Witch Hunt Read online

  ‘If you don’t go and get your mistress immediately,’ Rosa hissed, ‘I’ll see to it that you’re sacked. Tell her Miss Greenwood is at the door and you’ve kept her waiting by refusing to pass on a message. Look.’ She fumbled in the pocket in her skirt and pulled out a card – smudged and sooty round the edges – bearing the name ‘Miss Rosa Greenwood’. The girl looked down at it, chewing her lip, and seemed to make up her mind.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said haughtily, and shut the door in Rosa’s face. When she opened it again it was with a slightly sour expression. ‘You’d better come this way.’

  Rosa followed her down the hallway into the drawing room, where Clemency was sitting on an overstuffed sofa. She had a needle and thread in her hand, but she flung down the embroidery hoop at the sight of Rosa and hurried across the silk Turkey rug with her hands outstretched.

  ‘Rosa! My God, what’s happened to you? That’s all right, Millie,’ she added to the maid. ‘You can go.’ As the girl withdrew reluctantly, she turned back to Rosa. ‘When Millie said there was a shabby woman at the door with your card I didn’t know what to think. Rosa, are you all right?’

  ‘No.’ Her chin began to wobble at the sight of Clemency, so normal and so concerned. ‘No, I’m not all right. Oh, Clemency, we’re in such trouble – I didn’t know where to turn.’

  ‘We?’ Clemency took Rosa’s hand and tried to lead her across to an armchair. ‘Who’s “we”? Sit down, for pity’s sake, Rosa. I’ll call for tea.’

  ‘No, I can’t stay, and I can’t sit, I’ll ruin your chair.’

  ‘Damn the chair!’ Clemency said. Her plump, comfortable face was anxious. ‘Rosa, please tell me what’s happened? Your dress – it’s all burnt! Where’s your hat? And where in heaven’s name did you get that horrible shawl? It looks like a dishrag!’

  ‘It was Sebastian—’ Rosa began, but she couldn’t finish. Suddenly the strain, not just of the night, but of the past days and weeks, seemed to well up inside her and she found she was sobbing. Clemency pushed her to a chair and forced her to sit, and somehow Rosa found the whole tale spilling out – how she had agreed to marry Sebastian against her better judgement, in spite of her growing fear of him, and how Luke had caught her crying in the stable after she had become engaged, and they had ended up kissing.

  ‘Sebastian walked in on us,’ she said, wiping her nose with her sleeve. Nothing could make the dress more soiled than it already was. ‘And, oh, Clemency, he was so angry. He . . . he beat me. And he must have beat Luke, although I didn’t see that.’

  Clemency said nothing, but Rosa could see the thoughts flitting across her face, her sympathy for Rosa mixed with revulsion at the idea of kissing an outwith and a servant, and with the thought that any man of pride might have lashed out if he caught his new fiancée in the arms of a stable-hand.

  ‘I thought he would break it off,’ Rosa continued, her voice low and hoarse. ‘The engagement. But he didn’t. And I realized that somehow the whole episode had only made him want me more. I never thought a man would want a woman who didn’t love him, but, oh, Clemmie – it was as if the more I hated him, the more he was excited by it, and the more he had to have me. Does this make any kind of sense to you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Clemency said. Her blue eyes were fixed on Rosa, her rosebud lips were tight, reserving judgement. ‘Perhaps. Some men are creatures of strange tastes, that much I know, and I can see that perhaps your . . . indiscretion, let’s call it – might have hurt his pride and made him more determined to hold on to you. But that doesn’t explain all this . . . What happened with your dress?’

  ‘Luke was turned off, when we got back to London, of course,’ Rosa gulped, and Clemency nodded.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I was trapped. If I broke it off with Sebastian he would expose me, and worse, he would very probably take his revenge on Luke. And I felt so guilty – it seemed to me that if Sebastian were prepared to forgive me, shouldn’t I be able to forgive him? So I tried to carry on, I tried to be a good fiancée and take an interest in his family’s work and their charitable concerns. So I went to the East End, to his factory, and – oh, Clemency, what I found . . .’ She broke off, reliving again the horror of those dimly lit rooms, glowing with the ghostly luminescence of the phosphorus, and the men and women and children with their faces eaten away by the chemicals. She remembered the smell of it – flesh and bone liquefying into a stinking, oozing putrefaction. ‘They were dying, Clemmie. The outwith workers. There was no way they could have stayed in that poisonous place willingly. They were drugged with magic – chained there – like slaves.’

  Clemency bit her lip. Her face was very still, very serious.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I tried to persuade them to leave, but they wouldn’t listen to me. The charms were too strong – I don’t know how, but they were like iron, far stronger than I could break. I pleaded but they just ignored me and carried on. And then I recognized one of the workers – a girl. She was a friend of Luke’s. And I thought if I went and got him, he might be able to help, she might listen to him, if not me. But . . . ’ She stopped.

  This was the one part she must not tell Clemency. She could betray her own secrets, but not Luke’s. Luke’s identity as one of the Malleus Maleficorum must remain secret at all costs, even from Clemency, or they were both dead. Clemency would never agree to help them if she knew. And there was also the cold immutability of a fact that she had not yet quite faced: Luke had been tasked to kill her and, though his nerve had failed him at the last moment, he had tried to carry that task out. She did not know if she would ever be able to forget the sight of him raising the hammer above his head, the hate in his eyes . . .

  ‘Yes?’ Clemency prodded. Rosa took a breath, picking her way carefully between the truth and the omissions.

  ‘He didn’t remember me. I took his memories when he went away, and he no longer knew who I was. So I returned alone and confronted Sebastian – to try to make him lift the spells.’

  ‘It didn’t work,’ Clemency said, in confirmation rather than question.

  ‘No. And he shut me in the warehouse and set fire to it – I suppose to hide what he’d done, and perhaps because in that instant he realized that he had lost me, and he could not bear for that to happen.’

  ‘He locked you in?’ Clemency’s normally rosy face was pale, and her wide blue eyes were even wider than usual. ‘He left you to die?’

  Rosa nodded.

  ‘Yes, but Luke must have remembered something, because he came after me in the end, and helped me escape. But now, Clemmie, you must help us. We have to leave London, before Sebastian finds us.’

  ‘Oh God, Rosa.’ Clemency stood and began pacing the Turkey rug back and forth, back and forth. ‘What can I do? I really think – surely your mother—’

  ‘Mama?’ Rosa knew the bitterness in her voice was unpleasant, but she couldn’t hide it. ‘Ha. She’s so afraid of losing Sebastian’s money – she’d sell me to him in an instant. She’d sell herself even, I think.’

  ‘But, darling, think!’ Clemency’s plump comfortable face was contorted with distress. ‘Think what you’re saying . . . You’re proposing – what? To run away with – with this stable-hand? You’ll be ruined! And how will you live? Go home, please, darling.’

  ‘Clemmie, listen to me. Sebastian Knyvet tried to kill me. Do you understand what I’m saying? I think he is mad. I saw it before, but never so clearly until that night in the factory. I cannot go home – even if Mama and Alexis believed me, Sebastian would know I was there. I must get away before he finds me – before he kills us both.’ Or worse, she added silently in her head. To be married to Sebastian, that could be a living death in itself.

  ‘But . . .’ Clemency wound her fingers in her handkerchief until they were bloodless, and then released them. ‘But Philip has the carriage. What can I do?’

  ‘I can manage horses. We just need money, Clemmie. Only a little!’ she added plead
ingly, as she saw Clemency about to protest that she had none, that it was all Philip’s. ‘Please! Whatever you have in the house – enough for a meal and a bed – I have nothing, Clemmie. I haven’t eaten since . . .’ She suddenly realized that she could not remember when. Yesterday, certainly, and she’d had no dinner. Had she had tea? Lunch, even? ‘Please, Clemmie,’ she said again, swallowing against the lump of helpless rage in her throat. ‘Please.’

  Clemency bit her lip again, and then seemed to decide.

  ‘You can have whatever I have in the house. Let me go to my room and see what I have in my change purse – Philip may have left some notes in his dressing room. But oh God – Rosa – why did you give the maid your real name? What if Sebastian comes here?’

  Rosa shut her eyes, suddenly realizing the truth of what Clemency said. Even if Clemency denied her visit, the maid would not. Did she dare risk a spell to wipe the girl’s memory? But Clemency’s servants were not outwith; the maid would know what she was attempting, would fight.

  ‘You must tell me that you cannot help, in front of the servants,’ she said slowly. ‘We must have a fight.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, that might work. Let me get the money and then . . . then we’ll decide what to do.’

  She left the room and Rosa sank back in the armchair, her hands over her face, trying to push away the sense that her world was collapsing around her. Yesterday had held the promise of all this – a house off Piccadilly, servants, tea-trays, comfort, wealth. Today? She had nothing, except a spoilt dress and her magic.

  And Luke, something whispered at the back of her mind. You have Luke. But it was not true. He was not hers. He was not her servant, nor her lover. They were just – what? Friends? But that one simple word did not describe what lay between them – the complicated web of hurt and gratitude and betrayal, and beneath all that, a great gulf of class and magic. Luke had tried to kill her, and he had saved her life. He was an outwith, and yet he could see her kind as no other outwith could, as no witch could, even. All these impossibly contradictory truths bound up in one being.

  Friend was too small and too simple a word for what Luke was.

  He was something else. Something bigger, more complicated and, perhaps, more dangerous . . .

  ‘Rosa.’

  Her head shot up. Clemency was standing in the doorway. She came inside and closed the door with her elbow. Her hands were full of something.

  ‘Darling, I found this . . .’ She poured a shower of silvers, coppers and a single gold piece into Rosa’s cupped hands. ‘It’s not a great deal, I’m afraid – not quite a pound. But Philip had these in his dressing room.’ From her sleeve she unfolded two pound notes, thick white sheets the size of Rosa’s pocket handkerchief. Rosa bit her lip. Those notes would keep them for a week, perhaps a month if they were careful. She realized she had no idea what board and lodging cost – but surely not more than a few shillings a night? Her hand stole up to her throat, to where the locket had always hung, comforting – but it closed only on air.

  ‘Won’t he notice?’

  ‘He might,’ Clemency said. ‘I truly don’t know. He’s not very careful with his belongings, but two pound notes . . . There was a five-pound note too but I didn’t dare to take it. He would certainly remember that.’

  ‘I think I should only take one.’ Rosa made up her mind. ‘Fold it back as if there were two – he’ll think that he misremembered.’

  ‘Very well.’ Clemency handed Rosa one note and slipped the other back into her sleeve and then, as Rosa stood, she cried, ‘But wait – you’re not going? Won’t you have something to eat at least?’

  ‘I can’t.’ Rosa picked up the shawl from where it lay on Clemency’s canary silk armchair and wrapped it around her head and throat. She gave one longing look at the warmth of the fire, but Luke was outside, without any fire in the December cold. ‘I must go, before Philip gets back. Now, remember – you must throw me out.’

  ‘But where will you go?’

  ‘I’m not sure – but even if I was, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry, Clemmie.’

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Rosa put one hand against Clemency’s cheek, feeling its smooth warmth, and as Clemency closed her eyes a single tear traced down over Rosa’s fingers. ‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise. But I don’t want to make this more difficult for you than it is already. Now, come – throw me out.’ She took a breath. ‘Please, Clemmie!’ she shouted. ‘How could you be so heartless?’

  Clemency gave her a last despairing look and squeezed her hand until the ruby bit into Rosa’s flesh. Then she took a breath herself.

  ‘I said, get out! How dare you come here with these absurd tales.’

  ‘I thought you were my friend.’ Rosa found her voice was shaking, and there were real tears in her eyes. Clemency’s grip on her hand was painfully hard, the stone of the ring biting into her skin until it felt like it would bleed.

  ‘Go home!’ Clemency cried. Her voice cracked despairingly. ‘Go home and let us forget this whole painful episode, Rosa!’

  There was a knock at the door and Clemency dropped Rosa’s hand.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, with a voice that was convincingly shaken and upset. Millie’s frightened face appeared around the gap.

  ‘Mr Wilkins asks if everything’s quite all right, ma’am?’

  ‘Quite all right, thank you, Millie. Miss Greenwood was just leaving.’ She turned a stony, expressionless face towards Rosa. ‘Please show her out.’

  ‘Clemency,’ Rosa said. It was all she could say. She had not thanked Clemency for this terrible, daring thing she had done – this act of friendship in defiance of her husband and their kind. And now she could never thank her – not in front of the maid. She could only repeat, hopelessly, ‘Clemency’ and hope that her voice and her eyes said everything she could not.

  ‘This way, miss,’ said the maid firmly. There was a hint of triumph in her voice, and Rosa realized that she was pleased, in some odd way, that her initial suspicions had been justified. ‘Or should I ask the footmen to show you out?’

  ‘No,’ Rosa said. She made her voice bitter, and she stood and walked to the door, her back very straight, her right hand folded tight around the coins and the note Clemency had pressed into her fist. ‘No, I’m going. You don’t need to get the hired thugs to throw me out. Goodbye, Clemency. My friend.’

  Goodbye . . .

  Luke said nothing as they walked quickly across the park to Knightsbridge, and the last stretch towards Osborne Crescent. Rosa had been crying, he could see it in her red eyes and the clean tracks on her dusty, sooty face. But he didn’t know what he could say that would comfort her, so he took refuge in silence.

  Still, the best part of two pounds – forty shillings, as near as made no odds. That was a king’s ransom in Spitalfields. The coins jingled in his pocket, the pound note was tucked inside Rosa’s dress. How much for a room in an inn – a shilling perhaps? They would have to share, but he closed his mind to that difficulty. Time enough to worry about that when they’d found a horse.

  It was growing dark as they rounded the corner into the mews behind Osborne Crescent, and the fog was starting to draw in, as it always did on cold evenings around this time, but that was all to the better. Less chance of anyone noticing. The clock above the stable struck six as Luke put his hand to the latch of the stableyard gate. It was good timing. Mrs Ramsbottom would be in the thick of cooking, Mr James would be counting the wines for dinner, the servants would be preparing to sit down to their own meal. And the family – would they be out still?

  Rosa was close behind him as he pulled the gate cautiously open, and he turned as he was about to step into the yard.

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘I must. If they catch you, you will need my protection.’

  ‘They won’t catch me,’ he said gently, but she shook her head, and together they slipped through the narrow crack of gate and into the cobbled ya
rd. The windows above the stable were dark – evidently the new stable-hand was not at home.

  Luke unlatched the door to the stable and they moved quietly inside and shut the door behind themselves, waiting for their eyes to get used to the darkness. They could not light a candle or risk a witchlight. Anyone glancing out who saw a light in the window would be instantly suspicious.

  As Luke’s eyes adjusted his heart fell. One empty stall . . . two . . . three . . . Where were all the horses? Cherry was gone, of course, but Castor and Pollux – had they come all this way for nothing? He swore quietly beneath his breath. There was an answering whicker from the furthest stall, and his heart leapt.

  ‘Brimstone?’

  In the darkness he was almost impossible to see, but Luke caught sight of the white blaze on his nose as he shook his mane.

  ‘Brimstone! You beauty.’

  He moved forward, moving more surely in the darkness now, and felt for the saddle on the peg between the stalls. There it was.

  ‘How can we manage with only one horse?’ Rosa whispered. ‘Mama must have taken the carriage out.’

  ‘It’s better,’ Luke whispered back. ‘Horses cost money to stable and feed – this way we can travel cheaper.’

  ‘Can he carry us both?’

  ‘He can if we nurse him. And I can walk. Anyway, we have no choice. We can’t wait for the carriage to come back, can we?’

  ‘No.’ Rosa’s shape was a dim ember in the darkness, but he thought he saw her shiver. ‘Luke, it’s gone six. They’ll be back soon for dinner. We must hurry.’

  ‘I know.’

  He opened the stall door and saddled Brimstone up, petting his nose and whispering to him, praying that the horse wouldn’t whinny and give them away.

  ‘It’s a man’s saddle,’ he whispered to Rosa as he did up the girths. ‘Cherry’s isn’t here, and anyway, we wouldn’t both of us fit side-saddle. Can you manage?’

  He felt, rather than saw, the look of scorn she gave him.