The Great Game (Royal Sorceress) (35 page)

“His servants are to be taken to the nearest jail and kept there, again, until I have had a chance to take a proper look at them,” she added. “I think we killed all of the magicians, but there’s no way to be entirely sure. You can hold them under Section Five of the Rogue Magicians Act of 1820, if necessary. I don’t think that many of them will object.”

Hopkins nodded. Section Five covered non-magicians who helped rogue magicians to hide, or employed them. The servants might not be in hot water – it had been Howell, she assumed, who had employed the other magicians – but they might be glad to be in jail, once Howell’s enemies realised that his power was broken. They might go after his servants just to see if any of them knew where he might have stored copies of his incriminating documents.

“Yes, Milady,” he said. “When will you deal with them?”

“I have another matter to attend to,” Gwen said. It was true; besides, she wanted to make sure that Howell couldn’t be Healed before she started talking to his servants. “I will consult with Cavendish Hall afterwards, so we can decide properly what charges should be filed.”

She scowled at Howell as two burly policemen picked him up and carried him out of the room. He didn’t respond at all to their manhandling.

“After that, I want this house
sealed
,” she added. “
No one
goes in or out without my permission, no one at all. If someone comes, you are to take their names and business, but they are to be denied access. Have officers patrolling the grounds; someone might decide to climb the back wall.”

“Yes, Milady,” Hopkins said. He sounded more than a little irritated at her constant stream of orders, but Gwen found it hard to care. “I shall see to it at once.”

Gwen nodded and stood back, leaving the policemen to get on with it. The two maids were loudly protesting their innocence as they were cuffed and marched out of the house, followed by the cook, who seemed to be in a state of shock. A handful of policemen picked up the stunned servants and dragged them out of the building; they probably wouldn’t wake up until they reached jail. One of them clearly had a broken leg, but there was no Healer at the jail. He’d have to hope that the prison doctor knew what he was doing...

Some hope
, Gwen thought, sourly. Even with the new laws, prisons were far from healthy places – particularly for prisoners who were already wounded when they were brought in and placed in a cell. Unless, of course, the prisoner happened to have noble blood – or a great deal of money.

Sir Charles looked over at the blackened safe. “Those were all of his papers?”

“I think so,” Gwen said. The entire house would have to be searched – the
third
house that had been searched since Sir Travis had been murdered. She hoped that Hopkins could trust his policemen if they
did
find something incriminating; the temptation to use it would be incredibly strong. “How many other stashes do you think he had?”

“None,” Sir Charles said. He picked up a piece of ash, studied it thoughtfully and then ground it to dust. “Who could he trust to take care of them?”

Gwen considered it for a long moment, then put the matter aside. “I need you to drive me to my mother’s house,” she said. Her anger was still there, ready to be unleashed. “Can you do that?”

Sir Charles hesitated. “Are you sure you’re up to visiting your mother?”

“Yes,” Gwen snapped. No doubt Lady Mary would wonder if he’d asked her to marry him when they arrived. She was in for a rude shock. “I have to see her. Now.”

Sir Charles nodded and left the room. Gwen started to follow him and then stopped, staring around at the devastation. If three untrained magicians – and her – could do so much damage, what would happen when – if – magicians went to war against other magicians? How dangerous would it be in London if magic were used in an outright fight... or airships were used to drop explosives on the city... or steam-powered warships sailed up the Thames. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for the people who disliked magic and distrusted
her
. Their world was changing and they no longer felt safe.

She looked down at the file in her hand, then walked after Sir Charles. Perhaps he was right and it wasn’t the best time to talk to her mother, but it had to be done. She was
not
going to allow her mother to treat her like a child again.

And Lady Mary had to answer for what she had done.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

L
ord Rudolf is in the study, talking with Lord Flitch-Fletcher,” the butler said, as he showed Gwen into her old home. “Lady Mary is in her study.”

“Thank you,” Gwen grated, as she walked past him. She’d had the whole drive to build up her temper and it needed release, before she lost control of her magic. Even Sir Charles hadn’t been able to calm her down.

She stepped into her mother’s study – a room she’d rarely been allowed to enter as a child – and closed the door firmly behind her. Lady Mary looked up, surprised and then concerned, as Gwen dropped Howell’s folder on the desk in front of her mother.

“I took it from Howell,” Gwen said. “What were you
thinking
?”

Lady Mary opened the folder and read the first sheet of paper. Her face paled; for a long moment, Gwen was convinced that she was going to faint. Then she looked up at her daughter, her eyes wide with horror – and shame. Polite Society was unforgiving when someone broke the rules and Lady Mary hadn’t just broken them, she’d shattered them into tiny pieces. Gwen refused to look away as her mother swallowed hard. Whatever she’d imagined, she hadn’t imagined
this
.

“I had no choice,” she protested. “I couldn’t...”

“Every day, ever since I was born, you tried to mould me into a perfect young lady,” Gwen hissed. “You told me what to do and corrected me ruthlessly; you wanted someone you could marry off to someone of a higher rank than us. And yet you had
this
in your past. How
dare
you?”

“It was your father’s child,” Lady Mary said. “We... we just couldn’t keep it.”

“You’re lying,” Gwen snapped. Everyone knew that a bride could do in six months what a wife needed nine to do. Polite Society wouldn’t have commented if the formalities were observed. “When did you plan to tell me about the brother or sister I never had?”

Her voice hardened. “Who did you sleep with to get pregnant?”

Lady Mary shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “But I had no choice.”

Gwen looked down at the documents. Howell had found out – somehow – that Lady Mary had visited an abortionist, three months before her marriage to Lord Rudolf. If it had been Lord Rudolf’s child, it wouldn’t have been
that
much of a problem... but someone else’s would have been a major scandal. The wedding would have been cancelled, leaving Lady Mary forever tainted with a reputation for premarital sex. And the child would probably have been given up for adoption.

Her mother started to cry. “I had no choice,” she repeated. “I didn’t realise that I could get pregnant until it was too late. My mother arranged the appointment with the abortionist...”

“And you killed your child,” Gwen said, coldly. She knew, through Lucy, that abortionists were common in the poorer parts of London, but she had never realised that upper class women went to them too. “I should have had a half-brother or sister, if you hadn’t killed the child.”

“You wouldn’t have existed at all,” Lady Mary said, rallying. “Do you think Rudolf would have kept me if there was proof that I...”

“Go on,” Gwen sneered. “If there was proof that you gave yourself to another man before your wedding?”

Her anger grew stronger. “Every day, you told me to be the perfect lady,” she snapped. “And you were nothing more than a hypocrite! You lied to me!”

“I did what I thought was best for you, even after you became a... a magician,” Lady Mary said. “I didn’t want you to grow up like me!”

“Always running, fearful that someone would catch you out,” Gwen said, quietly. “What did Howell demand from you in exchange for his silence.”

“Six thousand pounds,” Lady Mary said. “It was my legacy from my grandfather, enough money to ensure that I would be a catch in society... I had to transfer it from my bank to Howell, knowing that my husband might one day want to use it. But I had no choice.”

Gwen felt a twinge of sympathy. It was rare for a woman to control what she brought to the marriage; customarily, it was given to her husband to use as he saw fit. Lady Mary’s grandfather had been staunchly traditional in such matters; he’d always believed that women were incapable of doing anything unless they were led by men. Her mother might, depending on how the courts looked at it, have stolen from her own husband.

“And Howell promised you that no one else would ever know,” Gwen said, remembering what he’d told Lady Elizabeth. “But he kept the files... and I found them.”

She looked down at her mother. “Who was he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lady Mary said, softly. “He never knew that he had a child. Our lives parted before I knew that I was with child; I never told him the truth. By then, I was engaged to Rudolf...”

Gwen remembered everything her mother had done, in the guise of teaching her to be a proper young lady. The endless lessons in etiquette, the ritualised banquets when she’d pretended to be hosting the highest aristocratic families, the dresses and... and so much else, all blurred together into a stifling childhood. And if she hadn’t had magic, she would have been married off, unaware that her mother’s past might overshadow her future. If Lady Mary’s secret had come out, Gwen’s husband might have separated from her. It was believed that certain tendencies ran in families.

Her mother had kept Gwen when others might have abandoned her, Gwen knew. But that didn’t make up for everything she’d done.

“Howell is... unlikely to recover,” Gwen said, hoping that she was right. Part of her wouldn’t care any longer if her mother was disgraced, but she knew just how many others would be threatened by the blackmailer’s recovery. “I think your secret is safe.”

Lady Mary looked up, her eyes stained with tears. “What did you do to him?”

“Broke his mind,” Gwen said, flatly. She would
not
share the details with her mother. “I took your file, then burned the rest of them to ash. Howell’s collection of dark secrets died with him.”

Her mother relaxed, slightly. “Make sure you get the credit for it,” she said, softly. “Your reputation will be made.”

Gwen shrugged. “My reputation was ruined the first day I used magic,” she snapped. She risked a question she would never normally have dared ask. “Am
I
my father’s child?”

Lady Mary glared at her, one hand raised as if she were about to slap her daughter.

“You’re Rudolf’s girl, all right,” she snapped. “And mine too, for my sins. There were enough times when I thought you were my punishment for what I had done.”

“You killed an innocent child,” Gwen said, flatly. Somehow, she would have been happier knowing that she
had
been adopted. “What sort of punishment do you think you deserve?”

“What sort of life do you think the child would have had?” Lady Mary demanded. “A known bastard” – Gwen had never heard her mother use any such word before – “in a society that blames the child for the sins of the parent! He would have been isolated, unable to grow and develop... if I’d kept him. If not, I would have had to hand him over to someone else to raise and I couldn’t bear the thought of giving him up...”

“So you killed him instead,” Gwen said. “You could have given him to one of the servants to raise...”

“I would have had to see him as a servant, or else favour him,” Lady Mary said. “Do you not remember the Duke of Holdernesse?”

Gwen winced. The Duke had had an affair with one of his chambermaids, eventually getting her pregnant. She’d died in childbirth, but he’d kept the boy, even though he could never have acknowledged him as a heir. And then he’d married a respectable woman and had a legitimate heir... until the day his bastard son’s jealousy had got the better of him. The Duke’s happy life had died along with his wife and younger son. Polite Society had gossiped for months afterwards.

And even if Lady Mary had given the unborn child the benefit of the doubt, she would still have had to explain her pregnancy to Lord Rudolf. He would have
known
that the newborn baby wasn’t his child.

“I should tell everyone,” Gwen snapped. Her mother’s pale face went completely white. “Why not? You had a child killed because keeping him around would have exposed you.”

“I had no choice,” Lady Mary insisted. “I...”

“You gave up that choice when you let someone else into your bed,” Gwen snapped back, angrily. Or had her mother been as ignorant as Gwen herself? Lady Mary had never read books her mother had forbidden her to read. She might well not have realised that she
could
get pregnant until it was far too late. “Didn’t you even
think
about the possible consequences?”

“I was young and in love,” Lady Mary said. She looked up at Gwen, eyes pleading for understanding. “Don’t you understand why I sheltered you so much? I didn’t want you to have to make the same choice!”

Lady Bracknell might have been the same
, Gwen thought. If she hadn’t been so controlling, her daughter would never have written such compromising letters... and ended up being blackmailed by Howell. And if Gwen hadn’t scared so many possible suitors, would she have given herself to someone and ended up compromised herself.

“You would have driven me into rebellion,” Gwen said, harshly. “If Master Thomas hadn’t come for me...”

“Your place in society was destroyed,” Lady Mary said. “You can never be part of Polite Society...”

Gwen started to laugh. “Why would I
want
to be part of Polite Society?” She demanded. “How much of it is even
polite
?”

Her mother stared at her. Lady Mary had always defined her place in life by her position in society, rising up when she married Lord Rudolf, falling down when her daughter proved to be a magician. To her, a place in society – the chance to determine fashion and look down on those below her - was what made life worth living. It was a validation of her self-worth.