A Devilish Element E-Book

Madelynne Ellis

• Herausgeber: Incantatrix Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Can a bluestocking and mathematician admit the truth of their feelings, or will a certain devilish element end a love that’s just begun?

Remote Cedarton Castle is haunted. That’s what her sisters say before Eliza Wakefield sets off to visit her recently married friend. The crumbling ruin is even more isolated and foreboding than expected. Its inhabitants, a small cluster of Lord Linfield’s closest allies. Moreover, all is not well with the Linfield’s marriage, leading Eliza to fear for her friend’s safety and her mind.

Mathematician Jem Whistler is a man caught in a trap. He’s in love with a woman he can’t have and owned by a lord who demands things he’d rather not give. Unexpectedly reunited with the bluestocking who owns his heart, he struggles to keep his attachment hidden. When the threat from Cedarton’s white lady increases, Jem and Eliza must work together to uncover the true nature of the spectre haunting Cedarton’s shadowy halls. That’s if they can keep their hands off one another long enough to investigate.

Dive into this tale of gothic mischief, medicine, and murder, and discover the Wakefields, four spinster sisters and the brother who’s determined to see them matched. A Devilish Element is the first book in the Wooing the Wakefield’s series. Readers of a delicate disposition beware, spicy shenanigans, chemistry, and corpses abound in this tale of Regency romance.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

About the Book

-Prologue-

-1-

-2-

-3-

-4-

-5-

-6-

-7-

-8-

-9-

-10-

-11-

-12-

-13-

-14-

-15-

-16-

-17-

-18-

-19-

-20-

-21-

-22-

-23-

-24-

-25-

-26-

-27-

-28-

-29-

-30-

-31-

-32-

-33-

-34-

-Acknowledgements-

-Also by Madelynne Ellis-

-About the author-

MADELYNNE ELLIS

Copyright © 2024 Madelynne Ellis. All Rights Reserved.

Cover Design by Incantatrix Press

Cover images from depositphotos.com & periodimages.com

Edited by Dayna Hart of Heart to Hart Edits

First Published in 2024 by Incantatrix Press.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to events or places is coincidental.

www.madelynne-ellis.com

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A Devilish Element

Can a bluestocking and mathematician admit the truth of their feelings, or will a certain devilish element end a love that’s just begun?

Remote Cedarton Castle is haunted. That’s what Eliza Wakefield’s sisters say before Eliza Wakefield sets off to visit. Somehow, the crumbling ruin is even more isolated and foreboding than expected. Its inhabitants are a small cluster of Lord Linfield’s closest allies. Moreover, all is not well with the Linfield’s marriage, leading Eliza to fear for her friend’s safety and her mind.

Mathematician Jem Whistler is owned by a lord who demands things he’d rather not give. Unexpectedly reunited with the woman who holds his heart, he struggles to keep his attachment hidden. When the threat from Cedarton’s white lady increases, Jem and Eliza must work together to uncover the true nature of the spectre haunting Cedarton’s shadowy halls. That’s if they can keep their hands off one another long enough to investigate.

Dive into this tale of gothic mischief, medicine, and murder, and discover the Wakefields, four spinster sisters and the brother who’s determined to see them matched. A Devilish Element is the first book in the Wooing the Wakefield’s series. Readers of a delicate disposition beware, spicy shenanigans, chemistry, and corpses abound in this tale of gothic Regency romance and mystery.

-PROLOGUE-

Jem

October 1801, London.

The impact of the horse and phaeton had shattered the woman’s collarbone, leaving her neck with a sideward tilt that James Whistler reached out to straighten, only to have his hand stayed by the bark of his acquaintance, Dr Ludlow Bell.

“Don’t touch her. That is my task. Have you a paper, a pencil about you? Good, then please record what I bid you record, and nothing else.”

“It is only that her head—”

“The matter of appearances are beyond her now. We need not concern ourselves with bodily comforts or the crease of a dress, nor a muddy hemline.”

“Of course.” Jem nodded his understanding. It wasn’t as if he wished to poke at the woman’s broken body, only that she lay in such an uncomfortable and ungainly pose. Head crookedly set, and both legs stuck out at unnatural angles, like they were the edges of two set-squares and not the limbs of someone who had been a living, breathing person only a moment ago. The only positive thing one could say about the death was that it had been mercifully quick. Lord Linfield’s phaeton had been mid-race. Where she had come from, no one could say.

Linfield was miraculously unscathed, but two horses had been shot.

“Record, please: a woman of some twenty to thirty years of age, of stouter proportions and”—Bell felt about his pockets for a measuring tape—“statuesque height. You may record that as five feet, nine inches. Impact has splintered the left collarbone and broken both shinbones… and the left wrist. The lady is married, if the ring on her finger is to be believed. The ring is gold.” This Bell slipped into his waistcoat pocket. “That will suffice for observations in situ.” He waved over a pair of grooms ready with a stretcher and a cart. “You will deliver her to this address. My housekeeper will show you where to put her.”

No sooner had they doffed their hats than Bell’s hand extended to Jem.

“My notes, Mr Whistler. I thank you for your assistance.”

Jem tore the page from his pocketbook, glad that he’d had the foresight to mark the observations on a fresh page, and hence was not forced to sacrifice his algebraic formula. The matter of steam, resulting pressure, of pistons and volume had consumed him these last few days. He was sure he was on the verge of something, might have already grasped it had Lord Linfield not insisted that Jem accompany him to the race. How he wished he’d remained at his desk, with his thoughts and his scribblings. The vision of death, the permutations of angles and trajectories and resulting impacts would surely haunt him for nights to come. Linfield, however, was not easily gainsaid, and so Jem frequently found that despite his best intentions, he ended up someplace he never intended to be.

“Bell,” he remarked. “Will you not check on the viscount before you leave?”

The physician was already rolling down his sleeves. He raised his chin and peered down his hooked nose with raven-black eyes. “I would say that Linfield is in remarkably sound health given that I can hear him from here, a distance of some considerable yards. I’d be surprised to learn he sustained more than a bruise, and therefore the services of an anatomist are not required. No, I will attend to the lady instead, and leave the company of Lord Linfield to yourself. An arrangement I think he will vastly prefer. Now, good day to you, sir. Thank you again for these. Please assure the viscount that I will attend to any matters that might arise with the magistrate, and the notification of any kin.”

-1-

Eliza

December 1801, Yorkshire.

If Eliza Wakefield was certain of one thing, it was that only the foolhardy or truly stubborn willingly undertook carriage journeys in the month of December. Though she dearly loved the moors of her beloved Yorkshire, she was the first to admit that they were prone to trying fits of pique, especially in the grey months of the year. Today was such an occasion.

The dark clouds had folded themselves around the hilltops like a smothering shroud sometime after two and were now inching into the valleys. Soon the entire landscape would be nothing but mist so thick one could barely see one’s own hands held before them.

“I don’t know how wise it is to press on, Miss,” Martins, the coachman, advised in his throaty drawl. The poor man had been injured in battle fighting in the Americas, and since, had always sounded rather strangled. “Even with the lantern lit, Posey can barely see the way, and I don’t know these parts well enough to be sure of them in this wuthering nonsense. Perhaps…”

“Perhaps?” Eliza prompted, allowing the coachman a moment to gather his thoughts. Martins was prone to rather woolly thinking. After a rather lengthy pause, when he seemed unlikely to reply, she added, “I agree that it’s not ideal weather, but our destination is surely closer now than home, so it would be illogical to turn back. Nor will I sit here in this damp in the hopes of it clearing. No, Martins, we must be almost at Cedarton by now. We will press on.”

“If you think it’s best, Miss, I won’t gainsay you, but Posey ain’t too fond of this. She’s getting twitchy, so she is.”

Posey, being perhaps the mildest mannered mare ever to have pulled a gig, was enjoying the moment of relative idleness to feast on the surrounding vegetation. If she was twitchy, she wasn’t displaying it in any way Eliza could discern.

“There’s the worry of boggarts, too, if we stray from the path.”

“Boggarts?” Eliza heaved an inward sigh. “Yes, I suppose that is a concern, but I put it to you, Martins, I’d rather risk an enchantment than huddle in this rickety vehicle for an indeterminate amount of time. Why, it doesn’t even have the luxury of multiple walls to shelter us, merely this rather inadequate hood.”

A fat bead of moisture dropped from said hood at that very moment and worked its way inside the collar of her pelisse. “Come, get Posey to trot on. We’ll all be happier once we arrive.”

~Ж~

Cedarton was not what Eliza expected. To be fair, she’d had little to go on beyond the name, which had conjured in her mind a vision of autumn: bright days, blue skies, fresh breezes, and leaves swirling around in a rainbow of golds and bronzes. Built of stately grey stone, Cedarton Castle ought to have impressed one with a sense of solidity. Instead, it squatted like a fat moggy about to pounce. To Eliza, gazing on it for the first time as the gig came to a jerky halt, it inspired a sense of menace. This was no cosy manor, rather a weather-beaten, battle-scarred fortress, complete with iron-pinned doors and soot-stained ramparts.

“Seen some troubles in its history, I should say,” Martins muttered under his breath. “I’m not well acquainted with the folks or lore of this stretch, but I’ll hold to my earlier warning: you’re to be on the lookout for boggarts, spectres, and the likes, Miss Wakefield.”

“I shall certainly keep your words in mind, Martins.” Eliza slipped from the high seat. The moment her feet touched the gravel, the great door opened, revealing dear, Silent Jane. It seemed quite a feat for her to have captured a viscount.

“Eliza…Oh! It is so very good to see you.”

“And you also,” Eliza accepted her swaddling embrace with a degree of perplexed amusement.

“I can hardly believe you are here. When the fog came down, I was certain you’d about turn, but bless my heart, I am joyful that you did not. It has been so, so long.” She grasped Eliza’s hands tight and led her towards the entrance. “We are a small party for the week. Friends of Linfield’s. I should be quite lost if you were not here too. You must tell me all that has happened since we last saw one another in… was it really April? But first, come inside. I am forgetting myself. You must be half perished after your journey. I’ll have Mrs Honeyfield draw you a bath.”

“No, indeed,” Eliza waved away the offer. “A fire and your company will soon ward off the chill. Although I will not say no to a saucer of tea.”

“Which you shall have at once.”

Martins had handed down her trunk to the footmen and was all set to turn the gig about. He doffed his hat at Eliza by way of goodbye.

“Your manservant’s not staying?” Jane enquired. “Oh, but he must, at least until the fog clears.”

“They’re expecting him back home. You’ll be quite all right, won’t you, Martins?”

“Aw reckon the moon’ll be peeping out afore long, Miss. Don’t see no sense in lingering. I’d rather be tucked up snug afore the witching hour comes around, so seeing as you’re all square, I’ll be gannin, though I do thank yers kindly, Lady Linfield, fer ya offer of warmth and victuals. Alls be back at end of ah week t’ get ya, Miss Wakefield, as arranged.” He touched his cap again and was off, the mist swallowing him within a couple of feet.

“Not your man, then?” Jane observed.

“The cobbler’s. Desperately superstitious, the whole family is, but Freddy’s of a mind to train him for better things. I’m not sure what will come of it.”

“Your brother is well?”

“Aye, and all my sisters, and my niece too, but what of you, Jane? I was most surprised, I must confess, when you wrote at Michaelmas to say you were wed, and to an earl’s son, no less. ‘Jane has married a viscount!’ Caroline was positively astonished. ‘How did such a mouse capture such a man?’ she said, but it is perfectly obvious, for what man could not look at you and stumble. You have grown lovely, my friend. I believe your hair was still in plaits, with no hint of curl papers last we met. I think marriage suits you.”

Jane tapped her hand in gratitude at the compliment, but there was a strain to her smile that showed plainly in her eyes. “I don’t know that it has entirely sunk in. It has all been rather… overwhelming. A veritable whirlwind, what with the marriage and the move. We’ve only settled here these last two weeks, and you will surely know it when you see what I have invited you to.”

“I’m sure I will be very comfortable, and very much at home. The fire is delightful.”

Seeming to recall her friend’s recent arrival, Jane nudged Eliza closer to the hearth. The entrance hall was a large square space, blessed with an enormous fireplace, and oak-panelled walls, over which were draped a series of ancient tapestries. It created a welcoming feeling, but it was true too that a certain mustiness sat in the air, and cobwebs still clung to the ceiling rafters, conjuring a sense of abandonment and crawling decay.

“I’m afraid Cedarton has not been a home for a good many years, and no amount of fires can quite take away the chill in its bones. I hope you will not find it too uncomfortable.”

Eliza bore Jane’s fussing a moment, before warding her off by handing her the shawl from her shoulders. Prior to the visit, her middle sister, Caroline, had been only too eager to relate all the gossip and rumours about Cedarton and its unhappy history that she could muster. Most of it had no business outside of a novel. All of it was overblown and fanciful.

“Don’t fret so, Jane,” she squeezed her friend’s hand. “I’m certain I’ll find it very pleasant indeed. Besides, once Cedarton has seen your touch, it will be transformed into the very warmest of homes. But, let us not talk of property. You must tell me of your adventures. How came you to be Lady Linfield?”

“Oh, there is little enough to tell. We met a time or two, and now we are wed, and that’s really all there is to say of the matter. I wish you would tell me of your doings instead.”

“And so I will, but you will not divert me so quickly. Is this to be your main abode? Are there grounds to explore? How many rooms? Have you other guests? And of course, both Caroline and Maria beg me to ask for a full account of your romance with Lord Linfield.”

“Perhaps if we head to your room and take that tea.” Jane shooed a footman off to see to a tray and drew Eliza through a doorway towards a grand carved staircase. “I will show you around as best I can once you are properly warmed and settled, but I hardly have a proper sense of the place myself. It is rather vast and sprawling, too large really, for two people alone, but the housekeeper is very good, and has everything in hand. I thought we would stay in London, but”—she shook her head sadly—“there is some… I don’t know. A difficulty that Linfield prefers to avoid, and so we are here, tucked away in the countryside, away from everyone and everything. I confess, I had no idea Cedarton was so remote. I supposed when he said it was on the moors I ought to have realised, but Yorkshire always brings to mind your quaint little cottage, or the cobbled streets of Harrogate, or the seaside at Scarborough.”

“What sort of difficulty?”

“Scarborough was so glorious this last summer,” Jane replied, as if she hadn’t heard Eliza’s question. “I had such fun chasing waves and paddling in the sea. It was thoroughly delightful.” Her expression took on a wistfulness that Eliza couldn’t fail to notice. Something about her seaside stay had obviously made a lasting impression, and she didn’t think it likely it’d been the North Sea pounding the shore. Matter of fact, she’d hazard it was a person—a man—responsible for that glow in Jane’s eyes, and not the one to whom she was now wed.

“It was right after that Linfield and I were engaged,” she said, practically confirming Eliza’s supposition.

“You said there was some difficulty in London,” Eliza prompted.

Jane tipped her head from shoulder to shoulder. “Oh, don’t ask me about it, for I don’t know a thing. It’s a trivial matter. He says we can return in the Spring.”

“You must miss your family,” Eliza hazarded, seeing her friend’s smile fade. “And here I am glad to have a break from mine, but are Linfield’s family not here? Is there no sister or cousin you might strike up a friendship with? No company?”

“I have you.”

“Indeed, you do.” Eliza linked their arms, eager to see off the gloom cobwebbing her friend’s shoulders. “But surely there are more than ourselves in residence? Linfield’s family?”

“Some of his friends, but the family are all at Bellingbrook.”

Eliza shook her head, the name being unfamiliar.

“Bellingbrook Hall in Lincolnshire. You’ve not heard of it? I’m told it’s preposterously grand, but I haven’t seen it, and we weren’t invited. Linfield and the earl are,” —she chewed her lip— “well… They’re father and son, and Linfield doesn’t care to be ordered about, you see, and here at Cedarton he can entirely please himself. It’s not part of the Earldom.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it came to him via his mother’s people. That’s why it’s been abandoned so long. Linfield’s had no need of it while he’s been engaged with his studies, but—”

“Oxford?”

“Yes.”

“And did he?” It seemed hideously unfair to studious Eliza that she was excluded from the halls of England’s universities simply for being a woman, when a man might be awarded a Bachelor’s degree without once opening a book or attending a single lecture, providing he was of sufficiently privileged birth. Equally confounding to her was that anyone would waste such an opportunity.

“He has a tutor,” Jane blurted. “So, you mustn’t brand him a shirker. He’ll take the examination in the new year.”

“Of course,” Eliza said, still choked by the unfairness of the system. Linfield would sail through life, never once thinking about the privilege his rank granted him, never once considering how another life may have benefited from the education he paid for, but never engaged with. If she could learn, then she would listen to every lecture, read every book.

“You’re in the Grey Room, close to me.” Jane coaxed her across the upper gallery and then wound a path through a horrendously disorientating series of poorly lit and increasingly spider-filled corridors. The deeper they went, the more the taint of dust and mildew battled with the scent of the beeswax candles.

“This is you,” Jane announced at the end of a corridor thick with shadows. She turned the handle of a near invisible door, only for a shadow to bolt across the runner. She shrieked, as if something mightier than a mouse had startled her. One pale hand clutched to her chest.

“Jane, are you—”

“Darned vermin. I’m sorry, Eliza. I’ll have Mrs Honeyfield set more traps and see if we can’t acquire a decent mouser. If you wish to leave in the morning, I’ll completely understand.”

Leave? “Don’t be absurd.” It would take more than a single mouse to scare her away, especially one so eager to make itself scarce. “I’m not going anywhere. But tell me, Jane, what necessitates that?”

Her attention, initially drawn by the mouse, had travelled along the runner and discovered a door hidden amidst the gloom, and not just any door, but an iron-pinned monster, secured with a wooden bar and a series of heavy bolts. “Are we expecting invaders?”

“Of course not.” Jane clasped Eliza’s elbow and began to steer her into the Grey room, but Eliza turned away from the unlatched door in favour of the bolted one.

“Another wing?” She claimed the candlestick from Jane’s hand and raised it to make a closer inspection of the iron-pinned monster. It was the strangest of doors to find at the end of an upper wing corridor, its strength more suited to an entrance one wished to defend. The wainscoting ended short of its position, and the grey stone wall in which it sat was unadorned by painting or tapestry, but streaked with light-stealing stripes, leading to the impression that a squid-like entity was attempting to squeeze its bulk around the frame.

“Don’t you wish to change out of those travel clothes?”

“Momentarily. Whatever is beyond here?”

Jane stayed by the door to the Grey Room as Eliza inched forwards. Now she was level with the strange door, its proportions were more clearly defined. Eight feet tall, at least, and almost the same across. She touched the brickwork, and her fingers came away stained.

“Soot?”

“There was a fire in the past. There’s nothing beyond now.”

“So many bolts, there is something.”

“Ruins. That is all. It was the Lady Tower, but now it’s only a shell. Throw back the bolts if you must. They’re a safety measure, as the key is lost, and there’s a sheer drop on the other side.”

Far too intrigued to pass up the invitation, Eliza drew back the bolts, even though it was clear the door predated any fire, and thus its purpose remained obscured. The ancient hinges protested with a whine as she drew the door open, revealing a vast abyss that snuffed the candlelight.

Her breath caught, and Jane hurried to her side. “See, there’s nothing of interest here. Please come away.”

Nothing of interest, and yet Jane’s fear was palpable.

Also, not strictly true. As Eliza’s eyes adjusted to the murk, the shadows yielded the shell of what must once have been the grandest and tallest of Cedarton’s towers. Further sooty tendrils reached towards the absent roof, while several storeys below, weeds poked up in inky thickets, and between her and them, the remains of floorboards and charred furniture hung suspended like the tiers of an off-centre wedding cake.

“What happened?” Having drunk her fill of the view, Eliza took a step back from the edge.

“A fire, some fifty years back. You’ll have to ask Linfield if you desire the full particulars. I don’t know them and don’t care to. I believe the last Lady to live here died in the inferno.” She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

So Caroline’s tales of Cedarton’s terrible past weren’t entirely unfounded. “It must have been an inferno indeed. It’s a wonder the rest of the castle was spared.”

Jane shrugged, as if she’d given it no thought, which was practically confirmation that it had weighed on her mind, but Eliza saw no sense in pressing her. Jane would reveal her thoughts in her own time, at her own pace, as had always been her way. She’d never been one to bleat about a matter until it suited her to do so. “It won’t give you sleepless nights, will it? I would spare you that at least, given Cedarton’s lack of comforts.”

“Jane, you are being too hard on the place. It’s a little gloomy, but far less bleak than you’re making out. In any case, I’m not given to flights of fantasy. A dark history will not disturb my rest. Come now, show me my room.” She refastened the bolts, then let Jane lead her into the bedchamber. “See, this is quite delightful.”

The room was large, with a low ceiling fashioned with plasterwork embellishments. A large, open hearth dominated the centre of one wall. The fire was lit and cast a pleasing glow over the room. There was an armoire, and a grandly dressed window with a sill wide enough to be used as a seat, and a writing bureau beside it that she might use to write to her sisters as promised. The bed, an old-fashioned canopied affair, sat square and central, its drapes of grey and green Kidderminster stuff, which also covered the lower half of all four walls. If the house had been more recently occupied, the Kidderminster would surely have been banished to the room of a minor servant by now and replaced with more fashionable paper hangings. Still, it had been thoroughly aired, and was to Eliza, so used to doubling up, both pleasant and expansive.

“So much space,” she observed.

Jane drew her attention to a door she had presently overlooked, presuming it to be a closet. “Look, through here is where I am. We shall have ever so much fun. It will be like school all over again.”

School had not always been a particularly pleasant affair.

“Linfield?” she enquired. Surely the adjoining rooms were intended for husband and wife.

Jane knotted her hands and dragged her teeth over her lower lip. “His rooms are in the other wing.”

A knock prevented her from saying more.

“The tea you asked for, milady.”

“Good, yes. Bring it in.”

Two plainly dressed servants carried in a tray, along with the smaller valise Eliza had brought.

“This is Mrs Honeyfield,” Jane introduced the older of the two women before she could make her escape, “Who has been so good to us in seeing that Cedarton was made ready.”

The housekeeper appeared to be barely a year or two Eliza’s senior, making her far younger than was typical for a housekeeper for a house of this size. She bobbed a curtsy, prompting the maid, who wasn’t above thirteen if she was a day, beside her to do the same. “Eliza, you must ask Mrs Honeyfield if you need anything, for I know she will find it. Now, Mrs Honeyfield, this is my very dear friend, Miss Wakefield whom I’ve been telling you about. I wish her to stay as long as possible, so we must do everything we can to make her stay perfect and not frighten her away with Cedarton folktales and its eternal draughtiness.”

“Good day, Miss Wakefield. There’s warming pans aplenty, an’ we’ll keep fires stoked. If you want owt, be sure to ring and we’ll be reet on it.”

“Mrs Honeyfield is very efficient. Whereas you, my dear friend, are being overly dramatic. I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable without any sort of fuss being made.”

The housekeeper winced.

“I’m sorry, are you all right, Mrs Honeyfield?”

The housekeeper cupped her cheek. “Aye, Miss. It’s nowt. A spot of toothache, that’s all. If you don’t need owt else, milady, we’ll be off.”

“I think we’re all set,” Jane said.

“Perhaps I might look at it, if it’s painful.” Eliza’s offer stopped the servant before she’d taken more than a step. “I have some skills in that regard. You’ve a still room, haven’t you, Jane? It won’t take me a minute to mix a remedy.”

Jane, who had already settled at the tea table, paused, teapot in hand. “I quite forgot about you and your potions. You were forever patching us up at school. There is a still room, and very impressively stocked if you can believe it, though I can’t take any credit for it. It’s not my doing. It’s Linfield’s. Leastways, it’s a benefit of him having his personal physician in attendance.”

“Linfield employs a personal physician?” Eliza said at the same time Mrs Honeyfield made another anguished gasp. “I suppose he is too high and mighty to see to a servant’s comfort, or is it that he doesn’t see teeth as a necessity to a body?”

“Eliza, you are so hard on men of learning. I’m sure if Doctor Bell is made aware of the matter, he can prescribe something.”

“I shall be very surprised if it’s for anything with any efficacy,” Eliza retorted. “My remedy, on the other hand, works a treat.”

“Old family recipe?” Jane enquired.

“The basis of it, but I’ve modernised it some. I never found that the honey helped do anything other than sweeten the patient’s temper. Tell me the way to the still room, and I’ll make it up right away.”

“Eliza, truly? You’ve not been here five minutes. If you really must, then can it at least wait until after we’ve taken tea? It will be cold if we have to wait until you’ve attended your patient, and I’m sure Mrs Honeyfield can soldier on a little while.”

“Aye, milady. It’s kind of ya to think of us, Miss Wakefield. It’s much appreciated. Me John knowed about such stuff. It’s times like this I don’t half miss ’im.”

“Oh, you lost your husband recently?” Eliza asked, more eager to explore Cedarton’s still room now than she was to take tea, but when Jane waved her towards a chair, she nevertheless sat.

“Aye, a wee bit back, Miss. I should get back t’ kitchen now. Cooky’ll be havin’ conniptions over t’ feast his Lordship asked for. But I’ll be mighty grateful for that tooth remedy if you’ve time to mix it.” She winced again but followed it with a tight little smile before departing.

“Honestly, Eliza, your things aren’t even in your room and you’re already meddling,” Jane admonished as she poured. “I’ll tell you right now that I doubt Bell will let you through the door of the still room, so you might as well forget any thoughts of potion making. He’s very protective of his domain.”

“His?”

Jane nodded. “It’s not a mere still room he’s set up. He’s taken over three whole rooms on the ground floor and furnished them as a consulting room and surgery.”

“Is he setting up practice? I thought you said he was Linfield’s personal physician.”

“That’s right,” Jane confirmed. She thrust a plate of parkin at Eliza. Jane, herself, was already biting into a second square. “Though it confounds me as to why it’s necessary. Linfield’s the picture of health. You don’t mind that it’s parkin, do you? I’ve had a proper hankering for it of late, and the only other thing on offer is some marmalade that Linfield’s mother sent. It’s horridly bitter, but apparently Linfield loves it. I daren’t say that I’ve not the same love of it in case it gets back to the Countess.”

“Yes, probably best not to slight your mother-in-law’s marmalade afore you’ve met.”

She accepted the offered piece of parkin and tucked in.

“As for Bell,” Jane continued. “Well… I suppose I had better tell you now, that he’s no ordinary physician, before you go rattling on about his sort never sullying their hands. He’s very well respected, but rather eccentric. Mixes his own potions like an apothecary and he’s performed for the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and studied at the Anatomy School in Oxford.”

“I see.” He didn’t sound much like any physician she’d had the pleasure of meeting, more like a—

“Don’t, don’t say it.”

Ginger exploded fiery on Eliza’s tongue. “—body thief.”

Jane sighed into her teacup. “Please don’t say that to his face. It’s not at all accurate.”

“I know,” Eliza thoughtfully chewed on her cake. “He dissects corpses. Resurrectionists only dig them up. Although, one has to wonder which is worse. Personally, I thought the role of the physician was to keep people alive.”

“You know as well as I that’s the whole point of… of chopping people up. Can we talk of something pleasanter? I hope when I go, I’m left peacefully in my grave, not relieved of my organs and pickled in a jar. The whole idea makes me feel nauseous.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as if she might gag.

“You were always squeamish.” At school, Jane could be relied on to faint dead away at the sight of the merest scratch. Eliza was made of hardier stuff. Delivering babies required it, as did the recent forays into anatomy she’d made for herself, not that she was about to tell Jane of them. Her friend was already gulping tea as if her life depended on it.

“I’ll be scrupulously pleasant to your Doctor Bell, I promise—”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

“—for how else will I get him to share all his tricks?”

Jane put her head in her hands. “You ought to have been born a man.” She sighed.

There was much Eliza could have said about that too, but Jane looked too pale to handle it. She’d seemed the picture of health when Eliza arrived, but on closer examination it was plain there were dark smudges beneath her eyes, and a pallor to her skin not manifested with powder. Eliza stretched across the table and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Tell me about Linfield. I can still hardly believe that you’re wed. How long have you known one another? It must have been a whirlwind match.”

When her friend remained silent, Eliza said, “I could tell you about the pistol ball I removed from a man’s leg.”

Jane raised her hand. “Stop. I will tell you everything you could ever want to know about Linfield, if you’ll only spare me your love of blood and guts.”

-2-

Jem

“Dear God, are you really going to let him assault you with those things?” James Whistler declared, watching with rapt fascination as Ludlow Bell extracted a coterie of leeches from a glass jar in which he had them stored and set them on a saucer.

Linfield, idly sprawled across the chaise Bell had procured from the attic a few days ago to serve as a consulting couch, turned his head, only to recoil from the plate of invertebrates. “I don’t see that I have much of a damned choice. Having been coerced into marrying the wench, I’m now expected to produce a brace of tailfruit.” He gulped and shot an imploring glance at Jem.

“There’s no use looking at me. I’m not the medical man, and if I were, I’m not sure I’d ever prescribe anything quite so revolting.”

“Bodies are revolting,” Bell intoned, his expression sepulchral. Jem hadn’t yet decided whether it was an affectation intended to add gravitas or if the doctor spent so much time around corpses that he had one foot in the grave himself. “Diseased and injured bodies, particularly so.”

Linfield wriggled backward as if he could escape into the ghastly pattern on the upholstery. “Would this be the time to point out that I’m neither?”

“Yet you are, by your own admission, afflicted by a debilitating malady.”

“Acutely debilitating,” Jem droned. It was hard not to feel a smattering of sympathy for the sod, though Jem was finding it equally difficult not to laugh at his lordship’s predicament. It was, after all, a pickle of his own making. He could have refused to marry the girl his family had picked out. Lord knows why he hadn’t. Linfield wasn’t usually one to docilely bow to pressure. If he had one strength, it was that he was rarely galled or swayed, and while his opinions weren’t always based on sound rhetoric, they were always his own.

Bell’s shadow fell across the chaise. “You’ll need to lower your falls.”

Linfield reached for the fastening but showed a deal of hesitation over slipping the buttons. “You’re sure this will work?” He gave doctor and the saucer both sickly glances, and rightly so, given the delicate part of his anatomy they were headed for.

Bell captured one of the wrigglers between a pair of forceps. “There are no guarantees in this life of anything other than eventual death. However, this treatment is based on firm scientific principles. Erections depend on blood flow, and one thing leeches are very good at is drawing blood.”

“That’s because they bite, with teeth.” Jem flashed his own pearly whites. “Up to sixty of them so I’ve heard.” It wasn’t that he’d made a study of leeches, but he knew a fellow who had.

“You’re not helping,” Linfield whined.

“If you prefer, we can forgo the treatment, and go back to playing cards or whatever other vice you might care to entertain us with.” Bell said.

Relief released the tension from his lordships jaw. His eyes lost their nervous squint. Hope blazed like a sentinel beacon.

“That is, if you don’t mind remaining a bungler.”

And was snuffed out.

Jem snorted. The situation was positively ridiculous, albeit unfortunate, given the entire point of marriage was procreation, and Linfield’s prick had evidently lost all its vigour the moment he said I do.

Bell, too, was fighting off a smirk and catastrophically failing. Linfield swung a fist at one then the other of them.

“Oh, yes, it’s hilarious. Let’s laugh at the man who was doing no more than minding his own business, and had a lass thrust on him without so much as an opinion asked and is now stuck in fumbler’s hall because of it.”

“Had his arm twisted right up his back, he did,” Jem said to Bell over the top of Linfield’s head.

“I know, I had to treat the sprain.”

“You’re devils, both of you. I should dismiss you both.” He smacked them both, Jem on the wrist and Bell the thigh. It did nothing to kill their humour. They both knew he wouldn’t send them away. He couldn’t afford to. They were his only hope, albeit for ostensibly different reasons.

“You didn’t have to wed the woman,” Jem said.

“You say that, but you’ve no papa breathing down your neck, threatening to disinherit you if you don’t comply.”

Jem, whose parents had both departed this life when he was a boy of eight, took this statement with the sort of stoicism necessitated by an acquaintance with Linfield. The young viscount was an entitled, indolent rogue, and he said that with as much affection in his heart as he could muster, but truly, he was the sort Jem had ruthlessly avoided throughout his own studies, and regularly had nightmares about being allowed to run the country. The man had barely a bean of sense, no head for numbers, only a smattering of Latin, no Greek and maintained a mien of complete lassitude, stirring only when there was mischief to manage or a wager to make. How they had come to be acquaintances was a lengthy tale, but reduced to its simplest form, Jem had been employed by Linfield’s papa, the Earl of Bellingbrook, as a tutor for his wayward eldest son. Five years of Oxford education was deemed quite sufficient. It was time he shouldered the burden of responsibility, passed the confounded exam, produced an heir, and got on with learning the ropes of managing the ancestral estate. Not necessarily in that order, but now, while the earl still had wits enough about him to set his son right. Jem couldn’t fault Bellingbrook’s logic. If left unsupervised, Linfield would reduce the earldom to penury inside a decade, which would be an accomplishment indeed given that the family owned half of Lincolnshire and stretches of Rutland and Yorkshire too.

If not for the tutoring, they would never have met. Jem wouldn’t have got sucked into Linfield’s set, or come to be wintering in the wilds, or endured a host of other questionable activities which took him away from his studies. Still, he couldn’t deny there were benefits to the association too. Trailing after Linfield reminded him of his younger years, constantly surrounded by his cousins and being embroiled in endless adventures and escapades. It’d reminded him that life didn’t always have to be serious, and that joy could be found in unlooked-for places.

His gaze fell on Linfield’s face again. He was hardly the handsomest man he’d seen, being somewhat weak of chin, but he had eyes that were forest green and flashed like the summer peeking through leafy bowers, and hair that stood out from his head like puffs of smoke. Jem curled his hand over Linfield’s shoulder, whereupon the other man clasped his fingers tight.

“Ready?” Bell lowered the first of the leeches.

They were some of the most disgusting creatures Jem had ever come across, right up there with slugs, centipedes, and weevils. Likely, there were more repulsive creatures on this Earth, but fortuitously, he’d avoided encountering them.

“Jem,” Linfield moaned. He squeezed Jem’s fingers tight while he loosened his front fall with the other hand. “Say something. Distract me.”

“Like what? This is making my eyes water, and I’ve the good sense not to let one near bare skin.” He continued to squint and clench his thighs as Bell positioned the beast. Truly, one had to wonder if it was worth it. There had to be other means, a kinder means of curing impotency, or performance anxiety, or whatever affliction it was Linfield claimed to be suffering. Maybe if he drank a little less, or a little more, or thought of his wife as something other than a shackle, then he could fix his tallywhacker and make this whole procedure entirely unnecessary.

“Oh!” Linfield turned his head to look at the leech sitting on his cock. “I thought it would hurt, but there wasn’t even a pinch.”

“It’s still disgusting, and I remain unconvinced as to the efficacy,” Jem said.

“Are you a physician?” Bell placed the remaining leeches. Four… five of them in total, which seemed unduly excessive considering Linfield wasn’t especially well endowed, and he was currently as limp as a wet stocking.

“I prefer to stick to the mechanics of iron and steel to that of flesh,” Jem retorted. Numbers were a deal less messy and rarely drew blood.

“Then I’ll thank you not to persist in offering your opinions.”

Bell could be a soulless killjoy.

While Jem might not care for flesh-tailoring, that didn’t mean he wasn’t intrigued by the mechanics of it. That said, he wasn’t desperate for a lesson on leeches. Actually, he was rather surprised to find them in Bell’s repository, given his reputation as a proponent of modernised medicine. Leeches were the province of quacks, along with old theories of imbalanced humours and cupping.

“I suppose the theory is that the little devils draw out the bad blood, allowing the good to flow and produce a rise, or is it just a matter of sucking fluid into his cock? If it’s the latter, I have to say there are more pleasant ways—”

“No,” Linfield released his grip on Jem’s hand in order to hold up his own, thus stopping Bell before he replied and got into the guts of the theory, and Jem from expanding on alternative means of creating inflation. “I don’t care to know. It doesn’t matter how it works, as long as it does. The pair of you are dull enough with your constant scientific blathering without it involving my cock.” He flicked a glance up at Bell. “I don’t feel it doing anything.”

“They’ve not been on you a minute.”

Linfield huffed, then settled himself more comfortably. He closed his eyes.

Jem used the moment of quiet to rub the residual ache from his fingers. They’d been crushed almost to numbness by Linfield’s grip. “I’ve one question,” he said to Bell.

Go on, the doctor nodded.

“I can’t help wondering… Assuming this here treatment works, surely… Well, is it a temporary fix?”

“Erections are by their nature temporary. The aim isn’t to give him permanent priapism.”

“No, no… of course. But… if it’s temporary, then how does it help him to get it up for his wife?”

It seemed Bell didn’t have a straight answer for that, given he found a sudden interest in rearranging the shelves of pills and potions he’d accumulated since they’d set up at Cedarton. “It’ll… um, well, it’ll unblock the mechanism.”

“Assuming it was blocked?”

“It was blocked,” Bell said, and Linfield waggled his noggin in agreement.

“Couldn’t get it to half-mast, never mind full tilt. Bloody disaster of a wedding night. Had hoped I could be done with the whole thing by now, duty done and all that.”

“I feel that was a tad optimistic,” Jem said. “I think it’s more usual for it to take a couple of attempts, or in some cases, many.”

“And what would you know of such matters?” Linfield’s jade-green gaze pinned him with an inquisitor’s zeal. “Proper studious little saint weren’t you before we got our hands on you? Where would your knowledge of such carnal matter come from?”

Jem surrendered, offering no explanation and no resistance. It was a topic fraught with peril, and he had no desire to quarrel or linger on the matter. The fact that he knew he was right, helped immensely. He might not have spent his Oxford days roistering and frequenting whore-houses, but he wasn’t wholly unacquainted with womenkind. The same could not be said of his lordship.

~Ж~

Jem had been tottering on the edge of a doze when a knock on the door brought him to. Watching leeches suck blood had turned out to be as dreary dull as watching paint dry. Bell turned to answer, but Jem leapt up. “I’ll get it.” He hobbled across the room, thighs stiffly protesting having been tensed for so long. Usually, he’d have thrown the door wide as was his fashion, but with Linfield prone upon the couch with his tallywhacker out, he strove for a less boisterous approach.

“Lady Linfield,” he enunciated, throwing a glance back into the room, before slipping out and pulling the door too, so that only the presence of his fingers kept it from shutting. “Are you looking for Linfield? He’s a tad indisposed right now.”

“Oh!” Her ladyship, a demure, strawberry-blonde with a thousand freckles, clasped her hands together and blinked at him owlishly for a moment. “No, we weren’t looking for anyone, but the door was closed, and I know Doctor Bell is so particular, so it seemed prudent to knock. Eliza wanted some things, you see. For a remedy. Mrs Honeyfield has the most awful toothache, and—”

“Eliza?”

Jem’s attention slid past Lady Linfield to the turn of the corridor. He had not seen the other figure initially, her form concealed by the thickness of the shadows in this part of the house. Bell’s suite occupied a stretch of the lower floor accessed only via a servant’s tunnel beneath the wreckage of the old drawing room. The physician had chosen the location precisely because of its separation from the main body of the house. Servants, he’d observed, did not fare well with the notion of corpses being stored and dissected in the places of their employment, and given Cedarton’s whispered-about history, not alarming the few servants they’d managed to secure was rather a priority. On that basis alone, he had not thought to look for another figure. It was surprising enough to find Lady Linfield before him. He’d especially not imagined he’d find this particular woman blinking at him in reciprocal wonder.

“Eliza Wakefield. What are you—? This is quite the last place I expected to see you.”

“Mr Whistler.” She came forward to him, holding out her hands so that he might take hold of them, while they both looked one another over. The contact sent a frisson of heat straight to his groin, and with it an entanglement of memories and daydreams. She smiled impishly, “You know, that rather implies that you were expecting to see me someplace else.”

“Having made your acquaintance, I freely admit I wasn’t averse to the idea of doing so again.”

Jem dropped a bow over her hands, a broad smile stretching his cheeks into aches. Rakishly, he planted a kiss on her bare knuckles and his pulse quickened at her gasp. He’d thought of her often, probably too often for his own good. Their acquaintance over the summer had sadly been too short-lived for him to have made anything of it, but that didn’t stop him imagining how things might have been if time and circumstances had been on their side. The haze, the passion of those summer days made his heart swell, and wakened parts shrivelled by fear at what was going on in the room beyond. His gaze lingered on her fingers, and finding no wedding band, muscles he hardly knew he’d held clenched, relaxed. It seemed his friend and rival had not pipped him to the post. He’d not forgotten the kiss she’d granted. First he, then Joshua, thus ensuring complete fairness.

“Mr Whistler, if that is so”—Eliza said, a merry old glint dancing in her eyes—“you might stoop to replying to the correspondence I sent you.”

“Ah.” He offered up a sheepish grin. “I confess my laxity in such matters. I am a dreadful correspondent.”

“Letters,” Jane interjected. “What is this?” Her lips quirked into a pursed smile before she levelled a meaningful stare in Eliza’s direction. “How exactly come you to be acquainted with my husband’s tutor?”

“His tutor?”

“As you see me,” Jem replied, making another bow. “And allow me to enlighten you, Lady Linfield. My aunt and uncle, Sir Thomas and Lady Lartington, were good enough to introduce us at Stags Fell last summer.”

“And Jem was good enough to show me both his work sheds and to converse with me about mathematics,” Eliza added. “He’s fanatical about steam engines. Did you know that, Jane?”

“I confess I didn’t. Nor did I realise it was something that interested you.”

“I’m woefully ignorant about them.”

The statement prompted a cough from Jem. “Not so very woefully. I recall you being a willing and very able student.” He looked her over, failing to take in the details of her appearance, instead seeing her as she’d been, with a borrowed leather apron tied over her skirts, and a smudge of soot on her nose, side by side with him and Joshua in the workshop at Stags Fell. Her delicate hands had been covered in grease that day, and her rose-scent entwined by the tang of metal filings. They’d both been utterly smitten.

“Well, I confess I was sorry to leave for I did have half a mind to petition for membership of the Puffing Devils. Did you ever solve the conundrum you were working on?”

“Hm, not as yet.”

“The Puffing whats?” Jane interjected.

“His society of gentlemen engineers,” Eliza replied, without breaking eye contact with him.

“Forgive me,” he mouthed. “How did I not know that you were to join us here?”

“Eliza, should I be the one to point out that you are neither a gentleman nor an engineer?” Jane remarked, though neither other party paid her any heed.

Eliza’s attention was raptly fastened on Jem. “I had no notion of your presence either, but it’s a joyous surprise.”

“Aye, it is that. But tell me how? How comes it to be?” He looked back and forth betwixt the two ladies, seeking answers.

“Jane and I were at school together. You’re looking at the co-founders of the Women’s Natural Philosophical Fellowship.”

Jane swished aside the remark. “More like the founder and her simpering devotee. I never could get my head around most of your arguments, even though I was thoroughly bewitched by them.”

Eliza jeed her head, dismissing her friend’s remarks as poppycock.

“You know it’s the truth. I’ve not looked at a sum nor read anything that wasn’t a novel or attached to a fashion plate since we left school, Eliza. But I see that Mr Whistler falls prey to the gravitational effect you exert. She is so very engaging, is she not?”

“What? Oh.” Jem relinquished his grip upon Eliza’s hands, which he had clung to far too vigorously and for far too long, judging by Lady Linfield’s remarks. While Jem mourned the loss of contact, Eliza clapped her hands together, glee painting a fresh glow across her cheeks as she turned to her friend.

“See, you say that, yet you still recall Mr Newton’s theory.”

Jane rolled her eyes toward the ceiling before casting her attention to the door once more. “Only in the vaguest sense. I couldn’t scrounge together the details no matter how hard I tried.”

“It relates force and mass,” Jem elaborated.

The lady only shook her head at his explanation.

“The one is directly proportional to the mass of the other and inversely proportional to the square of the distances between their centres.”

Bewilderment swept across his hostess’s face, while Eliza clapped again in delight. “Oh, how I have missed you, and I know I shouldn’t say it, but there it is, and I shall very much look forward to hearing about all your progress and new theorems, but we did come with a purpose. I wonder, if we might…” She cast a meaningful look towards the door at his rear.

“Ah, yes, you wished to see Bell. You’re in good health? No—you already said you require a remedy.”

“Not for myself. I’m very well, thank you. It’s for the housekeeper.”

Jem supposed there must be one but couldn’t rightly recall having met her. If he was quite honest, he couldn’t recall much at present. That was the effect of Eliza Wakefield’s luminescence. He quite forgot himself. “I’ll fetch Bell.”

He turned, only for Eliza to grasp his arm, stilling him instantly. A touch through clothing should not affect him so greatly, but his innards turned loops.

“No-no don’t bother him. I simply need a few ingredients. I can easily gather them and mix it myself.”

She took a step forward, leading him, her hand outstretched to raise the latch.

“Ah!” Reality burst through his lovelorn haze. He moved with all speed, inserting himself between Eliza and the door, acutely cognisant of what was occurring on the other side. Even ignoring the fact that Linfield was stretched on a couch with his privates on display, that there were issues with his lordship’s knob wasn’t something he’d want getting out, particularly to his bride. Additionally, there was the fact that Jem was wretchedly ill prepared to have the hereto unconnected parts of his life collide. “You know, now isn’t really a good time. Do you have a list? Maybe I could gather—”

“It really will only take a moment.” She patted his hand, clearly expecting him to move aside.

Jem stood firm.

“The thing is—” He chewed on the words. “Bell, he’s—well, he’s in the middle of an experiment. Vital that it’s not disturbed.”

“Experiment?”

Of course, her eyes lit.

“What manner of experiment?”

Lady Linfield groaned. “Eliza!” She clasped her by the hand and tried to turn her about. “You’re not to tell her, Mr Whistler. I invited her here to be my companion, not to lose her to whatever nonsense it is you gentlemen find to do down here. I’ve heard enough talk of fish heads and entrails this last week. I had hoped additional female company might make for a little less of it.”

“Entrails?” Eliza hadn’t budged an inch despite Jane’s continued tugging. “And fish heads.”

“I did tell you he was an anatomist.”

“Yes, and you know that I’m positively enthralled. I must say that Cedarton is far exceeding my expectations. Jane, you implied I would be quite sorry to visit such a place, but why if it isn’t filled with the most intriguing and engaging characters.” She turned her smiles on him. “Jem, you can’t think me the least bit squeamish. Let me in at once.”

“Definitely not, on both counts.”

Eliza was brimming with so much barely contained joy, one might assume she’d just received a proposal from the man she’d hoped would marry her.

The matter was made moot by Bell wrenching the door open from the inside. His lanky form filled the space and swept over the assembled persons. “Is there some issue here?”

“Doctor Bell, I assume,” Eliza said, peering around Jem and offering her hand to the cadaverous brute. “Miss Wakefield. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I was wondering if I might bother you for a few things—supplies to make up a remedy, and Jem says you are in the midst of an experiment. I should be honoured if you’d allow me to observe, I’m most fascinated by such things.”

The luscious curls of Bell’s full-bottomed wig trembled, though whether in horror at the thought of a woman entering his surgery or mirth over the suggestion that she might relish looking at Linfield’s leech dotted cock was uncertain.

“Most assuredly not, madam,” he replied. “If on the other hand, someone is ill, and you require my—”

Jem raised a warning hand. “It’s the housekeeper, a minor ailment, nothing that can’t wait.”

“I’m perfectly able,” Eliza stuck her nose in the air. “If you’ll just allow me—”

“No.” Bell rasped.

“—I can have the remedy mixed in a matter of minutes.”

“That really won’t be possible, Miss Wakefield, was it? You see, I don’t allow women in my surgery. And I certainly don’t allow them to meddle with the preparations I put a great deal of effort into assembling. If Mrs Honeyfield requires any treatment, I will see to it myself. Good day now.” He closed the door in her face.

“Well of all the rude…” She slapped her hand against the door.

“Eliza,” Jane beseeched.

“How dare he treat me…us…you like that? This is your house.”

“And my husband has given Bell these rooms. We should leave him to whatever it is that he’s about. Eliza, I did warn you that this would be the likely outcome.”

In other circumstances, Jem would gallantly have risen to Eliza’s assistance. Bell, like many a man of learning, could be hopelessly backwards over the matter of female intelligence, seeing them as inferior creatures, mentally and constitutionally suited only to child-rearing and housekeeping tasks, and on par with domestic pets. When Jem had raised the notion of there being lady physicians in the future, the phlegm explosion had necessitated three clean shirts. However, presently, it seemed wiser to let his bullishness stand for the sake of expediency and Linfield’s dignity.

“Let us go now. It can’t be far off time we changed for dinner. It was most kind of you to offer to help Mrs Honeyfield, but I’m sure Doctor Bell has it in hand, and I didn’t mean for you to come here to Cedarton to administer treatments to my staff. I desired your company. Your friendship. And you to have a restful break.”

“Of course. Forgive me.” Eliza turned to Jane with a bright smile plastered across her face, and they looped their arms together. “You know I never did have the knack of idleness.”

“I know it. I know it well, my friend.”

-3-

Jem

Jem watched them go, while sucking on his teeth. He’d make a point of finding out what Eliza needed and gathering the ingredients for her when Bell was otherwise engaged. “Did you have to be so frightfully condescending?” he muttered as he pushed past Bell, ignoring his blustering defence.

Eliza, with the same formal training he or Bell had received, would have changed the world by now. She would certainly pass the Oxford exam with a fraction of the trouble Linfield was making of it.