Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

deep breath – held it – counted to ten while he thought. Then he let it out with a gusting sigh.
    ‘All right. It’s your funeral.’
    ‘I hope it won’t come to that for either of us,’ Rosa said, with slight acidity. Then she pulled her shawl around her shoulders and stood up straighter. ‘Let’s get walking.’
    God, it was a long way. What made it worse was that Luke seemed immune to it. He never complained, never stumbled over piles of rubbish on the pavement, never slipped into a puddle of filth. He just strode beside her, not panting, not grumbling, but walking tirelessly. At Covent Garden he took her arm to forge a path through the throngs – it had seemed as if they would be stuck for ever in the shifting mass of traders and carts. Rosa let herself be pulled in his wake as he shoved and pushed with one shoulder, ramming through the tight-packed crowd. After that he kept hold of her arm, tugging her along, helping her to keep pace.
    Even so, Rosa’s feet in their tight-buttoned boots were crying out, and her free arm throbbed painfully. It was too bad that she had spent all her magic healing Luke’s shoulder. Not that he was grateful for it, she reflected bitterly as they crossed Piccadilly. She should have saved her energy and healed her own skin first. Now she would be lucky if it didn’t scar.
    She thought again of the smooth pale skin of his shoulder, the veins blue beneath the glaze of blood, the muscles shifting and tense as he strove to pull away, and the soft brush of hair beneath his arm. She could not remember ever having touched a man’s naked body before. She had seen boys, of course: Alexis and his friends bathing in the lake, and once, as she spied through her bedroom curtains, Luke himself stripped to the waist and bathing beneath the pump in the yard. But touching a full-grown man so confidently, so intimately? That, never. The thought of what she had done – stripping back Luke’s clothes even as he struggled away from her – both amazed and appalled her. Where had she found the courage?
    Luke didn’t speak as they tramped across London, and for that she was grateful. Other men would have made solicitous small talk, remarked on the weather, the crowds, the likelihood of rain. Not Luke. He walked in silence, his arm firm beneath hers, just glancing at her from time to time to make sure she was keeping up. And she herself had no breath to spare for chat.
    At last they passed Fortnum and Mason’s and she was able to let out a sigh of relief. Not far to Clemency’s now. Pray God that Philip would be at the Ealdwitan for business. The thought gave her sudden pause and she stopped.
    ‘Luke.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Clemency is married.’
    She waited for him to respond, but he did not, and she was forced to continue. ‘I trust her, but not her husband. He is a member of the Ealdwitan, our ruling council, and he reports to Sebastian. What shall we do?’
    Luke thought, still in silence. Then, just as she was about to prod him in despair, he said, ‘Well, we’ll have to find out if he’s home. The servants would recognize you, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So I’ll have to ask.’
    ‘Yes, but, Luke, they’ll tell you he’s not home anyway. He’s not going to come to the door for a—’ She stopped, not wanting to wound him, but she could see he understood. It was a part of his life as much as hers, after all. He had had eighteen years to get used to her class looking down on his.
    ‘No . . . he won’t come to the door for a stable-hand, but I don’t need to see him.’ He began to walk again, and they continued in silence up Piccadilly until they reached the turn-off for Clemency’s house.
    ‘Left here,’ Rosa said, and then, as they rounded the corner, ‘the third house on the right is Clemency’s – the one with the rhododendrons in the front.’
    ‘Stay here,’ Luke said. He dropped her arm.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘Going to find out if her husband’s there –