Her heart sank to her knees. He didn’t wish to know her. How could she have been so foolish? She didn’t belong here, this was all wrong. Her breath raced away from her, but Bamford’s second touch on her hand brought it back.
“A cheap season this year, I’m afraid. Saving the blunt for the meeting. New banners, new sashes, and the rushcarts will go to good use then.”
“No rushcarts.” Hunt tapped the table with the edge of his hand. “This is to be a simple march and meeting. That is, if it is allowed. What did you hear, Moore?”
“Allus the same. They’ll consider it ‘til they deny it.” He sucked a tooth, as if to prevent himself from spitting.
“They can’t. It’s not illegal.”
“Magistrates say as what’s legal here. Arrest today and let the courts decide tomorrow, they say.”
“They did suggest we wait a week.” Bamford shrugged. “Put a new announcement in the papers, and do it proper.”
Hunt nodded. “A good plan. We must be in everything peaceful and legal. On the day, we’ll start first thing in the morning to head off any unnecessary imbibing. We’ll wear white and carry nothing.”
“We need a few pikes. Cudgels, of course.” Kitty’s voice sounded shriller than usual. “Streets aren’t too safe even on fine days.”
“Nothing. Just a spirit of peaceableness, the likes of which this town and its people have never seen.”
Bamford grimaced. “I don’t know as I like the idea of having nary a tool at hand. What if the good volunteers of the yeomanry take affront to my behavior?”
“If your behavior is gentlemanlike, they’ll have nothing to criticize,” Hunt said.
“That’s putting a barrel of faith in a bunch of drink-heavy layabouts,” Bamford retorted.
“My faith is in the Crown and her laws. We will be yards within the law.”
George Swift cleared his throat, but his voice still squeaked. “Will we elect an MP? Like Birmingham?”
“Gods no,” Hunt said. “This town is not ready for such a thing. We need to prove our peaceable intent. Manchester will be a model for the country. To those who say we’re nothing but a muddy, unkempt rabble that don’t deserve the rights of suffrage, we’ll present a clean, sober, respectful disproof.”
Maddie tried to listen, but it was all buzzing to her ears. She sat only a foot or so from the man who helped make her. Her eyes soaked in every detail, from the slouch of his posture to the toughness of his fingernails. He did not look at her again.
“No pikes.” Bamford scratched the calluses on his hand. Maddie thought she saw the same calluses on her father’s hands, until he snatched them off the table and rested them in his lap. “I’ll present it to my committee. I may need you to explain it better to them, though. It might fall hard on their ears.”
“I am at your disposal.”
“Also, one of the coves at the ’Change wants to act as parlay with us.” Bamford leaned toward Maddie. “Your husband, ma’am. Quinn?”
Her father slammed the table with a fist. “Parlay? Spy, as more like.”
“We can meet him and judge for ourselves,” Hunt said.
“Do it in the wide open, and be bloody chary what you say.” He pushed up to his feet so quickly he was nearly to the door before the others could react. He didn’t spare her a glance as he stormed out of the room. Soon after, the meeting broke up.
“That went well,” Kitty said, taking her arm as they left the room.
“How’s that?”
“If he met you here, he couldn’t well pitch a fit, could he? Worst he could do was walk away.”
“Which he did.”
“Aye, but he finished his business first. I call that a bloody good sign.”
* * * *
Maddie couldn’t contain herself. She couldn’t sit still to read the Register and the pamphlets Mr. Bamford had pressed her to take. She certainly couldn’t simply go to sleep, with all these feelings and thoughts swirling about. Could she confide in Nash? Their days lately had been temperate, their nights calm. Dare she try him on her family again?
What sort of rickety bridge of a marriage would it be if she could not? She had to try. She also could try to stack the deck in her favor.
That night Maddie was the first to initiate intimacy. Pressing herself along the length of him in their bed, she started in. “I have something to tell you.”
“You need me primed first?”
“It would help.”
He groaned. “Fire away, before I do.”
She looked into his eyes, a glint in the shadow. No help there. Her nerve faltered, and she tucked her head into the crook of his arm.
“That bad?” His whisper singed her ear.
“I met my father today.”
It was as if his body had turned to stone. Maddie curled up tighter, wrapping her arms around her knees. Finally, he took in a long breath, let it out slowly, and squeezed her tight. “As did I. Where?”
“My sister told me to meet her for a knitting circle.”
“Sister? Surprise, surprise.. She took you home?”
“A coffee shop, she called it. The Black Tulip.”
“The radical hole. You talked sedition?”
“Is that what your committee was talking about?”
Nash turned her to face him. “My committee?”
Maddie flashed fear. But he wasn’t hurting her, just searching her with his dark gaze.
“I think so. Some of the men had just returned from the magistrates’ caucus, but they had precious little to report.”
Nash pushed away, falling to his back on the mattress. “Wasn’t my doing. I said we should tell what we could, if we couldn’t tell all. Bloody idiots in charge.”
“Who is right?”
“The men have a point, but the manufacturers have a better point. Thing is, if they worked together, they would both get what they wanted.”
“How?”
“This isn’t pillow talk.”
She leaned over him, taking his mouth in a slow, languorous kiss that stole the breath from both. She pulled away, and sense returned slowly. Nash stretched an arm out for her, but she leaned out of his lazy reach.
“How?”
“Wench. Everyone has problems, see? The men need steady work at good pay. The manufacturers need steady orders at a good price.”
“Sounds like the same thing.”
“Nearly. But what they both need, more than anything, is a voice in government.”
“Suffrage.”
“Without that, we’ll keep snit-snatting over pennies while our rivals in the South and in Europe steal our pounds. London is jealous of us Northerners.”
“Or frightened.”
“Surely not.”
“Aren’t the manufacturers frightened of the workers? And vice versa? Seems like everyone’s first response to strangers is fear.”
“Such the expert.” He pulled her down to nuzzle her neck.
“An expert stranger.” She leaned toward him, ready for more kissing. He held a hand at her breastbone, gazing at her.
“My beautiful stranger.” He wrapped his arms around her. She sank into his embrace, into the mattress as he turned her and pushed onto her.
This time, the wall of fear was easier to cross. Every time it grew easier. Nash’s hands now triggered pleasure more than fear. She could even wait half a day before the urge to wash him off her grew too strong.
“Sweetest. Someday I’ll show you ecstasy. You’ll forget everything from before.”
“Promise.”
“I swear by my sword. My little radical.”
* * * *
The next Saturday, rather than counting out the bales of cotton Clayton wanted, Nash stood in chest-deep bathwater at the Roman baths, cursing Heywood, his wife, and her balmy ideas. He was not getting his head wet, no matter his mentor’s taunting.
“Don’t tell me you can’t swim, man. You’re Navy.”
“Navy men think water is for tra
nsport, not dunking.”
Heywood performed some sidelong stroke that took him around Nash in a lazy circle. He found himself spinning on his feet to keep the man in sight. He stopped, planting himself facing the door.
“Not leaving already? You haven’t gotten your money’s worth.” Let the man laugh. Or don’t—Nash was finding it difficult to know where to look to avoid seeing a flash of cock bobbing about as his friend rolled onto his back. He did not wish to know so much of the man. Heywood seemed oblivious to how unmanned he appeared. It was all Nash could do not to cover himself, but his hands were needed more to protect him from going under. Whose blasted idea was this, anyway?
He tried to look at the overlarge pond through Maddie’s eyes. She, apparently, loved it, coming home damp and with a clear expression of joy. If this were a vice, he had to admit it was a mild one. The subscription fee filtered out the riffraff, and if the men were any indication, no one even smiled at anyone else, much less made inappropriate acquaintances.
Heywood appeared again in his sights. Nash had to look away, to the replica of a Roman mural on the far wall.
“Saw the new announcement in the papers. Not much to gainsay.” The advert took full half the top of the front page, requesting “the borough reeve and constables call a public meeting a week Monday.” No mention of electing a shadow representative, nothing about forming a new government. Nash leaned back a bit, trying to discover which part of the movement had drawn that grin onto Heywood’s face. The mural on the ceiling showed the swan taunting a rather buxom Leda.
Heywood stood up beside him, splashing warm water in his face. Nash rocketed to vertical, sputtering. The man patted him on the back like an infant. Nash was never doing this again. Heywood looked away, shaming him further. Maybe talk would distract the man.
“You do still think we should allow the meeting.”
“What choice do we have? Let them walk and talk, nothing will come of it. We can’t very well give the men suffrage when we don’t have it ourselves.”
Nash leaned back to take another look at the ceiling, careful of the waves he made. “But can we count on the committee?”
“Not bloody likely. Malbanks is glad-handing the army encamped outside town. He says they will have our backs if the riffraff start to rabble.”
“The army? Who will protect us from them?” Nash sat up, pushing the water off his chest and arms.
“Exactly. That militia—shopkeepers all. Pretend soldiers.”
Nash crossed his arms. “Might be wiser simply to create a police.”
“If you can convince them of that, I’ll owe you a three-chop dinner. I’d throw in the whole hog if you could keep the army out of my brickyard.”
“Or it’s Eighteen seventeen. I’ve heard it before.”
“You weren’t here, boy. Armed rebellion, blood in the streets. The wife had to go to her mother’s. Nothing but evil.”
“I’ve heard nothing like that this time.”
“From the moderates. Believe me, these radicals, whatever they say, are just a cloak for conspiracy and rebellion.”
“I’m going to talk with them.”
Heywood scrambled to his feet, water sluicing from his hair and the clefts in his beard. “Alone?”
“They wouldn’t harm a committee man. If I can understand them, I can help them to understand us. We shouldn’t be on the battlements. We want the same things. Safety, security, prosperity. Love.”
Heywood’s eyebrows arched. Nash shook his head. So much water must have addled his brain. “Think the army would come if called?”
“They did at Plymouth.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Does your wife approve of your language?”
“Her father is a weaver. She’s probably heard worse.”
His friend stopped shaking the water from his hair to look at him. “I thought she’d not met her Da.”
Nash couldn’t very well say she’d done it behind his back, though she had. “Why shouldn’t she?”
“I can think of a dozen reasons why. The man’s a rebel. He was at the ’Change, for god’s sake.” A red flush rose from Heywood’s white-furred chest into his face. “He is whom you parlay with. Does she know?”
“She’s met him. Once only,” Nash added, as Heywood’s face rounded and reddened like a beet.
“Listen to me, Quinn. We promised, your father and I, to keep the girl away from Moore. She’s had trouble enough, hasn’t she? You’ll not go against a promise.” He whispered, but Nash felt the blade behind his words.
He didn’t understand it. “How does a stranger’s promise weigh against Maddie’s chance to know her last living relation?”
“I’ve heard enough.” Heywood pushed himself through the water toward the shelves of stairs at one end. Nash stumbled toward the stair, but wasn’t fast enough to avoid being left alone in the deep.
{ 27 }
Kitty arrived early to the house on Stevenson Square, but Maddie had expected that. She answered the door herself, and had spirited her sister up the stairs before Mrs. Willis reached the ground floor landing. “I’ve picked out the perfect dress for you,” she said.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I want you to feel beautiful today. Don’t you have beaux to impress?”
Kitty actually blushed. “Nay. Men are dolts, only wanting one thing from a lass. They’ll not get it from me.” She’d screwed up her face so tightly it looked as if it would crack. Maddie had to laugh, and in a moment, Kitty did as well. “True, it ain’t that bad, and I have walked about with a few likely lads. These days, though, I want a man that can take care of himself, and me, too, in a pinch. Even the master weavers are hurting for work.”
“Then a farmer it will be for you.” Maddie pulled the blue twill from its peg. “Plenty of hog-men and corn-men at Shaftsbury.”
“Best be a red dress, then, to catch the bull-men.” Kitty started to laugh at her joke, but stopped when she saw the dress. Her eyes widened.
“See, blue. Lustrous, like your eyes. Turn around,” Maddie said bossily, “and I’ll throw it over your head.”
Kitty did as told, and the rounded dress draped her shoulders and hugged her hips like a glove.
“You’re thinner in the belly and bust than I, but the dress has tucks there, see? So it’s not so noticeable.”
Kitty turned to see herself in the half-glass. Her hands traced the lace around the modest squared collar, then down the row of buttons closing the sleeves. “This is too fine.”
Maddie, busy closing the buttons, looked up, catching Kitty’s glance in the mirror. “You are just as fine.”
“My hands are rough, and my hair–.” She touched at her braids as if they were thistles.
“That’s what gloves are for, and combs. Will you let me do your hair?”
“Like yours?”
“Is that how you would like it?”
Kitty chewed her lip. “No. More swept-up, like in the pictures. Yours looks like your husband had his way with you this morning.”
Maddie patted her own wayward curls. “He may have.” She loved this. Kitty was beautiful, so strong and so sure, the very model of the modern Mancunian. Maddie would do anything to be like her.
She had no trouble sweeping her sister’s hair into a proper style, anchored with combs at the back. Maddie was seating herself on the stool, just to do a touch-up, when she heard Nash’s voice in the hall. He was back from the warehouse sooner than she expected.
“Quick, stand by the door.”
“Why?”
“See if you can fool Nash.”
“In your hair and your dress?”
Nash knocked, Maddie answered, trying to throw her voice the way they had in school. She watched in the glass as he came in and stopped short, gazing at her sister. He blinked once, and then extended his hand.
“Nash Quinn. Brother-in-law.”
Kitty’s pout was not as practiced as her own, and was gone in a flash whe
n she realized Nash was serious about shaking hands. She pumped his arm up and down, laughing.
“Thank the lord I don’t look like my older sibling.”
“I hear the new Lord Shaftsbury is a looker.”
Nash shrugged. “If you prefer blond boys.”
“So happens, I do.” Kitty winked at him.
Nash did the double-take Maddie had expected him to have done earlier.
“You’ll not dare to aim that high?”
“Ain’t aiming at nothing. Just want to see how the nobs do it. Before they kick us all out.”
“They can’t kick us out.” Nash held his arm out for her to take. “My brother owns that town.”
Maddie breathed a sigh of relief. Nash had taken immediately to Kitty, as he should. His approval could only help them when they arrived at the castle.
They were still a quarter-mile from the main house when they met the line of carts and coaches parading toward Deacon’s grand affair. It was rare that an earl reached his majority and rarer still that he threw open his doors to masters and tenants alike. Nash had called his brother’s idea clever, replacing the tenants’ shortened celebration with this one—and brilliant to do it when Mama was away and couldn’t faint over it.
Kitty gasped when they finally past the gate into the castle proper. They were fashionably late, for Northerners, the sun’s mid-afternoon slant outlining the full-grown wheat in the fields in orange and red.
“I never thought to see this.” Kitty’s smile was infectious, her laugh a joy.
“Why not?” Nash looked past Maddie to her sister.
“Country folk and town folk don’t much mix. Country folk are clannish and distrusting of strangers.”
“And town folk aren’t?” Sparing a moment from the horses, he winked at her.
“May be so.” Kitty touched her hair for the dozenth time, as if she still did not believe she was so à la mode, either.
He checked the reins again, and then looked at Maddie but spoke to Kitty. “You did not invite your father?”
Kitty’s face turned crafty. “He wouldn’t have liked it. He’s a hearth-and-home sort.”
“Who has no room for Maddie.” Nash’s voice dripped disbelief.
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