‘Luke . . .’ William put out a pleading hand, but Luke turned away from his uncle towards John Leadingham.
‘I accept the task. I’ll kill the girl. And there’s an end.’
2
‘Shh, not on the bed, Belle.’ Rosa pushed at the little dog and it thudded sulkily to the floor and shuffled over to the window seat, where it circled busily until it settled itself in a neat ring, tail over its nose.
‘Watch out if Mama catches you,’ Rosa said warningly. Belle let out a little whine of contentment and closed her eyes, and Rosa turned back to her sketch book and the view from the window, over the rooftops of Knightsbridge. The fog was closing in and she could just see, above the yellow shifting sea, dark rooftops and the tips of chimneys, each trickling the coal smoke that made London’s pea-soupers so deadly. Not for the first time, Rosa was glad that her bedroom was on the top floor of their tall house. Only the maids slept higher than she, in the attics, beneath the slates.
She swapped pencils for a sharper point and began to fill in the fine detail of the slates and chimneys.
‘Down, you god-damn mutt!’ The voice came like the crack of a whip.
Rosa jumped as hard as the little dog. Belle leapt to the floor and scurried under the bed, and Rosa’s pencil clattered to the floor. She knew who it was, of course, even before she caught sight of him standing in the doorway. He was dressed in riding clothes, his polished boots spattered with mud, and there was a crop in his hand. His face was red with exercise – as red as his hair.
‘You might knock, Alexis,’ she said bitterly.
‘Your door wasn’t shut. And why should I knock in my own house?’
Rosa bit her lip. It was true: Papa’s death had left Alexis the legal owner of Osborne House and everything in it, but he didn’t have to keep reminding her about it.
‘The bank’s house, don’t you mean,’ she whispered under her breath.
‘What did you say, little sister?’ Alexis came into her room, twitching his riding crop dangerously against his thigh. Rosa set her jaw.
‘Nothing. Hadn’t you better get changed for dinner? It’s a quarter after six.’
‘That’s what I came to tell you. Dinner will be at eight now. And Sebastian is coming, so for God’s sake try to look like something more than an insipid schoolgirl.’
‘Sebastian Knyvet?’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘He’s back from India?’
‘Yes,’ Alexis said shortly.
Sebastian. How long since she’d seen him? Four years? More? Her stomach curled and she shivered, thinking of those strange, far-seeing blue eyes that seemed to look right through you. He and Alexis had been friends at school and he’d stayed often in the holidays. She remembered the boys swimming in the great lake at Matchenham, their bodies lithe and brown, shining in the sun. And Sebastian, charming a kingfisher out of the tree by the lake, bringing it up to the house with Alexis, the two of them marvelling over the colours of its wings. She’d been charmed too – until she’d realized it was dead.
‘You’re not wearing that dress, are you?’ Alexis broke into her thoughts. Rosa looked down at herself, at the white lawn, and her hand went nervously to the locket hanging at her throat.
‘Yes. What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing, if you want to look like a twelve-year-old novice nun. For God’s sake, Rose, you’re sixteen. It’s time you acted like it. Other girls are wedded by your age – and bedded too. You’ll be lucky if you get either, looking like that.’
‘I’m not changing,’ Rosa said furiously. She closed her fingers around the pencil, feeling its point dig into her skin, concentrating on the pain in her hand to distract her from the pain in her heart. Why was Alexis such a beast? Why couldn’t he smile and compliment her as other girls’ brothers did?
‘I’ll see you in the drawing room at half past seven. Unless you want bread and dripping for supper, make sure you’re smiling. Wear the green dress; at least that’s passable. And get Ellen to re-lace your corset. You look like a scrawny boy.’
He turned and stalked to the door. Then he turned back, as if with an afterthought.
‘Oh, and take off that bloody locket. It’s ugly as hell – and morbid.’
He slammed out, the door crashing shut so hard that the picture on the wall of the stag at bay leapt and clattered against the paper and the gas-light flickered.
‘Lúcan!’ Rosa shouted after him, and the door lock shot across with a sound like a gun, so hard that for a minute she feared she might have damaged the frame.
She sat for a long moment, her heart thumping with fury, waiting for Alexis to come roaring back and shout at her about using magic within earshot of the servants. But he didn’t come. There was only silence on the landing outside, the hiss of the gas and the rush of blood in her ears.
Rosa opened her hand, where the pencil lay clenched in her grip, digging into her palm.
She put the point to the paper but, as she pressed, the lead snapped, skittering across the page, leaving an ugly hole in the paper. The sketch was ruined.
She ripped the page from the book and flung it furiously to the floor.
At the sound of the paper fluttering down, Belle’s little, pointed, wet nose peeped out from beneath the curtains of the four-poster bed. Rosa scooped her up and buried her face in the dog’s warm, shivering back, feeling her breath come quick, catching in her throat like a choke. The locket pressed heavy and warm between them and, at last, when Belle began to whine and wriggle, Rosa set her gently to the floor and drew a deep, shaky breath.
Morbid.
How could it be morbid to want to remember your father?
She held the locket in her palm, looking at the heavy silver scrolling, shiny where it rubbed against her skin and dark in the cracks between. The brass was showing through around the edges, where the plate had worn thin. Papa had given it to her on her tenth birthday and she remembered how sophisticated she had felt – her very own jewellery! Now she saw the cheapness of the thin plate and the old-fashioned moulding. But it didn’t matter.
Gently she put her nail to the catch and prised it open. Papa looked out at her, his dark eyes twinkling above his long, dark beard. It was only a pencil sketch. She’d done it one wet afternoon in front of the fire. Alexis had said it made Papa look like Charles Dickens crossed with a potato, but Papa had praised it. To the very life, Rosa! You’ll be an artist some day.
Rosa shut her eyes, remembering the softness of his beard, the feeling of being hugged against his silk waistcoat, the sound of his laugh.
She sighed and clicked the locket shut.
The crumpled paper lay at her feet and she stood and picked it up, smoothing it out with her palm.
‘Gestrice, léaf,’ she whispered. The paper shivered as if a breeze had passed through the room, and where her palm had passed the page was smooth and whole again. Even the hole she’d torn had knitted back together, but as she looked closer she could see it was not quite perfect. There was a faint scar, like a healed wound; a sort of watermark made by her anger. Nothing would get that out. The drawing was spoilt – like everything Alexis touched.
Rosa opened her wardrobe and began to look through her dresses again.
‘You look charming, Rosa.’ Alexis’ smile showed his teeth. ‘Quite charming.’
Rosa’s stays cut into her waist cruelly, so cruelly she could hardly sit, but, remembering Alexis’ threat about bread and dripping, she smiled back, trying to ignore the pain. Ellen had put her hair up and in the mirror above the fire she saw the long white line of her throat, made whiter still by the dark-red curls behind her ears and at the nape of her neck. The neckline of the green dress plunged far lower than she liked and she fought the urge to tug nervously at the bodice.