Necropolis (Royal Sorceress Book 3) (15 page)

Gwen felt her blood run cold.
What can he want
? she asked herself, as he led her into the next room. He held himself like an aristocrat, she noted, even when talking to the maids. She couldn’t tell if it was just an act or if he was trying to signify a barrier between them. It was probably the latter. A butler was on a far different level from a maid, particularly when the butler was black.

“Her Ladyship informs me that she wishes to speak with you,” Romulus added. “You will attend on her after she has finished her breakfast.”

“Yes, sir,” Gwen said, bobbing yet another curtsey. She silently ran the calculations in her head and decided that she’d curtseyed more in the last few days than she’d done in her entire life. But then, she’d never actually been presented at Court or taken from social engagement to social engagement by her mother. “Do you know what she wishes to talk about?”

Romulus’s face twitched. “I believe she wishes to speak about last night,” he said. There was a hint of definite amusement in his voice. “You appear to have done very well.”

He turned and left, striding away with military precision. Gwen watched him go, then turned and headed back to the kitchen. It was quite likely she’d be expected to help Lady Standish dress and she knew that was one of her weaknesses. Janet could warn her of what to expect.

Somewhat to her surprise, when the bell rang to summon her, she discovered that Lady Standish was already dressed in a morning gown. It was clear she wasn’t planning to leave the house, Gwen decided as she curtseyed and then waited for Lady Standish to deign to notice her. She would have worn something much more fashionable if she’d intended to call upon any of her friends. It suggested hidden depths to Lady Standish, she decided. Lady Mary had always been dressed fashionably, even when she’d had no intention of leaving the house.

But Lady Standish is older than my mother
, Gwen thought. The very elderly were allowed more social leeway than the younger women – and, by their standards, even Lady Mary was a young woman, despite having two adult children of her own.
Is she old enough to care less about fashion than she seems
?

“Gwen,” Lady Standish said. “What happened last night?”

Gwen thought fast. What – if anything – had Raechel told her Aunt about last night? It was hard to imagine her telling Lady Standish anything, but Lady Standish might well have heard about the fire near Pall Mall and put two and two together. Or perhaps that would be a deductive feat beyond even Lord Mycroft. It was much more likely that she wanted a general report and nothing else. And there were parts of the story Gwen knew she couldn’t tell.

“I went with Lady Raechel to a ... social gathering,” Gwen said, carefully. She didn’t want to get Raechel into trouble – or more trouble, if that were possible. Raechel could cause her a great many problems if she chose, even if she couldn’t fire Gwen directly. “It started as a dance, but when it grew more ... excitable I pulled her out and escorted her home.”

“Details,” Lady Standish snapped.

Gwen cringed, making no attempt to hide the motion. If she told the full truth – or at least left out her magic and the fire – Raechel would get into real trouble. But if she tried to tone it down and Lady Standish found out later ... she would be no good to Olivia if she was fired before they even reached Russia.

“You work for me,” Lady Standish said, coldly. She picked up a hairbrush and began to brush her hair, but she never took her eyes off Gwen. “I want details.”

“There were young men and women, largely unescorted, in the hall,” Gwen said. “Their first dances were fairly decent, but their later dances were ...”

She allowed her face to flush, reluctant to give more details unless they were dragged out of her. She’d never realised, even when there had seemed no hope of ever being anything more than a devil-child, that such parties existed, that men and women cavorted together so freely, without even a thought for their reputations. But she understood – how well she understood! – the rebellious urge, to throw away parental conventions and just
do
something outrageous.

It isn’t fair
, she thought, mutely.
Men can do whatever they like and it gets winked at. But if a woman loses her reputation, she has no way to recover it
.

“I can imagine,” Lady Standish said, primly. “You appear to have acted well.”

“Thank you, My Lady,” Gwen said.

She wondered, vaguely, if one of the reasons there was a high turnover of maids in the Standish Household was that some of them found Raechel uncontrollable. Someone born to the poorer classes might not have the confidence to drag Raechel out of the dance hall ... or the magic to cause a diversion. But it wasn’t something she could ask, not now. Lady Standish wouldn’t answer in any case.

“I understand you were previously in charge of a young girl,” Lady Standish said, as if she hadn’t discussed the matter with Gwen earlier. Madame Hampton would have given Lady Standish Gwen’s fake file too. “Was she ever such a problem?”

“She was too young to cause such problems,” Gwen said. The thought of such a young girl getting into trouble was horrific. And Jack had shown her that some young girls
did
get into such trouble, either stolen from their families or simply bought and sold into the worst kind of servitude. If they weren’t aristocrats, she knew, the government rarely gave a damn. “I would have prevented her from getting too close to anyone, if necessary.”

Lady Standish smiled. “And yourself?”

Gwen blinked. “My Lady?”

Lady Standish looked up, her eyes meeting Gwen’s. “Did you ever get into trouble with young men?”

“No, My Lady,” Gwen lied. If Sir Charles didn’t count as trouble, she didn’t know what did ... but Gwen the maid had had no contact with men. “There were few men on Lord Carmichael’s estate and none of them were interested in me.”

“There have always been rumours about Lord Carmichael,” Lady Standish said. Her eyes had never left Gwen’s face. “Are they true?”

“My Lady,” Gwen said carefully, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She felt her face heat, despite her best efforts. It wasn’t uncommon for odd stories to follow men who married young, lost their wives and then never attempted to remarry. And Lord Carmichael should have had no difficulty in finding a second wife. His daughter certainly needed a maternal figure in her life. But he’d kept himself aloof from women ever since he’d lost his wife, not even – according to the files – trying to tumble the serving maids. Maybe he’d just been remarkably successful in keeping it quiet – or perhaps he was more interested in men than women. Given his rank, it would be a major scandal if such a thing were ever to be made public.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Lady Standish said. She put the hairbrush down, a faint smile playing over her face. “You will continue to escort Raechel, wherever she goes. I will inform her that she will not be allowed to leave the house without you.”

Gwen hesitated, unsure if she should point out that Raechel had left the previous evening without anyone trying to bar her way. There weren’t that many servants in the household, not enough to guard all the doors – and besides, she had no doubt that someone as fearless as Raechel would simply scramble out the window if necessary.

“Yes, My Lady,” she said, instead.

“And you have full authority to drag her away from any unsuitable situation,” Lady Standish continued. “You can do whatever is necessary to get her out.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Gwen said, again.

“Good,” Lady Standish said. She came to her feet and looked Gwen up and down. “I shall hope not to speak with you again. Should I do so, Raechel will have managed to get herself into real trouble and you will have failed in your duty.”

The way she said it left Gwen in no doubt that
she
would be blamed if something went badly wrong. But it was common enough for the aristocracy to blame someone else for their failings. Whatever else could be said about Lady Mary, she hadn’t thrown Gwen out of her house when she’d discovered her daughter had magic, even if it wasn’t very ladylike. She thought, suddenly, of Susan and winced, inwardly. Susan had been very lucky. If her magic had appeared in a less public setting, who knew
what
would have happened? There was at least one report of a daughter dying at the hands of her horrified parents, when they’d discovered she had magic.

Lady Standish studied Gwen for a long moment, then made a wordless motion of dismissal. Gwen curtseyed, then hurried out the door, lifting her skirts high enough so she could move without restriction. She’d forgotten how restrictive skirts could be until she’d had to wear one for several hours, without the ability to use magic.

Janet met her at the bottom of the stairs, holding a second tray of coffee. “It’s for Lady Raechel,” she said. “You can take it to her.”

Gwen nodded, tiredly. She would have expected Janet to be annoyed at having the new girl given so much responsibility, but Janet had probably seen several maids leave after failing to cope with Raechel. Letting Gwen handle the older girl probably worked better than trying to handle Raechel herself. Gwen smiled, took the tray and headed back towards Raechel’s suite. This time, when she knocked on the door, there was an incoherent muttering from the other side.

“I said, go away,” Raechel snarled, as Gwen opened the door. She looked unkempt lying in bed, her nightgown barely covering anything of importance. “You’re not wanted here.”

Gwen sighed. She would probably have got on well with Raechel if she hadn’t been forced to play the role of a maid. Instead, she put the coffee down on the table and poured Raechel a cup of steaming black liquid, then added milk and sugar. Raechel glowered at her unpleasantly as Gwen passed her the cup, but didn’t try to throw the cup at her. More relieved that she cared to admit, Gwen turned and opened the curtains as Raechel sipped from the cup. Brilliant light streamed into the room.

“You shouldn’t have taken me home early,” Raechel said. “How did you get me to go to bed?”

“You needed to sleep, My Lady,” Gwen said, cursing mentally. Subtle Charm was harder to detect than blatant Charm, but someone with a coolly logical mind might start asking why they’d acted in a particular manner, particularly if they were used to thinking out their actions before actually
acting
. “I think you just listened to me.”

Raechel eyed her, suspiciously. “There’s nothing to do today,” she said, as she put the empty cup of coffee down on the bedside table. “Why don’t I just stay in bed?”

“Because your Aunt wishes you to attend the dinner party tonight,” Gwen said. “You could spend the first part of the day doing something else.”

“The dinner party will be boring,” Raechel said. “You know why my Aunt is taking me to Russia?”

Gwen shook her head, genuinely curious. Raechel’s rebellious nature made her look like a diplomatic incident waiting to occur. Lord Standish would be dreadfully embarrassed if his niece did something – anything – to upset negotiations. In his place, Gwen wouldn’t have taken anyone apart from the core negotiation team. The ladies could remain in England, where they would be safe.

“She wants me out of London,” Raechel said. “She’s taking me away from all my friends and halfway around the world, just to take me out of London.”

It sounded reasonable, Gwen decided. In Lady Standish’s place, she would have been tempted to arrange a quick marriage for Raechel and then let someone else worry about Raechel’s conduct. But Lady Standish seemed to have other ideas.

“It will be an adventure, My Lady,” Gwen said, trying to sound cheerful. If Olivia hadn’t been kidnapped, she would have looked forward to the trip herself. “And you might come to enjoy it.”

Raechel snorted, doubtfully.

Chapter Thirteen

O
livia had never been particularly good at telling the time, let alone counting the days. It wasn’t a prized skill among the gangs of children in the Rookery, not when few of them expected to live more than a few years before something – or someone – killed them. Life was nothing more than a constant struggle for survival, with each day being taken as it came. There was nothing to be said for mulling about the future when it was unlikely there
was
a future.

But she thought she’d been in the complex for five days, although it was impossible to be sure. Every day, she would wake up, eat breakfast and then wash, before being escorted back into the lower levels for more experiments. Gregory didn’t seem to care about the accident, the one that had come far too close to getting them all bitten; if anything, it had made him more enthusiastic. He had her reanimating dozens of corpses, trying to understand the limits of her powers. Olivia would have found it fascinating if the whispering in her head didn’t get louder and louder with each new corpse she animated.

It was interesting to discover what the limitations actually were. The longer a dead body had been ... well,
dead
, the harder it was to reanimate it. But only if it had decomposed. A frozen body, kept so cold that decomposition couldn’t begin, could be brought back to a shambling mockery of life with relative ease. Gregory had seemed very excited by that, although Olivia had no idea why and Ivan had declined to translate his Russian babbling. And then he’d insisted on trying more and more experiments.

She winced at the memory. If a body was so badly battered that it couldn’t move, she couldn’t reanimate it. If someone had broken bones before being killed, it was harder to bring them back to life, although it wasn’t impossible. And someone who had just died could be brought back almost at once ... Gregory seemed fascinated by that, even though he should have known about it already. It was how undead outbreaks spread.

Ivan stepped into her bedroom with a thin smile on his face. Olivia eyed him, critically; she’d tried, more than once, to tell him that the whole plan was heading for disaster, but he’d refused to listen to her. Like most Charmers, he seemed to view the rest of the world – or at least the people he could influence – as nothing more than puppets. Gregory had tried to get him to use his Charm on the undead, but they’d shown no reaction. Olivia had hoped that this failure would show him that they were making a dreadful mistake ...