The Enchantress of Mayfair

Chapter the First

"This will not do," said Christine Downing in a low voice. It was 1807 and most of the ton seemed content to squeeze themselves into town for the Season. While the ton pretended there was not a war going on across the Channel, she pretended this is where she wanted to be. At age five and twenty, Christine should have been wedded and bedded but matrimony had never been a priority of hers. She never intended to defy societal conventions and tried hard to be a proper English miss, but she was only half-English thanks to her mother.

Wednesday evening found her at Almack's, doing her best to prop up a wall. She did not detest these affairs, she just preferred to engage in other activities. Just this morning, she finally procured a copy of The Merry Enchantress: The Life of Jeanne Beauciel, Court Enchantress, which as the title implied was a biography about a famou enchantress to Charles II. Much to the chagrin of the Magisters, the Merry Monarch was solely responsible for the rise of Enchantresses. However, their power and prestige died away with the arrival of the Hanovers. The Magisters, of course, sighed in relief at being restored to their proper place.

According to Kit, her proper place was holy matrimony. He, too, seemed keen on entering into its bonds. Just last week, at the fashionably young age of thirty, her brother engaged himself to one of her friends, a Miss Lucy Lovering. Christine enjoyed her company, but she had not quite reached an opinion on having the girl as a sister-in-law. Still, she had promised her brother to continue to capture a husband in exchange for magic lessons. While men might attend colleges to learn more of magic, women had to be content with tutors who taught them spells to enhance their looks or keep flowers fresh.

She had excelled at such matters, but longed for magic more complex and intense. When she entered into her first Season, she made her fateful arrangement with Kit. For nearly ten years now, she studied with a older Magister who did not share his contemporaries contempt of enchantresses. She became quite adept at celestial magic whose spells could twist time and space though Mgr. Frederick Willow warned her to not tempt fate by expecting to change history.

As such, she did not engage in that magic often. She enchanted items and told fortunes to the delight of the young debutantes. Though it brought her joy, she knew that she could never embark on a life as an Enchantress. It was unconscionable that a lady of good breeding would deign to desire such a life. Men were free to pursue a professional life, tying themselves to grand estates to aid dukes and earls with the running of their estates. There were others who did not engage in such dull livelihoods or at least she had read so in her books.

"Pardon me, Miss Downing,but what will not do?"

Looking down to her hand grasped in the large one of Lord Ramsey, Christine said with perfect poise, "You have engaged me for a dance twice this evening already, Lord Ramsey. Surely you are aware it is beyond the pale to ask my hand for another."

Adrien Downing, a recent friend of Kit's, bowed over her hand. She knew him to be a magic scholar though he had not yet achieved the rank of Magister. As the third son of an marquess, he lived a life of idle amusements. Kit and he had met in their Arcane Society devoted to the history of magic. According to her beloved brother, they were the only members under the age of sixty. As such, she had gotten to know him to a certain degree admiring both his interest in magic and his smiling hazel eyes.

His dimples deepened as he tried not to smile. "But, we have not yet danced a cotillon, Miss Downing, and it is to be the last set of the evening."

She said the next words on a sigh, "You know I cannot reject your offer."

"Then let us dispense with the formalities and join the set." He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her to the dance floor. "Do not appear so grim or tongues will wag." She heard the teasing in his voice.