She watched Clancy knock and then slip into the parlor. He worked too hard, but he seemed proud to be of service, proud that his employer, a man of color, could achieve so much. But how could Clancy ignore the unhappiness that seemed to suffocate this place?
Ester pulled her sketchbook to her stomach and moved to the front door. From the side glass, she looked at the calm street, the occasional carriage trotting by. If she were bold, she’d hitch herself to the back of one. If I were bold.
Clancy came out of Mama’s parlor. “Mrs. Croome is asking for you. I’ll go send the footman for the carriage. You won’t miss that trouble. Go to your mother.”
She nodded and went back into the small hall. She heard Papa and Mr. Jordan’s laughter as she entered the adjacent parlor. The rich room of burgundy-papered wall was devoid of sound, so different from the room next door. Ester walked inside to the tapestry-covered couch where her mother sat.
Mama in her mobcap, which covered her straight dark hair, worked on her knitting. Mrs. Jordan, who couldn’t be much older than Ester, was on the opposite end doing needlepoint. Not a word was exchanged. Were the ladies dutifully waiting on their husbands to tell them what to do, when to stand, what to think?
Of course they were. That’s why Clancy’s tray was untouched and the room had no conversation, no life. Ester couldn’t turn into one of those women with no opinions about anything but colored yarn.
“Mama.” Ester coughed to loosen her tongue then tried again. “Mama, I’m leaving for my appointment.”
Her mother slowly turned her face to her. The woman’s light skin had yellowed to a pale gold with age, and her eyes, forest green, looked small, as if she refused to see trouble. “You, should stay and visit with Mrs. Jordan.”
Stay in the parlor? And make small talk about current and future cheating spouses? Not today, Satan. Ester tugged at her sleeve. “Mama, I am to meet Miss Burghley for tea. Remember?”
“You let her visit with Miss Burghley, the Duke of Simone’s…daughter?” Mrs. Jordan sprang to life as her nose turned up in the air. “Mrs. Croome, is that wise?”
Ester held her breath and closed her eyes, hoping that her mother would say something to defend the prejudice that surrounded someone as dear as her friend. Frederica Burghley was Simone’s illegitimate daughter, but that wasn’t her fault any more than it was Mama’s for Papa’s failings—like what had been detailed in the horrible letters that Ester had found last Christmas. It had changed her father from a hero in her eyes to someone like the Jordans—known womanizers and opportunists.
When she heard the sound of tea pouring, drip-drip-splash, she blinked, then stared.
No words.
No defense of Frederica.
Nothing of what a good person Frederica was.
Nothing but brown liquid spitting from a fine silver pot into bone china cups.
“You should really stay, Ester,” Mama said, “but I know you have an appointment. Be back as soon as you can. I’ll need your help. My party starts at seven sharp.”
As silent as a mouse, Ester turned. Out the door she started to run. She’d catch a hackney if Clancy hadn’t ordered the carriage. Lucky for her, it sat at the steps. She climbed aboard the onyx berlin carriage. Its well-matched pair of ebony horses took off like their tails had been set on fire. One thing Ester knew right now. She couldn’t be a couch woman waiting for a man to say when to jump, or move, or breathe.
…
It didn’t take long to reach the White Horse Cellar, the coaching inn nearest the Burlingame Arcade. Ester sighed as she adjusted her bonnet again. She wanted to be supportive of Frederica’s attempt at making a match by newspaper advertisement. It had been Ester’s idea for her friends to solicit husbands through the Morning Post. She should’ve dictated one for herself, but that would be like cheating on her fantasy “lover,” Arthur Bex, as Papa had put it. If only she’d spoken to Bex at Theodosia’s party last year. Maybe he’d have noticed her, a girl from the wrong side of town.
Lifting her chin, Ester decided to do what she’d done at Christmas, to pretend to be happy. She’d be an actress and play the part of a dear friend, one with no troubles.
A groom helped her down. With her sketchbook in tow, she crossed the busy courtyard filled with travelers to the big gold and black carriage of the Duke of Simone. She tapped on the door.
Dark brown curls with sun streaks bounced as Frederica Burghley popped her head out. “I thought you’d abandoned me.”
“Never.” Ester meant that with every part of her heart.
Handed down by one of her trusted grooms, Frederica looked resplendent in a short indigo velvet pelisse over her gown, a fine ebony bonnet upon her head. “No, you’d never do that. You’re loyal and predictable. Those are qualities I now treasure.”
The two had grown closer since their friend Theodosia had married. And though Frederica tweaked Ester’s nose about her caution, Ester knew the girl was right. Shyness and caution were weaknesses, ones her father had counted upon, so she’d comply with the sham marriage.
“You did remember to wear dark colors,” Ester said.
“I miss color.” Frederica sighed.
Ester did, too. They brought her sketches to life. “Mourning for the king is still occurring. Two women like us at a coaching inn are hard to ignore. Bright colors would be taken for an offense. We must be careful.”
“I hear radicals meet in the cellar. If my newspaper prospect is dull, we could join a conspiracy.” Frederica giggled, but the light tones fell flat. She tugged at the sleeve of her jacket with pleated butterfly embroidery at the waist. “Safety is an issue but so is security. This meeting has to work. With the duke thinking of marrying again, he’s been looking into arrangements for me. Old men, friends of his, readying for a second or third wife, or other.”
Frederica’s voice could have been a bell, ringing of pain, foretelling every fear. The other…a fancy or mistress…as Frederica’s mother had been to the duke—it was a fate worse than death for a girl who wanted honor and respect.
Ester gripped her friend’s hand. “You will be all that you can be, and you will choose a great husband.” She nudged Frederica toward the rugged door of the coaching inn. “I wish I were you.”
Her friend stopped, planting her short boots in the dusty fairway. “Wait. You’ve never… All the years we’ve known each other, and you have never said that. What has happened?”
Jerking like she’d flubbed a line or been caught reading Mama’s papers, Ester flinched. “It doesn’t matter. Your newspaper groom is waiting inside.”
With a hand on her hip, reticule swinging, Frederica shook her head. “No. Out with it.”
People stared now, with scrunched-up faces and quizzing glasses, as if they wondered if Ester or Frederica had stolen some wealthy traveler’s clothes. “I wish they wouldn’t look at us.”
“Who?” Frederica starting peering over Ester’s head. “Who?”
“People,” Ester said. “Maybe they think some imperial guests are about and we are their elaborate servants. That would be easier to accept than what we are.”
“Lucky?” Frederica gripped her by the shoulders. “Don’t curse our fates now by having secrets. I won’t be able to concentrate.”
Resigned, Ester lowered her head. “The Croome’s money and the need to grow it have collided. My father has decided to sell me off in marriage to a bore because it will benefit his bank coffers.”
Wide hazel eyes grew even bigger. “Wait. You. What? Who?”
“Jordan’s son, Charles.”
“The womanizer? He has mistresses. They say he’s bedding a widowed countess whom he teaches fencing. That’s the rumor.” Frederica bit her lip. “It could be wrong. He might not be so bad.”
Ester clutched Frederica’s hand. “You’re not going to tell me that the love of a good woman will change him. That he will behave once we wed.” Tears clogged her throat. “I’m doomed. Accepting this fate is better than the hypo
crisy of believing things can change. That Charles will change.”
“You and Theodosia call me the dramatic one. There’s always another way. Hope doesn’t disappear because we are too frightened to look for it.”
But Ester was frightened, terrified. Her sister’s arranged marriage had made her live far away, never coming back to London, even for Yuletide. They’d been so close once, and happy when they’d lived above the warehouse. Moving up in the world had cost so much—was still costing. “I don’t know what to do.”
Frederica put her arms about Ester and drew her in tightly. “You could put an advertisement in the paper. We might be able to find someone for you, too, someone kind and faithful.”
Ester shook her head. “Jordan’s proposal will come tonight with a wedding in four weeks, on my birthday.”
More travelers scooted by, fewer of them looking over at Ester and Frederica. Perhaps, for the moment, they blended into the deep brown of the coaching inn’s facade. Ester wanted to disappear.
“You could say no, Ester. You could choose to say no.”
The word no and Frederica seemed quite foreign to each other, and the concept was something Ester couldn’t grasp, either. She whipped her head around. “I can’t say no to my Papa any more than you can to yours.” She exhaled, put on a brave smile, and began acting again. “Look at me getting us both flustered. This is your day. Everything will work out. I’m sure.”
Frederica had that look of disappointment, a deep frown that made the luster in her hazel eyes dim to a sad sherry. “I pretend a great deal, too. In another few months, I won’t have any hope, either.”
Ester grabbed her and hugged her until a seam or two popped. “You listen well, Frederica Burghley. No one should count us out, not yet. We’ll both be saved or go down in glorious flames. I may even enjoy knitting in silence.”
“What?” A brow popped up on Frederica’s fair countenance. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing, silly goose. So how do we meet this man?” Ester smoothed the rim of her bonnet in a slightly showy manner, something she’d seen Frederica do a hundred times. “Come on.”
Ester led her friend into the crowded inn.
Crowds. Ester froze, her fake courage slipping to her boots.
People were packed in the lobby and at tables in the main area.
Frederica clasped her hand. “What’s wrong, Ester?”
“So many travelers.” A chill crept up her arm, but she accepted her friend’s nudge forward through the dining room.
Too many strangers. She could feel her throat getting dry. “Frederica. How… How do we see your newspaper beau? It’s easy for him, as we are the only ladies like ourselves here. The dishwasher or a maid doesn’t count to most men seeking a wife of means.”
Frederica pulled a sprig of lilac from her reticule and handed it to Ester. The bright purple of the tiny flowers looked like embroidery on the lapel of her jacket. “To gain more responses, I didn’t exactly say I was Blackamoor.”
What? Now Ester truly couldn’t breathe.
“But the lilac will help us spot him. He will have a sprig, too. It will be all right, Ester.”
Details like race were important. Ester shook her head as Frederica cupped the fragile flower in her palm.
“Ester, Theodosia Fitzwilliam-Cecil and her husband found each other again through the newspaper advertisement. Surely, I can be so lucky.”
“Fitzwilliam?” A big man spun, and doing so, sent another fellow and his mug crashing into them. The foul beer stained Frederica’s velvet pelisse.
Ester palmed the lilac to keep it dry, then she dug into her reticule and pulled out a handkerchief. “Dabbing at this won’t help. We need to sponge it before sets in the nape. We need water.”
Frederica’s eyes became glassy with tears. “We can’t ask, and my footman is outside. To go get him and then water, it will be too late for our meeting.”
The tall man, whose face held a long frown, had joined them. “Perhaps you need an errand boy or errand man?”
Their friend’s brother-in-law, Lord Hartwell, was the guilty man who’d started the commotion. He held out his hand, a trim leather glove, half covered in the billowing sleeve of his finely-woven greatcoat. “Come with me, Miss Burghley. I’ll see that this stain is removed. It’s my fault, but rarely do you hear the name Fitzwilliam in such lovely tones.”
Her friend smiled up at him in the flirty way she did with nice looking men and took his arm.
Laughter cascaded to their left.
A round of shouts rolled over the top of everything, but a lone, muffled sound made it quiet.
Then she heard the word “Freedom” loud and clear.
Ester’s skin tingled. That voice sounded familiar. She tapped her temple. Papa was right. She did carry Bex in her brainbox.
But the voice boomed out again, “Humanity and freedom for all.”
The saving call became muffled like a door opening then closing upon a parish sermon. She whipped her head back and forth, searching, her heart beating hard. She looked but saw no one that could bear the weight of that voice, the voice she knew in her dreams.
A man stumbled out of what looked like a cellar door, and the masculine voice returned, the tones of a mythic god.
“There is one path. It is to the liberty of the soul.”
That voice. It sounded like Arthur Bex.
Was he here? If the great Arthur Bex, the best actor in all of London, was in the coaching inn, then this horrible day would be better, much better.
When she saw Frederica smiling as a server mopped at her stain while Lord Hartwell observed and mentioned something about visiting his father in town—Ester knew her friend was in good hands. She’d look for Frederica’s lilac-carrying suitor later, after she stole a moment to listen to Bex.
But she’d have to go down into the cellar for that.
It was dangerous to go alone, but if Arthur Bex was down there, it would be worth the risk. If troubles came, she’d hit them with her sketch pad and then run. Yes, that sounded like a plan. A fool’s plan, but she’d be a fool for Bex.
She clutched the cellar door and started toward the voice. How Ester made it down without flying was beyond her, but she did it. Gripping the handrail, she searched. The room was lit with awful-smelling tallow candles. The stink of burning calf fat would stay in her spencer, but she didn’t care. She saw Bex standing on a chair.
Bex, the love of her heart, was giving a speech.
Ester was in heaven.
Candlelight from the chandelier above made him appear to have a halo. Dark chestnut-brown hair graced his head. He possessed lightly sun-kissed skin and dreamy cobalt-blue eyes. The man was beautiful, even more so than that one time he had joined her at Theodosia’s table. Ester hadn’t been able to speak to him then. She had been too afraid of sounding weak and foolish, but now, being a few hours away from doom, she felt bold, almost brazen.
The man waved his arms, flexing the tan weave of his frockcoat, which hung upon a slightly askew cream cravat. The gold buttons on his chocolate waistcoat jangled as he stepped forward. “The human race is meant to be free, free to love,” Bex said. “That freedom should not be denied by chains, by an origin of birth a continent away. The cry of freedom is in the hearts, the very marrow of every man. Who can shut up these bones?”
Not Ester.
She’d listen to his voice forever.
“Who among us can strangle the yearnings of any man? Race nor creed nor even allegiance to the king will not deny the desire to be free. If you believe as I do, join me at month’s end to rally at the Serpentine. There, we will unite and be of one mind. Abolition should succeed and be the law in every colony.”
Bex said the words in direct address, as if he were on stage. Ester sighed with bliss. She yearned to call out and encourage him to continue above the few boos and grunts of dissenters in the crowd.
Ester wasn’t brave enough for that, but she’d applaud him. He had to know
someone heard and was moved. She put her hands together and clapped loud.
A few men stopped their groaning and stared in her direction.
The danger meant nothing. Ester didn’t care and clapped harder, cupping the stalk of lilac to not bruise it.
What harm could come from proclaiming her love of the great actor with applause? Her days of freedom would be over soon. The Jordans weren’t theater-goers. This might be the last time she’d see Bex perform.
Ester had nothing left to lose, and clapped again and again, basking in Bex’s voice.
Chapter Two
A ROUSING RESPONSE
Arthur Bex was used to tough crowds. He’d worked up from bit lines to the lead in farces and dramas over the course of three years. But those were other men’s words he recited, not the ones he said today in the basement of White Horse Cellar. These were Arthur’s, and they burned in his heart. It was time to show London that the time to fight for abolition was now.
A young negress stood on the steps, clapping. In that moment, he let the rhythm of her slapping palms command his full attention, away from the naysayers and those just looking for a reason for fisticuffs or, like Phineas, following him around to find a scandal. He nodded to her before stepping down.
The reporter with a hawkish nose, Hildebrand Phineas, who sat close, swilling beer, hissed at him. “Is that all you have, Gunpowder?”
Gunpowder burns up, consumed by its own power, and destroys everything it touches. That couldn’t happen to Arthur. He had too much to do, too many wrongs to right. He glared at Phineas. “I’ve said my piece for now. Come to the rally at the month’s end and hear more.”
“He wants a Peterloo here in London,” the reporter said as he sneered. “You want blood to run in our streets, Gunpowder.”
“No massacre will happen in our fair city.” Arthur made his voice louder than the Peterloo chants. Some did want blood in the streets, but not him. He’d seen enough death in his youth. He advocated for freedom. “We must stop the institutional massacre of our brothers by slavery.”
Turning away from the annoying Phineas, he stared back to the rowdy crowd and the negress who still stood at the stairs. The young woman was too smartly dressed to be an errant server who had wandered down to an all men’s meeting. No, she had to be there for a reason, for the lass wasn’t disturbed at being the only female in the cellar, and the only Blackamoor at that. A bold woman.
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