Read Online Witch Finder by Unknown - Free Book Online

even wider than nature had made them.
    ‘I can see if I leave this up to you you’ll be more likely to end up a bride of God before you’re a bride of Sebastian Knyvet.’
    ‘I am not a damn nun!’ Rosa cried hotly. ‘Will everyone stop going on as if I’m training for a convent?’
    ‘Clearly not with that language!’ Clemency said, her face shocked. But her blue eyes were laughing above the primly pursed mouth. ‘No, Rose, you are not in training for a convent. But you will have to tread a very fine line with Sebastian Knyvet, between virtue and allure. And something tells me you may find it easier to navigate on horseback.’
    It was dark when Rosa got home and as she hurried up the stairs, the clock struck six. She would have to dress for dinner straight away.
    In her room she unpinned her hat and then rang the bell for Ellen. As she pulled off her gloves she saw that the left-hand one was split, probably from where she’d clenched her fists at Clemency. Rosa sighed, thinking of what Mama would say when she found new kid gloves on her bill at the milliner’s. The bill for the riding habit was going to be painful enough. She glanced guiltily at the doorway and then muttered a spell under her breath.
    ‘You rang, Miss Rosamund?’ Ellen’s voice cut across her whisper. Rosa jumped convulsively and put the gloves behind her back, but the rent had already begun to knit.
    ‘Oh! Ellen, thank you. That was quick.’ Her face flamed. She could see it in the mirror, the pink flush of her cheeks clashing horribly with her dark-red hair. Every thought had gone out of her head, except for the guilty knowledge of that tear, mending itself behind her back. Please God Ellen didn’t ask her what she was holding . . .
    ‘Yes, miss?’ Ellen repeated, a trifle impatiently. She’d probably been in the middle of fetching something for Mama. Rosa took a breath.
    ‘Oh, um. Could you . . . I’m about to dress for dinner. Could you bring me up some hot water and I’ll ring the bell to be laced in about twenty minutes?’
    ‘Yes, Miss.’
    ‘Oh, and for tomorrow . . .’ Her heart gave a little leap against her ribs, a half-thrilling, half-sickening feeling, like taking a fence too fast and seeing the ditch on the other side a hoof-beat too late. ‘Tomorrow the dressmaker is sending across my new habit. Would you tell Fred Welling to look out the side-saddle?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Miss Rosa, but Fred’s not here.’
    ‘Not here? What do you mean?’
    ‘He’s broken his arm and collarbone, miss. Set upon by footpads.’
    ‘Footpads!’ Rosa almost laughed, it sounded so melodramatic. Then she recollected herself. It wasn’t as though footpads were unheard of in London. Why, Alexis had been set upon and beaten crossing the Heath one night. It was only a swift (and extremely illegal) spell which had saved his purse and probably his life. And Fred would have had no such resources to fall back on. ‘I’m very sorry. Poor Fred. Will he be all right?’
    ‘I dare say, Miss Rosa.’ Ellen tossed her head, and Rosa remembered that Ellen was said to be sweet on Fred, and that they walked out together sometimes on Ellen’s afternoon off. ‘But he can’t manage the horses until the bones have set.’
    ‘So – so what will happen?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Ellen said, and for all her worry about Fred, there was something a little pleasurable in the way she said it, relishing the drama. ‘I’m sure I don’t know. Fred says he has a cousin who wants to be a stableboy or something – some lad from Spitalfields, I heard tell. We’ll all be murdered in our beds, I shouldn’t wonder.’
    ‘Ellen!’ Rosa snorted. She unpinned her hair and began to brush out the plaits. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. Nobody will be murdered. Spitalfields or not, I’m sure his cousin will be a thoroughly nice boy and look after the horses very well. And as long as he’s kind to Cherry and can put on a side-saddle, I really don’t