched it from the Hunting Room next door, for I swear I’ve never noticed it in there before. Anyway, she was kneeling, right before him. Should I show you?” She made as if to fall to her knees.
“No need.”
“Well, she kept talking to him in a coaxing fashion, saying all manner of sweet and encouraging things.”
“What sort of things?”
A blush scalded Jane’s ashen cheeks. “I’m certain I shouldn’t wish to repeat them in full. It was all about Captain Standish and how she’d soon persuade him to stand for the ladies, and Linfield saying that man Thomas was not at all eager, but if she had it in her, then…then he could see to giving her what she wanted, as a show of his gratitude and the like.”
That did sound rather damning.
“Well, I’m sure I didn’t mean to burst in as I did, but I couldn’t rightly stand there and let them carry on canoodling unchallenged, not when it became obvious from the bobbing of her head that she was not just fondling his…thing… gentleman’s thing… but kissing, nay even suckling him down there—”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Suckling like a babe would at a teat.” Her voice was rising again, growing increasingly shrill. “Of all the things! I’m quite sure I didn’t comprehend that one might even do such a thing before witnessing it. It doesn’t seem at all right or proper that a dame should do that for a man. Not that any sort of congress is entirely right or proper, but…” She fell into momentary silence.
No indeed, fucking was not proper, nor sucking, but wickedly delightful all the same. ’Twas hard not to recall the joy of taking Jem thus only yesterday morning, and how glorious it had felt to have him return the favour in the surgery just now.
“Of course, if that is what he requires in order that he bed me, then… then of course I will obey him in this whim.” Jane’s wild eyes briefly closed, and her face screwed up into a knot. “Oh, I do not understand why he would do this. I swear I have made myself as amenable to him as any woman possibly could. Why does he choose to fornicate with her and not with me?”
If there was an answer, then alas Eliza didn’t possess it.
