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  “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…

  Chapter Nine

  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.”

  That, of course, was so easily done that Reggie didn’t even trouble to comment on it. They hadn’t even begun to set up a workspace here at Oakhurst, and at the moment, it was probably wiser not to bother.

  “I liked that little speech about your properties, by the way, mater,” Reggie continued, watching her with hooded eyes. “It was all the better for having the ring of sincerity.”

  She had to laugh herself at that. “Well of course, it was sincere. I don’t want or need Oakhurst. But you—”

  “Which brings me to the next question, Mother Dear. Are we taking the marriage option?” There was a gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes that indicated he didn’t find this at all displeasing.

  “I think we should pursue it,” she replied firmly. “There is nothing in any of our other plans that would interfere with it, or be interfered with by it. But it does depend on you exerting yourself to be charming, my sweet.” She reached out to touch his hand with one extended index finger. He caught the hand and pressed a kiss on the back of it.

  “Now that I’ve seen the wench, I’m not averse,” he responded readily enough. “She’s not a bad looking little filly, and as I said, once your people have trained her, she’ll be quite comely. So long as there’s nothing going on with her in that area of magic that physical congress could complicate, once wedded and bedded, we’ll have absolute control over her.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which—”

  “Indeed,” Arachne said warmly. “It is your turn, isn’t it? Well, run along, dear; take the gig and the fast horses, and try to be back by dawn.”

  Reggie stood up, kissed his mother’s hand again, and saluted her as he straightened. “I go, but to return. This little play, I fancy, is going to prove utterly fascinating.”

  Arachne studied the graceful line of his back as he strode away, and felt her lips curve in a slight smile. He was so very like her—it was a good thing he was her son, and not her mate.

  Because if she had been married to him or had been his lover—well, he was so like her that she would have felt forced, eventually to kill him. And that would have been a great pity.

  Marina had never felt so lost and alone in her life. Nor so utterly off balance. Luncheon was an ordeal. And it was just as well that Marina had no appetite at all, because she would have been half sick before she actually got to eat anything.

  The maid—or rather, keeper—led her to a huge room with a long, polished table in it that would easily have seated a hundred. It was covered at a single place with a snowy linen tablecloth, and she saw as she neared that there was a single place setting laid out there.

  But such a place setting! There was so much silverware that she could have furnished everyone at a meal at Blackbird Cottage with a knife, fork, and spoon! There were six differently shaped glasses, and many different sizes of plates, some of which were stacked three high immediately in front of the chair. With the maid standing over her, and a manservant to pull out the chair, she seated herself carefully, finding the corset binding under her breasts and under her arms as she did so.

  And the first thing the footman did when she was seated was to take away the plates that had been immediately in front of her.

  After some fussing at a sideboard behind her—and she only surmised it was a sideboard, because she thought she heard some subdued china—and—cutlery sounds—he returned, and placed a shallow bowl of broth resting on a larger plate in front of her. At least, she thought it was broth. There was no discernible aroma, and it looked like water that oak leaves had been steeping in for a very short time.

  If this is what rich people eat—I’m not impressed. She picked up a spoon at random.

  But before she could even get it near the bowl, the maid coughed in clear disapproval. Marina winced.

  Arachne had hammered her with questions about “could she properly eat” all manner of things that she had never heard of. It seemed that meals were going to be part of her education.

  She picked up another spoon. Another cough.

  At this rate, she thought, looking at the other five spoons beside the plated soup, I’ll never get any of this into my mouth…

  The third try, though, was evidently the right one. Her triumph was short-lived, however. She leaned forward.

  Another cough sent her bolt upright, as if she’d had a board strapped to her back. The cough warned her that a full spoon was also de trap. Evidently only a few drops in the bottom of the bowl of the spoon were appropriate, which was just as well, since she was evidently required to sit straight-spined and look directly ahead and not at what she was doing, as she raised the nearly empty spoon to her lips to sip—not drink—the soup. The spoon was not to go into the mouth; only the rim was to touch the lips. The broth, by now cold, tasted faintly of the spirit of the beef that had made it. And it was going to take forever to finish it.

  Except that after only six or seven spoonfuls, the footman took it away, and returned with something else—

  She blinked at it. Was it a salad? Perhaps—there seemed to be beet root inv
olved in it somehow.

  A cough recalled her to her task—for it was a task, and not a meal—and she sorted through silverware again until she found the right combinations. And this time, coughs directed her through a complicated salute of knife and fork before she was cutting a tiny portion correctly.

  Two mouthfuls, and again the food was removed, to be replaced by something else.

  In the end, luncheon, an affair that usually took no more than a quarter of an hour at home, had devoured an hour and a half of her time—perhaps two hours—and had left her feeling limp with nervous exhaustion. She had gotten something like a meal, though hardly as full a meal as a real luncheon would have been, but the waste of food was nothing short of appalling! And there had been nothing, nothing there that would have satisfied the appetite of a healthy, hungry person. There was a great deal of sauce, of garnish, of fripperies of hothouse lettuce and cress, but it all tasted utterly pale, bland, and insipid. The bread had no more flavor than a piece of pasteboard; the cheese was an afterthought. Even the chicken—at least, she thought it was chicken—was a limp, overcooked ghost of a proper bird.

  No wonder Aunt Arachne is so pale, she thought wearily, as the silent footman removed her chair so she could leave the table, if she’s eating nothing but food like this.

  Her headache had returned, and all she wanted was to go back to that stifling room and lie down—but evidently that was not in the program for the afternoon.

  “Miss will be coming with me to the library,” Mary Anne said, sounding servile enough, but it was very clear to Marina that there was going to be no argument about it. “Madam wishes me to show her to her desk, where she is to study.”

  Oh yes… study. After that interview with Aunt Arachne, Marina thought she had a pretty good idea just what it was that her aunt wanted her to study, and indeed, she was right.