It was something more like a drum, a whistle, a fiddle. Something like that. The music people made when they weren’t professionals, when they were playing solely for their own pleasure. Or maybe to keep time while they did some task. It had the pace of a waulking song. She’d heard women up in Scotland near one of the family spaces, singing those while they fulled cloth.
Vega found her fingers tapping along with it. She turned to look out at the water, her hands on the stone of the bridge, rather than make that more obvious. Vega didn’t ignore the world around her, of course. She’d been trained better than that. People were coming and going about their business. Then, there was a whistle, the sort of appreciative whistle she was used to— well, enough— at the club, and that felt intrusive here.
“What’s a lovely lady like you doing on a bridge on a day like this?” The man who’d whistled came closer. He was dapper, in the sharply tailored suit of someone with money and style, both. Or rather, a particular sort of style. A dark green herringbone tweed, a golden pocket square, a tie that she suspected meant some affiliation.
More curious, at least from her perspective, was that she could not tell whether he was magical. That was a song she could almost always pick out, a line of melody or harmony. He had neither the echoes of a Cousin, nor the melodic lines she normally heard from the folk of Albion. Or rather the interactions of a person’s magic with the Pact, which was both melody and an understanding of the harmonic ground. The accent, though, that, oh. American. Yankee, if she had the terminology right.
She turned, her hip against the side of the bridge, one foot poised so she could turn and get a good few steps away. Working in a club taught all those tricks and then some, even if she couldn’t use some of the magical techniques to help right here, out in the open. “Do you always whistle at women you don’t know, then?” Vega pitched it as she would have in the club— making a space, but also engaging with the question. There was an art to making it not quite coy.
“Oh, not very many at all. But you? You make quite a striking figure. Lit from behind, I thought you might be the ghost, the lady in black.” He gestured. “But I gather she has longer skirts. Early in the century, certainly.” It gave him an excuse to gesture down toward her legs, which he certainly took his time ogling. Then he let his eyes come back up. It was all the visible appreciation she’d expected of someone taking this line of introduction. “You seemed intent on the water. You must have some task to get back to, though?”
“Oh,” Vega considered her options here. If she said she was a singer, he’d ask where, and she suspected the charms would keep him from the club. Though there were all manner of private clubs out there, that might do. “I’m a singer. I’ve been in London long enough to settle in. I thought it was time to see a bit more of the sights.”
She was paying the usual sort of attention to him, of course. In her line of work, a number of men, and some women, looked at her like that. Certainly, wanted a bit of her time, for the sparkle and shine of her to rub off on them. Nothing here seemed unusual, not yet, other than the fact he’d approached her in public. In Britain, people usually kept to themselves unless there were a visible sign of mutual interest. Americans were different that way. He didn’t seem a threat, but he certainly hadn’t offered anything of particular interest to her.
“And you’ve already traipsed around the Tower and Westminster and, oh, where else? What sort of thing would you be interested in?” He then offered his hand. “Thomas Vandermeer, at your service. In London for some extended business.” He didn’t say what it was. “Would I have heard you sing anywhere?”
“Oh, the current engagement’s at a private club.” Vega tilted her head, the gesture she’d practised in her mirror and in her Incantation training for hours. “The sort where you need to know the right people to even know it’s there.” She twitched her shoulder. “Quite a coup. It’s also the sort that’s generous with the performers.”
“Ah, indeed.” He made it quite a neutral comment, but then went on, “And of course you’d encourage generosity, in hopes of a bit of your time and attention. But come, you’ve not said where you’ve seen already. You must have some favourite?”
Blast. Now she was going to have to either lie— not her preference, it was so easy to get tangled in it— or to come up with some misdirection. “Oh, well. I’ve not got myself together for anything organised. The club was open every night through the holidays. I barely had time to catch my breath. Today’s the first day I’ve been able to be out and about since, oh, the beginning of November.”
“Well, now, that’s a pity. Perhaps you might enjoy a little company, on an outing or two? I’m often at leisure in the afternoons, though it depends on business, of course.” Mister Vandermeer shrugged. “A lot of my work is over drinks or supper or a bit of dancing. If you weren’t likely to be occupied, I’d ask you out for that. You’d be a delight to whatever party you graced.”
“And you, sir, flatter without reason.” Again, the trick was all in the pitch. The way he’d made his approach had her a little on edge. Some men pressed every opening they had, but she was finding it a little obvious for her tastes. “I’m not looking for that sort of company.” Then she took a slight risk. “Are all Americans so forward?”
“It’s a new era, isn’t it? Opportunity for all.” Something in the question made him grin. “Oh, I won’t press. It’s no fun if you’re not willing.” That sentence should have made her less wary, and it instead made her more cautious. Vega filed that away for further attention. “Here, my card.” He did some quick trick with his hands, producing a card holder from inside his suit with a flick of his wrist. Or probably he had. He opened it, presenting her with a card printed for the occasion, since it had his hotel on it. The Hotel Cecil, that was quite the location.
“You do well for yourself, then, I gather.” Vega twisted slightly. She knew where it was. “I’ve been to a few nights there. Professional interest, of course, listening to the music and a dance or three.”
“Ah!” Mister Vandermeer seemed honestly delighted. “Do you have a card, then, dear lady? Or even a name I might know?”
That was likely safe enough. For one thing, it wasn’t remotely her full name, just her stage name. And for another, if he did turn up at the club, that would tell her something about his magic. “Vega Beaumont.” She shrugged. “No card, I didn’tbring them with me.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m not the sort to keep a regular schedule about anything except singing. Quite wedded to my work.”
“Ah, well. A man can live in hope.” He shrugged once. “Perhaps we’ll see each other again. I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing, then.” He tipped his hat, took a step back.
“A good afternoon, Mister Vandermeer. I hope your time in London is ...” She was about to say ‘what you seek,’ or ‘good’ and the words twisted in her mouth. “What’s needed.”
It earned her a grin. “Oh, I’ve my hopes.” He then spun sharply on one heel— he must be a decent dancer— and strode off. He had a rolling walk, used to covering ground, not the walk of people used to slow-moving crowds, but of someone slipping through them like a salmon upstream. She watched him go before considering her options.
She certainly didn’t want to go back to her flat, she was rather afraid he might attempt to follow. That meant finding somewhere public, circling through a part of the city she didn’t know well. Or she could get a cab and go somewhere. As she had the thought, a cab came trundling across the bridge, and she made the flashing thought a reality, her hand up to hail it. She did not care for automobiles, but she wasn’t as sensitive to iron as some, and a quick ride would be manageable. “The British Museum, please.”
The cab lurched off into traffic again, and she sat with her hands on her knee, leaning back enough she couldn’t be seen from the window if they stopped. She saw Mister Vandermeer down toward the corner, as if waiting, but the cab rolled past without slowing much, and before too long they were well away.
Vega kept thinking all the way through the streets. She couldn’t shake the sense that Mister Vandermeer had approached her, in particular. Certainly, he hadn’t seemed to speak to others on the bridge. Not while she was leaving, andshe thought not before, at least not close enough that she’d have noticed if he had. Vega was used to reading the room, paying attention lightly to everything in the audience, after all.
But people did sometimes approach her like that. She had that bit of brightness to her, magically and otherwise, that made people spot her. That was partly being a Cousin, partly being a performer. It was in how she carried herself and where she aimed what she was doing. Even when she muffled it a bit, it still caught attention. Vandermeer might just have been reacting to that.
Fortunately, the museum itself was relatively uncrowded, especially once she got up toward some of the less visibly interesting Roman collections. She spent an hour looking at them, at least getting a sense and taking a few notes about what the ordinary sort of items from that period were. For all she knew, that might even turn out to be useful.
Chapter 6
FEBRUARY 10TH AT THE CRYSTAL CAVE
“There you go. Drinky to get started with the night.” Albie, one of the bright young men from another of the auction houses, nudged a brightly coloured cocktail in front of Farran. Charm-bright, Farran was sure, no food was naturally that shade of bright pink. “Now’s the time to show you the wonders of London. None of Trellech’s provincial pleasures.”
Farran took it in good humour. They’d been teasing him all week - since he started work. His accent, of course, wasn’t Welsh. His parents and uncle had always made a point of proper elocution, the well-respected Received Pronunciation. Of course, that was easier because most of the people in the house in the last decade had been working at Oxford, and Oxford had expectations. “So, what should I be anticipating here?”
