Dermot said: “Twenty pounds!”

“You won’t knock him down as quickly as you did this lump of wood, but you’ll have a chance.”

Mack looked at the Bruiser, lying in a useless heap. “No,” he said.

Dermot said: “Why the devil not?”

The promoter shrugged. “If you don’t need the money …”

Mack thought of his twin, Esther, still carrying coal up the ladders of Heugh pit fifteen hours a day, waiting for the letter that would release her from a lifetime of slavery. Twenty pounds would pay her passage to London—and he could have the money in his hand on Saturday night

“On second thought, yes,” Mack said.

Dermot clapped him on the back. “That’s me boy,” he said.

14

LIZZIE HALLIM AND HER MOTHER RATTLED NORTHWARD through the city of London in a hackney carriage. Lizzie was excited and happy: they were going to meet Jay and look at a house.

“Sir George has certainly changed his attitude,” said Lady Hallim. “Bringing us to London, planning a lavish wedding, and now offering to pay the rent on a London house for the two of you to live in.”

“I think Lady Jamisson has talked him around,” Lizzie said. “But only in small matters. He still won’t give Jay the Barbados property.”

“Alicia is a clever woman,” Lady Hallim mused. “All the same, I’m surprised she can still persuade her husband, after that terrible row on Jay’s birthday.”

“Perhaps Sir George is the type who forgets a quarrel.”

“He never used to be—unless there was something in it for him. I wonder what his motive might be. There isn’t anything he wants from you, is there?”

Lizzie laughed. “What could I give him? Perhaps he just wants me to make his son happy.”

“Which I’m sure you will. Here we are.”

The carriage stopped in Chapel Street, a quietly elegant row of houses in Holborn—not as fashionable as Mayfair or Westminster, but less expensive. Lizzie got down from the carriage and looked at number twelve. She liked it right away. There were four stories and a basement, and the windows were tall and graceful. However, two of the windows were broken and the number 45 was crudely daubed on the gleaming black-painted front door. Lizzie was about to comment when another carriage drew up and Jay jumped out.

He was wearing a bright blue suit with gold buttons, and a blue bow in his fair hair: he looked good enough to eat. He kissed Lizzie’s lips. It was a rather restrained kiss, as they were in a public street, but she relished it and hoped for more later. Jay handed his mother down from the carriage then knocked on the door of the house. “The owner is a brandy importer who has gone to France for a year,” he said as they waited.

An elderly caretaker opened the door. “Who broke the windows?” Jay said immediately.

“The hatters, it was,” the man said as they stepped inside. Lizzie had read in the newspaper that the people who made hats were on strike, as were the tailors and grinders.

Jay said: “I don’t know what the damn fools think they’ll achieve by smashing respectable people’s windows.”

Lizzie said: “Why are they on strike?”

The caretaker replied: “They want better wages, miss, and who can blame them, with the price of a four-penny loaf gone up to eightpence farthing? How is a man to feed his family?”

“Not by painting ‘45’ on every door in London,” Jay said gruffly. “Show us the house, man.”

Lizzie wondered about the significance of the number 45, but she was more interested in the house. She went through the building excitedly throwing back curtains and opening windows. The furniture was new and expensive, and the drawing room was a wide, light room with three big windows at each end. The place had the musty smell of an uninhabited building, but it needed only a thorough cleaning, a lick of paint and a supply of linen to make it delightfully habitable.

She and Jay ran ahead of the two mothers and the old caretaker, and when they reached the attic floor they were alone. They stepped into one of several small bedrooms designed for servants. Lizzie put her arms around Jay and kissed him hungrily. They had only a minute or so. She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. He stroked them gently. “Squeeze harder,” she whispered between kisses. She wanted the pressure of his hands to linger after their embrace. Her nipples stiffened and his fingertips found them through the fabric of her dress. “Pinch them,” she said, and as he did so the pang of mingled pain and pleasure made her gasp. Then she heard footsteps on the landing and they broke apart, panting.

Lizzie turned and looked out of a little dormer window, catching her breath. There was a long back garden. The caretaker was showing the two mothers all the little bedrooms. “What’s the significance of the number forty-five?” she asked.

“It’s all to do with that traitor John Wilkes,” Jay replied. “He used to edit a journal called the North Briton, and the government charged him with seditious libel over issue number forty-five, in which he as good as called the king a liar. He ran away to Paris, but now he’s come back to stir up more trouble among ignorant common people.”

“Is it true they can’t afford bread?”

“There’s a shortage of grain all over Europe, so it’s inevitable that the price of bread should go up. And the unemployment is caused by the American boycott of British goods.”

She turned back to Jay. “I don’t suppose that’s much consolation to the hatters and tailors.”

A frown crossed his face: he did not seem to like her sympathizing with the discontented. “I’m not sure you realize how dangerous all this talk of liberty is,” he said.

“I’m not sure I do.”

“For example, the rum distillers of Boston would like the freedom to buy their molasses anywhere. But the law says they must buy from British plantations, such as ours. Give them freedom and they’ll buy cheaper, from the French—and then we won’t be able to afford a house like this.”

“I see.” That did not make it right, she thought; but she decided not to say so.

“All sorts of riffraff might want freedom, from coal miners in Scotland to Negroes in Barbados. But God has set people like me in authority over common men.”

That was true, of course. “But do you ever wonder why?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Why God should have set you in authority over coal miners and Negroes.”

He shook his head irritably, and she realized she had overstepped the mark again. “I don’t think women can understand these things,” he said.

She took his arm. “I love this house, Jay,” she said, trying to mollify him. She could still feel her nipples where he had pinched them. She lowered her voice. “I can’t wait to move in here with you and sleep together every night.”

He smiled. “Nor can I.”

Lady Hallim and Lady Jamisson came into the room. Lizzie’s mother’s gaze dropped to Lizzie’s bosom, and Lizzie realized her nipples were showing through her dress. Mother obviously guessed what had been going on. She frowned with disapproval. Lizzie did not care. She would be married soon.

Alicia said: “Well, Lizzie, do you like the house?”

“I adore it!”

“Then you shall have it.”

Lizzie beamed and Jay squeezed her arm.

Lizzie’s mother said: “Sir George is so kind, I don’t know how to thank him.”

“Thank my mother,” Jay said. “She’s the one who’s made him behave decently.”

Alicia gave him a reproving look, but Lizzie could tell she did not really mind. She and Jay were very fond of one another, it was obvious. Lizzie felt a pang of jealousy, and told herself it was silly: anyone would be fond of Jay.

They left the room. The caretaker was hovering outside. Jay said to him: “I’ll see the owner’s attorney tomorrow and have the lease drawn up.”