Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2)

by Ruth Warburton

  She heard the spit of kindling in the grate and the roar of the draught as the fire began to draw.

  ‘Will that be all, miss?’

  ‘No.’ She opened her eyes as the girl stood, brushing down her apron. ‘Could you – could you bring me something to drink?’

  ‘Of course, miss,’ the girl whispered. ‘Tea, miss?’

  ‘No.’ Rosa bit her lip, thinking of Alexis. Was he still here? Or had he gone back to London? ‘No, brandy. Please.’

  The girl curtsied and scurried away. When she was gone Rosa turned to the wardrobe in the corner, the wardrobe full of the dresses Sebastian had given her, the dresses she had scorned and refused to wear.

  She took one of them down, a long slim dress the colour of old ivory in the light from the fire and the candles. It was hard dressing without a maid to help her, harder still with her clumsy, injured finger, but she was just putting her hair up in the mirror when a knock came again at the door. She drove the last pin into the heavy coil and turned to face the door.

  ‘Come in.’ The catch in her voice was slight and she clenched her fists, feeling the strangeness of the missing finger, a gap where something should have been. She would have whispered a spell to give herself courage – but she had no magic. She heard the words in her head, nonetheless, and perhaps it was her imagination, or perhaps just the comfort of a familiar mantra, but in the moment before the door swung open she thought she felt it: a prickle of bravery like a cool breeze across her skin.

  It was Sebastian. He had a decanter in one hand and two brandy glasses in the other. He was dressed in faultless evening clothes, white tie and tails, and his white-gold hair gleamed like burnished silver in the candlelight, though a lock had come loose across his forehead. He bowed.

  ‘You asked for me, my darling?’

  ‘Yes.’ She swallowed and forced her fingers to relax out of the fists she had made. Now was not the time to fight. ‘I did.’

  ‘You look . . .’ There was something hungry in his blue eyes, a starved yearning so strong that even the candle flames seemed to quell and gutter as he crossed the threshold into the room. She would have taken a step back, but the dressing table was at her spine, and she could only stand straighter as he came towards her. ‘You look . . . beautiful. Quite extraordinarily beautiful.’

  His thin lips curved in that rare, true smile – not the mocking twist or the wolfish grin she had come to know, but the smile of the boy she had known as a child, and for a moment a look of pain crossed his face. She was not sure if it was the scar where she had cut him, or just her own apparition in the candlelight that caused it.

  ‘Thank you.’ She stood for a moment, feeling his eyes on her naked throat and bare shoulders. Then she turned away, moving to the ottoman at the foot of the bed. ‘Won’t you sit?’ He had already been drinking, she could see that in the too-careful way he set the decanter and the glasses on the table. He was not drunk, not yet, but she recognized from Alexis all too well that deliberately stilted movement, trying to hide the slurring of alcohol.

  Sebastian waited for her to sit and then sat himself, in the armchair to the right of the fire.

  ‘The maid said that you wished to speak to me.’

  ‘I did. I do.’ She swallowed again. ‘Might I – might I have a drink?’

  He nodded and poured her out a snifterful, and then one for himself.

  ‘I want to make a toast.’ Her face felt stiff as a mask. But when she raised the round, golden globe of brandy, her hand did not shake. ‘To . . . to us.’

  ‘To us?’ He leant forwards, his eyes aflame with the candles and the fire and something inside, something that burnt and consumed him from within. ‘Then you mean . . . ?’

  ‘I will marry you.’ She put the glass to her lips and watched as he drained his own and then put it down on the table between them. She set her full one next to his and he reached for her hands.

  ‘Rosa, darling . . .’

  She tried not to shudder at his touch even as she pulled away to pick up his empty glass.

  ‘Won’t you pour me another glass?’ she asked. Sebastian gave a short laugh and let go of her fingers to refill the snifter.

  ‘I didn’t think . . .’ He topped up the other glass and picked it up. ‘You seemed so very . . .’

  He stopped. She had rarely seen him at a loss and now he looked much younger than the man who had bargained with Leadingham in the alley, dragged her back to London, imprisoned her in this room.

  ‘I love you, Rosa.’ He leant forward and touched his hand to her face, cupping her cheek. ‘I know you may find that hard to believe, but I do. I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.’

  You want me because you cannot have me, you who have never been denied anything . . .

  ‘And now you are mine,’ he said, his voice soft and rough and full of a contained passion.

  ‘We are not married yet,’ she said with a shaking laugh, and she put the brandy to her lips and took a rash gulp, watching through the curved glass as he too raised his glass and drained it, wiping his lips with a laugh. He refilled without her suggesting it and threw it back again, and when he tipped his head back she saw the muscles of his throat move and flex as he swallowed.

  So vulnerable . . .

  He set his glass down on the table next to hers, with a clumsiness that made the glasses chink against each other, and she refilled before he could tell her not to.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’ he asked. She closed her eyes. Mama. Alexis. Luke. Luke. Always Luke. But she knew it would be fatal to speak his name.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps . . . perhaps the realization that I have no choice.’

  ‘Ah, darling Rosa, don’t be bitter.’ He looked at her in the firelight, the flames softening the planes of his face from marble back to flesh. She sipped at her glass, staring into the flames, not looking at him, and he sighed and leant back in the armchair, warming the brandy with his palm. ‘Did I ever tell you about my lark?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I bought it from a bird-catcher when I was a boy, one of those men who walk about the country lane with their hats filled with wild singing birds, and it lived in a cage in my room and sang so beautifully your heart would break to hear it. Cassandra always nagged at me to free it, but I loved it too much. But finally we were going to India and I thought: why not? I can’t take it with me, after all.’

  ‘And did you? Free it, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, I opened the cage door and it flew out of the sash window into the sunshine, singing with all its heart. But the next day I found it lying on the cobblestones of the stableyard, its innards spilt on to the ground, with the stable cat prowling around, defending its kill. My lark had grown soft in captivity, and trusting. When it had to fend for itself, it could not. I should have killed it in its cage, spared it those last moments of horror and pain.’

  ‘But in exchange it had a moment’s freedom.’ She thought of the lark, its moment come at last, bursting from the bedroom window into the summer sunshine, spiralling to the blue sky. ‘It had a moment’s unparalleled joy.’

  ‘Much good it did it, when the cat was pawing its entrails. No –’ he took a gulp of brandy, ‘– I learnt my lesson that day. Some creatures are not meant to fly free. They are too beautiful, too fragile. Love can take many forms, Rosa. Sometimes that form is a locked door.’

  I was raised in a cage, Rosa thought. A cage of privilege and magic. And Luke opened the door.

  He had not just opened the door. He had smashed it with a hammer. He had tried to kill her – and it would always be between them: the shivering mirage of the death she could have had.

  But he had saved her life too. He had given her freedom. He had kissed her, and loved her, and given up everything for her sake, and he would never be done repenting the mistakes he had made.

  She thought of his gentleness and strength, of the hardness of his muscles and the softness of his skin. She thought of his body again
st hers in the warm bed of the forge at Langholm, and of his gasping cry in the silence of the night.

  She knew she must hold on to that: that brief moment of unparalleled joy.

  ‘I have one condition,’ she said to Sebastian, watching his face carefully.

  ‘What?’ There was the smallest, slightest slur in his voice, and looking closer she saw that he was drunk now, really drunk. The brandy was whispering through his veins, turning his muscles to water and dulling his reflexes.

  ‘Take off the collar.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Rosa. I can’t.’

  ‘I’m yours.’ She forced herself to put out a hand, caress his cheek. ‘What difference can it make now?’

  ‘The day you swear to love, honour and obey me in front of a priest, that is the day I will take off the collar. Not before.’

  Damn him. She shut her eyes, clenching her fists. She forced herself a smile.

  ‘Then let us drink to that day.’ She stood and held up her brandy glass. Sebastian looked up at her, his hair falling over his brow.

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’

  ‘I’ve matched you drink for drink,’ she lied. ‘Are you saying a girl like me can drink you under the table? Come.’ She would not drink to obedience, never to that. And there was little enough honour in what she was about to do. Instead she raised her glass. ‘To love!’

  He gave a laugh at that, short and bitter, and then heaved himself to his feet.

  ‘Very well. To love!’ He threw back the brandy, the whole brimming glassful. He must have had near enough half the decanter, she judged, watching him as he tried to set his glass back on the table, missed the edge, and then tried again, brushing her arm as he did.

  And Rosa flinched.

  She stilled, hoping Sebastian was too drunk to notice her reaction, but he did, and he laughed as he straightened.

  ‘Kiss me,’ he said.

  She felt as if she were turned to stone. He stepped closer, put his hand to her face, his eyes cold and blue as moonlit snow.

  ‘Kiss me,’ he repeated, and though his voice was smooth, there was something beneath the surface that sounded to Rosa almost like a snarl.

  His grip on her jaw grew tight, his fingers squeezing the flesh against her bone.

  Rosa shut her eyes. She made herself small and still. Luke, she thought, remembering the softness of his lips, the arch of his throat in the candlelight. Luke.

  Then she felt Sebastian’s lips on hers, and he was not Luke, he never would be. His mouth was cold and hard, and she felt his teeth as he forced her lips apart.

  ‘No,’ she managed, the words muffled and twisted by his kiss. She put her arms up to his chest, feeling the hardness of bone and muscle beneath the pleated dress shirt as she pushed him away. ‘No! I’m sorry, I can’t, I can’t do this!’

  Sebastian staggered back and grabbed at the fireguard to save himself from falling. For a moment he said nothing, he only stood, panting. Then he put out his tongue to lick a fleck of saliva from his lips and began to laugh wildly, holding himself up against the mantelpiece, his head flung back.

  Rosa put her hands to the collar, feeling the metal ripple and flex beneath her fingers as it tried to tighten.

  Please God, let me have guessed right. If it’s Sebastian who controls this thing, Sebastian who takes my magic . . .

  He was drunk, stumbling drunk. He could not control himself, let alone his magic. She dug her fingers beneath the necklace, into the soft flesh of her throat, feeling it tightening against her grip, and she pulled with all her strength and power.

  ‘Stop that!’ His voice was slurred, and he came stumbling across the carpet towards her, his eyes wild and pale with rage, his fingers outstretched. She could not take her hands from the collar, or risk suffocating, but she kicked out, kicking him hard in the stomach so that he staggered backwards into the coffee table, their brandy glasses skittering and smashing beneath their feet.

  The collar was tight as a rope around her neck, only her frantic, scrabbling fingers buying her enough space to breathe. As Sebastian struggled to disentangle himself from the shards of wood and broken glass she pulled again.

  A spell! I need a spell! She racked her brains, trying to think of something to break the hold, but nothing came into her head but nursery charms – for witchlight, luck, courage – the small folk-magics she had whispered before her magic had even come in. Nothing that could help her now.

  Let go of me! she screamed inside her head, her throat too tight to form the words.

  Her breath tore in her throat and the pressure on her windpipe was making her gag, but as she flung back her head, trying desperately to drag in a little air, she felt the metal slip beneath her fingers. For a minute she thought that it was her own grip giving way, and she sobbed out a despairing cry, but then she realized she could breathe, that she had dragged in enough oxygen to make that gasping, hacking noise. The collar was loosening.

  ‘Bitch!’ Sebastian growled. He was crawling towards her, the smashed glasses cutting his hands so that he left a trail of bloody handprints on the silk rug. Then he was at her feet, dragging himself upright using her skirts, even while she kicked out against him. He was past spells too – too drunk to speak, almost. She only felt his black rage boiling around her, smothering her in its grip, a blind directionless hate that wanted to crush and to kill, to smash her across the room and to grind her to the floor, all at the same time.

  It seemed like an eternity that they struggled, but at last he was upright, at her throat, pulling at her hands, pulling them away from the collar, trying to wrest her fingers away from the metal. Rosa clung on, fighting against Sebastian’s desperate strength.

  ‘Let me go,’ she managed, her voice a raven’s croak.

  ‘Never!’ he screamed, his face so close to hers that she could feel the flecks of spit in his roar. And then his weight toppled her and they fell to the floor together. Sebastian landed on top and Rosa could not get upright, not without putting a hand to the floor, and she could not afford to let go of the necklace. Her hold was the only thing saving her from suffocation. Sebastian crouched over her, one knee braced against her ribs, pulling with all his strength at her grip on the collar.

  And then it snapped.

  Rosa felt it go, the jagged edge scoring the back of her neck as Sebastian staggered backwards, sprawling over the foot of the bed with the broken collar in two halves in his hands. He looked down at the broken pieces of metal and then up at her, his eyes full of a stupefied disbelief. And then, as Rosa raised her hand, feeling her magic flood through her like wine in her blood, something else came into his expression: fear.

  ‘Rosa . . .’ He tried to scramble to his feet, but he tripped, too drunk to steady himself. ‘Rose – my darling—’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snarled.

  ‘Ábréoðe!’ he roared, and she felt his magic buffet her, but she flung the spell away before she had even time to think about.

  ‘Ádræfe!’ she shouted back, and he flew across the floor to slam against the wall between the two windows. There was a cracking thud as his head met the plaster, and a Ming vase on the dressing table rocked gently, but did not fall.

  Rosa crouched, waiting for him to rise again. But he only lay, slumped against the skirting board, blood running from a cut on his temple. Was he alive?

  ‘God forgive me,’ she whispered, horrified by what she had done. But she knew in her heart that if the time came she would do it again. She had been fighting for her magic, for her life.

  She felt the magic flowing through her bones and muscles. She closed her eyes and let it run to her fingertips, filling her with a wild, formless joy.

  The necklace lay on the floor, its two halves winking in the candlelight. Rosa picked it up, weighing them in her hands, and then she rolled Sebastian on to his side, so that his hands were behind him. She picked up the collar and wrapped the broken halves around his crossed wrists, pushing them
together with her mind and magic. The gold shivered beneath her finger, shrinking away from her touch as it melded into one so that he was bound, his hands clasped behind his back. She wasn’t fool enough to think it would hold him for long – Sebastian knew the secrets of the jewel and she did not. But perhaps it would slow him for long enough to let her accomplish what she wanted to do.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. There was a smear of blood on her cheekbone – hers or Sebastian’s, she could not tell. But when she wiped it away, the girl that looked back at her from the glass might have been dressed for a ball or a dinner. Her throat was bare – no locket, no collar – and the ivory lace dress fell in folds and ruches to the ground. She pinned her hair again, where a lock had come loose in her struggle.

  Then she took a breath and turned to open the door.

  Luke held on to Castor’s mane with numb fingers. It was snowing, the flakes driving into his face as they galloped through the night, and he had no gloves. His rib screamed with the pain of the long ride through the darkness, but he did not dare stop.

  Behind him lay the Malleus, who might even now be sending Brothers out to find out why Leadingham had not returned. When they found Luke’s cell empty, they would start the pursuit. Whether they found him depended on one thing: if Leadingham had told anyone about Sebastian. If anyone knew that Leadingham had traded Rosa for a sack of cash and the promise of cooperation, they would know where to find him.

  He could only hope that Leadingham had kept his treachery silent, but he would not know for sure until he heard hoof-beats on the road behind and felt a knife in his back.

  Castor was tiring, he could feel it in the horse’s lolloping gait and the way he had begun to stumble in the snow. Clouds of white came from his flared nostrils and his flanks were hot and wet with sweat beneath Luke’s legs. But he could not allow the horse to rest.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ Luke whispered, his teeth gritted against the pain of his rib. ‘Come on. Black Bess carried Dick Turpin from York to London in a single night, I’m not asking the half of that. Fifty miles – that’s all I ask. You can give me that.’