The Gates of Sleep (21 page)

Authoritarian? That’s a mild term for kidnapping
and drugging!

“But I did it for your own good, dear,” Arachne
concluded, as Marina had known she would. “I have been in society;
you
have not. Your former guardians may believe that it is possible to live above
or beyond the social laws, but it is not. Not unless you wish to live a lonely
and miserable existence, estranged from your peers, shunned by your equals,
despised by your superiors. If you don’t
object
to living here
as a hermit on this estate for the rest of your life, well and good—but I
should think that you would far rather find doors opening to you in welcome.”

She couldn’t help it; for years now, Marina had read
the social pages in the newspaper, drunk in the descriptions of the glittering
parties, the events, the receptions. She had pored over the sketches and
photographs, and wished that her sketch or photograph could be among
them… not that she aspired to the status of a PB, but the exciting round
of the social scene beckoned so beguilingly.

Arachne chuckled, as if she could read Marina’s
thoughts. “Well, niece, your parents might have shunned my company, but I
can assure you that no one else looks askance at the source of my wealth. The
day, thank heaven, is long past when those who were born to rank and wealth can
sneer down their noses at those who merely acquired it through hard work. And
let me put one more possible fear of yours to rest—I have no interest in
your inheritance. I am probably worth twice what you are; I own three pottery
manufactories outright, and am partner in a fourth. I am also accepted in the
best company; and I have every intention of seeing that you are accepted there
as well. But first—” she sighed theatrically “—it is
just as well that you are in mourning and cannot be expected to appear in
public for the next year, because you will need to work very hard before you
are ready for that society.”

Oh, really?
Anger flared at her aunt’s
assumptions, and Marina felt her chin jut out stubbornly. “I know Latin,
Greek, French, Italian, and German, ma’am,” she objected, anger
making her speak in a formal and stilted manner. “I am familiar with a
wide spectrum of literature and enough science to satisfy a university
examiner. I have read every London paper published for the past five years. I
am hardly ignorant.”

“Do you know how to properly address a duke, a
countess, or a bishop?” Arachne countered, sharpness coming into her
voice for the first time. “I am painfully aware that you do not know how
to dress—do you know what to do at a formal dinner? Could you eat
ortolan
or escargot or lobster without disgracing yourself? Can you compose the
appropriate invitations for a garden party, a masquerade ball, and a formal
dinner? Do you know when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate to
discuss politics? Could you sit at dinner with the Archbishop of Canterbury on
your left and a professional beauty on your right, and entertain both with your
conversation?” As Marina sat there, eyes wide, Arachne continued
ruthlessly. “How much is it appropriate to leave as a tip for the
servants of your host at a shooting party? Do you know how to decide which
invitations to decline and which to accept, and how to do both in such a way
that your would-be hostess is neither left feeling that you are fawning on her
nor insulting her? You may have a great deal of
knowledge,
child, but
you have no
learning’
And you have a great deal to learn.”

Finally she released Marina’s hands. “Never
fear. I am going to see to it that you are fit for society. By the time you are
out of mourning, you will be able to take your place among polite society with
confidence. Now, I have work to do, and so do you.” She rang a bell on
her desk, and the maid Mary Anne opened the door promptly. She must have been
waiting just outside. “Mary Anne will take you to the dining room, where
you will begin your education with your luncheon.”

Marina rose, feeling as limp as a stalk of boiled celery.
Arachne picked up a paper from her desk and began to read it. Seeing no other
option, Marina turned and followed the stiff back of the maid out of the room.

It seemed that lack of options was going to be her life for
the foreseeable future.

But not forever,
she promised herself.
But not
forever…

ARACHNE felt that her first interview with her niece had
gone quite well. She’d kept the girl off-balance, inserted some doubts in
her mind—and despite the girl’s protestations to the contrary, she
was not particularly impressed with Marina’s intelligence. On the whole,
she was, well, naive. Which was exactly how Arachne wanted things to remain.

She had the upper hand and kept it throughout the
conversation—and discovered within the first couple of sentences that,
contrary to her expectations, evidently no one had told the child anything
about the curse or her aunt. How and why that had come about, she could not
guess, but it gave her an advantage that she had never dreamed of having. With
no expectations to counter, no preconceptions about her captor, it would be
child’s play to manipulate the girl and her emotions.

Arachne was no fool; within a year she had known that her
curse had somehow misfired, and that the child had been removed into hiding.
After an initial campaign to find the girl failed utterly, she had sat back and
reconsidered her options for an entire year.

She had concentrated on consolidating her
financial—and magical—position for the first five years. At the end
of that time, she had solidified her social position, ensuring that any odd
tales or accusations would be dismissed as lunatic raving. She had competent
overseers in place who were absolutely terrified of her, enabling her to take
her immediate attention off her manufactories and simply let the money
accumulate. She had a very great deal of that money. And she had an
impenetrable magical sanctuary. If she had been able to baffle her brother and
his Elemental Mage friends before, she would be completely invisible and
invulnerable now.

That was when she insinuated one single agent of her own
into the office of their legal man and had their will destroyed. Then she
worked one single, very powerful spell, to make everyone who had ever touched
that will forget that it had ever existed. With Hugh and Alanna certain that,
no matter what happened to them, Marina was safe until her majority—with
the instrument of that safety gone—Arachne had ten years, more or less,
to allow her campaign to mature.

So she bided her time, installed her own spies in Devon and
Tuscany, and awaited the opportunity to strike—not at the child, which
they were expecting, but at Hugh and Alanna themselves. She’d had plenty
of practice already. After all, she had already eliminated her own parents, and
Alanna’s, though by means more mundane than magical.

She had known that the moment Hugh and Alanna were gone,
the legal men would contact
her
—and once they were gone,
intestate, leaving Arachne the only possible legal guardian, the law would give
Arachne access to everything. Then it was just a simple matter of going through
the carefully saved letters; putting them under lock and key did no good when
Arachne was the keeper of the keys. Then, before the Tarrants got word of the
tragedy themselves and spirited the child away—pounce. Stun them with the
news of the deaths of their friends, and snatch the girl away with the backing
of lawyers and police—that was the plan, and it worked to perfection.
More than perfection, she had anticipated that the girl would have been warned,
and that she might have to resort to any one of a number of complicated
schemes, and at the least she would have had a dreadful struggle keeping her
under control, until she decided what was to be done about her.
Instead—the chit knew nothing—and Arachne’s task had just
been simplified enormously.

After she called Mary Anne back into the room to take the
girl in charge, she pretended to read an invoice while the footsteps receded
into the distance. She wasn’t the only one waiting; after a moment, the
door into the next room creaked, and her son Reggie stepped through.

She put the invoice down, and smiled at him. She was quite
proud of him; he took entirely after her, and not after her late husband, who
had been a pale and colorless sort of chap, although he’d been as cunning
as a fox when it came to business.

Not cunning enough, though. Not at all curious about her
associates, and what he called her “little hobbies.” Not at all
careful about what he ate.

Reggie had inherited his cunning, which he turned to all
manner of things, not just business. He had sailed through university, not
troubling to make the effort for a First or Second because all he wanted was
the degree. It wasn’t as if he was going to have to earn a living by
means of it, so he enjoyed himself—and made social contacts. A great many
social contacts. He was greatly sought after for every sort of party; facile,
well-spoken, beautifully mannered and handsome, he made the perfect escort for
any unaccompanied woman, and was guaranteed to charm.

Reggie could have any young woman he chose, to tell the
truth, between his darkly stunning good looks and his—her—money.
His only faults were that he was lazy and arrogant, and women were more than
inclined to overlook both those flaws in the face of charm, wealth, and
ravishing features.

“Well?” she asked, as he dropped carelessly
down into the chair that the girl had just vacated.

“She’ll do—once your people bend her into
the proper shape of lady.” He examined his fingernails with care, then
graced her with a dazzling smile. “Properly subdued, she’ll be
ornamental enough, for as long as we choose to keep her. But I confess, I
cannot
imagine why no one ever told her about you!”

“Neither can I,” Arachne admitted. “And
for a moment, I toyed with the idea that she was feigning ignorance. But that
child is as transparent as crystal; she couldn’t hide a secret if her
life depended on it.”

Reggie laughed, showing very white teeth. “Appropriate,
considering how much her life does depend on your will. How long do you intend
to keep her?”

“I don’t know yet,” Arachne admitted,
with a frown. “I don’t know why my curse has gone dormant, for one
thing, and I don’t intend to do anything until I know the answer to that.
She looks perfectly ordinary, magically speaking, with little more power than
Mary Anne, so it can’t be her doing.”

“Your brother?” Reggie suggested, with a nod at
the painting above the fireplace of the former owner of Oakhurst—a
painting that Arachne intended to remove as soon as she could find something
else that would fit there. Perhaps that landscape painting of a Roman ruin that
was in the gallery. It would do until she could have a view of one of her
manufactories commissioned.

“Hugh and Alanna were Earth Masters, but no more, and
not outstandingly powerful. I think not. Whatever the cause, it must have been
something that Hugh and Alanna had done to her.” She rested both elbows
on the desktop, and propped her chin on one slender hand, watching him
thoughtfully. “That, in itself, is interesting. I didn’t think they’d
know anyone who’d even guess what I’d done, much less find a
counter to it. I confess, I’m intrigued… it’s a pretty
puzzle.”

Reggie laughed again. “Perhaps that was why they sent
her away in the first place. You know, you were right—it was useful to
get that university degree in a science. Applying principles of science to
magic, I can think of any number of theoretical things that could have been
done to your curse. It occurred to me, for instance, that some sort of
dampening or draining effect could account for the failure of the curse, and it
might affect everything around her. You know, she might actually function as a
kind of grounding wire draining the magic of those around her.”

Arachne studied him for a moment; sometimes he threw things
out as a red herring, just to see if she pursued them into dead ends he’d
already foreseen, but this time she thought he was offering something genuine. “An
interesting thought. But then, why would other Elemental Masters be willing to
take her in, if she’d be a drain on their power?”

“It depends entirely on how much they used their
magic,” he replied, steepling his fingers over his chest. “Not
every Elemental Master cares about magic; some seem to be content to be merely
the custodians of it.”

She tapped her cheek with one long finger. “True. And
the more deeply buried in rustication, the less they seem to care.”

“Such as the artists in question,” Reggie
nodded. “My guess is, they used magic very little, not enough to miss its
loss, considering that their real energy goes into art.” He looked
sideways at her, shrewdly. “And it also depends on how powerful they were
to begin with. If the answer is, ‘not very,’ then they were losing
very little to gain a great deal. I have no doubt that Hugh compensated them
well to care for his daughter.”

“Not as well as I would have thought,” Arachne
replied, thoughtfully. “Not nearly as well as I would have thought,
according to the accounts. Unless he disguised extra payments in some way.”

“Perhaps he did—or perhaps it was paid in
gifts, or in favors, instead—clients for paintings, for instance. Or
perhaps the Tarrants are merely good
Christians.”
The sneer in
his voice made her smile—”And they considered it their
Christian
duty to raise the poor child, afflicted as she was with a terrible curse.”

“Considering that the girl and the Tarrant woman were
out on a Boxing Day delivery to the local padre when my men came for her, that
may well be the case,” Arachne admitted. “Until we’re sure,
though, that there is no such effect around her, we had better do
our
work well away from her.”