Page 88 of A Devilish Element
“Nothing, that’s what. A near penniless dreamer who lives off his uncle’s graces, who tutors idiot lords to pass exams they deserve to fail. And who isn’t even much good at that.” He’d spent more time fornicating with Linfield than he ever had teaching him how to conjugate Latin verbs. “I’m a sinner and a sodomite and I don’t deserve you, Eliza. I’m so sorry that I’m not the man you hoped me to be, but know this, I would wed you in a heartbeat if you would have me. I know that is not the future you wish, you made that plain enough, and I would never try to gainsay your pursuit of learning, but it is the truth of how I feel.”
He heard her gulp but dared not turn around.
If she wished to leave, he prayed only that she did so and spared him the look of revulsion on her face. He heard her move, then a gentle hand pressed against the centre of his back.
Warily, he turned. “Eliza?”
Her pretty face sat anguished, eyes ablaze with heat and watery with emotion. “I want to believe that all you say is truthful and sincerely meant, but—”
“I understand,” he said. It was no more than he expected or deserved.
“I’m not sure you do. I’m not sure I do. Your actions and words don’t map out.”
Bell barrelled through the door at that moment, almost colliding with them both. He didn’t seem the least bit startled to find two persons standing in his cadaver laboratory gawping at him. “I need a scalpel, the lancet’s not enough.” He slid sideways over to the cupboard and pulled open a drawerful of instruments. “I daren’t use the pliers, I’m likely to extract half her jaw along with the tooth. There’s so much pus and decay in there it’s near impossible to see what I’m doing, let alone get a grip on the devil. The abscess needs to be drained first, then I can perform the extraction.”
They both stared at him.
“You’re extracting Mrs Honeyfield’s tooth?” Eliza said. “But you’re a physician!”
“Got you!” He held aloft the desired instrument. “I’ll admit, Miss Wakefield, that dentistry isn’t my forte. Nor do I wish it to be, but the state of matters is decidedly poor. I’ve seen corpses twelve month rotted with better gnashers.” He clacked his teeth together for emphasis. “But there’s been a death, and the servants are already stretched thin. The household simply cannot do without its housekeeper.” He about turned towards the door again.
“Would it help if I assisted?” Eliza offered.
Bell levelled her with a look of intense haughtiness over his shoulder. “Draining an abscess, I can manage alone, Miss Wakefield, but if you stay right there then there’s something you can help me with. Jem here is a glorious note taker, but I think unsuited to pathology.”
Indeed, Jem paled and clutched the cupboard for support at the mere suggestion. “I can’t stay for that.”
Bell blessed him the sort of benevolent smile one would give a child before his attention fastened upon Eliza. “Given your history of extracting pistol balls from marquis’s legs, one presumes—”
“I can assist, yes.”
“Very good, Miss Wakefield. Very good. On this occasion I will overlook your sex.”
“And I yours,” she replied.
“I’m sorry,” Jem muttered once Bell had returned to the other room. “I just can’t.”
“It’s perfectly understandable.”
“Is it? Bell seems to have no qualms—”
“Was Bell his lover?”
Jem swallowed hard. “No,” he croaked. “No, I don’t believe so. Point taken. Not that it’s really about that. I doubt I could stomach it even it wasn’t someone I knew. I much prefer numbers, potions at a push, but not viscera. I’ve seen one amputation, and that was more than enough.”
“’Tis Bell’s profession.”
“Aye,” he agreed, head still bowed. “Aye, that’s true. And yours too.”
She shrugged. “Not quite, but I do what I can.”
A sharp trill came from next door, which they both took to mean the dentistry was done.
Bell barrelled back in, wearing a splatter of blood, which he wiped as best as he could from his waistcoat and cravat. “Gory business. I’m not a devotee.” He cast a pair of stained gloves into a laundry pail. “That is by far one of the most putrid things I’ve done in my career. I’ve handled corpses in better health.” His gaze strayed to the table, and he sucked his lips into a pucker on seeing them standing so close and face to face. “Whistler. Miss Wakefield. I realise that you are embroiled in making yourselves miserable with a torrid love affair, but if you could perhaps take time out of that mission, I intend to determine the cause of Lord Linfield’s death now and will be needing this area to do that.”
He turned to the drawer he’d left open before and began assembling a tray of instruments.
“Is Mrs Honeyfield all right?” Eliza asked, turning away from Jem to give Bell her attention, as if she hadn’t been about to shatter Jem’s heart into even smaller smithereens.
