Witch Finder Read Online Free PDF

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.
    ‘With pleasure.’ Sebastian raised her free hand to his lips and smiled. ‘Thank you, Ma’am, for a delicious supper, and for the charming company.’
    Rosa stood, very still and upright, as he turned to her.
    ‘Miss Greenwood . . .’ He took her hand and raised it to his lips. For a moment she felt nothing at all – just as if she were carved out of wood or stone. But as his lips touched her satin-gloved knuckles, his fingers found the soft skin beneath her wrist where her glove button gaped. Skin touched skin and she felt something prickle over her – she could not have said what, whether it was excitement, a shiver of longing, or even a kind of fear. She felt Alexis’ eyes boring into