Page 75 of Confounding Oaths
The family had observed enough of Mr. Bygrave to know that his visit would consist of little more than him sitting in a chair andstaring rapt at Miss Caesar while the light danced through her at fascinating angles. And so they retired to their various rooms—save Lady Mary, who, out of deference to conventions not entirely applicable to her situation, remained behind to chaperone, and Captain James, who had no room to go to.
Mr. Caesar, however, took the opportunity to follow his father into his office and wait, hands folded behind his back, to be acknowledged.
Which, eventually, he was.
“Yes, John?”
The relationship between the Misters Caesar was a complex one, as relations between fathers and sons often are, and so the younger gentleman found it a little difficult to say what he had come to say, as simple as it was. “I just wanted to tell you …” he tried, then stopped and adopted a different approach. “What I mean is, although I don’t think I need to explain—you were—I shouldn’t have—the family needs me and I shouldn’t have run.”
“No,” the elder Mr. Caesar agreed, “you shouldn’t have. But I understand why you did. There is”—he looked down at his correspondence for a moment, then back up at his son—“a lot that you have to navigate. I wish that it were otherwise.”
The younger Mr. Caesar bowed his head. “I … I do not, I think. I would choose no other father than you, nor any other mother than Mama. Despite everything I don’t even think I’d choose other sisters than Mary and—”
On cue, Miss Anne’s voice echoed through from the drawing room. “Butwhy not?”
Sighing, the elder Mr. Caesar rose to his feet. “If you will excuse me, it seems the peace has not lasted.”
The two gentlemen returned to join the party, where LadyMary was holding a differently styled calling card, Mr. Bygrave was indeed just watching Miss Caesar in silence, and Miss Anne was making a petulant protest.
“Is there some concern?” asked the younger Mr. Caesar.
“Mama is denying my guest,” Miss Anne explained. “When she allowed Mary’s.”
Lady Mary handed the card to her husband. “The guest is Lieutenant Reyne. I do not think him a suitable suitor for Anne. Indeed I am not sure she is of an age whereanysuitor is suitable.”
This went down still more poorly with Miss Anne than the exclusion of a single suitor. “I amfourteen,” she insisted. “Margaret Beaufort married Edmund Tudor when she wastwelve.”
“Sometimes, Anne,” Lady Mary observed, “I am concerned at quite how encyclopaedic your knowledge of child brides is.”
At last the quarrel drew the attention of Mr. Bygrave, who wrenched his attention away from Miss Caesar. “I am not greatly familiar with Lieutenant Reyne,” he said, “but I know him to be from a good family, if not a very wealthy one.”
“And though I agree he’s old for the girl,” added Captain James, “I’ve heard he’s a good officer. Doesn’t waste lives needlessly.”
“You see?” Miss Anne looked triumphant. “All the military men support me.”
“And it would be very vulgar,” Miss Caesar added, “to say that we are not accepting visitors when we have plainly already accepted one.”
Grudgingly, the Caesars acceded to this logic. They could scarcely pretend not to be at home with an existing guest. So the lieutenant was permitted to ascend, and for a short while he sat decorously beside Miss Anne, paying her flattering attention and speaking artfully of nothing. At the very least, however, his skill inthis matter exceeded that of Mr. Bygrave. The lieutenant had developed the technique of disguising his nothings as somethings, and that made all the difference.
Since the existing dispute was settled and the elders of the family were present to watch over their daughters’ collective virtues, Mr. Caesar felt little need to resist when Captain James uncurled from the seat he’d been lounging in, tapped Mr. Caesar lightly on the shoulder, and led him away into an adjoining room.
“I should remind you,” Mr. Caesar told him, playfully, “that we are in my parents’ house and—”
But the captain placed a finger over Mr. Caesar’s lips, and not in a flirtatious way. “Listen,” he whispered.
They could just about make out voices from the adjoining room, the numbing hum of pleasantries constrained by manufactured propriety and newer-than-imagined traditions.
“Miss Caesar, would you care for a turn about the room?” was Mr. Bygrave.
“I declare, you have the most marvellous stories” was Miss Anne.
And, “Nothing, I assure you, compared to those of the men I have served with” was, by process of elimination, Lieutenant Reyne. It was a rather fine voice, to my ear. To Mr. Caesar’s it was mellifluous, soft, and familiar.
A voice he had heard at least twice before.
“It can’t be,” Mr. Caesar replied, sotto voce.
“It can, and I’d bet a month’s wages it is.”
