Page 85 of A Devilish Element
“What have I done to you?” Jane pleaded. The answer was nothing.
A fact George readily admitted. “You’re even quite sweet in the insipid, useless way of proper society ladies. That’s why I’m giving you the chance to buy my silence.”
“But I don’t know anything about a house on Berkley Square, nor have I any notion where Linfield would keep the deeds to it. Would they not be with his man of business, or even the earl?”
“You had better hope they are not.”
“Mr Cluett, I believe you said earlier that you and he were to make amends this evening,” Eliza hugged Jane to her as she spoke. “Surely then the deed must be here at Cedarton, perhaps even on his person. That is, as you’ve already rightly pointed out, a very safe location.”
“It is at that.”
Jane gave an alarmed burp of protest. “You cannot mean for me to rifle through my dead husband’s pockets.”
That set George off into a cackle. “Frightened his ghost will rise and protest the theft? He probably will. He’s just the sort of spiteful soul who’d linger to cause additional pain.”
The pallor of Jane’s face rather suggested she feared exactly that. Nor was it such a surprise, given the recent visitations she’d experienced. Coupled with the fact that Jane had always been the squeamish sort, it was perfectly obvious why she wouldn’t wish to touch Linfield’s corpse.
Jane wrung her hands together. “Doctor Bell has taken charge of the body. He’s going to think it most peculiar if I rifle through Linfield’s pockets.” Particularly when she wouldn’t wish to describe what she was seeking, for then there would be another person privy to George’s claims.
“That’s your concern, not mine. You’d better get to him quickly, otherwise the skinny quack will have him cut open and all his organs hanging out.”
“Jane!” Eliza held her fast as she felt her friend’s leg’s sag. “He’s saying these things merely to be cruel.”
Finding her strength, though she continued to hold fast to Eliza for support, Jane straightened her spine. “Perhaps you ought to worry about what Doctor Bell might find instead of harassing me. After all, Linfield is dead, and you and he had a dreadful fight earlier today.”
“I see you’re accusing me again.”
“Does that worry you, Mr Cluett?” Eliza met his angry gaze and didn’t flinch. “It ought to.”
“I’ve not killed him. If he was done in, it wasn’t by my hand, and I won’t be framed for it. Get me those deeds, unless you want your fraudulent marriage made public, Miss Morley. You have until breakfast.”
Jane sank to her knees before the hearth once George had left and put her head in her hands. “It’s not true is it, Eliza? It can’t be true. ’Tis bad enough that in life, he couldn’t give me the one thing I needed from him, but now I shall be damned for that very thing, for my virginity is gone, and the marriage is a lie. They will condemn me, even though I was deceived. It is always the woman’s fault, even when she had no hand in it at all.”
“You are not condemned yet.” Eliza knelt before her and managed to coax Jane to raise her head. They embraced, Jane resting her head on Eliza’s shoulder and wetting her skin with the snuffles she made.
“I know I am not blameless. I’ve been a fool a dozen times over. This is now my punishment for dishonesty.”
“Jane, embracing this piteous state will not help anything. We must at least attempt to find the deeds George wants. Even if you decide not to hand them over, it will still put us in a better bargaining position. I doubt he or Henrietta have taken to their beds. They will be tearing the place apart searching for those papers. Moreover, he could be bluffing. Using your perceived greenness against you to swindle you.”
“I don’t care about a house, Eliza. At least not as much as I care about this child I’m growing. George can have the deeds if we can find them.” She dried her eyes and set about searching through the desk drawers where Eliza had already looked. The remainder of the room was quickly examined too. There were a lot of books, but little furniture. If Linfield had hidden the deed in one of those, then it would take hours upon hours to find it. It made more sense to rule out other locations first.
“If you examine his person, I will go to his chamber,” Jane proposed. “I cannot look at him again, not if Bell has begun his work.”
Eliza squeezed her hand. “I doubt he has done so yet. A proper examination requires decent light.”
“You mean he’ll wait until morning?”
She shrugged. As a matter of fact, she didn’t. Bell didn’t strike her as one to put off what could be seen to now, but Linfield had barely been dead an hour; even if Bell believed urgency of the essence, he was unlikely to have begun yet. While she had not attended the theatre hosted by the anatomists after hangings, she had read accounts of such proceedings. The corpses were cleaned with camphor and spirits, and cuts were often made to determine death had actually occurred and the deceased wouldn’t suddenly wake up. “I don’t like the idea of you wandering about alone, Jane.”
“I will be extra cautious, and no one will expect me to go to Linfield’s room. They’ll look for me in your room, or perhaps the new chamber I was to move to in the Lady’s Tower. Do you suppose he could have left something there?”
Anything was possible.
“We’ll meet back in my chamber,” Eliza said. She waited for Jane to leave, then used the secret passageway that ran between the upper part of the library down to the rear of Bell’s surgery. That was where they were most likely to have lain Linfield to rest, and perhaps she could slip in and out without anyone being the wiser to her presence.
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Jem
