Ruth Warburton - Witch Finder

‘Don’t be a fool, Rose. You’re my cousin and my friend – my sister in all but name. Sebastian is intrigued, I can see that. But he’ll want a woman who can meet him halfway, match him strength for strength.’

I have strength , Rosa thought. Her fists clenched inside her kid gloves.

‘You will have to play this very carefully if you want him. Do you want him?’

Do I want him? Rosa thought. She bit her lip, staring into Clemency’s wide blue eyes.

‘Do you want him?’ Clemency repeated, impatiently this time. ‘Do you want to save Matchenham and give your brother a future, yes or no?’

It was as if a hand had closed around Rosa’s heart, crushing it. She felt as if she were drowning in the blue of Clemency’s gaze.

‘Yes,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Yes . . . yes I want to save them.’

‘Good. Then the first step is to get you a habit that doesn’t look like it was fitted on a badly stuffed scarecrow.’

‘I like my habit,’ Rosa said mutinously. ‘It was good enough for hunting at Matchenham.’

‘Hunting at Matchenham won’t win you any suitors other than fat, red farmers. You look good on a horse; no, you look devastating on a horse. If we’re to make him fall in love with you . . .’

‘We?’ Rosa said tartly. Clemmie opened her eyes even wider than nature had made them.

‘I can see if I leave this up to you you’ll be more likely to end up a bride of God before you’re a bride of Sebastian Knyvet.’

‘I am not a damn nun!’ Rosa cried hotly. ‘Will everyone stop going on as if I’m training for a convent?’

‘Clearly not with that language!’ Clemency said, her face shocked. But her blue eyes were laughing above the primly pursed mouth. ‘No, Rose, you are not in training for a convent. But you will have to tread a very fine line with Sebastian Knyvet, between virtue and allure. And something tells me you may find it easier to navigate on horseback.’

It was dark when Rosa got home and as she hurried up the stairs, the clock struck six. She would have to dress for dinner straight away.

In her room she unpinned her hat and then rang the bell for Ellen. As she pulled off her gloves she saw that the left-hand one was split, probably from where she’d clenched her fists at Clemency. Rosa sighed, thinking of what Mama would say when she found new kid gloves on her bill at the milliner’s. The bill for the riding habit was going to be painful enough. She glanced guiltily at the doorway and then muttered a spell under her breath.

‘You rang, Miss Rosamund?’ Ellen’s voice cut across her whisper. Rosa jumped convulsively and put the gloves behind her back, but the rent had already begun to knit.

‘Oh! Ellen, thank you. That was quick.’ Her face flamed. She could see it in the mirror, the pink flush of her cheeks clashing horribly with her dark-red hair. Every thought had gone out of her head, except for the guilty knowledge of that tear, mending itself behind her back. Please God Ellen didn’t ask her what she was holding . . .

‘Yes, miss?’ Ellen repeated, a trifle impatiently. She’d probably been in the middle of fetching something for Mama. Rosa took a breath.

‘Oh, um. Could you . . . I’m about to dress for dinner. Could you bring me up some hot water and I’ll ring the bell to be laced in about twenty minutes?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Oh, and for tomorrow . . .’ Her heart gave a little leap against her ribs, a half-thrilling, half-sickening feeling, like taking a fence too fast and seeing the ditch on the other side a hoof-beat too late. ‘Tomorrow the dressmaker is sending across my new habit. Would you tell Fred Welling to look out the side-saddle?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Rosa, but Fred’s not here.’

‘Not here? What do you mean?’

‘He’s broken his arm and collarbone, miss. Set upon by footpads.’

‘Footpads!’ Rosa almost laughed, it sounded so melodramatic. Then she recollected herself. It wasn’t as though footpads were unheard of in London. Why, Alexis had been set upon and beaten crossing the Heath one night. It was only a swift (and extremely illegal) spell which had saved his purse and probably his life. And Fred would have had no such resources to fall back on. ‘I’m very sorry. Poor Fred. Will he be all right?’

‘I dare say, Miss Rosa.’ Ellen tossed her head, and Rosa remembered that Ellen was said to be sweet on Fred, and that they walked out together sometimes on Ellen’s afternoon off. ‘But he can’t manage the horses until the bones have set.’

‘So – so what will happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ellen said, and for all her worry about Fred, there was something a little pleasurable in the way she said it, relishing the drama. ‘I’m sure I don’t know. Fred says he has a cousin who wants to be a stableboy or something – some lad from Spitalfields, I heard tell. We’ll all be murdered in our beds, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Ellen!’ Rosa snorted. She unpinned her hair and began to brush out the plaits. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. Nobody will be murdered. Spitalfields or not, I’m sure his cousin will be a thoroughly nice boy and look after the horses very well. And as long as he’s kind to Cherry and can put on a side-saddle, I really don’t care where he was born.’

‘I’ll have the law on you!’

A man, red with anger, burst into the forge. His arm was bound up in a sling. The door banged against the wall with a sound like a gunshot as he entered and William looked up, his face drenched with sweat from the fire.

‘Are you Luke Lexton?’ the man demanded.

‘No, I’m his uncle.’ William set the hammer to one side and nodded at Luke, where he stood working the bellows, the sweat running down the hollows of his chest and pooling at the waistband of his shirt. ‘That’s him. Luke, leave the bellows be for a moment and come here.’

Luke stopped pumping and wiped his arm across his forehead.

‘So you’re Luke Lexton?’ The red-faced man looked Luke up and down, sizing him up, and seemed to subside a little. Luke was not a fighter, but he’d been hammering metal and pumping the bellows since the age of twelve, and he had the muscles of one. He also had a good eight or ten inches on the red-faced man.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What of it?’

‘I’ll have the law on you,’ the red-faced man said stubbornly. ‘He never said nothing about breaking it for real. Nothing was said about that.’

‘Oh for gawd’s sakes, man,’ William spoke impatiently. ‘What did you think they’d do? Did you think your mistress would take your word for it that you felt a little poorly and send you off with calf’s foot jelly and her good wishes on your word as a gentleman? Don’t be soft! Of course they had to break it – you can’t fake a broken arm, nor a mugging neither. But here, I’ve got your purse.’ And he flung a shabby purse of money across the smithy. The man caught it awkwardly with his good hand.

‘I shall count it!’ he said defiantly. ‘I shall count every last penny and if there’s but one missing—’

‘Yes, yes, you’ll have the law on us,’ William finished testily. ‘Listen, lad, you were paid well for this. What did you think our six guineas was buying? And John Leadingham could’ve broken your arm without your leave – and where would you have been then? Still out of a job for the time being and not one guinea the better for it.’

Six guineas? Luke felt almost sick as the man opened the purse and peered inside, picking over the coins. Six guineas! That was – that was more money than he’d make in a month of Sundays, as an apprentice. Enough to feed Minna and her whole family for a year. How had they got such a sum? He thought of the good Brothers of the Malleus, pinching and scraping, and the weight of it pressed down on him until he felt near faint with it.