Ogden leaned closer.
“My name will be Elsie Kelsey,” she finished, mortified.
Oh, how the Wright sisters would love that.
“I knew you fancied him!” Emmeline chimed as she picked up the breakfast dishes. Elsie had cooked that morning, early, thanks to her insomnia, but Emmeline had returned home just in time to lend a hand with the morning chores. “How exciting, Elsie! Right out of a storybook. Engaged to a master aspector, and yourself a spellbreaker! The perfect pair. Oh, you’re moving up in the world, and so elegantly!”
Elsie brushed crumbs from the table into her hand. “I don’t think being arrested is elegant, Em. Prison most certainly is not.” She peered out the window. She’d used her enchanted pencil to write to Bacchus that morning, before sunup, after mulling over her options all night long. She needed to know what Merton was aiming for, what she wanted, and why she wanted it, and Bacchus knew three people who might have answers—the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Duchess Morris, a fellow spiritual aspector who’d appeared quite friendly with Merton when Elsie had spied them together on a shopping excursion. Duchess Morris was also a contemptible woman who had put a curse on the Duke of Kent’s fields and hired physical and temporal aspectors to make herself more attractive. Elsie knew—she’d unraveled both the curse and the glamour on the woman’s nose. Although there was a slim chance the woman might recognize her, Elsie thought it middling. Duchess Morris wasn’t the sort to pay attention to those she thought beneath her.
She’d start in Kent, of course. Bacchus was close to the Scotts, even shared their roof. And she’d conjured the perfect excuse to talk to Duchess Morris. As a new spellbreaker, she would be required to interview aspectors in all four disciplines. If she could get Duchess Morris to participate, she could segue into questions about her friendship with Merton.
It was as good a plan as any. She just didn’t want to do it alone. Bacchus knew the woman better than she did, and if he helped her, she’d be more likely to get through the front door. Plus, she simply wanted him there.
The kitchen clean, Elsie brushed off her hands and hurried up the stairs, to where the green pencil rested against a piece of parchment. The top of the page read, in her handwriting, She-who-will-not-be-named has supposedly retired and left London without a trace. I have to find her, Bacchus. I need your help. I know it’s wrong of me to ask when you’ve already done so much, but if she’s a friend of the duke’s, perhaps he and the duchess could answer some questions.
She hadn’t signed her name. She doubted Bacchus was sharing magicked pencils with a large number of desperate women. Or at least she hoped not.
To her relief, new handwriting had been scrawled under her own, capital letters with small flourishes that made them remarkably handsome. Of course I will help you. It works out well. The duchess wants to have you for tea.
That was it. Chewing on her lip, Elsie wrote, Why?
The pencil wrenched from her grip seconds later, eliciting a startled chuckle from her. It tilted and scrawled, Because she wants to help plan the wedding.
Elsie’s stomach clenched. Of course the Scotts would know about the engagement. Seeing the word wedding written out so plainly made it feel monumentally real.
When she didn’t reply right away, Bacchus added, Her cousin Mrs. Abrams is visiting and insists on lending a hand. “Six daughters married,” she says. Over and over. And over.
Elsie smiled and took the pencil from his invisible grip. I will endeavor to rescue you.
Bacchus waited only a breath before writing, I’ll send a carriage within the hour.
Mrs. Abrams was a severe woman with meticulously curled auburn hair that parted right at the center of her head in the straightest line Elsie had ever beheld. It oddly matched the duchess’s morning room, the chairs and piano of which were all stained cherrywood. The walls were white with simple embellishments around their edges. A painted picture of the estate from a distance hung over a white fireplace, and a rose-colored rug with a fish-scale pattern lay underfoot. Elsie perched, back rigid, on a blush-pink sofa beside Bacchus, while Mrs. Abrams and the duchess occupied a pale-green settee to Elsie’s left. A tea tray lay on the table between them, the tea already served, Elsie’s teacup cradled in her lap. She’d drunk enough to ensure her nerves would not cause the remainder to spill. Her stomach wouldn’t handle any more.
“And it’s my understanding you’re employed?” Mrs. Abrams asked. Her eyes were especially large and seemed to bulge from their sockets, watching Elsie without blinking. She said the word employed like it had a sour taste to it.
“Yes, I work for a stonemason.” She ached to look anywhere else, but sensed it would be considered rude if she averted her gaze.
The duchess smiled. “It’s good for a woman to have a disposition of responsibility, especially going into a marriage.” Her gaze shifted to Bacchus. “I really am so happy for you. I must admit my husband is a seer. He remarked on this very possibility the night we had you for dinner, Miss Camden.”
An itch rose in Elsie’s throat; she sipped some tea to soothe it before leaning forward and safely depositing the cup and saucer on the table before her. “Yes, well, the duke is very, um, perceptive.”
The duchess was, of course, referring to the night Elsie had actually been invited to dinner, not the afternoon she’d barged in screaming warnings, after which Abel Nash had emerged from his hiding place behind the curtains and attempted to snuff Bacchus. But they needn’t bring that up.
“He is,” Bacchus agreed simply. He opened his mouth to say more when Mrs. Abrams barreled in.
“Now, for the wedding. It’s good that May is behind us. A very unlucky month to get married.”
“Now, Alison,” the duchess chided softly.
“It is!” She set down her saucer. “My daughter—I’ve seen all six of them married, you know, and to good husbands—”
Elsie and Bacchus exchanged a look that had a restrained smile pinching Elsie’s cheeks.
“—she married May 27 despite my telling her not to, and she lost her first child!”
Elsie quickly sobered. “Oh my, that’s terrible.”
“Should have listened to me.” Mrs. Abrams’s curls bounced as she shook her head, and Elsie decided she did not especially like this woman, let alone want her to play any part in their wedding plans. But she would not voice such a thing here. What she needed was to segue the conversation to Merton.
Mrs. Abrams didn’t give her a chance. “It really is a quaint match, isn’t it? A spellmaker and a spellbreaker, ha! And you met before Master Kelsey’s mastership?”
Bacchus answered, “We did.”
“Good, good. That will smooth over any questioning from the peerage.” She nodded and sipped her tea.
Elsie stifled a frown. Had the woman just pointed out their class difference, right in front of her?
“As for the wedding party,” the woman went on, completely ignorant of the apologetic expression on the duchess’s face, “how many are we to expect? There are some large chapels in London, but travel is expensive and will take away from the gifts. I’m sure you will need gifts.” She looked pointedly at Elsie, which made Elsie’s neck heat. “Are your parents close by, Miss Camden? I assume they are also employed.”
The warmth crept over Elsie’s jaw. “Th-They are not, Mrs. Abrams.” She considered saying they were dead, which could be true for all she knew, just to kill the conversation.
“Not? Oh.” She nodded. “Then why are you working? Debts, perhaps.”