By far the most impressive fire act, though, was the clockwork dragon. About the size of a large dog, it was covered in metallic red scales that glinted and gleamed in the torchlight as the dragon blew out plumes of fire so fiercely hot that it could even set fire to ice. It was a spectacular display, and yet when Beatrice looked into the dragon’s glowing emerald eyes, she felt only a strange chill of dread, slithering beneath her skin.

She turned away from the fire shows and continued on into the garden. Just when she thought it was impossible to cram any more delights into the space, she found the crowning glory at the heart of the garden. Rosa had created an entire frost fair on the frozen surface of her lake.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Beatrice was not old enough to remember the great frost fairs of years gone by in London, but as a child her mother had told her wonderful tales of them. How the Thames used to freeze solid and they would have a carnival on the ice, with all kinds of shops and stalls and entertainments. There would be drinking, and dancing, and dining, and playing nine-pins, and roasting oxen over a great open fire, the flames of which would leap even more joyously than the visitors.

The Thames had not frozen like that for some years, and frost fairs were a thing of the past now. Some said they would never come again. But Rosa had re-created a little slice of that forgotten world upon her lake. Beatrice tied on a pair of skates before venturing onto the ice.

There were stalls selling goblets of mulled wine, roasted chestnuts piping hot in their crinkled paper bags, juicy oranges begging to be unpeeled and eaten without delay, trays of Turkish delight cut into soft, sugared squares and the most extraordinary range of gingerbread houses, from tiny woodcutter cottages to entire fairy-tale castles. The air was filled with the scent of orange peel and Christmas spices.

Rosa had also put on a clockwork-pets stall that included every type of animal imaginable, from dainty poodles to miniature lions. Beatrice saw more than one fur-wrapped lady skating around the fair with a clockwork monkey perched upon her shoulder or a metallic mink poking its snout from the fur cuff of her sleeve.

But the clockwork did not stop at miniature pets for fashionable ladies. Also to be found on the ice were life-sized clockwork reindeer pulling sleighs festooned with silver bells and piled high with furs and blankets. Delighted passengers took the sleighs in tours that swept all the way around the perimeter of the lake.