The Great Game (Royal Sorceress) (47 page)

And she’d never quite believed that she would be allowed to remain in Cavendish Hall indefinitely.

“I might have to leave,” Gwen said. “Will you come with me?”

It had been hard to convince the Privy Council to pardon Olivia for living – and only the backing of the King had made it happen. And they’d insisted that Olivia stayed supervised for the rest of her life... if Gwen had to leave Cavendish Hall, they might insist that Olivia
stayed
.
That
would raise too many questions.

“Of course,” Olivia said. “What happened?”

Gwen hadn’t wanted to tell her, but the whole story came tumbling out anyway.

“It sounds like you didn’t do too badly,” Olivia said, when she’d finished. “You didn’t do anything disastrous.”

“Thank you,” Gwen said, dryly. But then, those who lived on the streets had a more pragmatic attitude to life. A woman’s reputation was less important to them, even though it was far from
nothing
. “But I feel a fool.”

“Everyone does that,” Olivia said. “Or so Mistress Lucy told me, back when I...”

She shook her head, an old shadow appearing in her eyes for a long second. “I don’t think you should waste your time worrying about it,” she insisted. “
Really
.”

Gwen had to smile. No one was quite sure how old her adopted daughter actually
was
– it wasn’t as if her birth had been witnessed and then registered – but she couldn’t be far short of puberty. She’d filled out very well once she’d had some proper food and medical care; Gwen’s best guess was that Olivia was ten years old. If so, in six more years, she’d be expected to start her season. She wondered, briefly, what Polite Society would say if they knew where she’d come from.

But that’s what destroyed Sir Charles
, she thought, numbly.
Maybe it’s better they never find out the truth
.

“I’ll do my best,” Gwen said. She stood up and yawned. “I’ll let you know what will happen after tomorrow, if they tell me. They might just want to keep me waiting.”

She nodded goodbye to her daughter and stepped outside, allowing the tutor to go back into the room. Shaking her head, she walked back to her rooms and stepped inside, locking the door behind her before starting to remove her stained clothes. Talleyrand hadn’t said anything, but it was quite possible that he would add a complaint about the smell to his diplomatic protest. Charming his daughter, insisting on an immediate interview... and smelling of vomit. At least it would give the Foreign Office a smile before they tried to think of a diplomatic response.

Once she was naked, she walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. Her body was badly bruised, but they were already fading away as her skin returned to its naturally pale colour. The bump on her head where she’d cracked it against the floor had already vanished, unnaturally quickly. Maybe the only person she
could
heal was herself.

“Wash and sleep,” she told herself. “Tomorrow is not going to be fun.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

T
he Privy Council had been declining in importance – its role largely taken by the Prime Minister’s Cabinet – until after the Swing, when King George had insisted on taking on a greater role in governing his council. Now, it was the highest council in the land, with a roster of members who were exceptionally powerful in political terms. Even the Leader of the Opposition, who commanded a number of votes in Parliament, was a member. If the Privy Council agreed on something, it would happen.

Normally, the Privy Council met wherever the monarch happened to be living at the time, but King George had insisted on basing
his
Privy Council in Buckingham Palace, despite the objections of some of the more traditional councillors. Gwen had visited the Palace several times in the past, starting when she had been confirmed as Royal Sorceress, yet she couldn’t help feeling nervous now. The Privy Council had the power to dismiss her, if they felt it was necessary. They’d be tempted to wash their hands of her after the whole affair.

She kept her face as impassive as possible as Lord Mycroft escorted her into the council chamber. The room itself was surprisingly simple; there was a large table, a number of reasonably comfortable chairs and a throne for the monarch, should he choose to attend. Gwen had been warned in advance that King George wouldn’t be attending – the matter was considered too politically sensitive for the monarch to be involved – but she couldn’t help finding that ominous. The King was one of her strongest supporters.

“Lady Gwen,” the Duke of India said, once she was standing in front of them. There was no chair for her, of course. “You may begin.”

Gwen bowed her head. The Duke of India had publicly reprimanded a meddling upper-class woman who had sought to close down the brothels near army garrisons, pointing out that British soldiers risked their lives to defend Britain from foreign invasions. He might be a stubborn son of a bitch who thought everyone should do as he said, as she’d heard him called more than once, but he cared deeply for his men. Maybe he would extend some of that tolerance towards her.

“Sir Travis Mortimer was murdered by Sir Charles Bellingham,” she said, bluntly. “The murder was planned and authorised by Ambassador Talleyrand.”

She waited as the stir ran around the room, wondering just how much they already knew. Lord Mycroft knew, of course, but had he told them? Or had he decided that
Gwen
should have the credit for solving the mystery? It might counterbalance their desire to punish her for embarrassing herself.

“The motive for the murder was simple; the execution was not,” she continued, once quiet had returned to the room. “Sir Travis had been intimately involved in drafting a treaty with the Ottoman Empire, a treaty that would have prevented the French from pressing against the Ottomans and allied their formidable land army with British naval might. Added together, we could have swept the French out of the Mediterranean and even invaded Eastern Europe, bringing France to her knees. It was worth any risk to prevent the treaty from ever being signed.

“In order to do that, the treaty had to be discredited. The Airship Treaty made considerable concessions to the Turks in exchange for a long-term alliance. If the motives of the principle writer could be cast into doubt – and he was no longer able to defend himself – the treaty would be delayed, if not destroyed. Sir Travis had to be accused of being a Turkish operative, accepting bribes to write a treaty that favoured the Ottoman Empire. With such an accusation hanging over his head, impossible to disprove, the treaty would not be ratified by Parliament.”

She paused, composing her next words carefully. “Public opinion, right now, is strongly in favour of war with France,” she said. “The French knew that they were being blamed for the undead rampage in London during the Swing. There was – is – a very real possibility that we would go to war, with or without the Turks. Talleyrand, I suspect, knew the danger from his mind-reading assistant; France could hardly become
more
compromised if they were implicated in Sir Travis’s death. If there was to be war, they would have a better chance if it was fought before the treaty was signed.

“I do not know when or how Sir Charles made contact with the French. I
do
know that he possessed an unusual talent, one that nullified magic in contact with his body. Among other things, a Sensitive simply couldn’t read him; Sir Travis found him a good companion simply because he could stand to be near Sir Charles without being driven away by a barrage of uncontrollable emotions. Sir Charles did not, unfortunately, share his feelings.
His
motivation for joining the French was to extract revenge on Polite Society for turning on him when his origins became public. Talleyrand was able to exploit his feelings to France’s advantage.

“That night, Talleyrand went to visit Sir Travis, perhaps intending to try to bribe him into abandoning the Treaty. Murder is risky, after all, and France might have ended up at war with the British Empire. Whatever was said between them, Sir Travis clearly refused to budge. Talleyrand left Mortimer Hall and gave Sir Charles the signal to move in. With the help of an underground magician, he broke into Mortimer Hall and killed Sir Travis, taking a number of his papers afterwards. Thus committed, he went to Hiram Pasha’s house, killed the Turkish spy and left the papers there for us to find.

“Prior to the murder, the French worked hard to create a link between Sir Travis and Hiram Pasha. The Golden Turk, a gambling hall, claimed that Sir Travis owed them money. In reality, the manager took a hefty bribe to forge the debts, ensuring that our attention would be drawn to Hiram Pasha, who was supposed to have
backed
the debts. They thus created the impression that Sir Travis had been taking money from the Turks all along. The Airship Treaty might therefore have been dictated in Istanbul.”

She paused, wishing that she could take a sip of water.

“At that point, chance intervened,” she admitted. “The Golden Turk’s manager had visited Mortimer Hall several times before the murder, telling Sir Travis’s maidservant that he owed the gambling hall money. Sir Travis, of course, dismissed those debts. The maid did not know any better, however, and so when Augustus Howell visited Mortimer Hall and read the maid’s mind, he believed that Sir Travis was in debt.”

The table rustled again. Gwen smiled and waited for them to calm down before continuing.

“I will have to go back in time here,” she warned. “Sir Travis was engaged – secretly – to Lady Elizabeth Bracknell. Unfortunately, Lady Elizabeth had compromised herself earlier in life, allowing Howell to blackmail her. She couldn’t pay the price he demanded and so Howell went to Sir Travis, intending to tell him what his intended had been doing before she was engaged to him. Instead, he discovered that Sir Travis owed money and offered to pay his debt. Ruining Lady Elizabeth would have been less profitable than getting his hooks into a government official.

There was a long pause. “Howell met with failure,” she explained, “but didn’t expose Lady Elizabeth. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I think he must have expected Lady Elizabeth to have some influence over her husband – or that the debts would eventually grow to the point where Sir Travis would be desperate for a loan. Howell could wait patiently for the right moment to use his information. However, more or less by accident, he distracted me from the truth.”

Her lips twitched. “I was warned by almost everyone not to go near Howell,” she said, dryly. “If they’d been more honest about him, I might have realised the truth sooner.

The humour faded. She didn’t want to talk about the next part to anyone.

“Sir Charles worked hard to attach himself to the investigation,” Gwen admitted. “I was... rather taken with him and allowed himself to get too close to me. In hindsight, he dropped plenty of hints about Sir Travis gambling, even mentioning the Golden Turk before the manager sent a demand notice to Sir Travis’s estate. Eventually, we went to the Golden Turk and discovered the debts, which led us to Hiram Pasha’s house. There, we found the papers suggesting that Sir Travis had been a spy. The case against him seemed airtight.

“It wasn’t until I read through Sir Travis’s journal and his notes that I realised that some of the gambling debts were definitely faked,” she said. “There was no logical reason for him to fake a trip to Istanbul; he didn’t need to hide in London while gambling – and he certainly hadn’t done it on a regular basis. Why should he have? And if some of the debts were fake, it was quite possible that they
all
were fake. Indeed, his journal mentioned nothing about the gambling exploits Sir Charles had told me about. Instead, it talked about Sir Charles having a soothing effect on the Sensitive.

“I went to Sir Charles’s house and confronted him. He confessed to having killed Sir Travis, then tried to kill me. I was unprepared for his talent; in hindsight, I should have realised the implications and taken someone else along to provide support. He came very close to killing me outright. I barely managed to escape. When I did so, the first person to arrive was Simone, the so-called daughter of Ambassador Talleyrand – and a Talker in her own right. I went with her to the French Embassy, spoke briefly to Talleyrand, then returned home.”

She drew a long breath. “Sir Travis was no traitor,” she concluded. “I believe that we can consider the Airship Treaty without worrying about the motives of the writer.”

There was a long pause.

“You mentioned that he got close to you,” one of the councillors said. “What exactly do you mean?”

Gwen felt her cheeks warm under their gaze. “He attempted to seduce me,” she said, bluntly. If they insisted on talking about it, she could talk. “I believe that he felt he could influence me. He was wrong.”

“One would hope so,” the Duke of India said, scowling at the councillor. “She would be far from the first official to get into trouble with the opposite sex.”

He looked up at Gwen before anyone else could say a word. “Thank you for your report, Lady Gwen,” he said. “Please wait in the antechamber. We will inform you when we have finished our deliberations.”

Gwen nodded, curtseyed to the table and walked out of the room. The antechamber was surprisingly shabby, but comfortable; a maid offered her a cup of tea or coffee as she sat down on the sofa. Someone – she suspected Lord Mycroft – had set up a chessboard in the middle of the room. It was hard to be sure without getting up and looking at the board properly, but it looked like the game he’d been playing with Talleyrand.

She wasn’t too surprised when, thirty minutes later, Lord Mycroft came into the antechamber and sat down in front of the chessboard. Or when something clicked in her mind.

“You knew,” she said.

Lord Mycroft raised a single elegant eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

Talleyrand
, Gwen thought, as she stood up. He’d said exactly the same thing, word for word.

She sat down on the other side of the chessboard. “You knew who’d murdered Sir Travis,” she said. “Your brother already did the legwork.”