Captive Magics

13 - The Seaside

Leander did feel sorry for her. Truly, he did. But he also wanted to leave and never have to see her again. Maybe move to the other side of the city, avoid any sighting of the Royal Court and Upper Church Street, resume his career path through the civil service...Unfortunately he had realised she wasn't going to let him go just yet before he even saw her again for dinner, before she had resumed her favourite hobby of using him as a marionette. He was rather morose about his chances. Perhaps, in about ten years' time, Caroline would think to look for him here...

Before Leander had accidentally got himself kidnapped he had never cooked a meal, and he had only just remembered that now he had control of himself again. It came as a bit of a shock as he stood with a carrot in each hand, trying to work out what he had done for every meal since arriving. There was peeling involved, and hot water. What were they eating tonight with their peeled-carrots-in-hot-water? Pork chops? Oh cripes. No, this was what recipe books were for. He could manage this. He could manage this and plan his escape.

Somehow, with relief and pride, he got a meal on the table only twenty minutes later than usual and took inordinate pleasure in ringing the dinner gong. Lissy appeared with a startled expression.

"I had forgotten about dinner."

"Fortunate that I did not."

"Oh heavens, can you cook yourself? Without me forcing you?" She stopped dead at the table and looked at the meal presented. "Oh. Yes. That actually looks rather satisfactory," she said, and he pulled a face. If he had thought she would be effusively grateful after the shoulder he had lent her to cry on earlier he would be disappointed: after commenting on dinner she was cold and withdrawn, and when they had eaten she returned to her room leaving him to clear up, which he did pensively.

The following morning he woke when the doorbell rang, and realised she still had not resumed control over him. He lay there grinning for a moment before another clang sounded from downstairs and he shot from his bed. Without a housecoat or dressing gown to wear he floundered momentarily before grabbing his frock-coat from the coat stand and throwing it over his nightgown. The door opened on Tilly, whose eyes took in Leander in surprise, and then shot to his bare feet and calves and stared at them.

"My, my," she said simply, which was somehow enough to make him blush. He stepped aside to let her in. "This is all terribly informal," she said, shrugging off her coat. She scrutinised him again. "Your posture is worse and you move differently. Are you, erm...?"

"She isn't controlling me today," he told her awkwardly. "Yesterday she was given the wrong job and was really very upset by it all, and so she's forgotten..."

"Oh! Is that all? I thought she might have slept with you," she said. Leander gasped and then clamped his jaw shut, but she was already smirking at his shock. "Wrong job, you say?"

"Yes. Some lazy person called Nathaniel got the job she wanted."

"Oh! Oh my poor dear girl! Where have they put her?"

"The Home Office, in the Records department or something like that..."

"No wonder she was upset! Good grief, what a travesty. Where is she now?"

"I would presume she is still in bed, though since I was not there with her I cannot be certain," he said stiffly. She snickered, and patted his arm.

"Be a lamb and make us breakfast, won't you? I shall go see to her." She swept away up the stairs.

Leander was irritated to finally have time for himself and immediately lose it, and as a minuscule act of rebellion he dressed fast, making sure to mess his hair rather than style it, and put on a shirt with no jacket, no tie, and the cuffs rolled up to his elbows. He then went to boil eggs and felt quite cheerful again after stuffing several slices of toast in his mouth.