Page 3 of Confounding Oaths
It was a barb on principle, but Mr. Caesar did privately feel that he’d been letting his personal grooming slide a little of late, so it stung more than it should. “Really? You look better every time I see you. But then you’re usually further away.”
“Quite the selection, isn’t it?” observed Mr. Ellersley, perusing the crowd with one hand resting languidly and a little possessively on Mr. Caesar’s back. “Who do you fancy?”
Having been scanning the room more for net worth than for rough trade, Mr. Caesar was quite without opinion. “Tonight, nobody.”
“Fuck me, John, when did you get so dull?” I shall say that in our limited interactions I never especially liked Mr. Ellersley, but in this moment we shared something of a bond.
By way of answer, Mr. Caesar tilted his head towards his sisters, who were standing a little way off with Miss Bickle.
“Oh, comeon,John”—Mr. Ellersley hooked a playful finger into the collar of Mr. Caesar’s coat, the play of the nail down his neck awakening the ghosts of old passions—“why don’t we give this place the slip? The girls will be fine.”
It said terrible things, Mr. Caesar reflected, about the state of his soul that he found the offer mildly tempting. The choice was between duty to his family and the company of a man he disliked. To his father, he had no doubt, it would not have been a choice at all. But Mr. Caesar was not his father. He was not wholly sure who hewas,but he knew he was not that. Still, appearances had to be maintained, so he turned his head just far enough that he could see Mr. Ellersley in his peripheral vision and, when he was sure he had the man’s attention and that his profile was displayed to exactly the right advantage, raised an eyebrow.
“They’ll befine,” Mr. Ellersley repeated. “In this … room full of soldiers. With … only Lysistrata Bickle to look after them.” He flushed a little. He’d always flushed readily, Mr. Caesar recalled. “Actually I do see your point. Probably best we stick around.”
A youth in a red coat sauntered over to the trio of ladies and led Miss Anne away to dance. Although her gown was a little out of fashion and her youth was very notable, she made a fine figure on the dance floor. She was delicate of feature and graceful in motion, and eyes turned to her quite naturally.
Soon enough that dance ended, and the cycle began again. Two gentlemen this time, one for Miss Anne, one for Miss Bickle. Not wishing to leave Miss Caesar wholly alone, Mr. Caesar went to her side, Mr. Ellersley following him like a spiteful shadow.
“Am I invisible?” Miss Caesar asked, and Mr. Caesar suspected she wasn’t really askinghimspecifically, but he felt compelled to answer anyway.
“Gentlemen can be boors,” he said. It was the kindest answer he could think of. Certainly it was kinder than telling her that the issue was not invisibility but its opposite. Miss Caesar was of a height with her younger sister, but fuller figured and broader featured. She had a beauty of her own, but in an English ballroom at the height of the Empire, her hair twisted into a style it would not hold and her gown cut for a fashion she did not fit, she was sunlight behind clouds, the sky through a narrow window.
“If I dance at all tonight,” Miss Caesar continued, “it will be with some elderly gentleman who takes pity on me. And I do not want to be pitied.”
Mr. Ellersley gave a soft chuckle. “A pity-dance is better than nodanceat all.”
“Oh, shut up, Tom,” Mr. Caesar snapped, then immediately regretted the lapse in composure. In the great game of who-can-be-more-artfully-cruel-to-whom which Mr. Caesar had been playing with the ton his whole life, to rise was to lose.
While Miss Anne and Miss Bickle danced, Mr. Caesar glanced across the ballroom to see another of the world’s great imperfections slinking into view.
Richard, Lord Hale, was his maternal uncle and failed to be the bane of his life only by virtue of his persistent absence from it. The Baron Hale had long felt that his sisters’ marriages—Lady Mary’s in particular—had brought shame on the family and took everyopportunity to vex his nieces and nephew. He approached now in the company of an older man in military dress. A major by his insignias, a drinker by his complexion, an arse by his company. They were both, I was sure, the worst kinds of mortal, but the worst kinds of mortal so often make the best kind of sport, and so I watched their arrival with a keen anticipation.
“Uncle Richard.” Mr. Caesar inclined his head the exact minimum distance required for the gesture to be considered not completely disrespectful.
“John.” Lord Hale made a similarly minimalist gesture. “May I introduce Major Bloodworth; Major Bloodworth, this is my nephew Mr. Caesar, his”—the pause was so pointed you could strap it to a rifle and call it a bayonet—“friendMr. Ellersley, and my niece Miss Caesar.”
Mr. Ellersley and the Caesars made the obligatorydelighteds.
“Capital,” declared Major Bloodworth. Then he added: “That’s the wonderful thing about the vicomte’s events, isn’t it? They always attract such acolourfulcrowd.”
Like Mr. Ellersley, the major had opened with a barb. Unlike Mr. Ellersley, he had chosen one without the softening grace of mutuality. One that, if challenged, he would most certainly deny. And one that, bitterest of all, was as directed at Miss Caesar as much as her brother. Cold experience had taught Mr. Caesar that the best thing to do was to ignore it, and in this instance, he chose to do the best thing. “Don’t they?”
“He’s even invited Wellington’s favourite,” added Lord Hale, nodding across the dance floor. There was a definite sneer attached to the wordfavourite.
The subject of the nod and the sneer was a singular figure and, to Mr. Caesar, an immediately arresting one. Firm-jawed, dark-skinned and with just the right note of dashing, the stranger movedthrough the crowd with the confident disinterest of a man who cared more for battlefields than ballrooms. For a moment, Mr. Caesar found it hard to tear his gaze away.
Black men were not unknown, or even uncommon, in the British army—the Empire was, after all, an empire and its soldiers came from all corners of it—but in a system where commissions were almost always bought rather than earned it was rare for one to rise to the rank of captain. Rarer still for him to attend a ball with the gentry.
“Captain Orestes James,” observed Mr. Ellersley, whose interest in military matters was keen if highly specific. “They say he saved Wellesley’s life at Talavera.”
Major Bloodworth was unimpressed. “Theysaya lot of things. Never believe soldiers’ talk.”
While Mr. Caesar would, begrudgingly, admit that enlisted men were not always the most truthful of individuals, looking at the captain he found himself well able to imagine Captain James riding to the rescue of a duke. And for a moment at least it was a pleasing thing to imagine: a tall man on horseback, hands rough from swordplay, arms warrior-strong, eyes deep and soulful and …
This was not, he reminded himself, the time for daydreaming. There were appearances to maintain, and while he knew rationally that the ton could not read his mind, it oftenbehavedas if it could. Besides, the dance was finishing, the couples were returning to their places, and he needed once more to play the stern elder brother. Miss Bickle and Miss Anne both came back to the little group, though it was merely a matter of moments before another suitor was sweeping in to carry Miss Anne away again.
“Shaping up into a regular Cleopatra, isn’t she?” said Lord Hale, archly.
