Witch Finder (14 page)

It was as William had said: providence had handed him a gift straight from God. Now it was up to him not to waste it.

As she descended the great stairs, the hubbub of voices hit Rosa first, followed by the heat as she entered the drawing room. It was a huge, long room with tall windows, panelled walls and a ceiling frosted and frilled like a wedding cake. The heat came from the fireplaces at each end, great cavernous things banked with giant logs the size of small trees, burning so briskly that the ladies nearby had retreated behind fire screens and fans. Rosa felt her face flush warm in the glow and she thought of how her pink skin must clash with her hair. She tugged at the green dress, wishing it were not so shabby and so tight, wishing the bodice were not so low, wishing it were not the dress Sebastian had seen her wear last time he came. She prayed that he wouldn’t notice. She prayed that if he did, he didn’t realize the truth: that it was almost the only presentable dress she possessed.

There was no one there that she knew. Alexis must have retreated to the smoking room with his cronies, where she could not follow. She scanned the crowd, looking for Sebastian, but knowing even if she saw him, she would not have the courage to stride up and claim him. She was just considering turning tail and running when she felt a touch on her arm and a soft voice spoke.

‘Are you Miss Greenwood?’

Rosa turned. A white-haired girl with piercingly beautiful blue eyes stood at her shoulder. She was perhaps a year or two younger than Rosa herself, her hair hanging in a long plait down her back.

Her eyes were clear and lucent as a summer sky, a startlingly true blue, quite different from the arctic paleness of Sebastian’s gaze, and yet there was enough similarity in their faces for Rosa to ask, ‘Are you Sebastian’s sister?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘My name is Cassandra. Sebastian has told me a great deal about you.’

‘Oh.’ Rosa blushed furiously. ‘I . . .’ She found she was stammering, tongue-tied.

‘All very pleasant. And proper.’

Her words should have reassured. But it was somehow disquieting that Cassandra felt Rosa might be in doubt.

‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ Rosa said, putting out her hand, and Cassandra took it, smiling warmly. ‘But please, call me Rosa.’

‘Rosa, then, and you must call me Cassie.’

‘Cassie,’ Rosa said, and smiled back. ‘But tell me, are your father and mother here? I haven’t yet paid them my respects.’

‘My father has been called to the Ealdwitan on urgent business,’ Cassie said. ‘He hopes to return on Monday.’

‘And your mother?’

‘My mother . . .’ She hesitated. ‘My mother is . . . not well. She does not enjoy company. She will not be joining us this evening.’

For a moment Rosa was taken aback. A hostess not to come down to dinner on the first night of a house party? Then she recovered her manners.

‘Well – well then, I shall hope to see her tomorrow. Will you be hunting?’

‘I?’ Cassie’s face was surprised for a moment, then she broke into a laugh. ‘No. Not I.’ Before Rosa had time to wonder why, she added, ‘I’m blind.’

‘Oh!’ Rosa flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said meaninglessly, and then winced, wondering if that was the right thing to say.

‘Don’t be,’ the girl said lightly. ‘It has its compensations.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t have to do embroidery,’ she said with a laugh. ‘There are other things too – I can see more, perhaps, than you.’

‘More? What do you mean?’

But just then a huge gong rang out and everyone stood.

‘Dinner,’ said Cassie. ‘Will you walk in with me?’

‘No,’ said a voice at her elbow. ‘Miss Greenwood walks in with me.’

Rosa turned and looked up into Sebastian’s clear blue eyes, a winter blue above his snowy-white cravat, and he smiled, a wicked, teasing flash that twisted in her gut and her heart. He held out an arm and two impulses fought inside her – the desire to take his arm, his protection, and walk into dinner with the most eligible bachelor in the room, perhaps in the entire county. And the desire to shake her head, prick his arrogance, and give her arm to Cassandra.

She was still standing like a fool, looking up at Sebastian when Cassie spoke.

‘Ah, Rosa, I’m so sorry. I had forgotten that I was supposed to accompany Lord Grieves’ son.’ She smiled, her blue eyes full of summer warmth. Rosa smiled back, forgetting that Cassie couldn’t see her.

‘Good,’ Sebastian said very softly in her ear as they turned to walk into dinner. ‘I want you all to myself.’

His lips were warm against her ear and Rosa shivered as his breath tickled the soft hairs against her neck. Her grip tightened on his arm and she felt the iron hardness of the muscles beneath his dinner jacket, so different from Alexis, soft from drink and lassitude.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked as they passed through the double doors into the dining room. The panelled walls were studded with the heads of stags mounted on wooden blocks, their antlers casting strange shadows in the candlelight. Between the heads were savagely beautiful fans of glittering swords, pistols and daggers. And beneath it all was the long table, aglow with candles reflecting off the crystal glasses and silver cutlery arrayed to each side of the plates, dazzling against the faultless snowy cloth.

I was thinking you are as contradictory as this room
, Rosa thought.
Beautiful and savage and urbane, all at the same time.

But she only shook her head and passed under the arc of swords to take her place at the glittering table.

L
uke woke very early and for a minute he had no idea where he was. He lay in the darkness, listening to the strange sounds – the soft insistent hoot of an owl, the wind in the trees. And the sound of breathing in the bed across the other side of the room – not William, but a stranger.

Then he remembered.

He was at Southing. The man in the bed opposite was another groom and, thank God, an ordinary man like himself. He was not sure he could have borne to sleep in the same room as a witch. And he had just nine days left to complete his task.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Then, with a glance to make sure the man in the bed opposite was sound asleep, he pulled down the neck of his shirt and twisted to look at the scar on his shoulder. It was all but healed and beneath the angry red swelling you could just see the faint shape of a hammer.

He shrugged his shirt back on and then swung his legs out of bed, feeling his head spin with tiredness. The other man had a watch hanging from his bedpost and Luke padded across and looked at it, yawning. Half past five, read the dial. Good.

He ran down the back stairs in his stockinged feet, pulling his boots on at the last moment. The door to the gardens was bolted, but when he pulled back the latch he was relieved to find it was not locked. The country air hit him as he walked out into the pre-dawn gloaming. It smelt so different from London – cold and clear as spring water, the soft aromatic scent of wood smoke in place of the sharpness of coal, the dampness of grass instead of the smell of wet cobbles.

The stable smelt reassuringly the same – of hay and manure and warm horse. The horses were still asleep, and Cherry chuntered crossly and tossed her head as he pulled on the bridle.

‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘None of your sauce, miss.’ There was a sugar lump in his pocket and he held it out, her soft, whiskery lips gentle on his palm as she took it. She crunched it delicately like a lady as he saddled her up, but he led, rather than rode her out of the yard, choosing the quietest parts of the cobbles, so that the sound of her hooves was muffled by grass and drifts of straw. The maids would be getting up soon and he did not want the household to know what he was about.

Out of the yard he put his foot in the stirrup and hauled himself up. Cherry gave a little whicker of delight, her bad mood forgotten, and Luke patted her neck.

‘You’re a sweetheart, you are, aren’t you.’

She tossed her head, her skin warm and silky beneath his hand and together they quickened their pace to a trot. The dawn light was turning the sky to pink as he turned out of the gate towards the pale glimmer of the rising winter sun.

It was the oak trees that Luke saw first, two of them, standing sentinels beside the river, like gateposts. He reined Cherry in and turned her head towards them.

There it was. Bishop’s Ford. He could see why the old man had warned against it – from up here the bridge looked sound, but when he slid from Cherry’s back and scrambled down the bank to the fast-flowing river, you could see the rotten planks and the missing struts beneath.

It was deadly. It was perfect. So why could he feel no joy in it at all?

Cherry whickered softly up in the field above and the sound gave him a wrenching stab of guilt at the thought of what he was about to do.

As he climbed the bank and hauled himself back into the saddle he couldn’t bear to meet her trusting brown eyes, though she turned her head to him and butted him affectionately.

‘I’m sorry, girl,’ he said, his throat stiff and hoarse. ‘If there was another way I’d take it, you know I would.’

He knew what John Leadingham would say:
What’s the life of one horse against the misery wrought by a witch?

He thought of the pigs and cows in John’s slaughterhouse – animals sent to their death for the good of mankind – so that people might eat and cook and have candles to burn and shoes to wear. What difference was there in this? None, really. So why didn’t it feel the same?

One simple truth beat inside him, in time with Cherry’s hoof-beats as she galloped across the turf. Him or the witch. Him or the witch. Him or the witch. This was his cross to bear – Cherry’s death would be the price he had to pay, the price they all had to pay.

He put his head down, close to her mane, and the wind in his face brought tears to his eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’

He did not know who he was asking forgiveness from: God, Cherry, himself – or someone else completely?

It’s God’s work that you’re doing, lad;
John Leadingham’s hoarse croak in his head.

God’s work. So why didn’t he feel exalted? Why did he feel like a murderer?

He arrived back in the stable just in time to shut Cherry into her stall before the other grooms arrived. She was not sweating; he had not galloped her hard enough for that. She was cool and full of energy, and she whickered softly as Luke filled the bucket with water and poured a handful of oats into her feeding tray.

There was much to do before the hunt gathered – feed Brimstone, saddle him up, and put the side-saddle on Cherry. He had to find this borrowed horse and saddle him up too, then he had to wash and change into a clean shirt. He knew he should make time to eat his own breakfast, for it would be a long, hard ride before the hunters stopped for food, but he didn’t know if he could force down the food.

But there was just one more thing he had to do before he started.

He searched the floor of the stables, looking for a likely stone. He discarded one as too large, and another as too sharp, before he found one that was just right: small and round as a pea. Then he took his pick and drove the stone deep beneath the horseshoe, where it was invisible to the eye. When Cherry put her foot down there was the slightest hint of hesitation, the slightest wince, but only if you looked for it. It would take a few miles with a rider on her back before she began to limp.

‘I’m sorry, girl,’ he said again. There was a catch in his voice and he hated himself for it.

Rosa took a deep breath, drinking in the cool sweet autumn air. It was country air – so clean you could taste the sweetness on your tongue, and so different from London’s sooty bitter atmosphere it was like drinking spring water after salt. Southing was very different from Matchenham, but it felt like home. The fields stretched out below the house, mile after mile of sweet short Sussex turf. Down to the right were the copses and coverts where they would go to flush out the fox, the river winding between the trees, glinting in the pale autumn sun.

She had not felt so happy since leaving Matchenham and when she turned to smile at Sebastian she knew that her face was radiant with delight, flushed with the cold and the pleasure of being on horseback again, that her waist was laced down to a trim silhouette, that her habit was faultless and that all this – her delight, her red hair and clear skin against the stark black of her hat and habit – all this made her look better than she had ever looked in his presence before.

He smiled back, his teeth flashing white in his tanned face, his pupils pricks of black in his ice-blue eyes, and she looked out across the sea of riders in their scarlet and black coats, the hunt master calling to his officials, the huntsman blowing his horn to encourage stragglers, the dogs baying excitedly as they raced up and down the drive in full voice.

‘Were you a centaur in a previous life, madam?’ asked another rider with a laugh. ‘You are magnificent on that animal – you have the best seat I’ve ever seen in a woman.’

‘Thank you!’ Rosa called back. Usually she would have flushed and muttered something deprecating; this morning she knew it to be true. Beneath her, Cherry curvetted and snorted, excited by the sound of the hounds and the sight of pasture in front of her.

Luke was somewhere behind her, on a horse belonging to the house, a hunter called Bumblebee. She tried to catch his eye, but his head was down.

‘I warn you,’ Sebastian said as the hunt gathered, ready to depart, ‘I ride hard. I’ll be with the first field or die in the attempt. Can you keep up?’

‘I’ll keep up,’ Rosa said, nettled. Cherry could jump as well as any horse on the field.

‘We’re heading over to Tushing Woods.’ He indicated a small copse on the ridge of the hill. ‘See if we can flush out a fox from there.’

‘Really, sir?’ Luke’s head came up sharply. Rosa was surprised; she had not thought he was even listening. Now he was tense, his big hands gripping the reins tightly. ‘That’s to say – I was told the place to go was Thatcham’s?’

‘No, Farquharson tells me he was up there last week and there was no sign of a fox,’ Sebastian said indifferently. ‘Tushing is a better bet.’

Luke said nothing, but his grip was still tight on the reins and Rosa saw a vein beating in his temple. She was puzzled – what could it possibly matter which way they went? Then the horn sounded again, Cherry snorting and stamping and curvetting beneath her, and they were off.

‘View halloo!’ cried a voice far up the field, its pitch almost a scream with excitement, and Rosa gathered Cherry together and leapt the ditch. She landed perfectly, like a cat, but then stumbled infinitesimally as if one of her hooves misgave her. Behind her Rosa heard the heavy thunder of Luke’s horse and the heave and thump as he took it over the ditch, but she didn’t stop to look. She was intent on the pack ahead and Sebastian’s lithe, narrow back in its scarlet coat, urging his horse on, and on. Alexis was somewhere to the left of the field, Brimstone already sweating beneath his bulk. The horse would be tired out within the hour unless Alex rode him more sensibly. By contrast, Sebastian’s beautiful thoroughbred looked like he could go for ever.

And then suddenly she saw it – the fox – a red-brown streak crossing the emerald grass with the hounds shrieking and baying in pursuit. The horn sounded again and the whole field surged after it, mud flying, the clods of turf scattering as they tore up the field.

‘Come on!’ Rosa begged Cherry. Alexis was already using his hunting crop freely on Brimstone, labouring the poor beast’s hind quarters like a racing jockey. She felt her own crop tight beneath her arm, but she never beat Cherry – she never needed to. Cherry would give her all without punishment.

They were heading uphill, the horses sweating and snorting, when suddenly the fox broke its line, darting back down towards the river, the hounds in hot pursuit. The hunt wheeled after it, like a flock of scarlet birds in an emerald sky, and began to pound down the bank towards the river.

‘Come on!’ Rosa screamed to Luke. There was mud on her face and her breath was tearing in her chest. And then she felt Cherry falter beneath her, even as Luke hollered back,

‘She’s limping, miss.’

Dammit. Rosa slowed, just a little, and felt the truth of it. Cherry was favouring one foot.

‘Was it the jump?’ she shouted across to Luke. ‘I felt her stumble.’

‘Could be, miss. Or could be a stone.’

They slowed, and Rosa watched as the rest of the field tore away from her, down towards the river where the fox had already forded and plunged into the undergrowth.

‘Damn,’ she swore, as Luke slid from Bumblebee and pulled out his knife. ‘We’ll never catch up. Please, make it quick if you can, Luke.’

She shaded her eyes, watching the riders as they crossed the river. It was too deep to ford, but the dogs paddled across somehow. The men jumped, by and large, the ladies making for a bridge further upstream in the direction of Barham. It was a strange route to choose, she thought. The fox was clearly going to go downstream, downhill where the going was easier for it, and the sparse trees thickened to wood. There must be no bridge further down.

‘It was a stone, miss.’ She heard Luke’s voice over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got it.’

Sure enough the field had curved downwards and were beating their way through the trees with the hounds baying and shrieking.

‘We’ll never catch up,’ Rosa said despairingly as Luke scrambled back into the saddle. ‘The river’s too wide to jump downstream. If only there were a bridge . . .’

‘There is,’ Luke said. At first she couldn’t understand him – his voice was hoarse and cracked. He coughed and spat, and then spoke again. ‘There is. Look. By those two oaks.’

He pointed – and sure enough, between the trees, beside the two sentinel oaks, she saw a patch of darkness where the river’s glitter was cut by something broad and black, something with handrails.

Rosa felt a huge smile split her mud-spattered face.

‘Luke, I could kiss you.’

She pulled Cherry together, feeling the horse’s headlong excitement, and together they thundered down the pasture, towards the waiting oak trees and the patch of dark water.

‘Come on!’ she shouted over her shoulder at Luke. ‘Come on, what are you waiting for?’

Far across the river there was another blast of the horn – the fox had broken out of the scrubby trees by the river bank, making for the hill on the far side. The riders were urging their horses up the slope and she saw Sebastian turn half around, calling something to Alexis, gesturing back down towards the river, towards Rosa.