Page 73 of A Devilish Element
Jem, damn you, why would you agree to such a thing?
He was no licentious rakehell. Not the sort to thrive on merriment and mayhem. Unless her judgement of him was seriously awry. Had she misread the signs?
She was not sure where she would find him. Perhaps in Doctor Bell’s surgery again. Yet she shied from returning there, and her feet took her upstairs instead, along corridors, and through deserted rooms, until she stumbled on a narrow spiral staircase within a spindly tower. This she followed to a hexagonal room at its summit, where she found George on a narrow balcony overlooking the misty world beyond Cedarton’s borders.
“Miss Wakefield,” he greeted her, raising a bottle, of what she surmised to be port from the stains on his lips, in her direction.
“Sir, I did not realise the room was occupied.”
“Aye, and I suppose my company is too distasteful to contemplate. Might tarnish your reputation, being seen to associate with the son of a whore, but I’ll not be leaving. His chit can rattle and squawk all she wishes; Linfield knows the stakes.”
And what were they, she couldn’t help but wonder? Exposure, of some sort? The proliferation of rumours?
George grinned at her and patted his pocket.
“Staying, are ye?” George seemed as surprised as her that she hadn’t already about turned, but having climbed the stairs, and now felt the breeze on her face, Eliza was in no hurry to flee. Besides, she wanted answers, and being as well into his cups as he was, maybe George could provide them. She moved over to the balcony and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The tower stood high enough to have lifted them above the mist, so that some of their surroundings could even be seen. Rolling green fields, stone walls and denuded trees, mist clinging to the valleys like drifts of snow. She could just about make out the steeple of the village church, though the base of the tower in which they stood was wholly obscured.
George offered her the bottle. “A tipple? The vintage is not the best, but the taste grows on one after the first few swallows.”
It struck Eliza that she had dabbled in enough substances that meddled with the mind for one day, nor did she desire such anodyne oblivion, merely explanations and the truth. “Is your quarrel with our host settled now?” One assumed it, given the Cluetts continued presence.
“Ah,” George replied, sagely stroking his bare chin. Seeing that she wasn’t about to accept his offering, he took a long swallow instead. “I suppose you might call it more of a stalemate.”
“What you mean is that you have some hold over him.” She could not get the memories of him creeping about Linfield’s study from her mind. She might not have thought of it again if it weren’t for the mention of Jane. She would not have her friend threatened. It was bad enough she was tied to Linfield and forced to endure his whims.
George snorted, then turned so that he could take in her profile. “How forthright you are! And how poorly you think of us all. Tell me, Miss Wakefield, are my actions truly so ghastly? What have I done, besides requesting recompense for certain slights?”
“Your mother was willing.”
“Who said we were speaking of my mother? Though I shall not deny he deserves a beating for his actions this afternoon. That he should so take advantage of her… The man is a fiend.” He swallowed hard. His grip whitening his knuckles. “But we shall not speak of that. It is by and by. We each know what the other wants, and I have given him until dinner to provide it. It is more than ample time.”
“And if he does not?” Eliza asked.
Again, George’s focus tightened on her, creating a furrow at the apex of his nose and a fat dimple in his chin. He blew over the rim of the bottle, making it whistle. “That is hardly your concern.”
Except that it was, insomuch as that she felt certain it would affect Jane.
“Lady Linfield wishes you gone.”
“Lady Linfield can rot in hell. I will not depart empty-handed and condemn my mother to the gutter or whatever bogles occupy the hellscape beyond these walls. It was Linfield who created this woe. Why should I suffer for his mistakes? No, restitution is due. He will see reason; else he’ll be made to.”
“And if he does not?”
George gave a nasty laugh. “Then we will see what the gossips have to say of the matter. If he’s any sense…” His mouth formed the sort of gurn that’d sour milk. “Well, I ask for so little. Only a fool would baulk at giving it.”
“Blackmail,” she muttered, turning away from him in disgust. “He is your host, and your friend.”
“He’s a pompous turd, a rat’s arse of a man, and hardly an innocent. We all do what we must, Miss Wakefield. Your brother would tell you that.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.” Nor was she aware of Mr Cluett being an acquaintance of her brother, Frederick.
His laugh became even more hateful. “Oh, come now. Weren’t he the army man who married an orphaned heiress who promptly croaked abroad?”
Outraged, she reared away from him. “Freddy loved Louisa.” She had seen them before they departed for India, so desperately, desperately in love, and she’d seen the shell of a man who’d returned, broken, and with a babe in his arms.
“Of course, he did.” George waggled the bottle before him in a meaningful sort of way that made his disbelief all too apparent. “Or perhaps it was convenient for you to believe that, given how you and your sisters have benefited from the funds she poured into his accounts. No need for you all to become paid companions and governesses anymore, or to dress in hand-me-downs from the last century. You didn’t learn those healing skills for fun, now did you, dear? I’m sure they paid more regularly than having to sing or embroider for one’s supper, although perhaps not so handsomely as if you’d opened your legs.”
Eliza slapped him, causing him to lose his grip on the bottle as he reached to relieve the sting in his face. It fell, crashing and shattering against the castle wall as it tumbled.
