Page 99 of A Devilish Element
“Or at least the phosphorus contained in them. It would account for the spectral glow, and I’m sure there are tricks with mirrors or glass that could be used to make it seem she was floating.” If there was one thing her sister Caroline was good for, it was keeping her abreast of society’s doings, or more specifically the Marchioness of Pennerley’s doings. She’d heard all about Bella’s first visit to her husband’s home, and the phantasms he’d created to spright his guests. “Jane, please. What harm will it do to summon the magistrate? If I am wrong and look a fool, then I will accept that.”
Again, her friend shook her head. “Who should I send, Eliza? Moreover, where should I send them? You have given me a means by which we could all have been tricked, and delivered the likely method of my husband’s poisoning, but not a reason why Mrs Honeyfield should be behind it beyond some vague mumblings about a husband that I wasn’t aware she had. I think I need more than that to rouse a man from his post-dinner tipple.”
“A peer has been murdered; I should think he would be astonished that you had not sought to rouse him.”
Truthfully, people had a habit of leaving things until morning, so he might not have thought over much of leaving things until daybreak, especially given the weather, but really Eliza had simply been trying to spare Jane all the gruesome details of her husband’s actions and peculiarities. Now, it rather seemed she would have to recount them. Only when she tried, Jane swiftly cut her off.
“Eliza, stop. I don’t wish to hear of Linfield’s foibles or his sins. I’m abreast of enough of them to know my position is precarious. I can’t help but feel that is where I must place my focus. If Mr Cluett’s demands are not met…” She set to pacing and worrying her hands again. “Can you not see what a threat he is? Far more dangerous than a woman with chronic toothache. Eliza, society… my new family, must believe that I am carrying the Bellingbrook heir… Linfield’s heir. I cannot have George cast the slightest doubt over that. Besides, if Mrs Honeyfield meant me ill, then she could easily have dealt with me. It was she who led me to this room faraway from everyone else, but instead, she was delighted to hear my news.” She pressed her hands protectively to her belly, though there was no trace of any roundness there yet.
None of which made sense. Why would Mrs Honeyfield be pleased to know Jane was increasing with Linfield’s brat? Unless it was mere guise. The woman had certainly proved herself talented in the art of deception.
“Where is she now?”
Jane wrang her hands. “About her tasks, I should imagine. Although, I hope she is resting, considering the pain she was in.”
“Have you not heeded a word I have said? She is likely your husband’s killer, and you are rattling on as if she is someone we ought to feel sorry for.”
“Well, it is a rather spurious supposition. You’ve mentioned some pills and the bed fire, and her being married, but nothing more concrete. No reason why she’d do away with her master.”
They hadn’t got into the details because Jane kept insisting that she didn’t want to hear them!
“Revenge,” Eliza summarised.
“Eliza, I’ve more reason to suspect you on those grounds than my housekeeper. You’re the one who feels slighted over the fact that Linfield meant to bring Mr Whistler into our marriage bed, and you have all this knowledge of things that others don’t—chemicals and surgeonry, and how all manner of plants and poisons work on a body.”
“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to suspect one another.”
“I’m just saying that what others will, if you start finger pointing without any evidence to back the accusation up.”
“There is evidence.”
“You have these pills?”
Not yet, but she’d find them given the chance, and there was the evidence of Lord Linfield’s body.
“Proof that Mrs Honeyfield is a wedded woman? You know that every housekeeper in the land is termed missus regardless of her actual matrimonial status?”
“Jane, I cannot believe you won’t listen to me. You were there in the room when she told us her husband had recently passed.”
“Was I? I don’t recall. And, I am listening to you. I just can’t… It seems so far-fetched… ridiculous. I think Mr Cluett is by far the more likely culprit. They fought only this afternoon.”
With irritation now causing her nose to tingle, Eliza rubbed at it, then crossed her arms to suppress her vexation. “Jane, if you truly believe that, then why are you about to hand him the deeds to a property in London?”
“Because I know when I’m defeated, Eliza.” Jane yelled at her, raising her arms above her head, then letting them drop like stones. “Do I like any of this? Of course not, but what else am I supposed to do? Should I risk what little I do have simply to see justice done? We’ve been wed little over two months, and now Linfield is dead. Nothing I do will change that. But I can at least give my new family—a family I have not yet properly met—the heir they so desire. But only if George doesn’t blab.”
“So, your plan is to buy their affections with another man’s child?”
“And now you are judging me because I was fool enough to fall in love.”
“That is not what I am doing.”
“It is exactly what you are doing. Just because you are so wise and inured to strong emotions—”
Eliza’s jaw fell. “Is that what you think?”
“It is what I know. Oh, you are vexed about certain things, for sure, but do you feel them in here?” Jane clamped her hand fast to her breast, which in turn made Eliza’s breast ache with all the things she had bottled up to deal with later, when there wasn’t a man’s death to investigate. “I dare say you like Mr Whistler, but you’ve no idea what it is to be in love, Eliza,” Jane continued, oblivious to the pain she was causing.
She made Eliza sound about as warm and friendly as Doctor Bell, with a fraction of his qualifications, and hence reasons to be aloof. She wasn’t nearly so cold or dispassionate. Not that Bell, once you got past the professional persona he presented, was either of those things either. His drollness had rather grown on her.
