Page 85 of Confounding Oaths
Miss Caesar nodded. “I am not sure if she can be trusted, but she has a house—near Covent Garden, I think—”
On hearing this Captain James turned his eyes skyward in frustration. “Fuck me, she went right past us.”
This drew sharp responses of “language” from most of the family and a rejoinder of “It’s a large city, she could have been anywhere” from the younger Mr. Caesar.
“Sheglows,John. Even in London a glowing girl stands out.”
The elder Mr. Caesar, however, had other concerns. “When you say, Mary, that she has ahousenear Covent Garden.”
“I believe it was a gaming hall of sorts?” Miss Caesar suggested. “Although she said also that it was a temple to Isis-Fortuna.”
Lady Mary’s eyes narrowed. “But not a temple to Venus. There are many temples to Venus in Covent Garden and they are not places a young girl should be wandering.”
“Covent Garden after dark’s no place foranyoneto be wandering,” the captain told her. “Chancers, bawds, thieves, and theatregoers. And the last lot’s the worst.”
Miss Caesar batted brittle lashes at the captain. “I am sure I would come to no harm if you were to accompany me.”
Unbidden, a light glowed inside her and a music underlaid her voice.
“Hold now, miss.” Captain James raised a hand. “I’ll have none of your sorcery. But if your family’s a mind I’ll help you.”
Lady Mary and Mr. Caesar exchanged glances. Theirs was not an especially traditional household, and given their own varioushistories they felt little compulsion to hold their daughters to the arbitrary diktats of the ton. But even they had some compunction about permitting their daughter to consult with a self-confessed witch.
“Is this wise?” asked Mr. Caesar.
“Or safe?” added his wife.
“Or seemly?” put in Miss Anne, who nobody had asked but who was beginning to feel that she had gone far too long without being addressed and sought to rectify that error by the most direct means possible.
Almost unconsciously, the younger Mr. Caesar reached for Captain James’s hand. “I think,” he said, “that we should probably risk it. We can consult with Barryson also, and anybody else who might have insight into the situation. I am in correspondence with one of the Galli, but she lives in Bath and word would reach her too late. Lady Georgiana has the ear of another witch, but the same problem applies.”
Still not content with the response to her contributions thus far, Miss Anne decided to take a different tack. “And suppose I decide I do wish to be queen after all?”
The younger Mr. Caesar sighed. “Anne, have youseenPrince William? The man is nearly fifty.”
“But a naval gentleman,” Miss Anne persisted. “So I am sure he is very dashing.”
“He has children who are older than you,” added Lady Mary. “And before you say that would be companionable, I assure you it would not.”
“And,” added Mr. Caesar, increasingly determined to crush this line of reasoning in its infancy, “if the plan is truly to ensnare his affections with witchcraft, it would be profoundly wrong.”
At the other end of the table there was a chime of glass as MissCaesar clasped her hands together more sharply than she had intended. “That’s another thing,” she said, hesitantly. “I believe if Papa would accompany me, I may need to pay a visit this morning. To a friend.”
The elder Mr. Caesar looked at his children in that planning way that parents sometimes do when they have a strong sense that what they think best will not be that which is best received. “Perhaps John should take you.”
This suggestion was taken well by the younger Mr. Caesar, who saw it as a sign of faith in his stewardship, but poorly by his sister, who saw it the same.
“I think John would be quite unsuitable,” Miss Caesar protested. “He is not—” But she got no further, because there really was very little he was not. At least very little he was not that was immediately pertinent.
“He is male,” Lady Mary pointed out, “and a relative. Whatever disagreements there may be between you, you surely cannot deny he meets those criteria.”
And indeed, she could not.
“I am glad you are convinced of my adequacy,” Mr. Caesar replied, rather acidly. Which earned him a disapproving look from the captain and a reply of “barely” from his sister. All of which contributed to a beautiful atmosphere of tension when the little party set out visiting a few minutes later: Mr. Caesar, Miss Caesar, the captain, and my invisible self, promenading through the streets of London in an unconvincing facsimile of harmony.
Chapter Eighteen
The visit that Miss Caesarhad decided she had to pay was to Mr. Bygrave. It was, to say the least, forward for a lady to call upon a gentleman directly. But social convention had started to fall by the wayside the moment Miss Caesar had materialised from the fairy realm on Hampstead Heath at dawn and driven two grown men to their knees with her otherworldly majesty.
