‘Come on then, laddie, pick ’em up, and we’ll get ee settled afore supper. Ye’ll be clemmed, I shouldn’t wonder.’

He stumped off across the yard and Luke followed.

‘When will the hunt start?’

‘Oh, they’ll be hunting tomorrer,’ the old man said. ‘Mr Sebastian was never one to let the grass grow. He’s been cooped up in Lunnon these long months and in India afore that. He’s half mad to get wet pasture under his horse’s hooves agin.’

‘I’ve never been hunting,’ Luke said as he picked up his case. He didn’t try to hide his nerves. No use pretending he wasn’t as green as they came for this – he would take any information this old man could give him, and welcome. ‘Anything I should know for tomorrow?’

‘Well, I seed your master and miss only brought the one ’orse each, so I dare say Mr Sebastian will lend ee one o’ his father’s hacks. Bumblebee most likely. It’ll be your job to get your master and Miss’s ’orses ready on the day. And o’ course you’ve to make sure Miss Greenwood doesn’t go killing of herself.’

Luke nearly dropped his case, cold with horror that the man had reached inside his thoughts so simply, but then the man laughed, a loud raucous belly laugh, and Luke realized it was a joke.

‘Sounds simple enough,’ the old man wheezed, ‘but it’s them young ladies you’ve to keep your eye on, ’specially if she doesn’t know the lie of the land. Make sure now she doesn’t go leaping no treacherous ditches, nor taking no ’edges too high for her. And keep her away from Bishop’s Ford,’ he added, his face suddenly serious. ‘That bridge won’t last the season.’

‘Bishop’s Ford?’ Luke asked. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Old ford to the east; you’ll know it by the wooden bridge and the two oak trees either side. The bridge looks sound enough but there’s a strut gone and it won’t bear an ’orse. I’ve said time and agin they should take it down, but the telegraph boys use it for their round. It’s safe enough on foot, leastways until the winter. But not for an ’orse and rider. If you want to cross on horseback you mun’ go farther upstream, towards Barham. There’s a good bridge there; that’s the one the hunters will take, if they’re heading for Thatcher’s Covert.’

‘I’ll remember,’ Luke said numbly. He hardly noticed as the old man handed him to a maid at the back door, nor as she led him through a warren of subterranean passages and rooms to a back staircase, chattering all the while. As he trudged after her, up the narrow staircase towards the attic room that was to be his for the weekend, there was only one thought in his head, and it sang through him, like metal singing from the clean blows of a hammer: Bishop’s Ford.

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.

13

Luke 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.