‘And what brings you up to town?’
Because Matchenham is let! Because there are strangers in my home, their horses stabled in Cherry’s stall, their children in my bed.
She kept her face and voice even.
‘Mama thought I should see her dressmaker. I’ll be coming out in the spring.’
‘Next season? Can it really be? Not that I should be surprised, when you’re standing before me like this, with your hair twined so seductively above your neck – only it’s hard to reconcile you with the little girl I remember, who used to tuck up her skirts to play mud pies with us on the lake shore.’
‘I’ve grown up since then.’
‘Yes.’ Sebastian’s gaze swept her up, and down. ‘Yes, I can see you certainly have.’
‘Well, gentlemen.’ Mama stood with a rustle of silk and looked at her little gold fob-watch and then at Rosa. ‘We will leave you to your port. Rosa?’
Rosa stood, thankful to be away from the table, from Alexis’ hard stare and Sebastian’s disquieting presence on the other side of the candelabra. The candle flames kindled in his cool blue eyes and his gaze followed her as she followed Mama into the drawing room next door. James had laid out coffee and petits fours and Rosa looked wistfully at the tray, wishing, not for the first time, that she could loosen her stays just a little. Eighteen inches was painfully tight, and she’d managed only a few bites at dinner. She would be hungry tonight unless she could persuade Cook to part with a few slices of bread and butter to take to bed.
‘What—’ she began.
‘Shh!’ Mama hissed. She closed the door firmly and then put a glass to the wall that divided the room, in the alcove next to the chimney breast. She looked around to check that no servants were likely to come in and whispered a spell. Without warning, Alexis’ clear, hard voice suddenly filled the room.
‘. . . d’you think of Rosamund then? I’ll warrant she’s changed since you last saw her?’
‘She certainly has.’ Sebastian’s murmur, followed by the hiss and suck as he pulled on his cigar.
‘Quite the beauty, eh? Though she doesn’t look as if she knows quite what to do with it, half the time. How do our London ladies compare to the Indian damsels then? From what I heard you had your fair share of caps thrown at your head over there. Is it true what they say about women in a hot climate?’
‘What do they say?’ There was a laugh in Sebastian’s voice.
‘Why –’ Rosa heard Alexis’ chair creak expansively, and knew that he was tilting himself backwards from the table, his arms locked behind his head and the buttons on his waistcoat straining. ‘Why, that corset laces are loose and morals looser.’
‘I can’t speak for their morals, but I probably loosed my fair share of laces,’ Sebastian said. Rosa shuddered and felt hot fury flood her cheeks. Her heart was hammering and she looked at Mama, but her mother’s face showed no anger, only intense concentration as she strained to keep the spell working.
‘If looks could cut, I fear Rosa’s stays would have been on the floor,’ Alexis drawled. Sebastian said nothing, but Rosa could almost hear his single raised eyebrow and the smile that would be twitching at the corner of his mouth as he sipped his port. ‘Though her morals are straight-laced enough to satisfy any maiden aunt.’
‘Stop the spell,’ Rosa said. Her voice was hard.
‘Shh,’ Mama hissed.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said, stop it!’
‘Be quiet, you silly girl. The walls aren’t that thick, even without magic.’
‘Stop the spell or I’ll go in there and tell them that you’re spying on them.’
‘Rosa!’ Mama spun round and flung the glass furiously on to the chaise longue. It bounced up and hit the wooden arm of the chaise, and Rosa flinched as it shattered into splinters that skittered across the Turkey rug. Mama’s face was dark with anger and her voice was hard. ‘Firstly, if you ever dare speak to me in that tone again you will find that you’re not too old for a whipping. And secondly, in case you hadn’t noticed, this family is sailing perilously close to the rocks. Matchenham is mortgaged to the hilt and fast falling into disrepair. If our friends find out that it’s let, God knows how we’ll weather the disgrace. Alexis has just taken a mortgage on this house so that we can hold your coming-out ball next season. He is clawing his way up the ladder at the Ealdwitan, but without family influence or money to spend, his climb will be slow, if not impossible. We have one remaining asset. You.’
Rosa went cold.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There are only three things that matter in this life, Rosa: beauty, breeding and power, which is to say, money. God and your family have provided you with the first two. Now it is your responsibility to barter them for the last.’
‘You want me to marry for money!’ Rosa cried. ‘Marry Sebastian Knyvet?’
Images, memories, flickered through her head. Sebastian, his tanned skin glinting in the summer sun as he swam in the lake at Matchenham, his boyish body already halfway to manhood. Sebastian, taking her little kitten and holding it over the nursery fire, and then laughing at Rosa’s cries. She remembered his words as he handed the little creature back to her. ‘It’s so nice to feel them cling to you, don’t you think, Rosa? I wouldn’t hurt it, you know, not much.’ And Sebastian, leaning towards her over the dinner table tonight, his eyes aflame with the candlelight and something more. She thought of his face in the gas-light as he walked towards the house, the way the gas-lamps shadowed his sharp cheekbones, the glimmer of his golden hair as he lifted his top hat . . .
She put her hands to her face, feeling the heat of the fire.
‘I don’t want to marry – I’m too young, I—’
‘You will marry for money, Rosa.’ Mama’s voice was curt. ‘And you will do it this season. We cannot manage another season for you. This is your one chance: by hook or by crook, we must have a marriage settlement and a protector for this family. Who are you to turn up your nose at Sebastian Kynvet? He’s handsome, rich, well connected – what more do you want? Dear Lord, his father is a Chair at the Ealdwitan! Think of what a link to his family could do for Alexis, for all of us!’
‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . .’ Rosa’s face was hot, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe, the stays pinching cruelly at her waist until she felt she was about to be cut in two.
There was a noise at the door. The handle began to turn and Mama’s gaze flickered towards it and then to the glass on the floor.
‘Gestrice!’ Mama pointed at the fragments and they shuddered, and then a small whirlwind whisked them off the floor and into a swirling mass of glass that spun for a moment above Mama’s palm. Then, as the door opened, the glass dropped with a small thud into her outstretched hand and she turned to greet Sebastian and Alexis with a smile.
‘I hope you enjoyed your cigar, Mr Knyvet.’
‘Oh please, Mrs Greenwood, I beg you to call me Sebastian. It feels strange to be so formal when I scrumped apples from your orchard as a boy.’
‘Very well then, Sebastian. Can I offer you coffee? Or brandy, if you prefer?’
‘I would love to – but I’m sorry, I must go. Please forgive me. It’s disgracefully rude to leave so soon after your charming dinner, but I promised my father I’d call in at the headquarters tonight, and it’s getting very late. I hadn’t realized how time had flown.’
‘Another time,’ Mama said with a smile, but Rosa saw the way her rings winked in the candlelight as she tightened her fingers on the glass in her hand.