Necropolis (Royal Sorceress Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

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