Witch Finder Read online

  ‘Carriages?’ Luke said stupidly. ‘What carriages?’

  ‘What carridges!’ The old man laughed, but kindly. ‘What carridges, he arsts, as if he’s been in Timbuktoo the great while. Why, there’s a ball tonight. The Knyvets allus throw a great ball the last night of the house party, and then they returns to London for the rest of the season. It’s the finest thing for miles around, and the great lords and ladies come from all over the county, aye, and from London too.’

  ‘They’re saying summat else too, tonight,’ came a voice from over their shoulders, and turning Luke saw a tall cheerful lad that he half recognized from the servants’ hall. He searched his memory for a name; it didn’t come, but he remembered who the lad was: Knyvet’s groom.

  ‘Wassat then, young Wilkes?’ said the old man.

  ‘They’re saying in the servants’ hall as there’ll be an engagement announced.’

  ‘An engagement?’ Luke said sharply. He didn’t know why the suggestion hurt like a hot coal.

  ‘Aye. Seemingly Mr Sebastian sent down to the safe for his grandmother’s engagement ring. An’ I don’t suppose he wants it for his own finger.’

  They laughed together, Wilkes and the old man, companionable and low.

  ‘Who’s it for?’ Luke’s grip was hard on the shaft of the broom, until he felt it might snap between his fingers.

  ‘Who’s the lucky girl, you mean?’ Wilkes said. The laughter was still in his eyes as he answered. ‘Well, that’d be telling. But there’s nothing like a scrape with the hereafter to make a chap realize how much he values a lady.’

  ‘And who says she’ll say yes?’ Luke demanded. He knew that his voice was full of an anger they’d never understand, that his face was stiff with a fury he had no right and no reason to feel.

  ‘Who says she’ll accept?’ Wilkes’ round pleasant face was astonished. ‘Well, man, I dare say your young miss is very pretty an’ all, but you don’t have to be the sharpest tool in the box to see that her family’s on its uppers. Why d’you think she’s been sent here like a bait on a string, if not to catch a fish?’

  Something welled up inside Luke, hot as molten iron, scalding inside his chest and his gullet and his skull, until he felt he’d run mad with it.

  He tried to speak, but no words came. Instead he let the broom fall to the floor and ran from the stable.

  ‘How tight did you say you laced, miss?’ the maid asked again.

  ‘Eighteen inches,’ Rosa said. Mary shook her head.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, miss, but the dress won’t fasten. It must have been made for seventeen.’

  Damn it. Damn Clemency and her fashionable notions. She must squeeze into the dress. She had no other.

  ‘Very well. Seventeen.’

  She shrugged her way out of the dress and Mary undid the corset laces and began to pull again. Rosa shut her eyes.

  ‘Hold on to the bedpost, miss.’

  Rosa gripped the polished mahogany, feeling the intricate carvings dig into her fingers as she clutched the post for support. She held her breath, feeling the bones dig, and dig . . . Her rib where the corset bone had gone in gave a sharp twinge and she almost cried out.

  Then Mary gave an exclamation and let go.

  ‘It’s done.’ She put a tape around Rosa’s waist and said with satisfaction, ‘Seventeen and one eighth. Will you try the dress again, miss?’

  Rosa stepped into it and stood before the glass, feeling Mary’s fingers at her spine as she fastened the dozens and dozens of tiny buttons, one after another.

  ‘Perfect,’ Mary breathed at last, and Rosa looked down at herself and then into the mirror.

  She hardly recognized herself. The dress fell away in stiff folds that made her look taller, and above the full flowing mass of ivory and green her waist looked impossibly small, even smaller than she would have believed herself, in spite of the pain in her hips and ribs. The neckline was demure – but it dipped ever so slightly in the centre and her breasts, compressed by the tight corset, swelled above, looking whiter than white against the ivory silk and dark-green embroidery.

  Mary had put her hair up and dressed it with real leaves – ivy and yew, the same deep winter green as the embroidered vines on her dress.

  ‘And what about your jewels, miss? That locket’s pretty enough but . . .’

  ‘I have none,’ she said honestly. Mary smiled over her shoulder at Rosa’s reflection in the mirror.

  ‘For another young lady I should say, what a shame, but for you, miss, tonight, you have no need of them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rosa whispered. She swallowed.

  ‘And anyway,’ Mary lowered her voice, and her eyes were suddenly alight with mischief, ‘if the gossip in the servants’ hall is right, after tonight, you may have one jewel at least.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rosa turned to frown at her. ‘What kind of jewel?’

  ‘A ring,’ Mary said. Her cheeks dimpled in a smile and then she bobbed a curtsey. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, miss, I’ve still to see Miss Cassandra and Miss Restorick up the corridor. Will there be anything else?’

  For a moment Rosa could not find her voice; she only stood, with her hand gripped on the locket, her thoughts whirling and tumbling like a flock of crows in the sky. Then she remembered the maid’s question.

  ‘No, thank you, Mary,’ she said. Her voice was low.

  After Mary left, Rosa sank to the bed. Her face in the tall glass was white as chalk, her eyes dark and huge against the pale skin. For a moment she could hardly breathe – she thought she might faint, and she almost pulled the bell to call Mary back to loosen her corset and give her some air.

  Then her hammering heart began to slow and the colour crept back into her cheeks.

  Was it true? Could it be true?

  Tonight. Everything Mama and Alexis had fought for – everything could be achieved, tonight, if Sebastian asked just one simple question and she said one single word in reply: yes.

  Suddenly she knew she was about to be sick. She ran to the washstand and stood, her hands splayed on the wood either side of the basin, her forehead prickling and wet with sweat. Her stomach heaved against the tight constriction of the corset and she choked, but nothing came up. It was hours since she had eaten. There was nothing to vomit.

  The mirror above the washstand reflected back a stranger with dark, frightened eyes.

  She knew what Mama would say: This is normal. It’s normal to feel nervous. This is the biggest decision of a woman’s life.

  Perhaps it was normal to feel nervous. But was it normal to feel afraid?

  ‘Miss Rosa Greenwood!’ The announcement rang out across the crowded ballroom, but no heads turned. Rosa swallowed and looked out across the throng.

  She had never seen so many fashionable men and women in one room. They made a sea of bodies – the men dark as crows in their evening dress, the women kingfisher-bright in silk and satin. Jewels flashed in the light from the chandeliers: diamonds, rubies, emeralds; the thousand candles making white shoulders and throats seem whiter still.

  Then she heard the doors open behind her – another couple was about to be announced. She could not stand here on the steps all day, waiting for a miracle, waiting for the courage to go down alone and unchaperoned into the melee.

  The band struck up again. Rosa drew a deep breath, touched her fingers to her locket, and began to descend the marble steps.

  At the bottom she stood for a moment, hesitating, listening to the ebb and sway of the music, and the butler calling out ‘Lord and Lady Hellingdon!’

  There was the sound of shoes on the steps behind her.

  What should she do? There were girls crowding around the tables to her left, champagne glasses in gloved hands, laughing and chatting. They all seemed to know each other. To the right
were a group of bachelors coming in from the terrace, still smelling of cigar smoke. In the middle of the room couples swayed and turned with faultless elegance and Rosa realized with a sinking feeling that she did not know the dances. Papa had waltzed her around the drawing room as a little girl, but that was different – nursery dancing, just the two of them as he hummed the music through his moustache and she stood on his feet and clutched at his waistcoat and watch-chain. This rigidly correct synchronicity was something quite different – dozens of couples moving as one in time to a tune she did not recognize.

  Her stays felt suddenly painfully tight. She could not breathe. She closed her eyes, counting to ten. One. Two. When I open them it will be all right. Three. Four. Five. It will be quite all right. Six. Seven. Eight. Pull yourself together. Nine—

  ‘Miss Greenwood!’

  She opened her eyes. For a moment the blaze of light from the chandeliers dazzled and she blinked. Then her eyes adjusted and she recognized the young man standing before her: it was the rider who had complimented her on the morning of the hunt, who had compared her to a centaur and said she had the best seat he had ever seen.

  He looked different out of his hunting clothes – younger, his face pale against the dark tailcoat, his eyes so dark the pupils and iris merged into one.

  ‘Miss Greenwood, you look pale. Are you quite well? Do you need me to escort you to a seat?’

  ‘No, no.’ Rosa took a deep breath. ‘I was just – it was a moment’s foolishness. But forgive me, I don’t believe I know your name.’

  ‘Rokewood. Abelard Rokewood.’

  ‘Mr Rokewood. I’m so pleased to meet you again.’

  ‘If you are sure that you are quite well—’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she cut in hastily.

  ‘Then won’t you grant me this dance?’ He held out a hand to her. Rosa lifted her own gloved fingers to his and smiled.

  ‘I would be—’

  ‘I regret,’ a voice cut in, and they both turned, ‘that will not be possible. Miss Greenwood is promised to me.’

  It was Sebastian. Her heart gave a strange little skipping beat at the sight of him. If Mr Rokewood looked younger in evening clothes, then Sebastian looked older. Perhaps she had grown used to the Sebastian she encountered out riding – this Sebastian was different. His face above the snowy-white cravat and coal-black tailcoat was severely handsome, and his eyes looked bluer than ever, blazingly blue, the pupils pricks of darkness in their arctic cold. His dark-blond hair had been cropped close to his skull.

  Mr Rokewood let his hand drop and Sebastian put out his own, and took Rosa’s outstretched fingers. He bowed his head, kissing her gloved knuckles and, as before, she felt his fingers graze the soft naked skin at the inside of her wrist, where the glove button gaped. The touch sent a shiver through her, a mingled coldness and heat that went deep inside, to her core. When his eyes met hers, she could not look away.

  ‘Rosa, may I have this dance?’

  ‘I . . .’ She swallowed. It was hot in the ballroom and her cheeks flushed. She felt fierce and afraid all at the same time. ‘Mr Rokewood . . .’

  ‘Not at all.’ The young man gave a rueful laugh and shook his head. ‘Had I known you were promised for this dance I would never have presumed. Perhaps later, Miss Greenwood?’

  ‘Miss Greenwood has promised all her dances to me, is that not right?’ Sebastian looked at her, and his lips curved in a perfect smile, his rare true smile that could pierce to the heart.

  ‘I . . .’ Rosa said again.

  Mr Rokewood gave a bow.

  ‘In that case there is nothing for me to do but beg your pardon, Miss Greenwood. And congratulate Mr Knyvet on his good fortune, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rosa said. But he was already gone, disappearing into the thick crowd, one tall dark stranger among a hundred others.

  Sebastian took her hand.

  ‘Rosa, I’m sorry for being so high-handed. But I couldn’t help myself. Perhaps it was realizing how close I came to losing you at the hunt. Will you grant me this dance?’

  She hesitated. In her head she could hear Mama and Clemency and Alexis all hissing Yes! like a ghostly chorus.

  And then she thought of kind Mr Rokewood, with his rueful smile and soft dark eyes.

  Another voice inside her, she was not sure whose, whispered, How dare Sebastian?

  Perhaps Sebastian read the struggle in her eyes, for his face softened and he said, very humbly, ‘Please, Rosa?’

  She felt again that strange, pummelled, tumbled feeling that Sebastian gave her, as if she had been battered tender by a great fall, as if her bones and muscles had been shaken sore and soft.

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last.

  He nodded, but he did not lead her on to the dance floor. Instead he stood, searching her face with his eyes, as if looking for something.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked at last. There was something discomforting about his gaze. It made her feel exposed, almost dissected.

  ‘I heard what happened.’

  ‘Cherry is dead.’ Rosa felt the grief rise in her throat, choking her, but she swallowed it back. She would not cry – not here, not in front of Sebastian.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about Cherry. You.’ His fingers tightened on hers, fingers that could curb a horse, restrain a dog, that could hurt as well as caress. ‘I blame myself. I should have seen you had a proper escort, not that fool of an outwith.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault—’

  ‘No. It was mine. You should have had someone who knew the lie of the land, knew that bridge wasn’t safe, someone with the power to protect you.’

  ‘Luke rescued me—’

  ‘It was sheer luck! What if it had been worse? What if you’d been seriously hurt? What could he have done without magic, without any power to help?’

  Rosa bit her lip.

  ‘Sebastian, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He released his grip. ‘I was just . . . Please be more careful, Rosa. You ride as if you were immortal. Don’t you fear anything?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ The words came before she had considered them.

  ‘Really? What?’

  A thousand answers hovered on Rosa’s tongue. Alex in a temper. The flat of Mama’s hand. Losing Matchenham. Being alone.

  You, she thought.

  Instead the words came unbidden to her tongue, almost a surprise to herself, even as her hand went to touch the locket at her throat.

  ‘Losing the ones I love.’

  ‘And who do you love?’

  ‘Cherry. My father.’

  ‘They are gone,’ he said, his voice brutal in its casual statement of the truth. ‘Who do you love now?’

  She knew she should say Mama, Alexis . . . She set her jaw.

  ‘I love them still.’

  ‘You cannot cling to the past, to death.’

  They were at the edge of the dance floor and, as the first notes of the next dance rang out, he took her hand, guiding it to his shoulder, and touched her, very lightly, at the waist.

  ‘Sebastian – I don’t know the steps.’

  ‘This is a waltz. You must know how to waltz, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never learnt,’ she said desperately.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll guide you. Follow my lead.’

  He was as good as his word. As the music swelled out, Rosa felt him grip her, with that lean deceptive strength hidden beneath his faultlessly tailored evening dress. And his magic gripped her too.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered as she felt her feet begin to move, irresistibly, in time with the music.

  ‘They are all our kind,’ he whispered back. ‘Not an outwith in the room, I promise. Stop fighting me, Rosa. Trust yourself to me.’
>
  She thought of Luke, of his rough cockney voice, close to her in the darkness, describing Sebastian’s magic.

  Knyvet’s is black, like smoke.

  She imagined his magic swirling around, encompassing them both, twisting her and turning her to the sound of the music, mingling with her own red-gold fire into a blaze that would engulf her.

  ‘Rosa, you are magnificent.’ Sebastian’s voice, close to her ear. His hand on her waist, guiding her, until she could almost believe him. She could do this. She could.

  She closed her eye and let the music consume her along with his will, giving herself to the dance and Sebastian’s arms.

  As the waltz ended on a last triumphant chord he pulled her close and she felt the lean, hard strength of his muscles beneath the evening jacket. His lapel was silk-smooth against her cheek and she breathed the scent of him – the spice of cologne and the bitterness of smoke. The last strains of the music faded and she waited for the hubbub of voices to take its place – but there was nothing, only the sound of her own fast breathing and Sebastian’s heart.

  Rosa opened her eyes, wondering how the room had become so silent, so fast.

  They were not in the ballroom.

  They were in the conservatory at the back of the house. There was no way they could have danced there. Sebastian must have used his magic to take them there and she had not even noticed. Rosa pulled back from his grip. She shivered at the sudden realization of his power.

  ‘Why are we here?’ she whispered. Her voice was loud in the silence, echoing off the vaulted glass ceiling. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  The room was in darkness, save for the light from the stars above them showing through the glass roof and the cold white moonlight. The moon was almost full, and its beam made strange shadows of the palms and exotic plants, turning the stone-flagged floor into a maze of black and white stripes and shards. They were quite alone. Faint, faint strains of music drifted from the faraway ballroom. There was no one who would hear her if she cried out.

  ‘Don’t look so frightened,’ Sebastian said. His face was pale in the darkness, the shadows beneath his cheekbones sharp and stark. He smiled. ‘You look at me as if I were a wolf sometimes, Rosa, and you Little Red Riding Hood. I won’t eat you, you know.’