‘No!’ Luke was shocked. ‘No, I can’t. I don’t need it.’

‘Take them.’ His uncle pressed the coins into his limp hand and Luke stood, feeling the dense weight of gold in his palm, growing warm against his skin. ‘I’d rather you had money if you need it. There’s not much I can do to help, but this I can do. Apart from that, you’re on your own, lad.’

Luke nodded and pocketed the coins reluctantly, feeling the truth of his uncle’s words sink into his skin and bone. Apart from that, you’re on your own.

He had never felt so alone.

Then he turned and walked into the rain.

‘Who’re you?’ The man looking down at Luke was no taller than him, but he stood at the top of the flight of stone steps and Luke was at the bottom. Luke had the feeling that even if they’d been on level ground, something about his mud-spattered boots and rain-soaked coat would have left him at a disadvantage. The rain had stopped, but only a few minutes before, and his hair still dripped down his nose and the back of his neck. He looked up at the tall, white house towering above him, at the huge black door with its brass knocker, and then storey after storey of long windows glittering with raindrops.

‘I’m Luke L—’ he stumbled, and bit his lip. Dammit. The very first thing to come from his lips, and he’d nearly slipped up already. ‘Luke Welling. Fred Welling’s cousin. I’ve come to look after the horses.’

‘Hmm.’ The man at the top of the steps looked down his nose. ‘I’m Mr James, the butler. You’ll be reporting to me.’

Luke said nothing, but nodded, and shifted his heavy carpet-bag from one hand to another. It felt like it had absorbed several pints of rainwater on the walk across London.

It had been a long walk, from Spitalfields to Knightsbridge, through the City, along Fleet Street, buzzing with newspaper men, a cut through Covent Garden, full of the debris of the morning market, and then Piccadilly, flash as you like, full of swells and nobs admiring the windows full of fancy fabric and furniture, books and hats – anything you could think of, London could sell you, from gutter pickings to the finest French wines.

And then, at last, Knightsbridge, tucked beneath the green jewel of Hyde Park, a great white oasis of pristine houses so tall and fine, and so different from the grey, crumbling, sooty slums of Spitalfields that he could hardly bear to look at them. Even the rain had stopped as he came into Osborne Crescent, as if this part of London even had different skies.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ Mr James snorted. ‘What kind of manners did they teach you in Spitalfields? “Yes, Mr James”, is what you’ll reply when you’re told something.’

‘Yes, Mr James.’

‘You’ll sleep over the stable at the back of the house and take your meals in the kitchen. You go round by the mews, horses or not. Do not under any circumstances use the front door – it’s the back entrance only for you, understood? Muddy boots get left at the kitchen door, and you’ll be expected to wash at the pump before you come in from the yard. Mrs Ramsbottom won’t take kindly to horse muck being traipsed over her clean tiles. Dinner is in one hour.’

Luke nodded and then, recollecting himself, said ‘Yes, Mr James.’ He eased the carpet-bag back into his other hand, wishing he could set it down, but something told him putting his wet bag on the whitewashed steps would be badly received.

Mr James nodded stiffly, then he looked Luke up and down, taking in his rain-soaked boots and clothes.

‘You walked from Spitalfields?’

‘Yes. I mean, yes, Mr James.’

‘Hmph.’ He seemed to soften slightly. ‘Well, you’ll be glad of dinner, I dare say. I’ll call Becky to show you to your quarters.’

‘There’s no gas to the stable block.’ Becky’s voice floated ahead as Luke trudged wearily after her and up the stairs above the stable and carriage house. ‘So it’s candles. And you’ve not to waste them. Mrs Ramsbottom will count ’em, and if you go over more than what’s reasonable she’ll tell Mr James to dock it from your wages.’

‘What’s reasonable?’ Luke asked.

Becky shrugged.

‘That depends. She had a soft spot for Fred. He got away with murder.’

She’d have a hard time docking his wages anyway, Luke reflected, as Becky opened the door to the little room above the stable block. It was small and low ceilinged, barely more than a whitewashed attic, but it looked clean.

‘The servants’ lavvy is by the back door. You’ll have to wash at the pump in the yard, but Fred used to beg Mrs Ramsbottom for a can of hot water in winter. Pick your moment though. The bed’s clean; I changed the sheets myself. I can’t speak for the rest – he wasn’t exactly a model housekeeper, your cousin.’

‘Thanks.’ Luke let his carpet-bag slip to the floor with a squelching thud. Becky looked at him appraisingly from under her lashes as he peeled off his coat, taking him in from his travel-stained boots to his rain-drenched hair. His shirt was so wet it was plastered to his chest.

‘Your afternoon off’s Wednesday.’ She twined a curl of sandy hair around her finger, where it had escaped from beneath her cap. ‘Same as mine.’

‘Right.’ Luke turned to peer out of the narrow sooty window, across the smoke-stained chimney stacks of the stable mews.

‘What’s happened to your shoulder?’ Becky asked curiously from behind him. Luke glanced reflexively and then bit his lip. The dressing stood out clear beneath the wet material.

‘None of your business,’ he said curtly.

‘Well!’ Becky gave a little huff of annoyance. ‘Some’d say a civil question deserves a civil answer. Dinner’s in three-quarters of an hour. Don’t be late.’ And with that, she turned on her heel, her apron strings fluttering as she stalked down the stairs.

Luke sighed and then sank on to the bed and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t afford to get off on the wrong foot with everyone. There was every chance he’d need the help of the other servants, albeit unknowingly, if he were going to do what needed to be done. And Becky would have been a good place to start. He wasn’t a fool; he’d seen the interest in her eyes as she took him in. And now he’d have to work twice as hard to bring her round.

So this was Fred Welling’s domain. He looked around the little room, taking in the small windows, the low-beamed ceiling. He’d have to be careful not to bump his head going to bed. There was a stub of a candle on the saucer by the bed, so at least he was one candle in credit with Mrs Ramsbottom. A Bible on the washstand – it didn’t look like it had been read very much. A rag rug on the floor and a metal bedstead with a chipped chamberpot beneath. And that was it, except for a few pieces of rickety furniture that looked like cast-offs from the house. Not exactly the lap of luxury, but not bad. It was a room of his own, which was better than many servants had, and bigger than his room at home.

Home. He thought of William and Minna and the sights and smells of Spitalfields and for a moment his heart ached and he wished he could put his head down on the flat limp pillow, close his eyes and rest. His whole body cried out for it.

Then he clenched his jaw and stood, wiping the last of the rain off his face with his sleeve.

He was here to do a job, and he’d do it, and get back home to where he belonged. That was all. And then – then – he’d tackle the Black Witch. Time enough for rest after that.

He began to unpack his bag. It was heavier than it looked, certainly too heavy for the meagre clothes he took out first. It was the other stuff, what John Leadingham called the tools of the trade that had made the bag so heavy to carry across London, all shoved down beneath his clothes and covered in a piece of newspaper. The long knife. The iron gag. The garotte, the blindfold and the syringe. The bottle, wrapped tight in a dirty rag.

‘For God’s sakes, don’t breathe the fumes,’ Leadingham had said. ‘And don’t, whatever you do, break the bottle or the witch won’t be the only one in trouble.’

Now Luke cast about for a hiding space. A loose board beneath the bed caught his eye, but when he prised it up the space was already occupied by a bottle and a stash of postcards. Luke pulled them out. The bottle was whisky, by the smell of it. And the postcards were photographs of women, everything from buxom matrons to slim young girls, all without a stitch on them. So . . . Fred Welling had had more than his Bible to pass the time up here of an evening. They’d be a good camouflage at least, if anyone did remove the board.

He put his tools into the space beneath the floor, then fitted the bottle and the cards back into the opening, masking the bundle of newspaper behind them. Then he replaced the loose board and began to unbutton his wet shirt.

The clock over the stable was striking quarter to as he hurried down into the yard, tucking his clean shirt in as he went. Fifteen minutes before dinner. He had just enough time to put his head round the stable door.

He paused for a moment with his hand on the latch, smelling the good smells of clean hay and warm horse, and then he lifted it and entered the warmth of the stable.

Inside the horses lifted their heads from their hay. Closest to the door were two big bays with large gentle eyes, presumably the two ‘hacks’ Fred Welling had mentioned. Furthest away was a beautiful Arab who tossed his head and snorted down his nose as Luke entered.

In between was a little strawberry roan who whickered gently as Luke came level with her stall.

‘You must be Cherry.’ He leant over her rail and patted her shoulder, and she nuzzled him with the side of her head. ‘Ain’t you a beauty?’

He wished Minna were here. If Bess had a place like this to feed and sleep and rest . . . But there was no point in sighing over might-have-beens. ‘If wishes were horses, then beggars’d ride,’ as Minna would say. Bess was safe from the knacker’s and the glue factory, for today at least. That was more than could be said for many horses. And if her belly wasn’t always full, well, the same could be said for Minna’s brother and sister. She was no worse off than them.

Luke pulled a wisp of hay from the bale for Cherry and she took it fastidiously between her teeth.

‘Time to go in and face the others,’ he said. ‘Wish they was all as friendly as you.’

‘Who’re you?’

He jumped and swung round, his heart pounding.

A girl was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, staring at him with angry, dark eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and the low evening light shone on the dark-red hair gathered into heavy loops at the back of her head, making her seem to glow like an ember in the warm dark of the stables. She could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen, and she was a witch, Luke could see it in her every bone, in the magic that crackled and spat around her like a halo of fire.

For a minute he couldn’t speak; it was as if she’d robbed him of his tongue. All he could think was that this must be her, the girl he’d come to kill. It must be. And she was standing in front of him, defenceless, her slim white throat bare to his knife – if only he’d had it. He’d never been so close to a witch, close enough to strike . . . He thought of the knife under the floorboards upstairs, of the quiet sound it would make as it plunged into the soft white skin, where the vein beat so close beneath – and his fingers closed on the rail of Cherry’s stall, clutching the wood so hard that splinters dug into his fingers. His heart was beating so hard and fast that he felt sick.

‘Who are you?’ she repeated angrily. She took a step forward into the stable, her skirts swishing on the flags, and he saw that her small white hands were clenched into fists. ‘Who are you and what are you doing with my horse?’

‘I’m . . . I’m Luke, miss. Luke Le—’ He caught himself, snarling inwardly at his stupidity. For Christ’s sakes, if he couldn’t get even the simplest thing right, what hope was there of his ever meeting or besting the Black Witch? ‘Luke Welling. I’m Fred’s cousin.’

‘Oh.’ She flushed, and bit her lip. A lock of dark-red hair had escaped its coils and she tucked it behind her ear. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were arriving today. That was very kind of you to fill in so quickly. How is he?’

Much you care, bitch, Luke thought. Aloud he said, ‘He’s doing all right, miss. The doctor says his arm’ll heal.’ Although not if he turned up at the forge again, looking for more money.

‘Oh good, I’m glad to hear it.’ There was a little frown line between her narrow dark brows, and her brown eyes looked . . . well – worried, or a bloody good impression of it. ‘I was so sorry to hear about the attack. It sounds terrifying. Please tell him we all wish him a quick recovery.’