The Great Game (Royal Sorceress)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “They do,” Lestrade agreed. “Did the Turkish Government have a reason to feel insulted?”

  “Not that I know,” Sir Charles admitted. “Travis was good at making people like him, even when he had come to dismantle their kingdom and incorporate it into British-administered territory. I believe that they were hammering out the details of some agreement, but he never told me about it.”

  Gwen frowned. “You were such close friends and yet he didn’t tell you what he was doing?”

  “Oh, we shared a lot,” Sir Charles said. “But Travis was a man of honour. His orders were not to discuss it with anyone else and he followed them, unhesitatingly. Even when we were in Istanbul together, he went to quite a few meetings alone.”

  Gwen wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. In her experience, friends shared everything... although she had had few true friends in her life. The magicians she got on best with were mostly male – and she couldn’t share everything with them. Perhaps, if Jack had lived, she would have had a close friend...

  She pushed the sudden burst of heartache aside and looked up at Sir Charles. “When did you first meet him?”

  Sir Charles smiled brilliantly. “He came over to India with a commission in his pocket and instructions to visit a number of allied monarchs,” he said. “I ended up being volunteered to escort him from kingdom to kingdom – I saved his life a few times and he saved mine – and we became good friends. And then I saved him from the Fishing Fleet.”

  Gwen blinked. “The Fishing Fleet?”

  Lestrade coughed, embarrassed.

  “Quite a few young women come out to India in hopes of snaring a husband,” Sir Charles told her, casting a sidelong glance at the Inspector. “Most of them have few prospects, which doesn’t stop them trying to lure young men into their clutches...”

  “Thank you,” Gwen said, feeling heat spreading through her cheeks. She could guess the rest of the details, if only from overhearing some of her mother’s discussions with her friends.

  “That said, a few of them did very well in the Red Tree Siege,” Sir Charles added, mischievously. “Fought as well as any man, they did.”

  “Your dispatches made it sound as though you won the battle single-handedly,” Gwen reminded him. She couldn’t help liking him. “Or was Sir Travis there too?”

  “Oh, I beat the enemy leader in single combat and convinced the rest of his tribe to swear allegiance to King George,” Sir Charles said. He chuckled, convincing Gwen that he wasn’t entirely serious. “Sir Travis sneaked through the enemy lines and guided the reinforcements to a position where they could have broken the siege, if I hadn’t won already.”

  “As fascinating as this discussion is,” Lestrade said gruffly, “there are details we have to cover. Do you know what Sir Travis would have done with his will?”

  Sir Charles hesitated, thoughtfully. “Most of us Indiamen leave basic wills with the Foreign Office,” he said, after a moment. “I certainly do – Travis, on the other hand, had a noble estate. He might well have kept a lawyer on retainer to handle the transfer of property when he died.”

  Gwen cleared her throat. “Do you know what Sir Travis wrote in his will?”

  “Not a clue,” Sir Charles assured her. “Travis never asked me to witness it, so I don’t know what it said. I imagine that he intended to rewrite it after marrying – that’s fairly standard too, as the wife would need some provisions in the will – but I was never consulted. And why should he have consulted me?”

  Lestrade leaned forward. “He was planning to marry?”

  “He was engaged to Lady Elizabeth Bracknell,” Sir Charles said. “It wasn’t announced openly; they were planning to announce it after Lady Elizabeth turned eighteen and completed her schooling.” He looked at Gwen. “Do you know her?”

  Gwen shook her head. Most aristocratic children in London knew one another – the thought of playing with commoners would have shocked their parents – but Gwen had always been fairly isolated. She couldn’t remember, offhand, if her mother had ever said anything about the Bracknell Family. There wasn’t a Bracknell on any of the committees Gwen had to deal with as Royal Sorceress, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t important.

  And they’d waited for their daughter to complete her schooling before marrying her off, she noted. That spoke well of them. Most girls were, at the very least, introduced to London society when they grew into womanhood; every season, London was filled with aristocratic daughters and their mothers, looking to meet potential husbands. Where marriage was as much an alliance between two families as it was between a husband and wife, few couples could avoid having their parents involved right from the start.

  Gwen had never had her Season. But then, who would have wanted to marry her?

  “I will certainly speak to her,” Gwen said. “Do you know how well she knew Sir Travis?”

  “There was no hint of scandal,” Sir Charles said. “I believe they were introduced at her coming-out ball, then attended several later balls together – the latter two holding hands. Sir Travis approached her father two months ago, then proposed to her formally. She accepted.”

  Gwen winced, remembering her mother’s lessons. A woman could refuse a proposal, but even having an unwelcome proposal was a strike against her, because she would be assumed to have encouraged it. Given how hard it was for young men and women to read one another, it was quite easy for one women to believe that she wasn’t showing interest – and the man to believe that she was interested. Or, if they did want to marry and the parents refused to grant them permission, they would have to wait until the girl turned twenty-one – or run off to Scotland to get married. The latter would certainly cause a scandal... and if the girl happened to give birth within a year, High Society would tut-tut and say that they only married because the girl fell pregnant.

  Which is meant to be difficult, Gwen thought, ruefully. They were never meant to be left alone together.

  She felt a moment of sympathy for Lady Elizabeth. She would be tainted by her fiancé’s death, even if it was nothing to do with her. Rumours would follow her for the rest of her life... just as they’d followed Gwen, with far more cause. But there was nothing Gwen could do about that, apart from urging the girl to ignore Society’s whispers. Who cared what they thought?

  “Sir Travis was murdered,” Gwen said, flatly. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”

  “I don’t think that there was anyone in London who would have wanted him dead,” Sir Charles said, after a moment’s thought. “He did have his fair share of enemies in India, but it would be unusual for Indian feuds to spread back to the motherland. India sometimes makes people act... poorly.”

  “We will follow up on it anyway,” Lestrade said through gritted teeth. “What about the Bracknell Family?”

  Sir Charles snorted. “My dear sir, the Bracknell Family agreed to marry their daughter to Travis,” he said. “They would hardly have needed to kill him to refuse permission, particularly as the marriage was not officially announced. All they would have had to do was send back the marriage contract and it would be at an end.”

  Gwen frowned, considering it. Breaking an engagement, even an unannounced one, was sure to lead to a scandal if it became public. But then, if the Bracknell Family had wanted to end it, they would not have made it public – and it was rare for a man to sue for Breach of Promise. A woman might well sue, if only because a broken engagement made it harder for her to make another, but men rarely had that problem.

  “Tell me something,” she said, slipping as much Charm into her voice as she dared, “did Sir Travis have a mistress?”

  Sir Charles slapped his thigh. “Blunt and direct,” he said, looking right at Gwen. “I like it!”

  “Answer the question,” Lestrade ordered, as Gwen flushed.

  “Travis had no mistress in London,” Sir Charles said. “In India...” He cast Gwen an odd look, as if he were pretending to be reluctant to talk. “In India, there
was never any shortage of mistresses for unattached Englishmen. Having one was often a good way to improve one’s grasp of the local tongue. Can you believe that most of the straight-laced officers can barely say ‘get me a gin and tonic, boy’ in Hindi?”

  Gwen shrugged, lowering her eyes to hide her embarrassment. Young men were taught French as well as Latin in schools – and she’d picked up a great deal from her tutors, before she’d scared them away – but she’d never wondered how officers and men in India picked up the local language. But they had to learn; the dispatches she’d read often dwelled on how untrustworthy the natives were, even the interpreters.

  “But I don’t know if that would have mattered to the Bracknell Family,” he added. “What happens in India stays in India. Besides, I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Lord Bracknell had his own mistress in London. Lady Bracknell is a... sour-faced old prune.”

  “No doubt,” Gwen murmured. Women were not supposed to have sex before marriage and definitely not outside marriage – and those who did were forever shamed by Polite Society. But the rules were different for men, as long as they were discreet and took care of any little unintended consequences. She’d known about it since she’d been old enough to work out what really happened to create children, but she hadn’t realised the scale until she’d looked at Doctor Norwell’s notes. Quite a few of the girls who ended up in the farms had come from illicit relationships.

  And upper-class women weren’t supposed to have any interest in sex.

  She pushed that thought aside too and concentrated on the matter at hand. “It does seem unlikely that they would have wanted to murder Sir Travis to end the marriage contract,” she said. “Unless... was there anything particularly special about the contract?”

  “I never saw it, but I would be surprised if there was,” Sir Charles said. “Lady Elizabeth isn’t exactly a ruling Queen.”

  Gwen nodded. He was right; there shouldn’t have been anything in the contract that made murder a more attractive option than simply breaking it off. Or, for that matter, penalising either party, particularly if it were the parents who chose to end the agreement.

  “We’ll look into it,” she said. Maybe she should ask her mother first. “But for the moment...”

  She leaned forward, pushing Charm into her voice. “You have absolutely no idea who might have killed Sir Travis?”

  “None,” Sir Charles said. “It’s a complete mystery.”

  Gwen frowned. For once, she couldn’t tell if the Charm was having any effect at all – let alone if he’d noticed her attempt to use it. A strong-willed person might shrug off the Charm without even noticing it... and yet, he was answering the question.

  “We may wish to speak to you later,” Gwen said, tiredly.

  “So don’t leave London,” Lestrade added.

  “Of course,” Sir Charles said, with another brilliant smile. For a moment, his eyes met Gwen’s. “I shall be at your service, should you wish to see me.”

  “Thank you,” Gwen stammered. There was something about him that attracted her... maybe it was because he was handsome, or perhaps because he seemed to treat her as an equal. Part of her wanted to see him again, even though the rest of her knew that it would be dangerous.

  “There is the issue of the funeral,” Sir Charles added, bluntly. “Will you see to it that I am informed of who is handling the arrangements?”

  “Of course,” Lestrade said. “Once we locate the will, we will see what provisions have been made for his funeral.”

  Gwen watched him escort Sir Charles out of the room, then looked down at her hands. Her emotions made no sense to her at all; her heartbeat suddenly felt very loud in her chest. Was this what it was like to fall in love? Or was it merely attraction? Her mother had never covered that with her daughter. Did she like Sir Charles or was she imagining that she liked Sir Charles?

  And if I do, she asked herself, who do I talk to about it?

  Lady Mary would be useless, of course. She would start planning the wedding at once, even though she had no idea if Sir Charles liked her. Coming to think of it, just what was her legal status? Master Thomas had effectively adopted her before his death; now, was she a free woman or had her legal guardianship gone back to her father? Lord Rudolf Crichton hadn’t tried to claim control over the considerable wealth that Master Thomas had left to her, but marriage was a different story.

  Stop it, you idiot, she told herself, a moment later. You’re acting like a love-struck fool.

  Standing up, she picked up the papers and walked out of the drawing room, down towards the gates where a handful of carriages were waiting for the policemen. The reporters had left, she saw with some relief, apart from a couple who were still hanging around in the hope that something interesting and newsworthy would happen. Gwen scowled at them, climbed into the nearest carriage and issued orders. The coachman cracked the whip and the carriage jerked into life.

  Gwen sat back and concentrated on controlling her emotions. Whatever she had felt, when she looked at Sir Charles, she could not allow it to get in her way. Someone had murdered Sir Travis and she had to find him before he struck again. And if Lord Mycroft couldn’t shed any light on what Sir Travis had been doing for him, Gwen would have to start interviewing suspects and hope she learned something useful.

  And one of them was her own brother.

  She couldn’t help gritting her teeth. That was going to be an awkward conversation.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Diogenes Club was near Whitehall, but not close enough to be automatically considered part of the Establishment. Indeed, most of the Club’s regular members were unaware of its true purpose, unwittingly providing a certain degree of cover for its activities. The Diogenes Club provided a place for government ministers and agents to meet and talk in private, without bringing them to Whitehall. After all, talking was one thing that would never be associated with the Diogenes Club.

  There had been no female members until Gwen had inherited Master Thomas’s membership – and she had a quiet suspicion that it had only been Lord Mycroft’s intervention that had allowed her to keep the membership. The average member of the club came to the Diogenes to get away from the wife and children, according to Master Thomas; they didn’t even permit female servants within the club’s walls. Even so, Gwen didn’t visit very often. The club’s atmosphere only appealed to a certain type of man.

  She jumped out of the carriage and walked up to the doorman, who recognised her at once. The Diogenes had no membership cards; the only way in was through the main door, forcing everyone to pass under the doorman’s gaze. He knew everyone who was allowed into the club and would have denied entry to anyone else, unless they were accompanied by a club member. The doorman nodded to her and stepped aside. Gwen nodded back and stepped into the club.

  Absolute silence fell as soon as the door swung closed behind her. Talking was forbidden within the club, except in a handful of isolated and heavily sound-proofed rooms. Members who spoke out loud – or even ate too loudly - could be fined or, as a last resort, evicted from the club permanently. Very few former members were ever allowed to reapply.

  The receptionist looked up at her as she approached, one eyebrow lifted questioningly. Gwen picked up the book of members and tapped Lord Mycroft’s name; the receptionist turned and pointed to a diagram on the wall, indicating that Lord Mycroft was in one of the private dining rooms. Gwen smiled at him, nodded in acknowledgement and headed for the stairs. At least she wouldn’t have to face him in one of the larger rooms, where the slightest sound could bring the guards.

  She glanced into the first floor as she walked up the stairs. A handful of chairs were scattered around, with men sitting in them reading the newspapers or a handful of heavy books. Most of them were smoking heavily, the stench making Gwen’s nose twitch unpleasantly. Healers had proved that smoking Tobacco was bad for human lungs, but they hadn’t managed to discourage very many smokers from continuing to smoke. Gwen hadn
’t even tried to ban magicians from smoking.

  The third floor was divided into a handful of rooms, ensuring absolute privacy for the diners and their guests. Gwen smiled as a steward intercepted her before she could reach Lord Mycroft’s room. She held up her card, which he read quickly, blinking in surprise. Between her suit and the darkened corridor, her femininity had simply passed unnoticed. He must be new, Gwen decided, as he took the card down the corridor. If Lord Mycroft refused to see her, the stewards would evict her with as much force as necessary. The club took very good care of its members.

  He returned a moment later and beckoned her forward, past a long series of closed doors, to one door that had been left on the latch. Gwen opened it and stepped inside, spotting Lord Mycroft on the other side of a large table. He was splitting his attention between a dinner of roast beef and a small pile of paperwork from the office.

  “Lady Gwen,” he said, as the door clicked closed behind her. The door was locked; only the right key could open it from the outside. “Would you care for something to eat? Or drink? They do a very good roast beef here, with excellent potatoes...”

  Gwen sat down facing him and picked up the menu. Recently, there had been a fashion for Turkish food sweeping London – a reaction to Turkey’s recent defeat of a French-backed revolution in Greece – but the Diogenes paid no lip service to such brief fads. The menu was typically English, with only a handful of dishes that came from outside the British Isles. For most of the club’s members, she knew, the haggis would be exotic enough.

  “A beef sandwich, I think,” she said, marking it on a sheet of paper and dropping it down the tube to the kitchen. They’d send the meal up through the dumbwaiter, minimising contact between the staff and the club members. “What was Sir Travis doing for you?”

  Lord Mycroft didn’t object to her interrupting his dinner. “Diplomacy,” he said, simply. “As a Sensitive, he was very capable of seeing what the other side actually wanted in negotiations.”