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.The undead seemed to have had the faces of her family.she had woken up at six in the morning, drenched in sweat and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep.“You have some letters,” Martha said.Somehow, her maid always seemed to know when she was awake.“Three of them look quite important.”Gwen scowled.She’d briefed the clerks carefully on what they could handle, what could be passed to Doctor Norwell and what had to be put aside for her, but she expected some teething problems.At least Doctor Norwell could supervise them for a couple of days, after which she would have to place her trust in the young men.But anything addressed to her personally would probably be given to her.She took the letters from Martha and inspected them carefully.Five of them looked to be letters from people who expected the Royal Sorceress to drop everything and help them with their problem; she put them aside for later attention and looked at the important letters.One of them was clearly from Lord Mycroft – she recognised his clerk’s handwriting – but the other two were unfamiliar, even though one of them was written in a feminine hand.Puzzled, she opened the envelope and scanned the letter quickly.“Lady Elizabeth Bracknell requests the honour of Lady Gwendolyn Crichton’s company,” she read out loud, “and would be happy to host her at Bracknell Hall.”It was a puzzling letter; Lady Elizabeth had written as if she’d been writing to a man, rather than to another woman.Gwen’s position in London was somewhat atypical, but she didn’t need to be so formal.And if she were inviting Gwen to a ball, why not say so? It sounded more like she wanted a private discussion.There was certainly no time or date attached, suggesting that Gwen could set her own time.She reread the letter to see if there was anything she’d missed, but found nothing.At a guess.Lady Elizabeth was unused to sending letters requesting anyone’s presence, which did make a certain kind of sense.One didn’t send formal invitations to one’s girlfriends to visit.unless a formal ball was planned, whereupon sending an invitation was officially required.But Gwen was hardly one of Lady Elizabeth’s girlfriends.Gwen sat down at her desk, found a writing pad and a pen, and sketched out a quick reply, promising to visit the following morning.Lord Bracknell had a flat in Pall Mall – like everyone else with the connections and money to secure one – but his wife and daughter lived out on the edge of London, near some prime hunting ground.Gwen made a mental note to check up on the family’s finances before visiting, just in case they had an additional motive for murdering Sir Travis.But it seemed unlikely that they would murder him and then ask the person investigating his murder to visit their home.Once she’d sealed the reply in an envelope and dropped it down the chute to the mail room, she opened the second letter.David had ordered it sent, the cover letter stated; it was a copy of Sir Travis’s will.The writer had added a note saying that she would have received a copy anyway, something that puzzled her until she looked at the top sheet of the will.Sir Travis had appointed the Royal Sorcerer as the executor.He must have meant Master Thomas, she thought, as she checked the date.The will had been written nine months ago, back before Gwen had been an apprentice.Sir Travis, like everyone else, must have assumed that Master Thomas was effectively immortal, if only because no one had wanted to think about what would happen when he died.And if Master Thomas had known about him.She scowled.There was probably an explanation somewhere within Master Thomas’s notes, but she had yet to find it.Just another matter that he hadn’t had time to tell her before he died, if he’d decided to share it at all.For all she knew, Sir Travis had been quietly delighted not to have to report to a slip of a girl.Pushing the thought aside, she skimmed through the will quickly, looking for anything that might have provided a motive for murder.There was almost nothing; the estate was to go to his closest living relative, along with almost all of his possessions.A set of notebooks and a small sum of money were to go to Sir Charles – there was a wry comment in the will that they should help him write his dispatches that made Gwen smile – and another small sum of money was to go to Polly.Not enough to let her avoid working for the rest of her life, Gwen noted, but enough to give her a few options she wouldn’t otherwise have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]