Necropolis (Royal Sorceress Book 3) (3 page)

“Your Ladyship?” the driver called. “Do you want me to wait here?”

“Yes, please,” Gwen said, as she reached for her stick. “I’ll need you to take me back to London afterwards.”

She jammed her top hat, a memento of Master Thomas, on her head, then opened the door and jumped lightly down to the ground, using magic to ensure she landed gently. The men fighting the fire barely even glanced at her, probably without realising that she was a girl, but the assembled womenfolk stared at her in silent disbelief. Gwen fought down the urge to smile in a most inappropriate fashion. In her top hat, male suit and carrying a cane, she defied all of the strictest ideas of what a woman should wear, particularly at her age. It was clear that no one at Willingham Hall had ever even
heard
of the trouser brigade.

And to think that I am far from the only woman who wears trousers
, she thought, as she looked around to see who was in charge. There was normally at least one intensely practical woman in charge of the female servants, if the Lady of the House wasn’t around or had suffered a fainting fit. She would be old enough to be a mother, old enough to command respect, but not old enough to be a grandmother.

“Lady Gwen,” a voice said. It was intensely formal, so carefully aristocratic that Gwen just
knew
the speaker hadn’t been born an aristocrat, or at least not a very high-ranking noblewoman. “We thank you for coming.”

Gwen turned to see an older woman making her way towards the carriage and sighed, inwardly. Lady Elizabeth Willingham was tall, alarmingly thin, with long dark hair that was slowly starting to go grey. The older woman glanced over Gwen’s appearance and shook her head, so minutely that a man might not have even noticed the slight motion of disapproval. If Gwen had been a normal girl in society, Lady Elizabeth’s disapproval would have been disastrous to her prospects. Instead, it was merely annoying. She just
knew
they weren’t going to get on.

“You’re welcome,” she said, calmly. If there was one lesson she’d learned from her mother, it was how to be polite to someone she would much rather stab with a knife. “I came as soon as I heard.”

“Lady Gwen,” another voice said. Gwen looked past Lady Elizabeth to see a younger woman, only five or six years older than Gwen, staggering towards them. She looked tired and worn – and deeply worried. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Gwen nodded, studying the younger woman. She would be Lady Fanny, if she recalled correctly, the wife of Lord Willingham. Lady Elizabeth would be her mother-in-law. Gwen felt a flicker of sympathy for Lady Fanny, who clearly looked harried. A mother-in-law who expected everything to be absolutely perfect would be an absolute nightmare. God knew Gwen’s own mother had been quite unbearable at times to Gwen’s sister-in-law. And there was little recourse when the men of the household weren’t expected to meddle in the female sphere.

“It’s all right,” Gwen said, as comfortingly as she could. “Now, tell me what happened and –”

“It isn’t a suitable story for your ears,” Lady Elizabeth said. “We thank you for coming ...”

Lady Fanny gave her mother-in-law a look of absolute despair. Gwen felt nothing, but amused disbelief. There was a fire, clearly of magical origin, burning through the manor house, several people might well have been killed or badly hurt ... and Lady Elizabeth was clinging to her preconceptions about what young women should or should not hear! Like so many others Gwen had met, she was perfectly capable of denying reality if it suited her to do so. Even the unavoidable truths of female existence were simply ignored by the older women.

“I will hear it,” Gwen said, purposely looking past the older woman. “Tell me what happened, please.”

Lady Fanny looked as if she couldn’t quite believe what Gwen had done. This far from London, Lady Elizabeth’s will would reign supreme. If she wanted to ignore reality, there was no one who could tell her otherwise, particularly with her son out of the country. Indeed, from the notes Lord Mycroft had given her, Lady Elizabeth held some control over the property that wouldn’t relax until her death. Judging by the way she treated her daughter-in-law, Gwen wouldn’t be too surprised if her death came sooner rather than later.

“I don’t quite know where to begin,” Lady Fanny said. “I was in the sewing room, knitting blankets for the troops, when there were cries of fire.”

“And then the west wing started to burn,” Lady Elizabeth put in. “They dragged a body out of the flames before they became too intense to handle.”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “A body? Just
one
body?”

“Yes,” Lady Elizabeth confirmed. “The Governess.”

Lady Fanny looked up, meeting Gwen’s eyes for the first time. “My daughter is missing,” she insisted, despite the look she received from Lady Elizabeth. “Where has she gone?”

“You don’t need to make a fuss,” Lady Elizabeth said, tartly. “Your daughter will return to us, of that I am sure.”

Gwen felt her temper start to fray. There were more important matters than maintaining the proper appearances and conduct at all times. If Lady Fanny’s daughter was missing, it was hard to blame her for being worried, just as Gwen herself was worried about Olivia. But older women tended to ensure that their children were brought up by governesses rather than doing the hard work of childrearing themselves. They preferred to maintain an emotional distance between themselves and their children, just in case the children died when they were very young.

“You have given her too much freedom,” Lady Elizabeth continued, blithely. “She has no doubt run out into the forest where she will hide for a few hours, before returning to us.”

Gwen looked over at Lady Fanny, purposefully ignoring the older woman. “Take me to the Governess,” she ordered. “I need to see the body.”

“It isn’t a fit sight for a young woman,” Lady Elizabeth said, as Lady Fanny started forward. “I think it would be better if ...”

“I have seen more bodies in the last year then most soldiers see in their entire lives,” Gwen snapped. She had no idea if that was actually true, but she
had
seen far too many dead bodies in her short career. Some of them had even reanimated and tried to kill her. “And you will hold your tongue or I will see to it that you are socially blacklisted everywhere in High Society.”

Lady Elizabeth opened her mouth and shut it again with a loud snap. Gwen was the Royal Sorceress, Master Thomas’s designated heir ... and someone who had the ear of a great many important personages.
And
she was the person who had earned the eternal gratitude of most of High Society by destroying blackmail material that would otherwise be used against them ...

“Stay here,” Gwen ordered. No doubt Lady Elizabeth would eventually convince herself that she hadn’t heard what she’d heard, but for the moment she’d stay quiet. Gwen looked over at Lady Fanny and winked. “Take me to the body.”

She eyed the younger woman carefully as Lady Fanny led her away from the manor, towards a copse of trees where the female servants had gathered. Most of them were young, young enough to be easy to dominate, although a handful were clearly older and tougher. But Lady Fanny looked almost as beaten down as some of the younger servants, despite being a born aristocrat. It was clear that Lady Elizabeth had wasted no time imposing her authority on her new daughter-in-law.

“You don’t have to put up with her, you know,” Gwen said, softly. It was strange to realise that she might have ended up in the same boat, if she hadn’t been born with magic. Her marriage would have been arranged for best advantage and she would have been expected to simply accept whatever her father decided. “There are places to go.”

“Not for me,” Lady Fanny said, so quietly that Gwen could barely hear her. “My family would never take me back.”

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said. The Swing had caused a number of changes in society, but there was still so much injustice and mistreatment at all levels. It was far from unknown for servants to be regularly beaten by their masters, even though it was technically illegal. And Lady Elizabeth could ensure that they never worked again, if they left her. “I’m truly sorry.”

They stopped in front of a blanket covering a body. Gwen knelt down, ignoring the gasp from Lady Fanny, and drew the blanket back, revealing a woman she vaguely recognised. She was tall, almost skeletally thin, with a tart disapproving face and an expression that suggested she was permanently sucking on a lemon. Her hair was drawn back into a tight bun, so tight that Gwen knew she spent too much time each day pinning it firmly into place. And her right shoulder was missing completely, along with her arm and parts of her throat.

“A Blazer did this,” Gwen muttered, as she examined the wound. The heat had been sufficient to seal the damage or the woman would have bled to death, although it was clearly immaterial. She doubted anyone could have survived such wounds long enough to reach a Healer, assuming there was one in the area. “Who is this woman?”

“Madame Constant,” Lady Fanny said. “She came with
very
high recommendations.”

Gwen shuddered. She’d only met Madame Constant once, but it had ended badly for both of them. Madame Constant believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that children needed a firm hand to guide them along the path to adulthood, with every small deviation punished intensely. Lady Mary, Gwen’s mother, had hired Madame Constant as one of the endless series of governesses that had tried to bring up the young Gwen. But Madame Constant had taken one look at Gwen’s magic and resigned on the spot. If half the stories Gwen had heard about how she brought up children were true, it was hard to blame her.

“She would have done,” Gwen said. She looked up, sharply. “And you trusted your daughter with her?”

“Lady Elizabeth chose her,” Lady Fanny said. “I wasn’t consulted.”

“This is your daughter’s education,” Gwen said. “Your daughter’s
life
. You shouldn’t let your mother-in-law supervise the development of a girl far too young to stand up for herself.”

She shuddered, again. Madame Constant was – had been – a firm believer in the concept that sparing the rod spoilt the child. Gwen had no doubt that she would have been very harsh to Lady Fanny’s daughter, all in the interests of making her a proper young lady. She’d occasionally seen the victims of constant beatings at Cavendish Hall. They flinched away from every sharp noise and were suspicious of comforting words. And they were often so scared of the magic within them that they repressed it until it burst out and wreaked havoc.

She straightened up and looked back at the manor. Had Lady Fanny’s daughter developed magic?

It was simple enough to identify a magician, although she had no idea if Susan Willingham had ever been tested, but almost impossible to predict when a magician might actually come into his or her powers. Gwen herself still flinched in horror from the memory of the day her magic had come to life, even though she had continued to learn as much as she could without guidance from anyone else. Other magicians had developed their powers when stressed, threatened with death ... or, in one case, drinking himself into a stupor. That particular development had been
nasty
. It had taken days to clean up the mess.

“So,” she said, as evenly as possible, “how did Madame Constant treat your daughter?”

“I thought she was doing a good job,” Lady Fanny said. “She was hired to teach reading and writing, Latin and history ... and music. Susan was doing well ... I didn’t see any problems.”

Gwen felt her face harden. She hadn’t seen any problems either, not with how she’d treated the servants in Crichton Hall or with the more generalised treatment of the poor and powerless in London. It had taken Jack to open her eyes and show her just how badly the latter had suffered under the aristocracy. There were far too many others in the aristocracy who never saw it at all.

Or think the poor deserve it for being born poor
, Gwen thought, bitterly. Even now, it was hard for someone to climb out of the gutters and into the middle class, let alone the aristocracy. There was just so much weighted against them.

“Of course you didn’t,” Gwen said. “Was Susan the only person Madame Constant was teaching?”

“Well ... Susan was the only person she was hired to teach,” Lady Fanny said. “But Jo, Susan’s personal maid, would often join the lessons.”

Gwen lifted her eyebrows. It wasn’t uncommon for the servants to join the lessons, particularly the servants who were no older than the children of the house, but it sounded oddly charitable for Madame Constant. If the woman had ever had a charitable thought in her life Gwen would have been astonished. She’d always seemed more interested in hammering her idea of how to behave into her victims’ heads.

Maybe I misjudged her
, she thought, sourly.
She didn’t try to teach me for very long
.

She looked down at the body again, studying the damage. Up close, it was clear that Madame Constant hadn’t ever had children of her own. Gwen was no medical expert – most of the textbooks she’d devoured had actually concealed truths, rather than revealed them – but the older woman looked too thin to ever have children. A nasty thought struck her, but a quick check revealed that Madame Constant was definitely female. Embarrassed, she ignored the coughing sound from Lady Fanny and straightened up. If
she
could pass for a man from time to time, why couldn’t a man pass for a woman?

It’s harder to fool women than men
, she reminded herself, sharply.

“I think hiring her was a mistake,” she said, as she looked down at the dead body. “And your daughter is likely to carry the scars for a long time to come.”

Lady Fanny blanched.

Gwen ignored her as she turned back towards the fire. The firemen had intensified their efforts, yet the flames had neither faded away nor spread to the rest of the house. She fought down the urge to laugh as she realised the truth, then started to walk towards the flames, Lady Fanny scampering after her as if she didn’t quite believe what Gwen was doing. Up close, the heat was almost overpowering. Gwen felt sweat trickling down her back as she walked closer to the flames.