Or put his hand in her pants, she thought, as she donned her street clothes. But that isn't likely to happen, is it?
She hurried back downstairs and met Irene waiting behind the door, looking like a surprisingly dapper young man. Irene looked Raechel up and down, nodded curtly in approval and led the way out onto the streets. It was still warm, even though the sun was beginning its long fall towards the horizon. Irene picked a route at random and Raechel followed her, trying desperately to memorise landmarks as she moved. Some of Irene’s more practical lessons had concentrated on finding her way back home, after wandering through a random part of the city.
They didn't attract any attention, she noted to her relief; indeed, they blended in surprisingly well. The Americans came in all shapes, sizes and colours; she couldn't help noticing that the darker the skin, the more attention they received from other men. Being black had to be a social handicap, she realised, even though she’d found her uncle’s butler - Romulus - to be a very smart man, as well as a deep-cover agent. There was a strange tension in the air that was so thick she could practically cut it with a knife.
And the women are hurrying off the streets as night falls, she thought. For the first time, she understood why Irene liked wearing male clothing. That’s not a good sign.
“Too many separate bars,” Irene muttered, as darkness fell over the city. “Do you know what that means?”
Raechel shook her head. She would never have been allowed in a working man’s bar in her old life. The men were drinking sullenly, pouring the beer down their throats as if it were water. They didn't seem cheerful.
“Too many different groups, too little integration,” Irene commented. She kept her voice very low, although there was no one in earshot. “Everyone has their own bars. Do you know what that means?”
“No,” Raechel said. The crew on the ship hadn't been allowed in the officer’s mess, but that wasn't the same ... was it? “I don’t.”
“Too much dislike and hatred among different groups,” Irene said. She turned to lead the way back to the house. “If they can't even drink together at the end of a long day, they’ll find it easy to believe the others are all having special advantages, while they’re being put down and exploited. And that’s going to end badly.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The Honourable Lady Gwendolyn Crichton,” the announcer said, his voice echoing through the ballroom. “Royal Sorceress of Great Britain and her Empire.”
Gwen kept her face fixed in a polite smile as she descended the stairwell into the ballroom, grimly aware of hundreds of people staring at her. She’d made the decision to wear her suit, rather than a fancy gown, even though it would shock the gathered crowd. But she needed them to think of her as a man, or something as close to masculine as possible, rather than a young girl.
It was a large ballroom, she noted as her swept the chamber, looking for names and faces she’d seen mentioned in the files. Nearly two hundred men and women had arrived ahead of her, the younger ones moving smoothly around the ballroom floor while their elders were standing along the wall, talking quietly in small groups. The real business of government would be done in private rooms, Gwen knew; the ball itself acted as an informal place to meet and relax before and after the private negotiations. She caught sight of the Viceroy, holding court near the foot of the stairs and strode towards him.
The dance music changed, becoming something lighter as more couples flowed onto the floor, watched by prowling chaperones. Gwen couldn't help noticing that, while the young men wore suits and ties, the young women wore dresses that would have attracted very stringent comments back in Britain. The American noblewomen seemed less concerned about displaying the shape of their bodies, or the tops of their breasts; one dark-haired girl who danced past was wearing a skirt that didn't fall past her knees. Gwen dreaded to imagine what the society matrons in Britain would have said about her, if they didn't have a collective heart attack on the spot. The older noblewomen didn’t seem so concerned about what the younger ones wore, even the chaperones.
They’re rebelling, Gwen thought. They’re wearing those clothes to say they don’t care about our social conventions.
She shook her head grimly. After Jack - and Raechel - she wasn’t naive enough to believe that the genteel surface of the ton was anything more than a facade, but most rebellious urges were satisfied out of sight and mind of the social matrons. Raechel’s club had been shocking, yet it had been hidden away in a side street, officially ignored by those in power. But there, the signs of open resistance and rebellion were all around her. It boded ill for the future.
“Lady Gwen,” Rochester said. The Viceroy wore a resplendent uniform that made him look like a senior officer, right down to the sword on his belt. His cronies, the men surrounding him, looked hardly less magnificent. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Gwen said. It wasn't entirely truthful, but she was starting to think that she’d learn a great deal by attending the ball. “This is very much like London.”
“Isn’t it just?” The Viceroy said. He motioned her forward, pitching his voice so low Gwen could barely hear him. “We’ll be talking a great deal over the next few days, I shouldn't wonder, so I’d like you to take this opportunity to relax and mingle. We have to make a show of confidence.”
“I understand,” Gwen said. She’d found the time to read a couple of broadsheets while working at the Sorcerers Hall, which - just like their British counterparts - had a nasty habit of reporting rumours as fact. “Rumours are spreading wildly.”
“True,” Rochester said. “Let us see who we have here.”
He nodded to a number of men as they gathered together, allowing their wives and children to seek the fun of the dance hall. Gwen listened, silently grateful for her mother’s lessons, as the Viceroy pointed out the movers and shakers of the American political scene. She wasn't surprised, not really, to discover that a number of Whigs had been invited to the ball, along with the loyalist Tories. Like in Britain, families were rarely solidly Whig or Tory. The oldest families had always bet on both sides in any political dispute.
“And this is my son, Bruce,” Rochester concluded. “My wife’s greatest gift to me.”
Gwen frowned, inwardly, as Bruce gave her an uninterested look. He was a year or two older than herself, she recalled, but it was clear he lacked his father’s skills. Rochester was a talented soldier and a gifted administrator; Bruce had simply never had the chance to make anything of himself. Gwen would have been sorry for him, if he’d been a woman, but as a man he had ample opportunity to make a life for himself out of his father’s shadow. Going to sea would definitely make a man of him. The howling seas didn’t care if a man was the highest of aristocrats or the lowest of commoners.
He was handsome enough, she supposed, but his face lacked character. His brown hair was long, framing a face that bore no hint of struggle or wisdom. Indeed, there was a hint of powder on his face, a French fashion that had never really caught on in Britain. Gwen couldn't help mentally comparing Bruce Rochester to Sir Charles and finding him lacking in all respects. Sir Charles might have been a traitor, a murderer and a cad, but no one could say he’d been lacking in character.
“I say, Your Excellency,” a loud voice barked. “When are you going to do something about the slaves!”
Gwen turned. A florid-faced man was standing behind the Viceroy, holding a large glass of wine in one hand. Gwen would have bet good money that it wasn't his first, judging from his flushed face. Behind him, a young man was looking embarrassed. His son, she guessed, resisting the urge to shoot him a look of sympathy. David and she might have been lucky with their father, but some fathers were just hideously embarrassing.
The Viceroy took it in stride. “Lord Boone,” he said. “What do you propose I do about the slaves?”
“Treacherous literature has been found in the slave hovels, again,” Lord Boone proclaimed, his voice ec
hoing through the room. “We had to hang a dozen bucks just to make sure it didn't spread, what?”
“It’s really very simple,” another man said. He oozed his way into the group, a hint of malicious amusement crossing his face. “The slaves want to be free. And can you blame them?”
“We take care of them,” Lord Boone thundered. “They shouldn't be learning to read!”
He turned to the Viceroy. “Your Excellency, we need additional troops to watch the slaves,” he said. He didn't seem to be capable of speaking quietly. “The French have been peddling their lies again!”
“They are not lying,” the second man said. He tapped the side of his chin meaningfully. “I would wager a thousand pounds that your slaves want to be free.”
Lord Boone rounded on him. “The African is unable to even feed himself without help from his betters,” he snarled. “Freedom? They wouldn't know what to do with freedom!”
Gwen rather doubted that was true. Romulus had been a very smart man, held back by the colour of his skin. The slaves might know nothing of the world beyond their plantations, but she didn't blame them for wanting to try to be free. God knew she’d wanted to be free of her parents too ... and there had been times when she’d been able to delude herself that she wasn't their property, something a slave would never be able to forgot.
“Mark my words,” Lord Boone snarled. “They’ll all be dead in a year after they are freed!”
“No doubt,” the Viceroy agreed. “Bruce, why don’t you take Lady Gwen onto the dance floor” - the two men stared at her in shock, as if they’d only just realised she was a girl - “while I discuss this matter in private.”
“Yes, father,” Bruce said. Even his voice was curiously flat, Gwen noted. He held out a hand to Gwen. “If you’ll do me the honour, Lady Gwen?”
Gwen would have preferred not to dance, but she suspected she didn't have a choice. Taking his arm, she allowed him to lead her onto the floor and around the room, moving in tune with the music. He was a surprisingly good dancer, she noted, although that shouldn't really be a surprise. Dancing was so much part of the aristocratic tradition that children learned how to dance from the moment they could walk upright.
“No one really cares about the slaves,” he said, quietly. “There are factions here - the freemen - who would prefer to just ship them to the French.”
“And other factions that will fight to keep them,” Gwen guessed, coldly. She closed her eyes in pain. Slaves were property. The anti-slavery campaigners in Britain had been unable to convince Parliament to ban the slave trade, if only because of its economic importance. If nothing else, compensating the slaveowners for their human merchandise would be a major drain on the empire’s resources. “Why?”
“No one likes change,” Bruce said. He looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time. “I understand you were in London during the Swing?”
“I was,” Gwen said, curtly. She didn't want to talk about it, but a good relationship with the Viceroy’s son was essential. “It was ... bad.”
“But the poor rose up and held London for several days,” Bruce said. There was a hint of genuine animation in his voice. “It must have been quite something!”
“It was nightmarish,” Gwen said. She didn't want to think about rebels ravaging London - or what Master Thomas had done in a desperate attempt to stop them. “Thousands of people died in the fighting. Even now, the city has not recovered.”
“They won, though,” Bruce added. “Didn’t they?”
Gwen shrugged. The government had made a number of concessions, after the Swing, but how much had life really changed? Universal suffrage and secret ballots hadn’t made that much of a difference, had it? Sure, there were commoner magicians in the Royal Sorcerers Corps and a few more politicians of humble origins, but really ... life had largely gone on as it had before the Swing.
And other things didn't change at all, she thought, darkly. Women are still the property of their families, slaves are still slaves, servants are still beaten and abused by their masters ...
“I heard a great deal about Jack,” Bruce said. “Was he really a hero?”
“He died saving Britain from the French,” Gwen lied. It was the official line, afterwards, and there was an immense statue outside Charing Cross to prove it. “He may have been misguided, but he was a true hero.”
She cursed inwardly. Jack might have died stopping the undead - although it had been Olivia who’d stopped them permanently - but the full truth had been carefully buried. Blaming the necromantic outbreak on the French was safer than admitting that the British Government had unleashed the monsters in hopes of bringing the rebellion to a speedy close.
Bruce lifted his eyebrows. “Misguided?”
“Jack felt - deeply - the plight of the poor,” Gwen said. She still had nightmares about some of the harsh truths he’d shown her, that dreadful night. “He blamed the aristocracy for keeping the poor in such conditions. But I don’t think he had any real plan to shift from occupying London to actually taking control of the country and governing it. He couldn't take power for himself, let alone pass power to the poor.”
“I see,” Bruce said.
Gwen eyed him, darkly. “Why are you so interested in the Swing?”
“We heard stories, but there was very little reliable,” Bruce said. “I didn't know what to believe.”
“Jack was a good man and he was a bad man,” Gwen said. Jack had spared her life, when he could have cut her throat with ease and shown her the darkness underpinning the aristocratic world. But he’d also killed dozens of men personally and organised an uprising that had killed thousands more. “That is something you can believe.”
She felt an odd flicker of sympathy for Bruce. His father was the Viceroy, true, but it wasn't a title that would pass down to Rochester’s son when he died. Bruce would inherit a title - and lands as well, unless she was much mistaken - yet it wouldn’t compare to the authority wielded by his father. He was in the odd position of being linked to power, but unable to claim it for himself. Even David had a stronger position than Bruce.
Bruce sighed. “Do you think the Swing was doomed from the start?”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know,” she said, finally. She assumed Jack had had a plan to deal with the regiments outside the city, but she had no idea what it might have been. Had he thought the regiments would mutiny? “I do know that it caused a great deal of damage.”
“But it achieved some of its aims,” Bruce countered. “Didn’t it?”
“I suppose,” Gwen said. “But ...”
She broke off as she saw Raechel and Irene appear at the top of the stairs. Raechel wore a long green dress that flattered her body, her red curls falling down in ringlets until they brushed her shoulders. Beside her, Irene looked older, although Gwen would have been hard-pressed to say how. It was something in the way she held herself, Gwen decided, after a long moment. Irene was in her late twenties, yet she walked like an older woman. It was easy to believe she was clinging desperately to what little beauty she had left.
“Lady Irene Darlington and Lady Raechel Slater-Standish,” the announcer called.
Gwen couldn’t help noticing that, in her own way, Raechel drew as much attention as Gwen herself. Older woman eyed her calculatingly, while young men stared and young woman fumed. Raechel wasn't just beautiful, Gwen knew; she was heir to a quite considerable fortune. The man who married her would become instantly wealthy, no matter what the marriage contract said. No one would expect Raechel to deny her husband the use of her money.
And it’s more than just wealth, Gwen thought, as she turned back to Bruce. It’s access to some of the very highest levels of society.
“I understand you were with her on the voyage,” Bruce said, as the music changed into a slow waltz. “Was she as boring as she looks?”
Gwen blinked in surprise. She hadn't expected that reaction. Bruce was unmarried. Gwen would have bet hal
f her fortune that Rochester had told his son to try to woo Raechel, pointing out that it was a chance to catapult the family up the social ladder. And yet, Bruce wasn't interested? How could he not be interested? Even if he had a taste for the intimate company of men ... well, he’d hardly be the first of that kind to have a marriage that looked perfect, at least from the outside.
“We had little in common,” Gwen said. As far as anyone outside the government was concerned, she and Raechel were nothing more than acquaintances. “She had to leave England for a while, the poor girl.”
“Ah,” Bruce said. “And my father seems to wish to speak with you.”
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