Page 78 of A Devilish Element
Through the open doorway to the dining room, he could see Linfield smirking.
“Could you be referring to the fact that you mean to spend the night in my best friend’s bed chamber alongside her and her husband, or that… that you’ve been his…his catamite all along and you’re only sorry that I got to observe that fact with my own eyes?”
He couldn’t deny the truth of either accusation.
“Yes,” he mumbled. “Eliza, truly, I’m sorry. I tried… you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. You’re a liar, James Whistler. I thought… I thought I could trust you, that perhaps…” She bowed her head.
He wanted her to continue, to finish that sentence in the manner he wished it to end, with the possibility of a future for them both, but that dream, if it had ever existed, was over. She couldn’t even formulate the words to express her outrage with sufficient derision.
“Pray don’t speak to me again.”
He bowed, and allowed her to pass, knowing his cause was already lost, and that Linfield was still watching him, making sure the wind had turned in the direction he’d commanded it. “Happy now?” He mouthed to that miscreant.
Linfield’s grin was enough to make it clear the answer was deliriously so.
“Stop dithering, Whistler. Let Miss Wakefield pass, so we may eat.”
He had no desire to sit at the table and eat, but nor would Linfield allow him to leave. No matter that he wanted to flee and throw himself into a ditch where he could wallow in the inkpot of his own misery.
“Don’t get any crazy ideas now.”
Crazy? Like perhaps throwing himself from one of Cedarton’s lofty towers?
He was wounded not mad.
A vision hit him then, of himself hurrying away across the misty moors, and Linfield chasing after him with his dogs. He didn’t have any dogs, but that was hardly the point. The point was that there was no sense in running because he’d just get hauled back here. The more Jem resisted; the harder Linfield would fight to hold on to him. He knew then that only when Linfield tired of him would he win his actual freedom.
This evening’s spread consisted of broiled mackerel, roast beef, coxcomb skewers, asparagus, and shallots, along with some manner of fruit trifle the cook had clearly tried to dress up with a few beheaded winter pansies. He could summon no appetite for anything bar the sherry, and following that, the wine.
Linfield chattered. The rest of them were dour to a soul—Eliza, the Cluetts, Bell always looked like he’d just been winkled from a coffin, and as for their hostess… Actually, Lady Linfield bore more colour than she had in recent days. Was she? Merciful lord, she couldn’t be excited by the prospect of what was to come later this evening? That thought horrified him almost as much as being expected to rise to the occasion.
It mattered not that Eliza now despised him. The threat of Linfield orchestrating some slight to her reputation remained real. Thus, he would do as he was bid.
Eliza, he noted, speared a single asparagus stalk, but did no more than cut it into narrow slices, none of which passed her lips.
“I can explain,”he wanted to say to her. They were seated much too far apart to attempt actual conversation, a fact he could likely attribute to Linfield’s manipulation.“I know how it looks, but I don’t want you to think—”
“Are you, or aren’t you accompanying Lord and Lady Linfield to her bedchamber this evening?”
“I am, but—”He tugged at the knot of his cravat. The damn thing was strangling him.“Only because there’s no other choice. I’m a fool, Eliza, I readily admit that. I’ve handled everything badly, and now I’ve brought this down on our heads. I can’t let him ruin you. I can’t. And he will. I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry. If there were any other way.”
As long as Linfield lived, he’d never be free.
“I love you, Eliza. I want you to know that’s real despite all the rest. I wish I knew how to make things right. I wish it didn’t have to end like this. I wish you’d never had to see this part of me.”
He wished it were still August, and they were back at Stags Fell. That the brief moments of bliss they’d found in the gardens at Lauwine hadn’t drifted by so quickly. That Joshua wasn’t Joshua, and he wasn’t himself. That he didn’t find himself as attracted to men as he was to women. That he hadn’t been a gentleman and had fucked her when he’d had the chance. At least he had the memory of her taste on his tongue, and the soft warmth of her within his arms to look back on.
From his right, Linfield shot out a hand and clamped it fast about Jem’s wrist as if he could hear Jem’s thoughts and sought to show his disapproval of them. Jem swung his gaze to him as he fought to withdraw his hand, but stilled at the look on Linfield’s face. From across the table, Lady Linfield gave an alarmed cry and shoved back her chair, which toppled a glassful of wine all over her plate.
“Linfield,” she gasped, bending to him like a flower to the sun.
Jem could not quite explain it, but there was certainly a bilious glow to his lordship’s features, particularly around the mouth. He looked…he looked… stricken. Agonised. As if some foul wyrm were gnawing on him from the inside. He made a choking sound, his free hand rising to his throat.
“Good God, help him,” George insisted, pushing back his chair. “He must have a fishbone stuck.”
Linfield’s grip only tightened as Jem rose to his feet. He had to peel back Linfield’s fingers to release his grip. He raised his hand to strike between his lordship’s shoulders, but before the heel of his hand could connect, Linfield spewed copious amounts of scarlet blood over the table linens.
