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.’

‘I will, miss.’ He licked his lips again, and then said, ‘I – if I might ask, are you Miss Greenwood? Miss Rosamund Greenwood?’

‘That’s right. You’ve met my brother Alexis, I suppose?’

‘Not yet, miss.’

‘Oh.’ There was something in her face; he couldn’t put his finger on it – some reserve in her dark eyes. ‘Well, you’ve that pleasure still to come then.’

‘Um . . .’ He twisted the hay between his fingers, unsure how to answer. Then he remembered what William had said: When in doubt, just agree with them. Yes, sir. No, sir. You can’t go far wrong with that. ‘Yes, miss.’

She gave him a look, that same odd look, and then tossed her head in a gesture so like the little mare that he might have laughed if she’d been just an ordinary girl and he an ordinary lad.

‘You’d better go in,’ she said. ‘The clock struck the hour a few minutes ago. Mrs Ramsbottom’s very strict about meal times.’

Then she turned and was gone, leaving him holding the rail of the stall for support, trying to catch his breath.

So this was her. The witch he was to kill.

6

Rosa hurried back into the house, her cheeks hot with embarrassment as she relived the scene in the stable – the door opening, the strange man standing there, with his arm slung across Cherry’s back, her horse, and Cherry nuzzling his hand as if she’d known him for ever.

What a fool she’d been. Of course she should have realized who he was – Ellen had only told her the night before. But Ellen had spoken as if his arrival was days, weeks away. And she’d screamed at him like a fishwife – no wonder the poor man had been struck dumb. He probably wasn’t used to the daughter of the house shrieking at him on his first day.

He looked nothing like Fred, that was all she could think as she ran up the back stairs, hoping to avoid Mama. Fred was small and fair and pink, with thin little bones like a jockey. This cousin was tall and dark, with hazel eyes and hair the colour of wet straw. He looked more like – like a navvy than anything else. When Ellen had said stableboy she’d imagined a little skinny thing, with raw red knees and homesick eyes. The man she’d met in the stable had to be eighteen if he was a day, and looked as if he rode at least twelve or fourteen stone, and his dark eyes showed not homesickness, but a tense wariness she couldn’t account for.

Well, it was no crime to be unlike your cousin. She had little enough in common with Alexis and he was her brother.

Suddenly, as if she’d conjured him from thin air just by thinking of him, she heard his voice.