She didn’t answer that, but set her jaw.

‘I will not see Matchenham sold. I can’t. It would break my heart.’

‘It’s just a house, Rosa. As long as you’ve a roof over your head and food on the table, what does it matter where it is?’

‘It matters to me!’ she cried. ‘Everything I ever loved, anyone who ever loved me – Cherry, Papa – they were all there. And they’ve gone, and all I have left is Papa’s house, the bricks and stones and timbers. What kind of daughter would I be if I let it all go when I could save it?’

‘But if Knyvet buys it back for you, it won’t be yours, it will be his. And so will you.’

‘I know,’ she said, her voice suddenly quiet. ‘I know. And I know that when I marry him, there will be no way out, only death. Mine or his.’

The words sent a shiver through Luke. They were so close to his own thoughts just a moment ago.

‘Rosa,’ he said desperately. There were tears in his eyes, and in his voice. ‘There are other people who love you. There must be.’

‘Really? Who? Don’t say Mama, for you know it’s not true. Nor Alexis. My nanny who brought me up from a child went away when she got a better offer from another family. No one has ever loved me, no one has ever wanted to marry me, no one has ever even wanted to kiss me, before Sebastian. Forgive me if—’

Luke took hold of her shoulders, more roughly than he meant.

‘That’s not true.’

She turned her face up to his. Her eyes were wet. Her lips were parted in surprise, mid-sentence. Luke felt her magic around them, flooding him with its fire.

He knew what he was about to do was very, very stupid. But he had nothing left to lose. And he had never wanted anything more.

He bent and kissed her.

For a minute she did nothing, just stood, limp in his arms, her lips soft and unresisting beneath his. Luke knew, suddenly, that he had made a terrible mistake. He was no better than Knyvet, forcing himself on her – except that she could blast him through the stable wall behind him, if she chose.

He began to pull away.

‘I’m s-sorry . . .’ he stammered.

And then her arms went around his neck, in a grip so fierce he gasped and almost stumbled. Her lips against his were firm and hot, her fingers in his hair, gripping him so that he could not have pulled back, even if he wanted to.

‘Rosa . . .’ he tried, but his words were lost in her kiss – and then his mouth was on her jaw and her throat, kissing her as he had never kissed a girl before, as he had wanted to for so long. She was light and fierce in his arms, her magic a cloud of flame around them, consuming him, burning him up from the inside.

‘What. Is. This?’

The words came from behind them, hissed low, but shockingly loud in the silence of the stable.

They sprang apart, Luke’s heart beating hard in his chest. He reached for Rosa’s hand, but she was not there. She had taken a step forwards, towards the man. He was nothing but a black silhouette in the moonlight, but Luke knew who it was before Rosa said, ‘Sebastian, it’s not what it looks like—’

‘Be quiet.’

‘Seba—’

She never got to finish. Knyvet threw out a blast of magic that sent her flying backwards, sprawling across the stone floor to crash into the stable wall with a force that made Brimstone give a neigh of alarm. He reared up, his hooves beating against the partition between the stalls.

Luke felt the blow as if it was a punch to his own gut. For a minute he couldn’t speak, he was so choked with shock and fury that Knyvet would treat her like this.

Then somehow the words roared out of him, almost of their own volition.

‘Leave her alone!’

‘Be quiet,’ Knyvet snarled, and something whip-tight curled around Luke’s shoulders like a rope. He staggered and nearly fell.

‘Please, Sebastian,’ Rosa sobbed.

Another binding, a ring of steel tightening around his chest.

‘Knyvet . . .’ he gasped. He could hardly breathe.

‘God, you really won’t be told, will you?’ Sebastian sighed. He pointed and Luke felt his lips seal together as if they were one piece of flesh. He screamed, not silently, but through his nose, so that it came out more like a moan; a sound so muffled and pathetic it barely reached the door, let alone beyond. Why hadn’t he shouted when he had the chance?

‘Tówierpe!’ Knyvet spat, and Luke was flung backwards, to slam into one of the oak pillars holding up the stable roof. His head cracked against the wood so hard he would have gasped, if he could have. He drew painful shuddering breaths through his nose and heard his own breath whimper at the back of his throat.

Fight me like a man, you damned coward, he thought. But the words would not come.

Sebastian pulled a coil of cord behind the door and now he began to tie Luke to the post.

‘Just in case,’ he said pleasantly, as he pulled the knots tight, the ropes cutting into Luke’s skin. ‘I wouldn’t want the spell to slip while my attention was elsewhere.’

Kill him, Luke pleaded Rosa with his eyes. You’re a witch – do something. Split his skull. Save us both.

But she only stared at him with wide, horrified eyes as if she couldn’t believe what was happening.

When Sebastian was satisfied that the knots were tight enough to hold Luke, even if the spells failed, he turned his back and looked at Rosa.

‘At least you know how to hold your tongue.’ He walked across to her and touched her gently on the cheek that had smacked into the wall. ‘I like that in a woman. What I don’t like,’ he helped her to her feet, ‘is infidelity. Unless, of course, it was not your fault.’

Rosa said nothing, she only looked at him, her eyes huge and dark in her white face.

‘Tell me,’ Sebastian twisted her arm. ‘Tell me that he forced himself on you. That you couldn’t fight back. That his attentions were unwanted. Tell me, and I will kill him and spare you.’

Luke shut his eyes. Her death, or yours.

His heartbeat sounded in his ears, waiting for her response, and when she spoke it was almost too low for him to hear the words. Almost.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘But I can’t lie.’

The blow was so fast Luke missed it. At the vicious crack and Rosa’s cry, his eyes flew open, but she was already lying on the floor. There was blood coming from her nose. Sebastian shook his hand, as if he’d knocked it against a door handle in passing. His face was pained, but calm.

‘Tell me again,’ he whispered. ‘My darling.’ He pulled her to her feet and wiped the blood tenderly from her cheek with his fingers. ‘Come, my darling. You can tell me. He’s only an outwith from the slums. Spare yourself, my darling. Oh my God, I love you so. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me hit you again.’

Rosa shook her head, not in denial, but thickly, as if she were trying to clear away confusion. Sebastian and Luke waited.

At last she looked up.

‘I kissed him,’ she said, through bloodied lips.

This time Luke saw the blow as well as heard it, saw Knyvet’s hand meet her face, saw her flung back on to the stone flags, heard the thud as her body hit the floor. Blood was flowing freely down her white dress.

Fight back! Luke begged her in his mind. Why was she lying there when she was a witch as powerful in her own way as Knyvet? Her magic swirled and boiled around her in red-gold flames, and she wouldn’t use it. Why not? Why not?

Fight back, he pleaded silently. Denounce me. Anything. Anything had to be better than this silence.

But she only lay, still and unmoving on the cold stone floor. Her head was flung back and he could see the damage Knyvet had done.

He wanted to scream. But his lips were sealed.

Beneath the white silk Rosa’s ribs still rose and fell in slow, ragged breaths. Knyvet had been careful, in his own way. Rosa’s beauty was not ruined, only marred for a while. He had not gone for the spleen, or the kidneys, or anywhere that might kill.

But he had done it sober. In cold blood.

As Luke watched, Knyvet wound his hand in her hair and pulled her limp body up from the floor, her limbs lolling. He kissed her bloodstained lips, then let her unresisting body drop, with a thud, back to the flags.

‘Goodnight, my darling. Sleep well.’

He turned to Luke.

‘As for you . . .’ He moved towards the pillar. Luke knew that he should feel fear, terror even. He had escaped death at the hands of one witch – he could not expect to be so lucky a second time. ‘As for you, outwith, I won’t waste my magic on scum like you.’

He put his hand out, grabbed a fistful of Luke’s hair, and yanked his head as far forward as it would go. Then he banged it back, hard, against the oak pillar. Luke felt a white-hot blaze of pain explode across the back of his skull. Then nothing.

19

When Luke woke he was in bed. There was a bandage on the back of his head and he had the worst headache he could remember in a long time. He groaned and opened his eyes blearily. A pair of bright-blue eyes were staring into his, with a concerned expression.

‘You’re awake!’ It was the groom who shared his room. He was dressed in his uniform and smelt of the stables. He grinned, relieved. ‘Mr Warren said to let you sleep so I didn’t wake you first thing, but I was worried you’d’ve copped it, so I came up to see if you was all right. When they brought you in I wasn’t sure you’d be here in the morning. How’d you manage to get a kick like that?’

A kick? Luke licked dry lips and tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

‘We’ve all done it,’ the groom carried on. ‘Frisky horse, it’s easy enough to let yer attention slip for a moment. But blow me, he musta caught you quite a clip with his hoof. You’ve got a headache fit to kill, I reckon?’

Luke nodded, setting small fires of pain ablaze in the back of his skull. They fizzled out and he lay trying to collect his thoughts. Had he really had a kick from a horse? He didn’t remember it.

‘I heard as you’re going back to London today,’ the other groom said. ‘You be all right on the train with two horses?’

Two horses . . . A memory flickered . . . Cherry.

‘One horse,’ Luke managed.

‘Oh, a’course.’ The young groom slapped his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten it was your young miss what had the fall off the bridge. Blimey, it’s been bad luck for you, this journey, ain’t it? You’ll be glad to see the back of Southing, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Southing.

Rosa.

Something came back, a memory of Rosa’s face, covered in blood. But why – he’d had the fall . . . He lay still while the groom chatted on, wishing the man’d be silent just for a minute so he could grope his thoughts back together.

‘Well, every cloud and all that, eh?’ the man continued cheerily. ‘At least if you’ve earned yourself a bang on the head and your miss lost her horse, she’s gained a husband – and right plum too, so my mistress was saying. Are they announcing it when they’re back in London, you reckon?’

Luke couldn’t answer. His limbs were suddenly cold beneath the thin, scratchy blanket.

A ring, flashing with fire, on Rosa’s finger.

Her face, streaming with blood.

Knyvet . . .

‘I’ve got to get up,’ he managed hoarsely, and he swung his legs out of bed, his arms trembling as he pushed against the hard, flat mattress.

‘Eh, mate, you’re in no state to go mucking out. I’ll do yer horses if you tell me which ones. Wait a while . . .’

‘I can’t.’

He began to drag his clothes on, his head pounding. As he dressed he tried to think. He had to see Rosa. But how? A groom couldn’t go marching into the young ladies’ bedrooms. He didn’t even know where she was, in this great maze of a house.

Rose! he thought desperately, pleading with her to hear. She was a witch, wasn’t she? Surely they could read minds, something.

Then it came to him. The ladies’ maids.

Luke burst into the servants’ hall so fast that the door thumped against the wall. There was only one maid there, sitting at the table doing some darning.

‘Lordy love us!’ She looked up. ‘Who tied a firework to your tail?’

‘I need to get a message to – to my mistress. How can I do it? Could you take her a note?’

The girl laughed comfortably, tied off her darning and bit off the end of the thread. Luke wanted to strangle her for her slowness.