Page 58 of Confounding Oaths
“Now, now.” Sal laid a hand on the back of Miss Bickle’s chair. He was a soldier today, a fact that Miss Bickle had not let pass her by. “I’ve offered to show you wonders and you’ve refused.”
“I did not refuse,” she protested, “I had refusal thrust upon me.”
Mr. Caesar continued to do his very best to look severe. “It’s bad enough that you’re here, Lizzie; it would be unforgivably remiss of me if I were to allow you to be despoiled by a common infantryman while you were under my protection.”
“But I should so like to be at least alittledespoiled,” replied Miss Bickle.
“And,” Jackson added, “Sal is no common infantryman.”
“I am,” offered Callaghan helpfully. “Common as dirt. Though the wife has made it very clear my despoiling days are over.”
What little authority Mr. Caesar had, he was sure, was fast slipping away. “Nobody is despoiling Lizzie. Nobody is painting anything on Lizzie’s eyes. And anybody who gives her any ideas to the contrary will live with the consequences.”
Moving silent as a pike through a lake, Jackson came to Mr. Caesar’s side. “What consequences might those be?” he asked with the low menace of a man used to the law of eat-or-be-eaten.
“I’m sure you could paintsomethingon my eyes,” Miss Bickle mused. “It’s far more acceptable for ladies, you know, and I might even start a trend. And think what a coup that would be. You could abandon soldiering entirely and launch a line of ladieswear.”
Mr. Caesar nodded illustratively. “Thoseconsequences. Nobody should ever give Lizzie ideas. She has far too many of her own already.”
The night of the ball arrived and, with it, the Lady in her silver carriage. I had been wondering if, or perhaps hoping that, she would choose to miss this particular event. Since Miss Caesar had been invited to the dance already an escort to it would be less likely to engender gratitude and thus would play less into the purposes of a fairy abductor. But consistency was a virtue also, and while none of my kind are virtuous as you mortals understand, we make play of it from time to time in order that we might earn your trust.
Except for me. My virtues are entirely genuine.
Miss Caesar, therefore, proceeded in the Lady’s conveyance while Mr. Caesar, Miss Bickle, and Miss Anne proceeded in theirs. Or rather, in the Earl of Elmsley’s—Nancy was a skilled young woman, but the role of coachman was beyond her and at any rate the Caesars could not afford to keep their own carriage or horses.
Wishing, on this day, to avoid the society of the Lady, partly out of a desire not to interfere in a scheme that might see her brought low, and partly out of a more general social distaste, I rode with the mortal party. In the shape of a spider, I clung to a corner of the carriage, and huddled.
“Why so glum, Anne?” asked Miss Bickle, who had chosen that evening to dress in the manner of a milkmaid, complete with a pail that nobody could dissuade her from carrying. It was, of course, a choice considered gauche in the eyes of the ton, but Miss Bickle’s inordinate wealth made her gaucheness surprisingly forgivable.
Miss Anne was gazing forlornly out of the window, wearing a look of tragedy that only a conventionally pretty fourteen-year-old could properly execute. “Mr. Bygrave has quite lost interest in me,” she explained. “He has eyes only for Mary now.”
“Well …” Miss Bickle showed every sign of considering herwords carefully, which she did from time to time—it was one of her less appealing qualities. “Sheisthe elder. And you are both young enough that there will be plenty more—”
“There willnotbe plenty more,” Miss Anne complained, “because I am quite sure Mary will take away any gentleman who shows the slightest interest in me.”
“Mary is …” If anything, Mr. Caesar was choosing his words yet more carefully than Miss Bickle. “She is going through a lot right now. Coming out was difficult for her and it is only natural that all this”—he waved a hand—“magical intervention has gone to her head a little.”
For some unfathomable reason, Miss Anne was not in a mood to show empathy for her older sister. “It is unfair.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Caesar. “It is. But it was also unfair that gentlemen used to slight her in favour of you.”
“That’s different,” replied Miss Anne with typical consistency.
Mr. Caesar arched a practised eyebrow. “How?”
To which Miss Anne was able to answer only: “It just is.”
With which eloquence they arrived at the London home of Lady Etheridge to find the ball already in full swing, and already to some extent disrupted by the appearance of the Lady and her exquisite creation.
Lady Etheridge was many, many steps further down the curiously fine-grained social hierarchy of the day than the Earl of Semweir and her ball was consequently less lavish. The candles were fewer and slightly cheaper, the guests were of a lesser pedigree, and the floor of the ballroom wasn’t chalked. Still, it remained a fine enough occasion for those who attended, and all the finer for its having, at its centre, the remarkable creature of glass.
The dancing was already under way when Mr. Caesar, Miss Bickle, and Miss Anne entered, and the relative anonymity thisafforded them suited Mr. Caesar’s purpose, if not that of his sister. Miss Bickle it at least afforded an opportunity to put down her milk-pail without attracting undue comment. The three of them settled discreetly into a corner, Miss Bickle and Miss Anne looking available, Mr. Caesar looking watchful, and the three of them waiting to be approached by appropriate suitors.
Their first visitor was not a suitor at all—at least not for the ladies—but Captain James. He sidled up to the group making, I thought, excellent accommodation for the Lady’s preternatural hearing and murmured to Mr. Caesar without looking directly at him that things were in motion and people were in place. From there Mr. Caesar made a polite observation about the quality of the dancing and moved over to relay the same information to Miss Bickle, who dutifully took up her milk-pail and awaited further instructions.
“I really,reallydon’t think you will need that,” Mr. Caesar told her.
“Perhaps I shall not,” she conceded. “But I see no harm in its presence. And maybe a little milk will distract”—she cast a meaningful glance in the direction of the Lady, who was still watching her protégé with the smug air of one watching a plan unfold to perfection—“in the event that she attempts to make off with me.”
