Page 47 of A Devilish Element
Don’t be like affected coy bitches,
But lake it while stiff, in your hand.”
“Bravo,” Cluett called, drumming his hands on the tabletop, as Linfield raised a glass in a salute to himself and his successful rendition of Bumper Allnight’s verse. The recital had been in full swing for around twenty minutes, following an irritating game that involved making lewd noises with one’s armpits. It was the sort of schoolboy nonsense Jem had indulged in with his cousins when they were barely out of their skeleton suits.
Bell gave dry applause, while Jem found his fingertips curled into his thighs. The evening was progressing about as well as he’d imagined it would when he’d arrived at dinner and noted the absence of the ladies.
Some three bottles of port apiece farther into the evening, Linfield was at his treacherous worst, and Cluett was barely able to put three words together in a comprehensible order.
“Drink up, drink up laddies.” Linfield encouraged. Jem rose his glass and took first a sip and then a draft under his host’s beady observation. He was already a bottle and a half behind. Even Bell was ahead of him. His lips were stained crimson and the blush in his cadaverous, sunken cheeks was more vibrant than that of a maiden’s in a brothel.
“Do you not like my rhyme?” Linfield stalked around the table and put his lips irritatingly close to Jem’s ear. The man reeked of sour grapes and desperation. “Must I learn it in Latin to meet your approval, Sir Tutor?
“Meus phallus in vigore stat; vena osculum me et accipe me in manu tua.”
Cluett applied his knuckles to the table again. Bell rolled his eyes, while Jem made a show of befuddlement. The man’s Latin was atrocious.
He’d felt the man’s gaze too viscerally throughout the recital as it was. He didn’t require a further agonising rendition, having perfectly understood both the writer and Linfield’s intent. The former imagined women as things for men’s entertainment, while Linfield attributed Jem the role. Clearly having got his way earlier, his lordship was now convinced of his victory and envisaged them fucking like bunnies in the not-too-distant future. Except Jem was not won over to the cause. His prick shrivelled at the very thought. He had capitulated in one instance to give himself time to navigate himself out of the current dilemma. God dammit, if it weren’t for Eliza and what he feared might happen if he left her in this place unprotected, then he’d have taken his chances in the mists already and left both Cedarton and Linfield behind without a backwards glance.
He could scrape by without Linfield’s coins in his purse. He was never going to starve. There was always a place for him under his uncle’s roof. It just came with expectations of a different variety…namely, his auntie Mary’s desire to saddle him with a bride.
Right now, that seemed preferable to staying here. Not to mention that his arse still smarted a little from earlier.
“Should we away to bed?” Linfield purred, like he was already having his prick sucked.
Lord, no. He’d rather stay awake until dawn listening to his compatriots performing one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas on their armpit trombones. “Growing old, my lord? We’re still some minutes shy of witching hour. Surely we don’t need to toddle off yet, or do we need to secure you a bath chair and ear trumpet?”
“Ah, showing your teeth, dog.” Linfield slapped Jem on the back, good naturedly, before leaning in uncomfortably close, and snarling. “Watch your tongue, tutor. Recall, I’m acquainted with your weaknesses, and you will spend the night precisely where I bid you to spend it.” He straightened and seized up the bottle standing by Jem’s glass. “Drink up, you filthy laggards.” The rim of the bottle was rudely thrust against Jem’s lips. “Down it. Down it. Down the whole damn lot.” With Linfield’s clawed fingers digging into his shoulder, Jem had little choice but to do as instructed and swallow the syrupy liquid.
The swill sat heavily in his belly and left a musty taste on his tongue, which he tried to remove with the back of his hand, while Linfield set the empty bottle spinning on its side.
“I think it’s time for a game, gentlemen.”
“If it’s cards, you may count me out,” Bell remarked.
George deflated at the dismissal, but roused immediately to cry out, “A game of chance.”
“No, one of stealth. Do you think you can outwit us, Georgie dear?”
“Easily.” The keen fool was already half out of his chair. Stealth! If he could still walk ten paces in a straight line it would be a miracle, but George didn’t let that curtail his faith in himself. He straightened himself up, holding onto the table. “What do I have to do?”
“Evade us, of course. We’ll have a ghost hunt. You’ll play the part, and we’ll stalk you. You must look the part, of course.”
“A ghost hunt?” George’s beady eyes crossed. “I hardly need to play the part, this place is already crawling with them according to your wife.”
“Women are such fanciful creatures. Here…”
Linfield had clearly planned in advance, for he gave his man a nod, and the valet produced a woman’s nightrail.
“Put your costume on, George.”
George pulled the white cloth over his head.
“Not like that, you dolt. Whoever saw a woman with a coat and cravat under her shift?”
“Mercy, my lord,” George protested, all fingers and thumbs. He’d managed to poke his head through one of the voluminous sleeves. “The ones I’ve been acquainted with have worn nowt but stockings and skin beneath. I’ll freeze my nads off if I run about this place like that. Your halls are colder than a witch’s tit outside of this snug.”
“Then you’ll have to run swift enough to keep the chill off. You may keep your stockings and shoes.”
