Page 55 of A Devilish Element
“How is she today, do you know? Toothache is quite the worst.”
“Not entirely the worst,” Eliza muttered. She’d had it from enough to believe it that there was at least one thing worse, and probably a good many if she were to really compile a list.
“I’m going to rise now,” Jane insisted, casting back the covers. “If there’s a rotter about, then I’ll at least face them with my stockings on.” She was most of the way through dressing, Eliza serving as her maid, to assist her with the pinning of her bib-fronted bodice when she suddenly went rigidly stiff.
“You don’t think he’s bedding the maid, do you? And that she’s some notion that if she removes me then he’ll be entirely free to dote on her?”
“Jane.” Eliza dismissed the notion immediately. It wasn’t even worthy of speculation. “Linfield’s a snob. Do you really think he’d lower himself to—?”
“I think he might take what he figured he was entitled to. He’s a reputation as a wretch, after all.”
“He’s a reputation for wild escapades involving wheeled vehicles, and drunken behaviour, not as a whoremonger. Besides, he has a willing bride all too ready to tup him any time or in way he might choose, but he’s not showing any appetite for it. So, no, I don’t think he has a mistress. In fact, I think he lacks the sort of urges—”
“Oh…oh,” Jane frantically tapped Eliza’s forearm interrupting her. Then squeezed it so tight it left a mark. “What if it’s Henrietta?”
Eliza laughed, but found her mirth faded quickly. “You think Henrietta is his mistress?”
Jane replied in hushed tones. “Well don’t you find it odd that a gentleman brought his mother along to a house party? It’s not that sort of house party. There are no young women here seeking husbands. There’s no one for her to talk to, or chaperone. It’s entirely odd.”
“Yes, but his bosom friend’s mother!”
“Perhaps he prefers older women? Perhaps she has it in for me? Maybe she expected to be his viscountess, and our marriage has robbed her of that. It was all arranged quite without our input, negotiated between my father and the earl. It would explain Linfield’s behaviour too. Why he’s so loath to bed me and being so mutinous in general.”
As explanations went, it was far-fetched, but no more implausible than any other. Agitated by the course of her thoughts, Jane proceeded to march back and forth worrying the sides of her frock.
“We should take tea with her, don’t you think?”
“That depends. You don’t mean to ask her outright if she’s your husband’s mistress, do you, Jane?” Like many of the meek creatures Eliza had encountered, when cornered and roused, Jane could be decidedly plainspoken and vicious. But this was not the moment for candour.
“Gracious heavens, no. I think I can manage more subtlety than that. But I shall talk to her of Linfield, and we will see where that leads. One thing I have observed is that once Henrietta sets off, she goes on and on for as long as you’ve a mind to listen to her.”
“Perhaps she might know what happened in town that prompted Linfield’s exodus to the countryside too?”
“Exactly. I would like to know that too.”
And what her son and their host had fought so violently over the night afore last.
Jane rang the bell, and by and by a maid arrived. It was not Edith but Betsy. “Please ask Mrs Cluett to join us for tea in the drawing room. We’ll go down there now.”
Curiously, the maid’s face brightened at this announcement. “Reet away, me lady,” she agreed and took herself off swifter than Eliza had previously imagined her capable.
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Eliza
When Jane and Eliza reached the drawing room, they found it already occupied. George sprawled in the armchair closest to the fire, one leg hooked over the arm and the other stretched towards the grate. He righted himself with an irritating degree of indolence.
“Ladies, am I in your way?”
That much was apparent, as Jane took the other chair, while Eliza moved one from across the room, so that when Henrietta arrived, they might all sit together. The servants arrived but a moment later with a selection of cold cuts and buttered bread, along with Jane’s favourite potently brewed tea, and the seemingly ubiquitous bergamot marmalade. Only when there was a cup cradled in her hand did Eliza observe Jane to be truly at ease.
“We had hoped your mother would join us,” Jane remarked, finally startling George out of his seat and onto his feet, allowing Eliza to slip, at least temporarily, into the space he’d vacated.
George offered them a rather sickly smile. “Oh, I doubt she’ll come down. She’s feeling wholly out of sorts.”
“No, George, I’m simply out of sorts with you.”
Henrietta stormed across the room like she was shipboard and bracing against a gale. She was swaddled in a cashmere shawl of particularly fine quality and a woollen day dress of apple green that flattered her complexion and made her look much younger than her years.
