Page 59 of Confounding Oaths
Knowing better than to attempt to dissuade his friend from a course of action already decided, Mr. Caesar let the matter rest and turned his attention to the young officer approaching his sister. The flesh-and-blood sister, that is.
He was tall, fair-haired, and handsome in a way only a certain kind of man can be. His eyes were a piercing blue and his cheekbones were so high and sharp that other men could have shaved with them. Had I not been able to hear the disgusting workings of his biological organs as they pumped his blood and mulched hisdinner, I might almost have thought he came from my own land. By his side walked Lady Etheridge, whose duty as hostess was to make certain that nobody spoke to anybody to whom they had not been formally introduced.
“Miss Anne,” she said with the light grace of the perennial hostess, “might I introduce you to Lieutenant Reyne.”
He gave a low bow. “It seems wrong so fine a young woman should stand alone while others dance. May I have your hand for the next set?”
“I would be delighted,” Miss Anne replied.
“Then I shall return when the couples change.” His tone was soft when he spoke, and his smile winning. And while Mr. Caesar took note of him—for reason of his sister, I should say, not for any other reason that he might sometimes take note of soldiers—I personally was rapidly losing interest. It took an especially mortal kind of banality to think that the question of who a particular lady danced with mattered in any way, to anybody.
Besides, I had an ambush to watch.
The Irregulars had taken up positions in the garden square across the road from Lady Etheridge’s fashionable residence. Jackson, dressed as a reasonable facsimile of a society gentleman, walked alongside Sal, dressed as a reasonable facsimile of a society lady, around the perimeter of the garden while Barryson lounged beneath a tree, Kumar lurked in the branches above him, and Boy William, looking deeply uncomfortable in borrowed livery, ran back and forth across the garden in the guise of a page.
Adopting the appropriately ominous form of a raven, I swooped low over the garden and took up a position in a different tree. I tookthis approach because I wished to know two things—how effective Barryson’s seeing-runes would prove to be, and how adept the Irregulars would be at concealing their efficacy, should it become necessary.
The answers, it seemed, were “extremely” and “it varied distinctly.” Boy William, with the poor impulse control of his limited years, stared at me quite openly and gawped like a guppy. At the other extreme, Sal and Jackson showed no sign of noting me at all.
“Not her,” Barryson called up to Kumar, who I was a little disquieted to note had already trained his musket on me. “In fact,” he mused partly to himself, “I reckon this is the one as has been watching us a while.”
I cawed a noncommittalcawback.
The various soldiers settled into their positions and their roles, while inside the dancers continued to whirl away the evening or, quite frequently—given the kinds of dance that were fashionable in the day—walk-up-and-down-in-straight-lines away their evening.
Eventually, having decided that the time was right for her to take on her new role as bait, Miss Bickle emerged from the house, still carrying her milk-pail, and went waltzing through the garden as though she had no idea where she was or what was going on. Which may well have been true.
The plan, such as it was, had the virtue of simplicity and the vice of relying entirely on the Lady drifting away from the ball at the promise of an innocent debutante and a drink of milk. To the great good fortune of the planners, our kind are indeed selfish, opportunistic, and easily distracted.
The Lady descended from the house in a shimmer of pale blue and silver. Birdsong followed in her wake and the stars above shone just that little bit brighter to illuminate her. She swept into the garden trailing fairy dust and walked all smiles and secret offeringstowards Miss Bickle, who was still staring fixedly at the sky, as though renaming constellations.
“Are you lost, child?” asked the Lady.
Whether from supreme art or genuine distraction, it took Miss Bickle a moment to acknowledge the Lady’s presence. “Oh no, I’m just enjoying the evening. And I’m not a child, I’m almost twenty.”
And the Lady laughed like bells. “All your people are children to my people. Tell me, she of the almost twenty years and the enjoyable evening, do you know what I am?”
Miss Bickle nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. You’re a fairy. And I havesolonged to meet a fairy. I have told all of my friends that what I long for more than anything in theworldis to meet a fairy.”
“Then”—the Lady’s smile was every cat and every shark and every lie all folded together—“I am glad to have granted your wish. And quite without cost.”
The thought of having had a wish granted by a fairy, even as part of an elaborate scheme to ensnare said fairy in a yellow cord, was sincerely delightful to Miss Bickle, and she beamed like a saint or a fool. “Would you like some milk?”
It was the milk, perhaps, that made the Lady wonder if she had been anticipated. The milk and the dawning awareness that the other inhabitants of the park were watching more warily than mortals should.
“Perhaps,” the Lady suggested, “you would like to take my hand. I can show you remarkable things, child. If you trust me.”
I have spoken often about the good credit that Miss Bickle’s tendency to think well of my people does her, and so it was with grudging approval that I watched her hold out her hand to let the Lady take her away to an unknown but marvellous fate.
She didn’t quite make contact before Jackson and Sal, ascasually as if they had been any couple out for a walk, sauntered over to intervene.
“A fine night,” Jackson observed in an accent that was not his own. Not that the one he usually spoke in was his own either.
“Very fine,” Miss Bickle agreed, snatching her hand back at the last second and bobbing a curtsey. “This lady was just about to take me somewhere extremely interesting.”
Jackson nodded. “How generous of her. Tell me, is the invitation an open one, or was there something about this girl that caught your eye in particular?”
“It’s the milk,” Miss Bickle explained.
