Page 2 of Confounding Oaths
“Yes.” Miss Bickle had a fine line in confident nods, and she deployed one of them now.
“You don’t think that’s a rather silly name?”
Never having considered anything silly in her entire life, and being, I suspect, one of the few mortals who appreciated the etymology of the word, Miss Bickle was unperturbed by the criticism. “Not at all. I think it rather splendid.”
The Misses Caesar, to their brother’s chagrin, both agreed that it was splendid indeed.
“Although,” added Miss Caesar, “I am not entirely certain how this group of yours differs from a literary salon.”
“Ah, well,” Miss Bickle explained, “we do not only read and discuss the works, we also write our own stories set within the wider anonymousladyauthorverse.”
Miss Anne clapped her dainty hands. “Oh, how marvellous.”
“Is it, in fact, marvellous?” asked Mr. Caesar. “Is it not, in fact, a slightly peculiar thing to do?”
Before Miss Bickle could either deny or embrace the peculiarity of her chosen hobby, Miss Caesar was leaning forward with fatally sincere interest and asking, “But what are these stories about?”
“For example,” Miss Bickle began with the joy of an enthusiast encouraged to expound upon their area of enthusiasm, “my currentwtiitpobw”—the look of perplexity on the faces of her audience was enough to make her clarify—“that is,work that is in the process of being written,is calledThe Heir and the Wastrel,and it concerns events that I imagine occurring between Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy in their youth.”
“What sort of events?” prompted Miss Anne, with an innocence that caused her brother to chime in immediately with “Do remember that Anne is fourteen.”
Miss Bickle, who had indeed overlooked the lady’s age, opened her mouth, closed it again, and then said somewhat demurely: “Japes.”
“And would I be able to join your avidreaderdom?” asked Miss Caesar. “I have read all of the anonymous lady author’s works and might like to try my hand at writing avrections.”
“Oh, that would be lovely.” Miss Bickle beamed. “At the moment it’s just me and Miss Penworthy.”
“Ireallydon’t think you should be encouraging Miss Penworthy’s attention,” warned Mr. Caesar. “She may take it in ways you don’t intend.”
With casual bonhomie, Miss Bickle gave Mr. Caesar a pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, we’ve established the parameters of our friendship very thoroughly.”
A suspicion crept into Mr. Caesar’s mind, and quite without any mystical influence on my part. “Howthoroughly?”
“Very thoroughly. Exhaustively, really. Miss Penworthy can be very detail-oriented.”
To Mr. Caesar’s relief, the fates decreed that he would not need to pursue this line of enquiry any further, as they had arrived at their destination, the temporary London residence of Alexandre, Vicomte de Loux.
While Mr. Caesar and his lady companions disembarked, I took the shape of a sparrow and flew out into the night.
And there, in the sky, I saw a star fall.
When the vicomte had started arranging this particular ball, it had been a simple enough matter. Although he was of West Indian heritage, and that put him on the outs with certain parts of the ton no matter what he did, he was also rich and Parisian, and in the early months of 1815 all things rich and Parisian had been much sought-after.
Then Napoleon had escaped from Elba and begun his march on the capital. Which meant that the French, in the eyes of the ambitious mamas of London society, transformed overnight from the people who made the fashionable hats to the people who were trying to shoot their sons dead with muskets.
His solution to this problem had been to issue hasty invitations to as many British military officers as possible. The hope being that a sea of red coats in the ballroom would signal to his guests that he remained on the side of monarchy, serfdom, and the sceptred isle, rather than the side of liberty, equality, and subjugating Europe.
And this seemed to have worked. Because wealthy people very seldom need much excuse to take advantage of free food.
The overrepresentation of military gentlemen inspired a response of unalloyed delight from Miss Bickle, who had promised herself that she would be cruelly treated by an ill-reputed officer before she was twenty-two, and the Misses Caesar, whose plans were not quite so specific but who made up for it with the nebulous passion of youth. It inspired a response of slightly more alloyed delight from Mr. Caesar, who had a partiality to military gentlemen himself but who needed to be a little more cautious in approaching them.
Not that approaching soldiers was part of his plans for this evening. For all its gaiety, this event—like any event now his sister was of age—had a serious purpose. Mary was formally on the marriage mart and while there was norushexactly—sixteen was young to marry even for that time and set—Mr. Caesar knew that yearshad a way of getting away from one. He was himself already in his early twenties and while gentlemen were afforded rather more latitude in these matters than ladies, he had lately begun to wonder if he would ever truly find a permanent place in the world. The bar did not suit him, and was no career for a gentleman, but his mother’s inheritance and his father’s speaking fees would not last the family forever. At nineteen he had assumed it would all be sorted out by now, and it most certainly was not.
Still, he endeavoured to do what he could for his sisters. In a better world, it would not have been a concern. In a better world, every lady would have the same luxury as Miss Bickle, who stood to inherit wealth so vast that her only matrimonial concern was avoiding fortune hunters. Or as his cousin Miss Mitchelmore, who had been lucky enough to fall in love with a woman of independent means. But in the world as it actually existed, people needed to eat, and that meant securing an income. And for ladies, the only acceptable way to secure an income was to marry it.
While Mr. Caesar was musing on his life’s many imperfections, one of the thornier ones appeared just over his left shoulder. That imperfection was Mr. Thomas Ellersley, who the wags of the ton quite correctly whispered that Mr. Caesar had once fucked, and slightly less correctly whispered that he was still fucking.
“I swear,” Mr. Ellersley purred, “you look worse every time I see you.”
