Page 79 of Confounding Oaths
Glancing at Miss Caesar across the drawing room, Miss Penworthy flushed slightly. “That does seem likely. Youarequite enchanting.”
“Erica,” Miss Mitchelmore reminded her.
“Sorry.”
Miss Bickle made a valiant attempt to drag things back to the topic at hand. “The thingis,Anne …” She cast a meaningful glance at Miss Mitchelmore.
“I say, Erica,” Miss Mitchelmore volunteered entirely unprompted, “would you like to take a turn about the garden? I hear Mr. Bickle keeps an excellent gardener.”
The look of excitement in Miss Penworthy’s eyes was bright but fleeting.
“An actual turn,” Miss Mitchelmore clarified, “about an actual garden.”
“Oh.” Miss Penworthy’s face fell. “Well then, I suppose yes, but under sufferance.”
Smiling as sweetly as only a woman from a society in which sweetness is an economic necessity can, Miss Mitchelmore turned to Miss Caesar. “Mary? Join us.”
There was, I am sure, some part of the heart Miss Caesar no longer had that yearned to know what salacious thing Miss Bicklewished to share with her sister, but Miss Mitchelmore was her elder and at least loosely socially associated with a duke’s daughter, and so she acquiesced regardless.
And I shall break here, reader. For although the question of Lieutenant Reyne’s murderousness (or unmurderousness; one should not jump to conclusions, after all) was a pressing one, the gardens were fine indeed.
Being a Romantic at heart in the capitalised, yearning for bucolic simplicity sense, Mr. Bickle had arranged for the gardens of his London townhouse to look as wild, free, and natural as possible, and his landscape gardener had executed that brief with merciless diligence. Every innocent flower was in its artfully chosen spot, and the bowers beneath which the Misses Caesar, Mitchelmore, and Penworthy now walked had been twined ruthlessly with ivy to give them a false impression of antiquity.
“It issucha beautiful night,” observed Miss Penworthy. “Such a night, in fact, that one’s mind turns to—”
“No,” insisted Miss Mitchelmore.
Miss Penworthy pouted. Her time associating with Miss Bickle had seemingly enhanced her pouting abilities substantially. “You’re no fun.”
“What do nights like this turn one’s mind to?” asked Miss Caesar, all innocence.
Starlight gleamed in Miss Penworthy’s eyes. “Romance.”
“Erica,” Miss Mitchelmore warned. “I am in a perfectly satisfying relationship with a woman who onlyprobablywon’t have you killed for flirting with me. And Mary is courting an officer.”
Miss Caesar did not sigh. Lacking lungs, she lacked the reflex. Instead she froze a moment, and with her animating spark abated. Even her gown grew still and solid, so she became for the passing of a few seconds a statue in earnest.
“Mary?” With an expression of concern, Miss Mitchelmore brought her face close to her cousin’s and scrutinised it for signs of life.
Brought back to herself, Miss Caesar blinked, and the suddenness of the motion made Miss Mitchelmore start backwards. “I’m sorry,” Miss Caesar said, “I was distracted. I am not—I think I am finding courting less pleasant than I expected.”
Miss Mitchelmore frowned. “Less pleasant how?”
“Don’t mistake me,” protested Miss Caesar reflexively, “it is very flattering to be so … to not be overlooked. But I think I was hoping there would be more.”
“More?” asked Miss Mitchelmore, holding up one finger to silence Miss Penworthy, who had been about to launch into a longish explanation of themorethat could be offered to any lady willing to have an open mind.
“We walk, and it is … perfectly nice. And we talk. But … I asked him if he had readThe Wandererand he said he had not.”
Miss Mitchelmore bit her lip. That the younger women saw her as an experienced lover and the kind to offer advice was pleasant in some ways, intimidating in others. “You cannot expect a gentleman to have read every book, Mary.”
“No,” Miss Caesar agreed. “But that wasallhe said. And I think—if you were to ask such a question to Lady Georgiana, what would she say?”
The swiftness with which Miss Mitchelmore answered was, in some ways, an answer of its own. “She would say, ‘Maelys, I hope youaren’t going to recommend me something sentimental.’ Although actually I think she’s rather an admirer of Burney. But ingeneralthat’s what she’d say.”
Miss Caesar took this in resignedly. “That’s what I thought. I mean, not that exactly. Just—it’s hard to explain.”
Knowing the importance of encouragement but also the dangers of pressure, Miss Mitchelmore made a very supportive but very nonspecificgo onkind of sound.
