They all stopped, and turned, insensibly huddling closer together. Haggard pointed. 'I mean you.'

The girl looked behind her in confusion. She was one of the oldest of the children, going on her size. She was the one he especially remembered; he was sure of that. She had yellow hair, matted and coated with dust, and was somewhat taller than her companions. She had breasts, too, to which the dust clung entrancingly, and a pouting belly, and narrow thighs. It was impossible to decide whether or not there was pubic hair, because of the dust which coated her belly. But she had good legs, long for her body and sturdy. Coal dust dribbled down them as she shivered.

'What is your name?' Haggard asked, heart pounding fit to burst.

'Mary, your worship. Mary Prince.'

'There's a pretty name,' he said, ‘I am short of a parlour maid at the Hall, Mary Prince. Would you like the job?'

'I'd have to ask me mum, your worship.'

'Would you like the job, Mary Prince?'

'Oh, aye, your worship. But I'll have . . .'

'First let's see you know what you're at,' Haggard said, and indicated his horse. 'You can mount up behind me.'

She gaped at him, mouth open, then she looked down at herself. 'I'm that dirty, your worship.'

'Clean dirt,' he said. 'Ha ha.' God, how he wished he could snap his fingers and transport them both to the privacy of his bedchamber, away from the staring eyes, from the foreman's sly grin. But he'd not give up now. He was Haggard. Nothing he could ever do in the future would change that simple fact, for these people, for everyone in England. Not to behave like Haggard would do him no good, and leave him without any pleasure at all. Besides, this was something he wanted, as he had not wanted since seeing Emma for the first time. Everything he had done, almost everything he thought, he realised, since arriving in this misbegotten land, had been conditioned by this single overwhelming want.

He swung himself into the saddle. 'Come along, Mary Prince.'

She glanced at her companions once again, then at the foreman, who shrugged. She put on her threadbare cloak, and approached the animal. Haggard put down his arm for her.

'I'll dirty your clothes, your worship.'

'I have others,' Haggard said.

Her fingers closed on his arm and he lifted her from the ground. He felt her hands on his back.

'Hold me round the waist,' he said.

Her arms went round his waist, and he looked down on her hands, clasped together in front of him. They were dirty hands, but well shaped. He looked to either side, saw a long coal dust stained leg dangling there. She was sitting astride, wearing nothing but a cloak.

He kicked the horse forward, and they trotted down the road. Behind them the other children walked, still staring.

'How old are you, Mary Prince?' Haggard asked.

'I'm thirteen, your worship.'

Younger even than Emma had been, Haggard thought. But they were already through the gap, arid there were candles burning in the Hall windows. Haggard rode up the drive, dismounted by swinging his right leg over the horse's head, held up his hands for the girl. She swung her leg over in turn, dropped on to him; he caught her under the armpits and set her on the ground. For a moment she leaned against him, then hastily stepped back.

Ned was there, taking the horse's bridle. He did not speak, merely touched his hat. Haggard held the girl's arm, took her into the lower hall. The maids came scurrying, out of the pantry, gathered in a group at the far end.

Haggard nodded to them. 'I will need a hot bath,' he said. 'For this young lady. Start boiling up. Half an hour.'

'Yes, sir, Mr. Haggard.' They continued to stare. Haggard released Mary Prince's arm, indicated the stairs. She peered at the other girls for a moment—no doubt she knew them all, as they knew her—then scurried up the steps. Coal dust scattered on to the floor.

Haggard walked behind her. 'And the next flight,' he said, as she paused on the landing. She looked down at him, then resumed her climb. He watched her feet disappearing above his head. He was back in Haggard's Penn, with Emma and Annie Kent above him. Emma and Annie Kent. He wondered where they were now, what they were doing. What they were thinking. But with this girl there would be no need for ropes. And no risk of daggers after.

'Father.' Alice ran along the corridor, Charlie as usual tumbling at her heels. 'Father.' Her cheeks were stained with tears. 'Mama was at school to say goodbye.'

'She said she was going away,' Charlie accused.

'She has gone away,' Haggard said.

They stopped, faces slowly crumpling.

'Your mother has gone away,' Haggard repeated. 'It was her choice. But you're here with me. There is naught to concern yourselves with. There is cake for your tea.'

He reached the second floor, looked down. They stared after him, tears running down their cheeks. He realised he did not even know the name of their new nurse. But he had no time for them this night. Mary Prince was waiting, hands clasped in front of her, looking at the dust which was gathering about her.

'I'm awful dirty, your worship.'

The floor can be cleaned.' He stepped past her, opened the bedroom door. 'In here.'

She hesitated, then stepped past him. Haggard closed the door.

Take off your cloak.' His voice was thick as he lit the candle, set it on the table, turned to face her. She held the cloak in her hands, uncertain where to lay it. The floor will do.'

The cloak slipped to the floor. She faced him, inhaling slowly. Suddenly he did not know how to continue, what her reaction was going to be. Slowly he took off his own coat, pulled his cravat free. He watched her tongue come out, lick coal dust from her lips.

'I'm awful dirty,' she said again.

'Yes,' he said. That's what I want from you. Dirt.' He undressed, quickly, while she stood there and gazed at him. 'Have you seen a man before?'

'I've seen me dad,' she said.

He realised with a disturbing start that her dad was probably no older than himself. But nothing would stop him now. Haste, haste, haste. He stripped off his stockings, threw them behind his shoes, took her in his arms. Coal dust, and woman, clutched against him. Her breasts were big enough to feel, her groin squirmed against his, trapping his penis between, bringing it even harder. He threw her on the bed, lay on her. She tried to kiss him but he did not want to kiss. He thrust his hands beneath her, held her buttocks, lifted her up while he found her slit and drove himself inwards. He waited for a cry or a moan, and found only her eyes, huge and glooming at him, and her mouth, vaguely open, and coal dust, scattering across the snow-white sheets. He came in a tremendous explosion of pent-up passion and anger and self-disgust, throbbed on her belly for some seconds, then lay on it, listened to her gasping for breath.

He rolled away from her, lay on his back. Christ, he thought. What have I done? He had not thought that for a very long time

Mary Prince sat up. 'Must I go, now, sir?'

Haggard turned his head, frowned at her. Sanity was back in control, and it was necessary to lay plans, correct mistakes. He got up, went to his trousers, felt in the pockets, discovered a guinea. He held it out, and she stared at it for a moment before taking it.

'You'll be a housemaid here,' he said. 'And every time you . . . you come in here with me, I'll give you one of those.'

'Cor,' Mary said, and lifted it up to give it a gentle bite. ‘Cor. Me mum will like that.'

'You'll not tell your mum,' Haggard said. 'Or there'll be no more guineas. You'll tell her I offered you a job, here.'

Her head lifted; the coin was already secured inside her fist.

'Do you understand me, Mary?'

'Yes, sir, your worship.' She stood up.

There's a bath waiting for you, downstairs. Have it. Then tell the girls to find you something to wear. Then you can go home and explain to your mum.'

'Yes, sir, your worship.'

Haggard looked down at himself. Coal dust stained his chest, his belly, his penis. Something he had wanted since he had first seen those children. Something he now had experienced.

Then what had she experienced? Why, nothing at all. She was stooping to pick up her coat; there was no blood, and she had shown no discomfort. Thirteen years old?

'Who've you known before?'

She straightened. 'Well, your worship, we all sleeps in the one bed . . .'

Haggard frowned at her. 'You've brothers?' 'Oh no, your worship. Just me sister, and me mum and dad.' 'By Christ,' Haggard said. 'By Christ.' He sat on the bed. 'But I'll not tell me dad,' Mary Prince said, ‘I'll not give him the money.'

'Aye,' Haggard said. 'You keep the money. We'll share a secret, Mary.'

'Yes, sir, your worship.' She looked pleased.

And I am dirty, Haggard thought. Dirty, dirty, dirty. 'When you go down, Mary,' he said, 'tell the girls to send me up a hot bath as well.'

As if it mattered. Had he not always known that incest was a fact of life in the logies at Haggard's Penn? That these people happened to have white skins was irrelevant, however much it had confused him. He was John Haggard. He was, in the eyes of English public opinion, the greatest blackguard on earth. He need fear the criticism of no man, after that.

Then what of woman? This he must find out. But he could not do so while looking over his shoulder. And how he wanted her, now. Because she was beautiful, and because she was of his own class, and because she would not submit to his every wish. And because she was clean. There was an indictment of his past relationships with women.

The grooms took his bridle, and he dismounted, stiffly. He had ridden from Derleth at the same breakneck speed, after only a day at home. Each muscle in his body seemed to have a life of its own; he had not even been to his rooms to change. It occurred to him that since arriving in England he had been doing little but galloping from here to there, pursuing, or running, chasing the Haggard image, or attempting to escape it. Now was a time to call a halt, to settle his life into the calm, confident, omnipotent mould he had known in Barbados. And the first essential towards accomplishing that goal was to have at his side a wife who would support him in everything he wished.

'Mr. Haggard, sir,' said the butler. 'Will you come up, please?'

Haggard gave his hat and coat and riding crop to a footman, followed the butler up the stairs. Alison waited at the top; she wore a pale blue gown with a niched hem, and her hair was loose.

'Mr. Haggard. Is all well at Derleth?' Her tone suggested genuine interest.

Haggard took her hand and kissed it. How good she smelt. He had never known a woman with so beautiful a scent. 'All is well, Alison. All is better than it has ever been.'

She gave him a quick frown, then gently extracted her hand from his, led him into the withdrawing room. 'You'll take a glass?'

‘In fifteen minutes.'

She nodded, thoughtfully. 'You'll bring in some wine, Partridge. In fifteen minutes.'

'Of course, Miss Alison.' Partridge closed the doors behind him.

Alison stood before the fire, facing Haggard. Her hands were clasped before her. 'You look like a man who has ridden all night.'

‘I have ridden all night.' He stepped closer. 'Alison, I wish you to marry me.'

'Mr. Haggard?' She sounded genuinely shocked, and Haggard, reaching for her, checked.

‘I had supposed you regarded me with some favour.'

'I do. But . . . you have not spoken with Papa.'

‘I am a Barbadian, remember.' He held her hands, brought them towards him, pressed together, ‘I must have an assent from your lips, not forced by your father.'

She smiled. 'My father would force me into nothing, Mr. Haggard.'

'Well, then . . .'

‘I have explained to you my feelings, Mr. Haggard.' She did not - seek to free herself, this time.

'And I have understood them, Alison. Listen. You will have heard I am building a new house?'

'All London has heard that, Mr. Haggard. At outrageous expense.'

'A house fit only for the most beautiful girl in the country, Alison. A house being built especially for you. And you will be mistress of it, Alison. No one else.'

Alison freed her hands, very gently, sat down in the chair by the fire. 'And the present manor house?'

'I shall probably pull it down. The new one will be complete by the autumn. We could be married then.'

Alison appeared to consider. Then she raised her head, looked directly into his eyes. 'What has happened to Miss Dearborn?'

‘I have sent her away.'

'A sudden decision.'

'One to which I have been inclining for some time.' 'But a decision,' Alison Brand said. 'I am not a man to change my mind, Alison.' 'You've children,' she pointed out.

'My children. I'll not let them go. But you'll have children, Alison. I promise you that.' 'Not to inherit.'

There'll be enough to go round.' As her father had said, she had an old head on those beautiful shoulders, he thought. But did it matter? She was the woman he wanted, as much for her old and steady head as for her body and her lips, ‘I had supposed you wanted to,' he said.

'We must talk with Papa.'

'But you.' He knelt before her, held her hands again, brought them to his lips. 'Will you not say yes to me ‘now?'

She smiled. 'After we have spoken with Papa,' she said.

'Haggard.' Brand squeezed his hands. But his eyes would not meet Haggard's gaze, kept dropping away. 'Alison will have told you?'

'Oh, aye. Splendid news. What I've always hoped for.' Then I suggest you look the part.'

'You'll take a glass of port?' Brand pulled the bell. 'I've sent the girls out for the morning. Best, eh?'

'Of course,' Haggard agreed, and sat down, stretching his legs in front of him. ‘I’ll confess I am in no practice at playing the suitor.'

'So I have gathered.'

'But you've no objections?'

‘To you? Man, I'd choose no other. Ah, Partridge.' The port was poured, the decanter left between the two men. 'First things first, though. I'm a straight up man, Haggard. You'll have noticed that.'

‘Indeed I have,' Haggard said, somewhat drily.

‘If you'd not come to me, I'd have come to you.'

'About Alison?'

'Eh? God no. About you. You'd no trouble at Derleth?' 'None I couldn't handle.'

There's good news. The case has set London by its ears.' Haggard grinned at him, and drank some port. 'And I am the most unpopular man in the kingdom.'

Brand leaned forward, his face serious. 'True.' 'So you'd not see me as a son-in-law.'

‘I said, first things first. With a big programme in view, Billy Pitt doesn't want distractions.'

Haggard's turn to frown, ‘I'm not sure I understand you.'

'It's politics, you understand. I doubt you have such things in Barbados.'

'We have some.'

'Not like here. Tis the ladies, you know. Every one dabbling away, influencing their husbands. To say a man is a Tory is not to say he'll always support us. No, no. There's a deal of feeling that runs through this community, which will find expression.'

Haggard poured some more port. 'Brand, you are babbling. Come to the point.'

The point. Yes. Well, Billy feels, we all feel, that perhaps it would be best were you to absent yourself from Parliament for a while.' 'Eh?'

Brand produced a brightly coloured kerchief, wiped his forehead. 'Well, you see, Haggard, parliamentary procedure being what it is, the next time you appear in the House, in the immediate future that is, some damned Whig is going to put down a question about slavery, and slave owners being permitted to sit in the house . . . they're very devils. Next thing you'll be impeached, like that poor devil Hastings.'

'I have done nothing for which I can be impeached,' Haggard said. 'I have broken no laws. Nor can I be impeached, while I am a Member.'

‘True. True. But Billy feels there could be some terrible time wasting, and maybe some to be too closely identified with the Party.'

Haggard got up. 'No one mentioned this before? You were happy to have me. You knew I was a slave owner.'

'Don't go getting the wrong idea. I've nothing against a slave owner. None of us have. But we assumed you'd win your case. As you should have done. But there it is. Tis public opinion we have to consider. England is ruled by public opinion. Important.'

'So I'm to be ostracised, because a madman like Granville Sharp has stolen one of my people.'

‘Too strong,' Brand protested. 'Too strong. You wish to be a Tory, Haggard. The party comes before anything else. Before country.'

That's a damned unpatriotic thing to say,' Haggard said.

'Well, not before country,'' Brand said. 'If it came to that. But before anything else. And it's only for six months, Haggard. Billy is sure on that. It won't affect your seat. It's past Easter already. Soon Parliament will be rising for the summer. When they resume, in November, why, no one will even remember the name of James Middlesex. London is like that.'

Haggard finished his port, poured himself a fresh glass. 'And what of Alison?'

'My dear fellow, I am overjoyed. And it will work out rather well. You will have the time to prepare for the wedding.' He leaned forward, slapped Haggard on the knee. Tell your lawyer to prepare a settlement, and we'll consider it done.'

Perhaps, Haggard thought, if I offered sufficient money to Wilberforce, I'd even be allowed to take my seat in Parliament.

They sat around the table. At Brand's request Haggard had brought with him both Roeham the attorney and Cummings; they were on either side of him. Colonel Brand sat opposite, Alison on his right, his own attorney, by name of Wooding, on his left. It was more like a business conference than a wedding proposal. But then, it had always been a business proposal. Haggard realised. Why else should a girl like Alison wish to marry a man more than twice her age? But at the end of it all, she would belong to him. All of her.

She wore a highnecked pink gown, and this morning her hair was up as well, and concealed beneath a mob cap. Her face and neck were exposed, and utterly magnificent. There were pink spots in her cheeks, but he suspected these had been assisted by-rouge, as they neither deepened nor faded. He had no idea what might lie under the gown, save for the shadowy limbs he had seen beneath her nightdress. But he did not doubt for an instant. She would be his, at the end of it.

'Colonel Brand will settle upon his daughter an income of six hundred pounds a year,' Wooding said. 'It is a small sum, but the colonel is not a wealthy man. He hopes Mr. Haggard will understand this, and not permit Miss Brand to find herself in an embarrassing position.'

'Mr. Haggard has been entirely generous,' Roeham said in turn, consulting his own paper, 'and means to settle upon Mrs. Haggard an income of one thousand pounds a month for the rest of her life.'

'One thousand pounds,' Brand said. 'Bless my soul. There is generosity, Haggard. I thank you, man. I thank you.'

Haggard looked at Alison, who for a moment returned his gaze. Her lips parted in what might have been mistaken for a smile.

'And the issue of the marriage?' Wooding inquired.

'Ah . . .' Roeham continued to study his paper. 'Shall be recognised as heirs to the estate of Mr. Haggard in the event of the death of the existing heir, Mr. Roger Haggard, and in any event, from the age of eighteen onwards, shall be in receipt of an income of not less than two hundred pounds a month each.'

'Generous,' Colonel Brand said. 'Oh, generous. Well, my sweet girl, are you content?'

Now Alison did smile. 'I have always been content with Mr. Haggard's proposals, Papa,' she murmured.

‘Then shall we sign?'

The papers were exchanged, and Haggard appended his signature. Like buying a horse or a house, he thought. But what an animal.

‘There we are, gentlemen.' Brand pushed back his chair and stood up. 'Now I suggest we all adjourn to the withdrawing room, and enjoy a glass of wine. Tis a cause for celebration,' he added, perhaps as an afterthought.

'We will join you in a moment,' Haggard said. 'But first I would like a few minutes alone with my fiancee.'

Alison's mouth opened in surprise, and she glanced at her father.

'Well, of course, that is entirely correct,' Brand said. 'Only a few minutes, now, Haggard, eh? A few minutes.'

They bustled from the room, and the door was closed. Alison remained seated at the table.

'Are you happy?' Haggard asked.

‘I am overwhelmed, Mr. Haggard. As Papa has said, you have been far too generous.'

Haggard got up, walked round the table, stood behind her, inhaled her perfume. 'Would you have refused me, had I been mean?'

'John Haggard is not a mean man,' she said. 'Or I would never have been his friend.'

Haggard rested his hands on her shoulders. For how long had he wanted to do that. 'Now you are to be his wife.'

Her head tilted backwards, so that she could look up at him. 'I desire only your love, Mr. Haggard. As I shall give you mine.'

He lowered his head, checked when he was an inch away from her. But she did not move. Relief spread outwards from his heart and his belly. He dropped his lips on to hers. They were closed, and he stroked them with his tongue. For just a moment they parted, and he was able to touch hers. Her hands came up, and closed on his arms, squeezing, then she released him, and her mouth was gone.

She stood up, and the pink spots in her cheeks had at last grown, ‘I am happy, Mr. Haggard,' she said. 'Very happy.'

Then you will call me John.'

'John,' she said, and held out her hand. 'Shall we join Papa?'

'But where is she now?' Roger insisted. 'Please, Father.'

Haggard sighed. How big he was for sixteen years of age; why, they were roughly the same height. 'I do not know where she is now, boy. You understand the situation between us?'

Roger nodded. 'Emma explained it to me herself. But she said she loved you. And she said you loved her.'

'Well, of course we loved each other. Then. But love sometimes grows cold. And we were not married. So when she wished to leave me, I had no means of keeping her here.'

'But why?’ Roger asked. 'Why should she wish to leave you? Where could she possibly go that was better than here?'

Two terms at Eton had filled out his mind as well as his body. Made him into a true Haggard, Haggard suspected. He would have to be carefully handled.

He leaned back in his chair, gazed out of the opened window at the brilliant sunlight streaming into the study. This was more like it. He could at last understand why England was occasionally described as the most beautiful country in the world. But June was only thirty days long. Would July be as kind?

Still, there was no better month for Alison to see Derleth for the first time.

'You do understand,' he said, 'that Emma was not your mother.'

'Of course I do, Father. But she was my friend. And now . . . I don't understand why you wish to marry again.'

'Aye, well, you will when you are a few years older,' Haggard said. 'I will explain it to you, then. Now come along. Miss Brand will be here in a little while. We must go out to meet her.'

He was determined that Alison, on her first visit to Derleth, should not be disappointed. Everything that had gone wrong with his own arrival had been corrected, so far as he was able. Now he mounted his favourite mare, and saw that the children were also suitably horsed. He led them through the street, MacGuinness bringing up the rear, inspected the bunting hung from the houses, at his direction and paid for with his money, made sure that the Reverend Porlock—Litteridge's replacement—had the church looking sufficiently welcoming.

He drew rein at the inn. 'Is all ready, Mr. Hatchard?'

The publican was on the doorstep, in his best suit. 'Aye, Mr. Haggard,' he said. 'All is ready. I'm just giving them a drink, to cure the heat, like.'

Haggard nodded, and rode on. He wondered what they really thought of him. They had had no reason to love the black people, and they had heartily disliked Emma. Even those who had opposed him in the slavery issue had been whipped into it by Parson Litteridge. Since that troublemaker's departure he had been greeted mostly by smiles, even if he often caught them whispering surreptitiously behind their hands. But they could whisper what they liked. He was Haggard. He had established that fact as firmly here as he ever had in Barbados. No doubt they were each relieved that the girl he had picked out of the mine had been Mary Prince, rather than one of their own. But they'd not criticise. Not even Henry Prince did anything more than touch his hat; he had too great a liking for golden guineas.

And no doubt that went for the country as a whole. Six months, Pitt had said. Well, the waiting would be over in November, and in September he would be married. It would be time to turn his back on discord and quarrelling, and begin a new life with his new wife. With the most beautiful girl in the land.

And there she was. The carriage was in sight, rumbling up the London turnpike, and turning to the left to take the road into Derleth. Haggard stood in his stirrups and waved his hat, and handkerchiefs fluttered from the windows of the berlin.

'Wave,' he commanded the children. 'Wave, damn you.'

They obediently waved their own hats, and the carriage scraped to a halt. Inside were both Alison and Emily, and their maids. Alison leaned out of the opened window, and gave him her hand. He leaned from the saddle to kiss it and squeeze it. 'Welcome to Derleth,' he said. 'Oh, welcome to Derleth.'

'I feel as if I am coming home,' she said. 'And are these the children?'

'Roger, my eldest son,' Haggard said.

Roger raised his hat.

'Give me your hand, Roger,' Alison said.

'And this is my daughter, Alice.'

Alice, a perfect replica of Emma, even at ten years old, gave a nervous bob to her head.

'I am pleased to meet you, child,' Alison said, but this time she did not shake hands. 'And that will be Charles. He sits a horse well.'

'Haggards,' Haggard said. 'Ride on,' he told the driver.

The whip cracked, and the berlin raced down the hill, followed by its cavalcade. 'She's lovely,' Alice cried. 'Don't you think she's lovely, Roger?'

Roger did not reply.

'I don't think she's as lovely as Mama,' Charlie said, and bit his lip as Haggard turned his head.

'Hush,' Alice said. 'You'll annoy Papa.'

They were entering the village, and the men were streaming out of the pub to cheer and clap as the carriage rumbled by. Everyone had a foaming tankard in his hand; Hatchard had done his work well.

'Hooray for Mistress Brand,' someone shouted.

'Hooray for Mr. Haggard,' shouted another.

Hats were thrown in the air, beer was spilled, and the whole mass moved along beside the carriage, shouting and cheering.

They love you at first sight,' Haggard said.

Alison merely smiled. But it was a more contented smile than he had ever seen before.

They left the village behind and approached the manor. Beyond, the new house was taking shape, the tower built and dominating the countryside, the adjoining building a gaunt skeleton of wooden uprights only slowly being covered with planking. But already it was making the old hall resemble a barn.

'Your future home,' Haggard said, and dismounted to open the door for her.

Alison Brand stepped down, inspected the lined up grooms and footmen, Pretty the butler, restored to his old position, the housemaids and parlourmaids, marshalled by Mistress Wring, Peter's mother, who had come to the Hall as housekeeper. The girls kept their eyes dutifully lowered, Mary Prince included, Haggard was pleased to note.

Alison swept by them and into the doorway, Emily and Haggard at her heels. In the doorway she stopped, and turned. 'I like Derleth,' she said. 'I like you all.' She smiled at Haggard. 'I will be happy here.'

'I can see it's going to be magnificent,' Alison said. They had dismounted, the better to inspect the works, stood together at the foot of the tower, which rose forty feet above their heads. 'Can we get up there?'

'Can we?' Haggard looked over his shoulder. Nash had remained a discreet distance away.

'Only by ladder at the moment, I'm afraid, Mr. Haggard.'

'I have never climbed a ladder. Could we, Mr. Haggard?'

'Of course.' He led her inside the shell of the main building; at the far end the inner wall of the tower was open as if breached. On this, the ground floor, they looked at what would be cellars. A ladder led up to the extended drawing room on the first floor.

'It looks awfully steep,' Emily complained.

'Well, then,' Haggard said. 'You stay down here with Roger.

Alison and I will make the climb.' It was quite impossible to get rid of the girl. Or come to think of it, of his son.

Alison already had her foot on the bottom rung. 'You'll stay close behind me,' she said.

Haggard stepped on to the ladder; her skirt brushed his face. He inhaled her perfume, watched her neatly laced boots emerging and disappearing again as she climbed. Her riding habit was in midnight blue, with a matching tricome. As ever, she looked good enough to eat. Certainly to rape. But what a strange thought about his future wife. He had only to be patient.

She paused for breath, half way up, and to look down at the people beneath her.

'Be careful,' Emily called.

Alison laughed, and climbed again, scrambled off the ladder and on to the floor, waited for Haggard to join her. 'It's going to be magnificent,' she said.

There's another,' he pointed out. 'Leading to the bedchamber.'

She glanced at him, crossed the floor, and started climbing again. Now they were out of sight of the people below. Up they went, and through the opening on to the upper floor. Here the room was almost complete, although the windows needed to be glazed. Alison stood at the nearest, looked out at the rolling countryside, the trees clustering over the slopes of the hills; the window looked away from the village. 'What an absolutely splendid view,' she said, ‘I feel like a Norman chatelaine, waiting for the onslaught of the Saxons.'

'A good time to be alive,' Haggard said at her shoulder.

'Do you think so? I am happier now.'

He put his arms round her waist, brought her back against him. 'Do you know this is the first time we have been alone since our betrothal?'

'Well . . . you are such a passionate man, dear Mr. Haggard.' Her hands were on his arms, seeking to free them. Gently he spread his hands, allowed the fingers to wander upwards, over the hardness of her corset and just to touch the underside of her breasts. She gave a little shiver, and this time exerted her strength to free herself and move away.

'And you are not a passionate woman, Alison?'

She turned, eight feet away, and faced him, hands clasped in front of her. 'I do not know what I am, Mr. Haggard.' She shrugged. 'How could I?'

But there was a peculiar expression in her eyes, which he could not understand. He moved towards her. 'You can permit yourself passion with me, my darling.'

Her hands came up, between them. 'When we are married, Mr. Haggard. It is only three months now.'

Three months,' he said. 'An entire summer, just sitting here, with naught to do . . .'

'You could join a hunt,' she said. 'I know it is too early in the year, but you could train up a pack of hounds, break in some horses.'

'Hunt,' he said. 'I suppose I could.'

'I recommend it highly,' she said. 'Where is the nearest pack?' 'I have no idea.'

She frowned at him. 'But . . . your neighbouring gentry?'

'I have never met them.'

They have not come to call, Mr. Haggard?'

'Why, no, they have not.' He shrugged. 'I suppose they approve neither of my being a slave owner, nor of my earlier liaison.'

'Well, they will have to change,' Alison decided. 'As they will be happy to, once we are married. Mr. Haggard, I have the most splendid news.'

He took her hands. Tell me.'

'Papa has secured us invitations to the Duchess of Devonshire's ball, at Almack's. Can you believe it, Mr. Haggard?' Her eyes glistened. 'The Prince will be there.'

'Damn and blast the thing,' Haggard complained, surveying himself in the mirror. 'I see no point to it. Especially in the summer.'

'Hit must be worn, Mr. 'aggard,' Simpson explained, carefully adjusting the wig for the third time. 'There is no 'elp for it. Now, sir, does that not look proper?'

Haggard sighed. The thing was at least straight. But it made him look absurd, and every time he moved his head a spray of powder scattered across the shoulders of his black coat.

'Hevery other gentleman will be wearing one, sir,' Simpson pointed out.

'I suppose you're right. My cane.'

"ere we are, sir. And the 'at.'

All brand new. There was a pun for you. Brand had himself seen to his future son-in-law's clothes. Now he waited while Simpson pulled the tails straight, gave a last brush to the shoulders—the only hope of keeping them clean was for Simpson to attend him to the ball itself—and stood back. There we are, sir.'

Haggard descended the stairs, to where Brand was pacing up and down the hall.

'Ah, Haggard, there you are. My word, but you look splendid. Quite splendid. You'll be the sensation of the ball, I do declare. And 'tis important, mind. Important. Everyone has heard of you, not enough have seen you and talked with you.'

'I am surprised I am allowed in at all,' Haggard observed.

'Ah, bah, I told you that London society has a short memory for detail. You will take them by storm. Yes, indeed.'

Haggard found himself once again before a mirror, peering at himself. The wig was still in place, and by keeping his head very still he could reduce the powder landslide. But why did he bother? Why was he vaguely excited and why were there butterflies in his belly? He was John Haggard. If he really wanted to. no doubt he could buy Almack's itself, and impose his own rules upon their silly functions. If he wanted to. But it was necessary to remember that, or these haughty duchesses and their lackey-like followers would reduce him to a jelly with their stares. How Bridgetown society would laugh could they but know the truth of it.

if only the girls would be ready,' Brand grumbled. 'Ah, there you are, my dears. Come along now. You know we mustn't be late. Weil be turned away if we're late.'

For the first time that evening Haggard forgot about himself. Descending the stairs towards him was the most marvellous sight he had ever seen, Alison Brand wearing an ice pink evening gown, slashed in a low decolletage, and with her hair quite disappeared beneath the towering white wig in which was embedded a variety of precious stones, rubies and emeralds and sapphires—his engagement present to her. But even the jewels seemed irrelevant. The absence of hair from her neck and shoulders left them as well as her face quite exposed, and far more lovely than he had ever realised them to be. Suddenly he was almost afraid of her. All of that beauty, and soon to be his.

He hardly noticed Emily, wearing pale green, although he had supplied her jewellery as well.

'Am I suitable, for the future Mrs. Haggard?' Alison asked, and extended her left hand to allow the huge diamond to sparkle in the light.

Haggard kissed her knuckles. 'You are suitable to be the Queen of England,' he said.

She smiled at him. 'You'd best not suggest that to the Prince,' she said, 'or you might lose me.'

'Come along, come along, do,' Brand said. 'We shall be late. I know we shall be late. Turned away from Almack's. My God, what a disaster. We shall never hold up our heads in society again.'

Haggard followed him through the door. 'You forget I have already been turned away from Almack's, and am doing quite well at holding up my head.'

Brand did not reply, climbed into the coach even in front of his daughters; he was clearly very agitated, and in a curious way his concern soothed Haggard's own nervousness. He could sit beside Alison and enjoy the evening—it was still daylight—and enjoy too the sensation of possessing so much beauty.

He could even enjoy once again encountering the formidable Martin, as usual flanked by an army of footmen, all gold and green and powdered wigs, bowing as he took Brand's card.

'Colonel Brand, and the Misses Alison and Emily Brand, and . . . Mr. John Haggard,' he said. The information was hastily passed up the stairs, immediately in front of them, and was announced by the major-domo.

'Look at them,' Alison said, without appearing to move her lips, which were fixed in a smile..

Haggard surveyed the scene in astonishment. He had not supposed the ballroom could be so large—and it could only be a fraction of the whole area, for archways led away to other rooms in which there were tables laden with cold foods, other tables laden with champagne and chilled wines, and yet other tables covered in green baize and surrounded by chairs; clearly every possible taste was catered for here.

But for the moment it was the ballroom which was the centre of attention; this was packed, with women, everyone as magnificently dressed as Alison, although not one as good looking, with men, the majority in black suits and white shirts and cravats, like himself, but with a smattering of red-coated and high-collared
army officers, and even one or two in the dark blue and gold braid of the Navy. He knew none of them, although he had been told Addison would be here—but every head was turned in his direction, and as he watched, a woman came towards them, and the whole room seemed to diminish in splendour. .

She was about thirty-five years of age, he estimated. Her natural good looks, and she must have been a rare beauty in her youth, were enhanced by her air of absolute confidence and indeed arrogance, as much as by her gown, which was in midnight blue with sequined hem and sleeves, or by her decolletage, which was breath-taking, or by her jewellery, which even Haggard's somewhat inexperienced eye—West Indian women seldom displayed much wealth—could be costed at several thousand pounds. She moved across the floor in a long glide, and allowed Brand to take her hand.

'Colonel Brand.' Her voice was a very gentle caress. 'How good of you to come. And your utterly charming daughters. Why, they grow more beautiful with every passing day.' She stood before Haggard. 'And this is Mr. Haggard,' she said, her voice slightly lowered. 'My evening is guaranteed success, Mr. Haggard. All London has been waiting to see you. And no one is going to be disappointed, I am sure. Allow me to introduce you.'

He realised that she was offering him her arm, and that she was escorting him down the line of ladies and gentlemen, rather as if he was visiting royalty, which he supposed he very nearly was. Their names flowed around him, their smiles seemed to bathe him, their jewels and their breasts winked at him, but he heard and saw none of them. His brain seemed suffocated by the scent and the aura of the woman on his arm. What misfortune, he thought, that I should have become engaged to Alison before meeting her; what an affair we could have had.

If she chose. But as they reached the end of the first row and she smiled at him, he could not doubt that she would choose.

‘I must leave you now, Mr. Haggard,' she said. 'To greet my other guests. But be sure I shall find you again.'

'On the contrary, Your Grace,' he said, bowing over her hand, it is I shall find you, as soon as I may.'

'Why, Mr. Haggard,' she said, ‘I had no idea our colonials were so gallant. I shall look forward to it.'

She withdrew her hand, and returned towards the head of the staircase. Haggard found himself surrounded by people he had apparently just met, eager to talk about Barbados—which they seemed to confuse with Jamaica or Antigua—about sugar planting, about which they knew even less, and about the new Hall he was building at Derleth, about which they seemed to know more than himself. He smiled at them, and made what he hoped were suitable replies, and was rescued by Addison, who gently eased him from the throng and obtained them each a glass of wine from a passing footman.

'Well, Haggard, your triumph, what?'

‘I confess I do not understand it at all.'

'Society is like the mob, my dear Haggard. Fickle as a pretty woman. But while you please them, why, it is like living in perpetual sunlight. Miss Brand. How beautiful you look.'

Thank you, Mr. Addison. The Prince is arriving.'

They turned, with everyone else, and the ladies curtsied while the gentlemen bowed. Haggard found himself impressed. Prince George was just past thirty. Perhaps he was a trifle overweight, and his cheeks were too flushed as his nose was too large, but he was a splendid figure of a man, with the height to carry any stoutness, and a magnificent air, which quite matched Georgiana's.

'Does he come down the line?' he muttered.

'No, no,' Alison said. 'We are presented to him as the evening goes on. Those of us the Duchess chooses.'

'But you will be amongst them, Haggard,' Addison promised. 'No doubt of that.'

'The music,' Alison said. 'Will you dance with me, Mr. Haggard?'

'Wait for the Prince,' Addison warned.

But the Prince of Wales was already on the floor, the Duchess in his arms. Haggard led Alison out; certainly they made a marvellous couple, and he observed the Prince's head turning as they joined the parade. He had not danced for twelve years, since that disastrous night at the Boltons. But had it been disastrous? That night had set in motion a remarkable series of events. But for those events, would he be here now?

Alison smiled at him as they parted, and was still smiling as they came together again. Her whole body seemed to be smiling. This was the life she truly appreciated, truly loved. Then he must be sure they enjoyed a great deal of it, at Derleth. The great room at the Hall might have been intended for dancing, indeed, he had created it with that half in mind. Alison would be in her element. And after his triumph tonight, Derleth would be the centre of all that was worthwhile in Midlands society.

The music had stopped, and he was escorting her back to where Emily sat with her father. 'You dance divinely.'

'As do you, Mr. Haggard. I am so happy.'

'Haggard. The moment is here.' Addison, smiling at him.

'You'll excuse me,' he murmured, gave Alison's hand a hasty-squeeze, followed his friend across the room, aware that he was being watched by everyone present.

The Prince was surrounded by his gentlemen, none of whom Haggard had met; but also in the group was the Duchess.

'Ah, Mr. Haggard,' she said, and took his hand. 'Sir, I would so like you to meet Mr. John Haggard, late of Barbados, but now of Derleth Hall, in Derbyshire.'

Haggard gave a brief bow, straightened, found the Prince staring at him. 'You're the planting fellow.'

'That is so, sir.'

'The slave-chasing fellow, what? Dicky Sheridan has been telling me about you.' 'Indeed, sir?'

'It won't do. Haggard. It won't do. No indeed. This is a free country.'

Haggard opened his mouth and then shut it again. He had been quite unprepared for such an attack. He could feel his cheeks burning, but it was nothing compared to the sudden burning anger in his belly.

'And then, this other business,' Prince George said. 'Turning your people out into the snow. Gad, sir, that was barbaric. Barbaric. You'll know one of them died.'

Haggard took a long breath. 'I did not know that, sir. Nor do I accept it.'

'You'd call me a liar?'

'Why, sir . . .' Fingers were closing on his arm.

'Sharp told me so himself, sir,' the Prince said, also very red in the face. 'One of the women just fell down and died. Gad, sir, it made my blood boil. Called you a damned scoundrel, he did, and I'm not sure I don't agree with him.'

The huge room was utterly silent. The men to either side of the Prince seemed paralysed. The fingers remained on Haggard's arm, but they no longer gripped. While Haggard could only stare at the florid face in front of him; the Prince was showing slight signs of embarrassment, as if he had not quite intended to go so far.

But he was the Prince, ‘I am sure, sir,' Haggard said, 'that you must therefore find my company obnoxious. You'll forgive me if I withdraw.'

'Of all the damnable things.' Brand paced his own withdrawing room, waving his decanter of port.

'He was drunk, of course,' Addison pointed out. He was also putting away as much port as he could swallow.

'Drunk?' Alison cried. 'What does it matter what he was? We walked out of the Duchess of Devonshire's ball. We walked out. It is unbelievable.'

'We shall never be invited anywhere again.'

Haggard sighed. Although he had consumed quite as much port as either Brand or Addison, he was perfectly sober, ‘I had not intended you to follow me.'

'What else was I to do?' Alison demanded, hands on hips. She looked less like a beautiful girl than a reincarnation of Medusa, especially as she had taken off her wig and her undressed hair was scattered.

'Anyway, I'd not have had us do anything else,' Addison said, ‘I think he used the opportunity for a deliberate attack upon Haggard, and through him on the Tory Party. He more or less admitted he's been put up to it by Sheridan. Tis nothing but a Whig plot. And you gave as good as you got, Haggard. Oh, aye, you met him fair and square, and did not even lose your temper.'

'We'll never be presented at court,' Emily moaned. 'Never.'

‘I should like to know where I stand,' Haggard said. 'It seems that if you marry me, Alison, your social future is dead. Therefore I feel it is only right that you should decide.'

To . . .' Some of the colour faded from Alison's cheeks, and she glanced at her father.

'My dear fellow,' the colonel spluttered. 'Of course Alison means to marry you. What, refuse the . . . the best fellow in all the country because our scoundrel of a Prince insulted him?'

Had he really been going to say the wealthiest man in the country?

Treason,' Addison grinned.

'And you, sir?' Haggard demanded.

'Oh, I am on your side, Haggard. Entirely.'

'Well, then, the decision must rest with Alison.'

She stared at him, her cheeks once again pinkening. Then her shoulders rose and fell. 'Of course I wish to marry you, Mr. Haggard. Oh, how I wish it could be today. Thank God it is only a short while.'

Only a short while. And indeed the summer had passed very quickly, Haggard thought. There had been the Hall to be completed, and there had been the preparations for the wedding, the food and the wine and the lodgings to be prepared. Over the past week there had been the arrival of the guests, the rehearsal, with Emily taking the part of her sister, the meetings with the Reverend Porlock, who was in a state of high excitement, the practices with the children, who were each to have an important part to play, the knowledge that every day Alison was coming closer. Nothing mattered beside that single fact. Not Pitt's refusal to attend—affairs of state, by God—nor indeed the somewhat muted response of London society; the local gentry had been happy enough to have an excuse to end their ostracism of him, to inspect the new Hall, to meet the squire himself. There were guests enough, even without Pitt. It had been quite a revelation to realise that so many people in this amazing country disliked the Prince, were actually prepared to take his side in the quarrel.

So London society was apparently closed to him; he was not even prepared to be angry about that any more. Politics were irrelevant, to an impatient groom. How had he contained himself? Indeed he had not, entirely. But the housemaids were nothing more than a panacea. They relieved the pressure on his penis, the demands on his belly. But they did nothing for his mind, left him as anxious to dream of Alison immediately after a tumble as he had been afraid to do so before. And for the last week he had touched none of them.

And now it was over. All the waiting was behind him. He stood at the head of the aisle, listening to the music, conscious of Henry Addison, acting as best man, at his shoulder, head half turned, so that he would gain an early glimpse of her. Behind him the little church was packed to the door, and filled with a gigantic rustle, which slowly died as everyone stood and the music rose to a climax.

Haggard traced the advance of the white clad figure from the comer of his eye. Only her face was uncovered, as the gown itself was high-necked and her arms and hands were lost in the long lace gloves. Behind her Emily was a splash of blue, and Brand, like himself, wore black. How slowly they moved. But he could wait for ever, now. She was here, and she was about to be his. His entire body was swollen with desire for her. With love for her? Well, love had to be based, first and foremost, on desire. But how could he not love someone as beautiful, as soft spoken, as purposeful, as Alison Brand?

She smiled at him, and her hand was in his. Porlock was beginning his preamble, and the church had fallen silent. Haggard scarce heard a word that was spoken; Addison had to nudge him to make the correct responses. He thought all of his life might have been a preparation for just this moment; the boy who had stumbled into marriage with Susan Brett; the young husband who had near gone mad with grief at her death; the lonely, savage planter who had nightly drowned his sorrows in a jug of sangaree; the careless marksman who had killed a man for very little reason; the eager lecher who had plucked Emma Dearborn from the noose; the determined individualist who had set all Barbados at defiance; the bewildered colonial who had sought a new life in England; the slave owner who had become the most unpopular man in the land —all of these different facets of his personality had led up to the complete Haggard. They were behind him now, and for the second half of his life he would be content, to be Squire Haggard of Derleth Hall, John Haggard, MP, and above all, Mistress Haggard's husband. So he had often been a bad man. But that was behind him as well. No more outrageous tempers, no more pandering to outrageous desires, no more coal dust on his penis. Only Alison, Alison, Alison, and all the joys that Alison would bring.

'You may kiss the bride,' Porlock suggested.

Haggard awoke as from a dream, lowered his head, kissed her on the lips. For just a second she allowed her tongue to rest on his, then she was away, and the parson was waiting to escort them into the vestry to sign the register.

'My God, but I was nervous as a kitten.' Brand took off his wig to wipe his head. 'And to think I must experience that again with Emily.'

Haggard beamed at them all, even at Roger, with his solemn, serious face. The two younger children, carrying Alison's train, were wildly overexcited. It would have to be an early night for them; but that could safely be left to nurse Hailing. It was going to be an early night for him as well.

'Shall we go?' Alison squeezed his arm. Pray to God that she was passionate. It was not a thought that had really troubled him before. But she was a lady. Had Susan been passionate? He could not really remember, but he did not think so, because he had known so little about passion himself. She had been willing, had accepted him, but had she ever responded? Alison was no older. It was he who had changed.

The organ broke out into the wedding march, the crowded church stood and smiled at them and greeted them and welcomed them. Alison's fingers were tight on his as they emerged into the mid morning sunlight, to blink and wave at the entire population of Derleth, today swelled by many from the neighbouring villages and valleys. A society wedding was not something to be missed by anyone who could find any means of transport. Haggard beamed at them all, looking along the row of faces, Peter Wring, raising his hat. Jemmy Lacey, standing beside his sister—even she was smiling—Hatchard the publican, other faces he recognised without being able to put names to them, Emma Dearborn.

Haggard stopped, at the foot of the church steps. He felt quite incapable of moving, his belly filled with lead, his heart suddenly pounding.

'Mr. Haggard?' Alison spoke in an urgent whisper; the two children had nearly bumped into her back.

Haggard had closed his eyes. He opened them, slowly, looked at Emma again. There could be no mistake. She wore a bonnet which concealed the most part of her hair, and in place of the crimson pelisse she had worn when last he had seen her there was a light brown cloak, of considerably cheaper material. Her face was thinner than he remembered. But it was Emma. And now she had seen him looking at her. He watched her lips move, and not to smile. She was saying something. Pronouncing a curse, by God.

'Mr. Haggard.' Alison's voice was sharp.

'MacGuinness,' he said. 'Where is MacGuinness?'

'Who?'

He recovered himself, looked away, hurried forward. The open coach was waiting for them, and MacGuinness was himself standing by the door to help them in.

'MacGuinness,' he said. 'Follow me to the Hall. Quickly.'

'Sir?' MacGuinness frowned at him.

To the Hall, MacGuinness.' Haggard sat down beside Alison, and the coachman flicked his whip. They were turned away from where Emma had been standing, and he would not look back.

'Whatever is the matter, Mr. Haggard?' Alison asked, ‘I had supposed you had had a seizure.'

He looked down at her, smiled at her. Emma could not harm him, not even with her curses. She had tried before. Hadn't she?

He kissed his wife on the forehead, and the crowd cheered. 'Nothing is the matter. No seizure.'

She leaned back, still clutching his hand tightly. In front of them the new Hall crowned the hill. Haggard's Folly, some unkind wag had called it. But it was a splendid building, dominated by the tower, on the outside, and on the inside by the huge marble ceremonial staircase which curved from the entry hall to debouch into the ballroom. Here the servants were gathered, lining the steps, the maids to one side and the footmen to the other, waiting to throw rose petals at their master and their new mistress, before hurrying off to the mammoth task in front of them, of serving champagne and food to a hundred people.

Haggard and Alison climbed the stairs, slowly, took their places at the top. 'MacGuinness.' Haggard muttered. 'Where the devil is MacGuinness?'

But the other guests were already arriving, headed by Emily and her father and Alice and Charlie. Had they looked into the crowd, and seen their mother? They gave no sign of it. Nor did Roger. And MacGuinness was submerged in the mob, streaming by, shaking hands and kissing, according to their sex, showering congratulations, faces he knew, faces which were strange to him, friends and relations of the Brands, every one with gamine-like features, shrouded in a head of waving auburn hair. Christ, the bitch. The utter bitch. Returning after more than six months to make a sport of his wedding. She'd not get away with it. Not so long as his name was John Haggard.

'MacGuinness.' The crowd had at last departed from the head of the stairs, and Alison had also left, to circulate amongst her guests, to enjoy their amazement at the splendour of the Hall, at the paintings and the drapes and the upholstered furniture and the acres of polished floor, to discuss the architectural splendours of the tower, to bathe in the aura of being Mistress Haggard, of Derleth Hall. 'Did you see her?'

MacGuinness, his black suit clearly too tight for him, his face crimson with wine and heat, mopped his brow with his handkerchief. 'See whom, Mr. Haggard?'

'Emma Dearborn. She was in the crowd.'

'Oh, aye, well, she would be.'

'Eh?' '

'Seems she's taken up with Harry Bold.'

'Who the devil is Harry Bold?'

'Well, sir, Mr. Haggard, he's a tinker, who . . .'

'A tinker?' Haggard shouted. Heads turned, and he lowered his voice. 'A tinker?'

That he is, sir. Well, he works this neighbourhood, up north a bit, then down a bit. I had heard he was around these parts.'

'And you never told me?'

'Well, sir, I didn't suppose you'd want to know. Not right at this moment.'

'I know now,' Haggard said. 'And I'll not stand for it. I don't want that woman and her . . . her lover on my land. Understood?'

'Yes, sir, Mr. Haggard. But they'll be moving along anyway, I should think.'

'And then coming back again? MacGuinness, I want them discouraged.'

The bailiff frowned at him. 'I'm not sure I understand you, Mr. Haggard.'

'You understand me very well, MacGuinness. Find out where they are living, take some men, Peter Wring and his friends, and get over there tonight. You'll never have a better opportunity, with this rout going on until near dawn. A tinker, you said. He'll travel by wagon.'

'Aye, sir, that he does. But . . .'

'Destroy it,' Haggard said. 'Smash it up. And tell him if he ever sets foot on my land again you'll smash him up as well.'

'Mr. Haggard, Harry Bold ain't the sort of man to frighten easy.'

'You'll have my people at your back, MacGuinness. And if he attempts to resist you, beat him up.'

MacGuinness wiped his brow. 'And the lady?'

'Emma Dearborn is no lady, MacGuinness. She was transported for theft. You want to remember that. See that it is done, MacGuinness.'

MacGuinness sighed, and nodded. 'As you wish, Mr. Haggard. I'll discourage them. You'll excuse me.'

He receded into the crowd, and Haggard took another glass of champagne. Emma, and a tinker. He had not been so angry since Mansfield had given judgement for Middlesex. A tinker, an itinerant who probably never washed and was riddled with the clap. My God, how low, and how quickly, could a woman sink. Had this Bold also been in the crowd? He would have been standing next to Emma, of course. But he had not noticed him.

'Father.'

Roger looked unnaturally solemn. Now, how long had he been there? Haggard rumpled his son's hair. 'You've been at the champagne, I'll wager. And why not, on this occasion?'

'Father. Is it true that Emma has come back?'

Haggard frowned at him. 'You've been eavesdropping. That's no occupation for a gentleman.'

‘I'm sorry, Father. I just couldn't help overhearing. You won't harm her, Father?'

'Now don't you trouble yourself with Emma, Roger. You have a mother now. A proper mother.'

'She's only two years older than I,' Roger protested.

'All the better. You'll be friends as well. As for Emma, you want to forget her. It's I have to apologise to you, boy, for inflicting her upon you all these years. But there it is. A man does many stupid things.'

'Inflicting her on me?' Roger cried. Then what of Alice and Charlie?'

They're my children,' Haggard said. 'And I love them dearly. Not so dearly as you, maybe, but just the same . . . you'll not mention their mother to them. It would only make them unhappy.'

Roger gazed at him for a moment. 'You're going to send her away, again.'

'Of course I am. We don't want Emma lurking behind every bush in Derleth, now do we?' 'And suppose she won't go?'

Haggard smiled, and slapped his son on the shoulder. 'She'll go, Roger. She'll go. I'm having MacGuinness see to that. There's naught for you to concern yourself with. Now come along and we'll have another glass.' He slapped him on the shoulder once more. 'She'll go.'

At last. After four interminable hours of speechmaking and drinking and dancing, of coarse jokes and coarser allusions, the time was come. The bouquet had been thrown, expertly into the arms of Emily, and the bride had been removed up the stairs to her bedchamber. Convention demanded the groom should be elsewhere, and Haggard had been escorted along the upper gallery of the house proper to one of the guest bedrooms, where his clothes had been ripped off and a nightshirt dropped over his shoulders, to the accompaniment of a good deal more ribaldry, and now he had to run the gauntlet of the entire assembly of guests, through the ballroom, while his back was slapped and his nightcap was whisked away and people trod on his toes and shouted obscene remarks at him. But he cared for none of them. After an eternity of waiting, and wanting, all of that beauty was to be his.

Hands assisted him up the stairs, many of them female, lubricated by the wine and the champagne and the sense of occasion, slapping and squeezing his thighs, seeking to do more and one certainly succeeding with a blow which had him gasping for pain. Then he was in the doorway, being greeted by the shrill cries of the ladies who had acted as maids, and gazing at Alison, sitting up in bed, a bed jacket over her nightgown to assist her modesty, her golden hair loose and resting on her shoulders, her cheeks pink, her mouth slightly open, with just a trace of equally pink tongue. All his.

Words swirled around his head, but he heard none of them. He had himself had far too much to drink. But he could concentrate, on what was about to come into his possession. He laughed with the crowd, and endured the handshakings and the back slappings, and suddenly found Alice thrust into his arms.

'You'll say good-night to your father, Alice.' Thus Mistress Wring.

Haggard hugged the girl, kissed her on both cheeks, did the same for Charlie.

'Where's Roger, then?' he demanded, his voice thick.

'Roger?' They looked from left t6 right. 'Where's Roger Haggard?'

'Slumped in a corner, no doubt, full of champagne,' Brand said. 'Weil find him, John. But it's bed for you.'

'Aye,' Haggard said. 'When you've all left.'

'We're to see the consummation,' someone said, very drunk.

'You'll not.' Haggard bundled them towards the door.

' 'Tis the fashion,' a lady cried.

'You'll not rob us of sport,' a voice complained.

'Have your sport downstairs,' Haggard suggested. 'Consummate anything you like.' He pushed the last protesting body through the door, slammed it shut, turned the key, and leaned against it. 'Christ, what a rout.'

'Was it not like this at your first wedding?' Alison asked.

'Oh, aye. But I was younger then.' He frowned, ‘I'm sorry. I'd not meant to remind you of that.'

'Of what?'

He crossed the room, slowly. He supposed she could see the thrust of his penis almost coming through the linen nightshirt. 'Of the difference in our ages.'

Alison smiled at him. 'I'd surely not wish to find myself in bed with any tyro.'

She was his. He sat on the bed, took her in his arms. She came to him. slowly, and he kissed her on the mouth; while he did so he reached up and slipped the cap from her head, stroked the hair, held her close, felt the touch of her tongue entering his mouth, reluctantly released her as she slid away, frowned at her expression. For just a moment her face had been filled with distaste, even a suggestion of repulsion. But then she smiled, and was as lovely as ever.

'Be gentle with me, Mr. Haggard,' she whispered.

Roger Haggard lay in his bed and listened to the sounds of revelry coming from the ballroom. He would not have slept in any event, not only on account of the noise, but because he was still not used to his new bedroom, so much grander than the one at the old Hall. But tonight there was no chance of sleeping, anyway. Emma was here. She had not disappeared, as Father would have it. She was here, to watch her lover be married. Then she must love him still. Then everything Father had told him, and Alice and Charlie, must have been a lie.

Because of Alison Brand. What hold could she have over Father, to make him do such a terrible thing? But he had done it, and now he was going to send Emma away again, without allowing her to see them, breaking up her wagon—why Emma should be travelling in a wagon was beyond his comprehension—perhaps even injuring her.

He sat up, heart pounding. Father himself had always drummed into him, do what you know is right, without looking right or left, without hesitating. Obeying that simple precept had involved him in more fights than any other boy at Eton. But it had also earned him total respect far more quickly than any other new boy, as well. And Father would himself agree, whenever he escaped from Alison's power. Because it had to be some sort of power. There was simply no other explanation.

He thrust his feet out of bed, dragged on his clothes, carried his shoes in his hand. He opened the door; there was no diminution in the music, the raised voices and the laughter coming from below him; the celebrations were not likely to end before dawn. He tiptoed along the corridor, went into Alice's room, drew the drapes and shook his sister by the shoulder. 'Ally. Wake up.'

She grunted, rolled towards him, and opened her eyes to peer into the darkness. 'Who is it?'

'Me, stupid. Listen. Get up, and get dressed.'

Alice Haggard pushed hair from her eyes. 'Whatever for?'

'I'll tell you later. Just do it. I'm going to wake Charlie. No noise, now. Wait for us here.'

Charlie's room was immediately beyond. He got his brother out of bed, helped him dress, then they both returned to Alice; she was also dressed and waiting for them, sitting on the side of her bed and yawning, ‘I don't understand. I was fast asleep.'

'Listen,' Roger said. 'Emma is in Derleth.'

'Emma? Mama?' Alice's voice rose.

'Ssssh. Yes. She was in the crowd at the wedding.'

'But Father said . . .'

'Never mind what Father said. She was there. But she's going to be sent away again, tonight. Would you like to see her?'

'Mama,' Charlie said, and began to cry. 'Mama.'

'Be quiet,' Roger insisted. 'Or I'll leave you behind. Come along now. Follow me. But be quiet.'

He opened the bedroom door, stepped into the empty corridor, listened; all sound was submerged by the cacophony from the ballroom. And most of the servants would be there too. He turned to his right, away from the main part of the house, went along the back staircase, cautiously made his way down. Here there were candles burning in their holders along the walls, and the smells of habitation; they were close to the pantries. But there was not a soul in sight. Down the next flight he went, to reach the ground floor. The side door stood wide, allowing the night air to drift in and send the candle flames guttering, throwing huge shadows against the wall and across the floor.

'Ooooh.' Alice grabbed his hand. 'It's scary.'

'Ssssh,' Roger commanded, and looked out of the door. To his left the blaze of light from the ballroom threw itself across the front garden and the carriage park, absolutely filled with equipages in neat rows. To his right the crowded stables, containing several times their usual number of inhabitants, were seething with restless movements. But the grooms and yard boys had been given the night off, and were all at the inn in the village; from down the hill there was more distant carousing. The only danger lay in crossing the yard immediately by the house, lit by the glow from the ballroom; the rest of the drive was in darkness.

'Now when I say the word,' Roger said, 'run across the light. Quickly now.'

They nodded, got their breathing under control, and heard Rufus growl. The mastiff came slowly round the corner of the house, no doubt seeking some relief from the noise. Now he stood facing the door, front legs spread, nostrils twitching as his teeth bared.

it's me, silly.' Roger said, and the dog came forward, wagging his entire rear quarters, to have his head stroked. 'You'll come with us,' Roger decided: For to tell the truth he had been a little apprehensive of exploring Derleth Valley in the dark. 'But you mustn't bark. Promise?'

Rufus licked his hand and panted.

'Come along now,' Roger said. 'All together. Go.'

The children dashed across the lighted area. Rufus gave a joyous yelp and ran behind them, barking excitedly; midnight games were something he had always wanted to enjoy. They tumbled into the darkness, hid behind the last of the berlins, crouched there panting. Rufus lay down beside them.

'Oh Rufus,' Roger said.

'They must have heard that din,' Alice pointed out.

But amazingly no one came out to discover what was exciting the dog. Derleth Hall was not concerned with intruders this night.

'Come on,' Roger said, and led them into the darkness, walking now so that Rufus would have no more excuses for barking. They made their way down the drive, reached the road leading to the village. 'A wagon,' Roger said. 'She's in a wagon.'

'I saw a wagon parked in the meadow behind the church,' Alice said. 'When we were there this afternoon.'

'That must be it. Weil cross the cemetery.'

Now Rufus led the way, apparently knowing where they were going. The children huddled behind, casting nervous glances at the headstones, at the willows which loomed above the church. There was no moon, and the night was very dark.

'It's scary.' Charlie kept saying.

'We can't come to any harm with Rufus here,' Roger promised him. 'Rufus would never let anyone hurt us." But he was grateful to discover the end of the trees and the low wall which marked the limit of the church property. And there was a wagon, parked by the remains of a fire, its horse hobbled a little distance away, raising its head to give a nervous whinny as it scented the dog.

'Who's there?' a man called.

Roger inhaled, stepped away from the wall, Alice and Charlie at his hack. 'Roger Haggard.'

'Haggard?' Now they could see the man, leaning over the tailgate of the wagon, just as they could make out the pots and pans and other goods dangling from the roof above him. 'Keep that dog away from my horse.'

Roger snapped his fingers. 'Come here, Rufe. Come on, boy.'

Rufus returned, tail wagging.

'It's Haggard,' the man said over his shoulder, apparently in response to a query from inside, the wagon.

'Haggard?' Emma's voice. A moment later she joined the man at the back of the wagon. 'Mr. Haggard?'

'Roger,' Roger explained. 'With Charlie and Alice.'

'Roger,' Emma cried, and leapt down the steps. She wore a nightgown and her hair was in plaits. 'Alice.' She seized the children, hugged them against her. 'Charlie.' She wept, quietly, holding them close. 'Oh, you darlings. But you shouldn't be out here in the middle of the night. Whatever will your father say?'

'We had to see you, Mama,' Alice said. 'Father said you weren't ever coming back. He said you'd run away. Did you run away, Mama?'

'Did you run away, Mama?' Charlie asked. 'Did you? Did you?'

Emma chewed her lip, glanced at Roger.

‘I know you didn't run away, Emma,' he said, it was that girl Alison, wasn't it?'

'Why ... 1 suppose it was,' Emma agreed. 'Although I didn't know it at the time. But to have you here . . .' Still hugging them, with Rufus trying desperately to lick her hands, she turned back to the wagon. 'My children, Harry. Would you believe it? They've come to see me. My children. This is Mr. Bold, Roger. Harry, this is Roger Haggard. And Charlie and Alice.'

'Haggard,' Bold said in disgust. He was a short, heavy-set man with a thick black beard and moustache.

'He's not like his father,' Emma said. 'And he's brought my children to see me. Come down and shake his hand.'

Reluctantly Harry Bold came down the steps grasped Roger's hand.

'I came to warn you, too,' Roger explained.

'Warn me?'

'Father saw you at the church this afternoon. At least, he saw you, Emma. He's given instructions for you to be thrown out of Derleth. For your wagon to be destroyed.'

'He did, did he?' Bold said. 'We'll see about that. Who's going to do this piece of dirty work?'

'Mr. MacGuinness, and some men from the village.'

'When?'

'It was to be done tonight. Why . . .' He turned his head. They could hear the sound of people approaching, stumbling and cursing over the uneven ground, voices high and interspersed with nervous giggles. The horse gave a neigh, and Rufus an angry growl.

'They're drunk,' Emma said.

'Aye, they would be.' Harry Bold chewed his lip. 'But there's an awful lot of them. Emma, you'd best into the woods. You be off, children, your pa won't want you to be discovered here.'

'What are you going to do?' Roger asked.

Bold sucked some of his beard into his mouth. 'I don't rightly know.'

'Fight them,' Roger said.

'Eh? One man, against a dozen.' Because the approaching men could be seen now, the burly figure of .MacGuinness at their head. 'I've not even a weapon, save a stick."

'I'll help you,' Roger said.

'A boy?'

There's Rufus.' .

Bold frowned at the dog. 'Will he obey you?' 'Rufus will do anything I say.'

'You can't, Roger,' Emma said, it would be going against your father. And you'll likely be hurt.'

'Those men are coming to hurt you, Emma.' Roger pointed out. 'They're going to break up your wagon. Father told them to. But I know he didn't really mean it.'

'He did mean it,' Emma said, ‘I can't explain now, Roger. But don't suppose your father doesn't know his own mind. Now you take the children and hurry out of here, before . . .'

There they are,' MacGuinness shouted, his voice thick. 'Awake, lads. Let's at them.'

The men surged across the field.

'Get them Rufe,' Roger shouted. 'Sickem, boy.'

Rufus gave a long baying bark, and hurtled away from the wagon like a cannonball. MacGuinness saw him coming and jumped backwards, bumping into Peter Wring immediately behind him.

'Sticks,' Roger shouted. 'You said you'd sticks, Mr. Bold.' That I have.' Harry Bold grasped a stout club and ran down the steps.

'And for me,' Roger said.

'Me, too,' Charlie bawled, jumping up and down.

'You come in here," Emma commanded, seizing her son by the arm and dragging him into the wagon. 'And you, Alice.'

Rufus had scattered the posse as if they had been toys. His snapping jaws could be heard even at a distance, and the one man who had attempted to stand his ground had gone down with the mastiffs teeth in his calf. The rest were tumbled left and right, slowly getting to their feet as Harry Bold and Roger Haggard reached them.

'Now you listen to me,' MacGuinness bellowed, getting up, to stare at Roger in total amazement. 'Master Roger. What in the name of God . . . '

'Got you,' Roger shouted, and hit him across the head with all the considerable strength he could muster. MacGuinness went down without a sound.

'And you,' Bold cried, swinging his club from side to side to fell two other men as they attempted to get up.

'Help me,' screamed the man being savaged by Rufus. 'For God's sake help me.'

'Let him go, Rufe,' Roger commanded. Try another one.'

Rufus reluctantly unclamped his jaws and his victim staggered to his feet, gave a wailing cry, and fled back across the meadow, hopping on one foot. It was the signal for the end of the fight. The rest of the expulsion party ran behind him, such as could move. Roger Haggard and Harry Bold stood together, Rufus panting at their side, while Emma came up with a bucket of water, which she emptied over MacGuinness. The bailiff sat up, rubbed his head, and winced, slowly clambered to his feet.

The squire will hear about this,' he said. 'By God he will.'

'I'll tell him myself,' Roger promised.

'He'll be very angry with you,' Emma said.

'He won't. I know he won't. But maybe you'd better move on anyway, just in case.

'Aye. The lad is talking sense,' Harry Bold said. 'We won't go far, Emma. But we'll be off Haggard's property.' He grasped Roger's hand, gave it a squeeze. 'Maybe one day we'll be welcome here, eh? It's been a pleasure, Mr. Haggard. A real pleasure. If you ever need a helping hand, be sure to call on Harry Bold.'

CHAPTER 7

THE STEPMOTHER

Haggard opened his eyes, was for a moment unsure of where he was. Golden hair, tickling his face, brought back memory. Not altogether pleasant memory. He had spent the night with the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, who was also his wife, had had all of those soft curves at his disposal and was yet left with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Because she had so obviously not enjoyed herself, had been doing nothing more than her duty. But that must have been because it had been their first night together. She had at the least not been afraid of him. And now ... he leaned on his elbow to look down at her. Sleeping, her face was even more lovely than when she was awake; the slightly predatory glitter he had observed at their first meeting was absent.

Gently he blew on the long lashes, watched them flutter and half open, then close again.

'Wake up, sweetheart,' he said. 'We're on our honeymoon.'

'Let me sleep, Mr. Haggard. Please let me sleep.' She rolled over, her back to him.

Haggard sighed, and rang the bell. He continued to gaze at the serrated line of vertebrae marking the pale skin. Her back reminded him of . . . by Christ, he thought. Emma! By now MacGuinness would have carried out his orders. The wagon would have been broken up, and the tinkers driven from the valley. Emma! But she had been cursing him. Why else should she have come back?

But did it matter? He did not believe in curses, so how could she harm him? He had behaved stupidly, because he had been nervous about his wedding. He hoped she hadn't been harmed in any way. But he had still done the right thing. It would be quite impossible for him to enjoy life were she allowed to return to the alley whenever she chose, to stare at him from behind hedgerows, to attempt to reach her children, to utter curses.

There was a tap on the door, and he hastily covered Alison up, pulled on his robe. Simpson entered, followed by Mary Prince, bearing a tray.

'Good morning to you, Mr. 'aggard, sir,' Simpson said, ‘I 'ad no hidea you wished to rise early.'

'I wish to see Mr. MacGuinness,' Haggard said. 'Send someone out for him, and tell him to meet me in the office in an hour. Thank you, Mary.'

Mary Prince put the tray on the table, bobbed her knees in a curtsey, staring at Alison's indistinct form beneath the bedclothes, and withdrew. Simpson followed her.

'What can you have to do this early in the morning?' Alison demanded, suddenly sitting up.

'Tis a vast estate I have here.' Haggard handed her a cup of chocolate.

'And a vast bailiff you have to manage it for you,' she pointed out.

'Aye, well, there are certain things I must see to myself.' He drank his own chocolate, kissed her on the forehead, endeavouring to caress her breasts and watched her lie down again and roll herself into a cocoon, and went next door to his dressing room, where Simpson already had his clothes laid out. 'What does the ballroom look like?'

'Ah, well, Mr. 'aggard, there's been a ball, hall right. Oh, aye, there's been a ball.'

Haggard went downstairs. The maids and the footmen had already been marshalled by Pretty, and were moving slowly to and fro over the floor with huge mops, gathering scattered pieces of wedding cake, the remains of shattered champagne glasses, and even various articles of clothing which had been discarded by the guests. The whole place stank of stale alcohol and stale perfume. Haggard was glad to escape it, down the great staircase into the lower part of the house, where the doors and windows stood wide and the air was clean.

'Haggard.' Brand had been walking up and down the terrace.

'Good morning to you. Sleep well?'

"Eventually. And you?'

Haggard smiled at him. 'Not a wink. Did you expect me to?' 'Ha ha,' Brand said, and slapped him on the shoulder. There's a man for you.' But the smile did not reach his eyes. Td like to have a word.'

'Come into the office.' Haggard held the door for him, closed it behind them. 'You've something on your mind.' He seated himself behind the huge desk.

Brand sat opposite him. 'I'm a happy man, Haggard,' he very obviously lied. 'Alison married to the best chap I can think of, why, I've no reason to be unhappy.'

'But you are,' Haggard said.

'Aye, well, there's no justice in this world.' He chewed his lip, blew his nose.

'If I can help you, Brand, you have but to say.'

'God Almighty, man, 'tis not I need helping. No, no. Haggard . . . I'd not tell you before, in case it spoiled the wedding.' He raised his head, gazed at his son-in-law. 'You've been blackballed.'

'Eh?'

'At White's Club. By God, man. I was that upset. I've resigned myself.'

Haggard frowned at him. 'There was no need to go that far.'

'Ah, well, it's obligatory. Where one's candidate has failed, one is considered to have resigned."

Haggard brought his hands together, rested his chin on them. He could feel the anger swelling in his belly. Blackballed. 'Is there a reason?' he inquired, speaking very softly.

'Well, of course, the committee is under no necessity to give a reason. But . . .'

'But you know what it is. The Prince?'

'Aye, well . . .' Another honk on the nose, it's that business at Easter, throwing your black people into the snow. In the name of God, why did you do it?'

‘I had just been informed that they were no longer slaves of mine. As I had brought them from Barbados as slaves, I could see no reason to maintain them any longer. I prefer white servants in any event.'

'But Christ, man, the cold bloodedness of it. And then, one of them dying. Of exposure, you know.'

'I'm sorry to hear it,' Haggard said.

'But you'd not regard it as any business of yours?'

'No,' Haggard said. 'Not once they ceased to belong to me. You'd do better to quarrel with your laws than with me.'

‘I seek no quarrel with you. Haggard. I'm entirely on your side.

But there it is. Tis events in France, to my mind. The sight of all those stiffnecked ancien rigime people voluntarily handing over their rights and privileges, well, it has given many a reasonable man over here cause for thought. There's talk of a new bill being brought in to outlaw the Slave Trade. You'll have heard that?'

'I know of it,' Haggard said. 'And I'll be there to speak against it. On behalf of the Tory Party. I was promised that by Harry Addison. And by Pitt.'

'Oh, aye, we'll speak against it, and you'll lead. You may be sure of that. On economic grounds at the very least. But there it is. I'm sorry about the blackball.'

'So am I.' Haggard listened to the knock on the door, if you'll excuse me, Brand.'

'Of course, my dear fellow. Of course. I'll see you at dinner no doubt.'

'No doubt.' Haggard stared at MacGuinness, whose head was enveloped in a bandage. 'What the devil has happened?'

The bailiff waited while Brand, also giving him a curious look, left the room. Then he closed the door.

'Well?' Haggard demanded.

'Set upon, we were,' MacGuinness said.

Haggard frowned at him. 'By whom?'

'Well, sir . . .'

'You had men with you?'

'Oh, aye, sir. There were ten of us. But it was this dog . . . barely escaped with my life, I did, and again just now.' Haggard sat up. 'Rufus attacked you?'

'Indeed he did, sir. Encouraged by Master Roger. Master Charles and Miss Alice were there too, sir.'

'Let me understand this,' Haggard said. 'You and ten men went to evict that gypsy, and were set upon by my children?'

MacGuinness flushed. 'Well, sir, Bold helped them.'

'You were defeated by a ten-year-old boy?'

'Well, no, sir, Master Charlie and Miss Alice didn't take part in the fight. It was Bold and Master Roger, sir.'

'A man and a boy,' Haggard said.

'And the dog, sir. Why, there was no one going to fight that dog. Peter Henery has half his calf gone. Like to die, he is. And besides, sir, we didn't know what to do. How to set about it, sir. You'd not have had us break Master Roger's head, now would you?'

'Roger,' Haggard said. Oh, it would have been Roger. Always taking Emma's side. More fond of her than he had been of the memory of his own mother. 'Where is the gypsy now?'

'Well, sir, he left anyway.'

'With Miss Dearborn?'

'I reckon so, sir. She's not to be found. I did hear he was seen over in Plowding.'

Which was the next village.

'Waiting to come back, no doubt," Haggard said. 'The moment my back is turned.' Oh, she had cursed him all right. Blackballed. And that fool Brand had not told him immediately. But all the guests would have known. Addison certainly. He got up. 'You'll shoot that dog, MacGuinness.'

'Yes, sir,' MacGuinness said gratefully.

Haggard opened the door, encountered Pretty. 'Where are the children?'

'I haven't seen them, Mr. Haggard. Still in bed, 1 shouldn't wonder.'

'After being out all night,' Haggard growled. His own children, adding to the long list of those who defied him and sought to bring him down. Oh, undoubtedly he was bewitched. Emma had done it, the first day she had entered his life, for all of his scoffing. And not content with him, she had bewitched his children and even his dog, turned them away from their duty as Haggards.

He climbed the stairs, passed some of the house guests, who greeted him and stopped to stare after him as he ignored them.

And leading the rout was Roger. The very last Haggard, until Alison should give birth. If he could be sure of that, he'd a good mind to cut the boy off. As it was, they'd all had far too easy a life. He'd been an indulgent father, there it was. Indeed, he thought, as he started on the second flight, leaving a trail of staring housemaids behind him, he'd not been sufficient of a father. The fault was his. He had left their upbringing to Emma, had not understood that once she left he would have to play a more positive part. But leaving them to Emma had been the mistake. Witchcraft apart, they had absorbed her ideas, and she had never lifted her hand to any of them, would not have dreamed of it. She had very nearly ruined his children.

He stamped along the corridor, threw open Alice's door. The girl was just sitting up, being served her breakfast by Hailing the new nursemaid.

'Father?' Her eyes were wide.

'Out of bed,' Haggard commanded. 'Get into Roger's room.' He went next door, to where Charlie was still asleep. 'Up,' Haggard shouted. 'Go into Roger's room.'

Charlie crawled out of bed, gazed at his father. Haggard grabbed his shoulder and half threw him into the coridor. Then he opened the door of Roger's room.

'Father?' The boy sat up.

'Get out of bed,' Haggard said. 'You . . .'He pointed at Alice and Charlie. 'Come in here.'

They filed into the room; Charlie's eyes were already filling with tears.

1 understand you went to see the tinker, last night,' Haggard said.

'Mama was there,' Alice said.

'I took them, sir,' Roger said. His head jerked at the sound of an explosion. 'Father?'

That is MacGuinness shooting Rufus,' Haggard said.

For a moment the children stared at him, then Roger ran at him, fist swinging. 'You'll not kill Rufus,' he shouted. 'You'll not.'

Haggard threw up his left arm to catch the blow, threw a right himself. His fist landed on Roger's chin and the boy fell backwards, hit the bed, and sat down heavily.

'You'll not kill Rufus,' Charlie shrieked, also running forward. 'You'll not.'

Haggard caught his wrists without difficulty, pushed him away.

'You didn't kill Rufus, Father? Not really?' Alice's eyes were also full of tears.

‘I’ll not have any animal savaging my people,' Haggard said. He unbuckled his belt, pulled it from round his waist, I’ll not have my children disobeying me. And I'll not have you seeing that whore again. Is that understood?'

They stared at him. Charlie was sobbing openly now. Alice's face was set; only a single tear rolled down her cheek. She looked so like her mother Haggard wanted to flee. But he had to make them understand that he was their father, that he was Haggard, that they must grow up to be like him. And he had to subdue Roger. The boy was slowly climbing to his feet, his chin already an angry red stain. He started to put up his hand to rub it, then made himself stop.

'You first, Charlie,' Haggard said. 'Bend over that bed.'

Charles Haggard glanced at his sister, seeking support. But there was none to be had. He walked to the bed.

'Nightshirt up,' Haggard commanded. The boy obeyed, leaning over the mattress. Haggard sent the belt whistling through the air, and Charlie screamed and hopped up and down. Haggard hit him again, the strap leaving an angry weal across the white flesh.

'Ow,' Charlie bawled. 'Owowowow.' He began to shake with fear and anger and pain. Haggard hit him twice more.

'Now stand over there,' he commanded. 'You're next. Alice.'

She gazed at him for a moment. He had never beaten Emma, hut he was about to beat her now. Because here was the same stain of auburn hair, the same eager features. The same slender body, the same long legs, as she hitched up her nightgown and leaned over the bed.

'Mr. Haggard? Whatever are you doing?'

Haggard's head turned in anger as the door opened, but it was Alison, wearing an undressing robe, frowning her disbelief.

‘I am disciplining my children, madam,' Haggard said. 'I'd be obliged if you'd not interfere.' He turned away from her, the belt already scything through the air. Alice had been starting to rise, supposing herself saved; the flailing leather caught her while she was off balance and threw her back on to the bed, a startled murmur escaping her lips. Haggard hit her again, watched the white flesh inflaming. Alice's fingers clawed at the bedclothes and her toes drummed on the floor as she pushed herself up.

'Keep still,' Haggard commanded. He struck her again, watched her head turn and her mouth sag open. From the corner of his eye he saw Alison putting her arms around the still weeping, still wriggling Charlie. The fourth blow brought a wail from Alice's lips, and for the next two she shrieked her agony, while tears stained the bedclothes.

'Get up,' Haggard said.

Slowly Alice pushed herself away from the bed, but she seemed unable to rise, remained on her hands and knees. Roger had to help her to her feet, and she leaned against him and wept, loudly and uncontrollably, her shoulders shuddering.

'Whatever have they done?' Alison inquired.

'They have been consorting with tinkers and gypsies,' Haggard said.

'We went to see Emma,' Roger said, face pale. 'Aye,' Haggard said. 'Now it's your turn.' Roger looked at Alison. 'I'll not scream. Father,' he said. 'But I would prefer us to be alone.'

'Get on with it,' Haggard growled. 'Alison is your mother, now.' Roger hesitated, then turned away, raised his nightshirt, leaned over the bed. Haggard's arm swung rhythmically, crashing the belt into the muscular buttocks, watching the flesh redden, watching the boy wince, watching him biting his lip, and watching too his penis harden with the first couple of blows before sagging again. He glanced at Alison from the corner of his eye. Her tongue was showing between her teeth and her nostrils were flaring.

He gave the boy twelve strokes of the belt, and was then exhausted. He threw the belt on the floor, if it happens again, it'll be double,' he said. 'Now you'll spend the rest of this day in your rooms, and there'll be no dinner.' He turned away from the boy, who still knelt, not looking at him.

'I hate you,' Charlie screamed, ‘I shall always hate you.'

Haggard turned back.

'You have done a hateful thing, Father.' Roger spoke evenly, as if he had not felt the blows. Haggard felt his anger, dissipated by the emotional exhaustion of the whipping, returning to seize his mind. If his discipline was not enough for them, then he'd discover a discipline which would suffice.

Then you'll have cause,' he snapped. 'Eton, by God. That is for the sons of gentlemen.' His hand stretched out, the forefinger pointing. 'You'll leave school now, and take a commission in the Army. I'll see to that. And you . . .' He pointed at Charlie. 'You're for the Navy. Weil see how you like that.'

'You can't,' Alice shrieked. 'Charlie is only ten.'

Time enough,' Haggard said. 'And you, miss, watch your tongue or I'll find somewhere for you as well. Are you coming, madam?'

Alison Haggard seemed to awaken from a trance. She released Charlie, went through the door Haggard was holding for her. Outside there were half a dozen maids and even some of the guests. They stared at Haggard as if they were seeing a ghost.

The coach is ready, Mr. Haggard.' Ned stood in the study doorway, hat in his hands.

Haggard nodded, went outside. Charlie was weeping as usual. Roger's face was firmly set. In the month since his flogging had his face ever been less than firmly set? Haggard did not know; his children had avoided him for that time. Behind the two boys Alice was also crying.

'You'll stop that,' Haggard commanded. 'You'll do well, Charlie. Just remember you're a Haggard. You'll tell the truth, and you'll turn your back on no man, and you'll do what's right. You understand me?'

Charlie's head started to come up, and then he gazed at the floor again. 'Yes, sir.'

'And stop that beastly weeping. You'll look after your brother as far as Portsmouth, Roger.'

'Yes, sir,' Roger said.

'Here's a guinea, no, here's two.' He felt in his pockets for the coins. 'One each. Spend it wisely. Now, have you said goodbye to your mother?'

Roger shook his head. 'No sir,'

'Why not?'

'We don't know where she is, Father.'

'Stuff and nonsense.' But the fault was Alison's, he knew. She seldom left her bedchamber before two of the afternoon, although she knew the boys were leaving this morning. 'You'll come along with me.'

He led them up the stairs again, Alice dutifully trailing behind. They had not forgiven him. They had not forgiven him. But today he was in a good humour, not disposed to be annoyed by his children, even prepared to see their point of view. He would have resented a beating like that. He had never had one. His father had been too kindly a man. Perhaps had he used his belt, John Haggard thought, I might have been less of a monster.

But they would get over it, and he could make it up to them. There was time enough for that.

He gave a brief knock on the bedchamber door, opened it, was rewarded with a cry of alarm and annoyance from his wife. 'Alison?'

The drapes were drawn around the bed. Now Alison's face peeped through. 'You gave me a start, Mr. Haggard.'

'I've brought the boys to say goodbye. You did remember they were leaving today?'

'I had no idea it was so early,' Alison grumbled. 'Well, come over here and give me a kiss.'

Haggard stood beside the bed. jerked back the drapes, gazed in surprise at Emily Brand. Like her sister she was still in a nightgown; her face was flushed and she gave him a nervous smile. Once again he was struck by the resemblance between them.

'Now you've frightened Emily,' Alison said.

‘I'm sure I haven't,' Haggard said. "Don't you suppose you should get up?' ‘I don't see why,' Alison objected. ‘I like lying here, gossiping.' 'I like gossiping,' Emily said.

The two boys were shifting from foot to foot with embarrassment.

'Come along, now.' Alison held Charlie's hand, kissed him on the cheek. 'And you.' For Roger was if anything retreating. Now he presented his cheek, to be seized by his stepmother and hugged against her. 'You are going to be a big boy,' she said. 'Like your father. I adore big men. Now have a good journey. Off you go.'

The children sidled out. Haggard remained standing just inside the door, gazing at the two girls. They made him think less of sisters, gossiping, than of lovers. What a remarkable thought. And an absurd one.

'Well?' Alison demanded. 'Aren't you going to wave the boys goodbye, Mr. Haggard?'

'Harrumph.' Colonel Brand strolled up and down the terrace, hands clasped behind his back. 'I feel like the man who has overstayed his welcome.'

Haggard was seated in one of the comfortable chairs overlooking the deer park. He smoked a cheroot, and frowned at the hills in the distance; already the November mists were gathering. 'Nonsense,' he said absently. I shall be glad to see you go, he thought. I wish to be alone with my wife. Or do I?

'Yes, well, duty calls, what? There's a new session to be prepared for.'

'Am I allowed to attend?' Haggard asked.

'My dear fellow . . .'

'I am perfectly serious,' Haggard said, ‘I'd not embarrass the Tory Party.'

'And you can hardly sit with the Whigs, eh, what? Ha ha.' Haggard flicked ash. 'When are you leaving?' 'Well, tomorrow morning. If you'll permit me?' 'My dear Brand, my house is your own. Come and go as you please.'

'You are a damnedly civil fellow. Haggard.' Brand sat beside him, took out his handkerchief, wiped his brow and neck. 'The fact is, if I have tarried this long, it is because I was waiting for the last of the other guests to leave, so that you and I could have a chat.'

'What about?'

'Harrumph. I don't know how to put it.'

Haggard, who had been thinking about Alison and Emily—he had done little else this past week—frowned. 'Are you in trouble?'

Trouble, my dear fellow? Good God no, not trouble. The fact is . . . my God, Haggard, I went overboard for this wedding. Trouble.' My God.'

Haggard nodded. It had been longer in coming than he had supposed would be the case. 'How much?'

'My dear fellow, I could not possibly . . .'

'Brand,' Haggard said. 'I would take it most kindly were we always to be absolutely straight with each other. Nor would it please me greatly to have a father-in-law sold up for debt. How much?'

'Well . . .' Brand got up again. 'This places me in a most terribly humiliating position.'

'Not at all.' Haggard said. 'I would do as much for my own father. For God's sake tell me how much.'

'Well . . . ten thousand. There was the trousseau, and some entertainments I was required to undertake in consequence of Alison's betrothal, and there was . . .'

'You shall have a cheque before you leave.' Haggard said.

'My dear fellow.' Brand seized both Haggard's hands, squeezed them. 'You really are the very best fellow in the world. I knew it the very moment I laid eyes on you. And hardly done by. Oh, indeed, hardly done by. Believe me, I shall not take these matters lying down, sir. I shall seek to establish you at the very apex of London society. You may rely on that sir. And I have a scheme to increase your wealth. Indeed I do.'

'Have you?' Haggard inquired, somewhat drily.

'You've heard of Hargreaves?'

'Vaguely.'

'He has invented a machine which spins cotton far faster and more effectively than any human being. Do you know cotton spinning?'

'No.'

'Well, let me tell you that where it takes ten spinners to produce enough yarn for one weaver. Hargreaves' machine does all of that work and more. Now to be sure, power was a problem, but Watt has solved that, eh? Water, there's the answer. And you have the Derleth River just going to waste through those hills. Now do you know what the wives of your tenants, and all the women in these parts, do with their spare time?'

'I shudder to think.'

They spin cotton cloth,' Brand cried, slapping Haggard on the knee. ' Tis a lucrative business. Now, Haggard, suppose you were to build a factory, here in Derleth, fill it with Hargreaves' machines, and start a cotton spinning business of your own?'

'Where'd I find the labour?'

'Your housewives, don't you see? They'd not be able to compete with you, in price or quantity. You'd put them out of business, so they'd have to work for you. What do you think of that?'

‘I have a factory already, Brand. In Barbados. And that is sufficient of a headache, believe me. Besides, this pin money the women earn keeps them happy. Tis best to let them get on with it.'

Brand sighed. 'Oh well, it was but an idea. And a good one, I'll swear. At least I'd recommend you consider it. In the meanwhile, I must leave you in the care of my two lovely daughters, who I know will see to your every want. My dear, dear . . .'

Haggard freed his hands. 'Is Emily not accompanying you back to London?'

'Why, no,' Brand said. 'She thought it best to stay on and keep Alison company for a while.' He frowned at Haggard's expression. 'Well, you know, you are so busy, and the girl is in a strange part of the country . . .'

Emily, spending every morning in Alison's bed, gossiping. At least during the past fortnight Alison had been in the best of humour, had almost welcomed him to her bed of an evening. But suddenly . . . two sisters who had always appeared like twins. Who dressed alike and spoke alike and smiled alike and ate alike ""5 . . and loved alike? My God, he thought, what a conception. An utterly absurd idea, ‘I think Emily should return with you, Brand,' he said. 'After all, you need looking after as much as I. And Alison will have to get used to being alone here at some time. Besides, there is Alice to keep her company. Alice is going to be equally lonely with her brothers gone.'

'Ah,' Brand said. They seemed so happy with the idea . . .'

Haggard pointed. The two girls could be seen strolling out of the orchard, huge straw hats almost brushing each other, hands intertwined.

'What a charming picture they make,' Brand said.

'Indeed,' Haggard agreed. 'But we shall explain the situation to them now.' He stood up. 'Alison. Emily.'

Their heads turned, and they changed their direction to approach the terrace.

'Your father has just been telling me that regrettably he must return to London tomorrow,' Haggard said. 'I shall be sorry to see you go, Emily.'

'Me? Oh, but . . .' She looked at her sister, mouth open.

'Emily isn't going, Mr. Haggard,' Alison said. 'She is staying on for a while.'

Haggard shook his head. 'She is going with her father.'

Alison's brows slowly drew together. 'But I wish her to stay.'

'And I wish her to go,' Haggard said, very quietly.

'Now, Alison,' Brand said, ‘I am sure . . .'

'Oh, be quiet, Papa,' Alison snapped. 'Why do you wish her to go, Mr. Haggard? Emily and I have never been separated. Even for a moment.'

'But you knew you were going to be separated, my darling,' Haggard explained. 'When you married me. Emily has her own life to live, and she has her father, your father, to care for. You'd not have your father pining away in loneliness in London, now would you?'

Pink spots were gathering in Alison's cheeks. 'And what of me? What of my loneliness, confined in this great dreary house in this empty valley?'

'Alison,' Brand began.

'You have me,' Haggard pointed out. 'And a great many duties to undertake, in which I am sure Mistress Wring would be happy to instruct you.'

instruct me?' Alison cried, and suddenly she was crying, great tears rolling down her cheeks. 'I want Emily to stay. I won't let her go. I won't, I won't.'

'Alison,' Brand said. Emily was shifting from foot to foot and chewing her lip, but she too was on the verge of tears.

‘I think it would be a good idea if Alison and I had a word together,' Haggard decided.

'Of course, my dear fellow. Of course. Come along, Emily. You'll want to pack your things.' He seized his younger daughter by the arm and hurried her off.

'What are you going to do?' Alison demanded. 'Flog me like your children?'

if I did it would be entirely because you are acting like a child. Did you suppose your sister was going to move in with us permanently?'

Alison sat down. 'Of course I didn't. But . . . it is lonely here. There is no one to talk to. You are so busy. You never come near me.'

'When I do you seem to resent it. You never wish to talk.'

‘I do,' she shouted, getting up. 'But not about this . . . this dreary old estate. I don't want to talk about coal, and gamekeepers, and cattle. I'm a woman. I need to be loved. I love being loved.'

Haggard frowned at her. Loved being loved? When every time he lay with her she seemed to be undergoing an experience like a visit to the dentist?

She discovered his expression, flushed, and sat down again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn't mean to shout. I . . .' She bit her lip. ‘I can't help how I feel. I should have thought you'd love me the more for it.'

The question is, do you love me, Alison?' 'Of course I do. I married you.'

'Would you say you loved me as much as you loved Emily?'

'Why . . .' Her flush deepened. 'What a remarkable question to ask. She's my sister.'

Haggard caught her wrist. 'And not your lover?'

Alison stared at him, gave a little gasp, tried to free her wrist. 'Let me go.'

'You ... let me go.' She gave an ineffectual tug. 'I shall scream.' 'Go ahead.'

Her lips pulled back from her teeth, her tiny nostrils flared. 'Are you jealous of her?' she hissed.

'I'd like to discover just what I married.'

'Ha,' she said. 'I've given you everything a woman can. To a man.'

His grip tightened, and she winced. Tears sprang to her eyes. 'You're hurting me.'

'Be fortunate I don't break it,' Haggard said, is Emily your lover?'

'You . . .' Another tug. 'Let me go.' Tell me.'

'We . . . we've been alone. Always. Ever since Mother died. That was ten years ago. There's only been Emily and me.' Tell me.'

Her head came up. 'What do you want to know, Haggard?' she snarled, her lip curling. 'Where she puts her finger?'

Haggard threw her hand away from him. She rubbed it for some seconds, while her colour slowly faded.

'What are you going to do?' she asked.

'Get up,' Haggard said.

She hesitated, then slowly rose.

'Now go upstairs,' he said.

'Brrr.' Alison Haggard gave an exaggerated shiver. This place is cold. Cold, cold, cold. Pretty, can't there be more wood on the fire?'

'Coal, madam. We use coal,' Pretty said, and signalled a footman to empty one of the hobs into the grate.

'Our own coal.' Haggard sat at the opposite end of the dining table, with Alice in the centre and to the left, facing the fire, and looking from one to the other of her parents.

He wondered why he wasted the effort to speak. For the past month, indeed, he wondered why he did anything at all.

But he loved Alison. There was the amazing consideration. Or perhaps not so amazing. She remained the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He did not love her; he loved her body, her face, her hair, her lips. Even her disdainful eyes and her flaring nostrils were things to be loved. He hated her, but he loved her body.

A fact of which she was well aware.

'Coal,' she sneered, drinking wine. 'What an occupation for a gentleman. Have those invitations gone out?'

Haggard nodded. For she was determined to entertain. He wondered how many replies they would get.

'Boring people,' Alison commented. 'I shall be bored out of my mind here. We must pay a visit to town, Mr. Haggard. Of course we must. You must take your seat in the House.'

'In good time,' Haggard said. He had made up his mind not to return to Parliament until Pitt begged him to. Nor did he have any desire to experience either the pity or the pretended concern of Brand and his friends. They considered to be blackballed from White's the greatest catastrophe that could happen to a man. Well, he didn't give a damn for their silly clubs. He had never belonged to a club in his life. But now he had an additional reason for remaining in Derleth. He had no intention of taking Alison back to within reach of her sister. But to tell her that would be to provoke a scene. Better to leave it, he thought, and wait on events.

'Oh, bah.' Alison turned to Alice. 'Have you heard, Charlie has gone to sea?'

There was no end to her cruelty. Tears immediately sprang to the girl's eyes.

'Oh, stuff and nonsense,' Alison declared, it will make a man of him. Indeed it will. Little crybaby. They'll tan his backside for him. They'll have him climbing to the masthead in January, with icicles hanging from his fingers. You won't know him when he comes back.'

'Stop it,' Alice screamed. 'Stop it. You're horrid. I hate you. I . . .'

'Mr. Haggard,' Alison said. 'Are you going to permit this child to speak to me like that? She should be whipped.'

'You'd best go to bed, Alice,' Haggard said. 'Charlie will be all right. I promise you that.'

Alice sniffed up the last of her sobs, pushed back her chair, left the room without a word.

'Your indulgence does you no credit and the girl no good at all,' Alison pointed out. 'If you do not wish to flog her, you should let me. Her rudeness is beyond belief. I have never heard of a child allowed to leave the room without saying good-night.'

'I would not let you touch Alice with a ten foot pole,' Haggard said.

Alison glared at him for some seconds, her eyes pin points of angry amber. Then she pushed back her own chair and got up. 'No doubt I also should be sent to bed. I will say good-night, Mr. Haggard.'

She swept across the floor, and one of the footmen hastily opened the door for her. But before she got there she checked, and frowned. One hand went up to her forehead, and she swayed.

Haggard leapt to his feet, but the footmen were there before him. They caught Alison as she fell, gently deposited her in the nearest chair.

'In the name of God.' Haggard stared at his wife, the suddenly pale cheeks, the gasps of breath. 'Fetch Mistress Wring, quickly.' He fanned her with his napkin, held a glass of wine to her lips. 'The floor moved,' she muttered. 'I swear it.' 'You all but fainted,' he said.

She pushed the wine away. 'Ugh. The smell nauseates me. Ugh.'

'Mr. Haggard?' Mistress Wring stood in the doorway. The mistress is ill,' Haggard said.

'No,' Alison said. 'I'm not ill.' She attempted to push herself up, sat down again, and suddenly vomited, over the front of her gown. 'Ugh. Oh, God. Ugh.'

'Wring,' Haggard shouted in alarm.

Patience Wring smiled. 'Not ill, Mr. Haggard.' She came across the room. 'If madam will permit me, I will help you to your room.' She raised her head. 'Tis but the morning sickness, Mr. Haggard. You are to be a father.'

There was a moment's silence in the room.

'A father,' Haggard said. 'Well great God above. There's a happy event.'

Alison raised her head; vomit still trailed from the comer of her mouth. 'Happy?' she asked. 'Happy?' she screamed, ‘I don't want to be pregnant. I don't want to have a child. Oh, Christ in Heaven, I don't want to have a child.'

Haggard smiled at her. ' Tis the business of a wife, my darling. Patience, you'll assist Mistress Haggard to her bed.'

Because there of course was the answer to all of his problems. All of Alison's problems too, even if she refused to recognise them. Pregnancy was a wife's natural state, and he was eager for children, children who would love him and respect him, not those who would hate him and fear him.

While for him, as that slender body became distorted, and as her face fattened as well, it was possible to regard her with more detachment. She remained an utterly beautiful girl, but he saw less of the beauty and more of the girl. There was the main cause of their trouble. She was still only approaching nineteen. Had he been of the same age he would have been more willing to wean her away from her obsessions, from her unnatural love for her sister. But he was approaching forty, and not inclined towards patience and understanding. Yet am I understanding now, he thought with some pleasure. Once she is a mother, and again a mother, and again, and once she is past twenty and growing into a woman, why then she will be all I desire. He remembered how Emma had matured from a suspicious little girl into a loving, and loveable woman.

If only there was someone in whom he could confide, discuss his fears and his hopes. He had never known loneliness before. It occurred to him that he had been lonely, as a young man, after Susan's death. That indeed loneliness had accounted for a great deal of his misanthropy. How perceptive Adelaide Bolton had been, after all. But he had not recognised it then, with the shallowness of youth. And once Emma had appeared on the scene he had had no time to be lonely.

Emma! He wondered what she was doing now, if she lived or died. Certainly the tinker had not attempted to return to Derleth.

But that was no indication that Emma still lived with him. Undoubtedly she would have further descended the scale of human existence, was now probably an utter whore. Dear Emma. She had come into his life at a most opportune moment, and he had loved her. But she had been setting herself up as a wife, without any of the rights of one. They had parted at the best time. It was a pity it had been so bitter.

But oh, what a pleasure it would be to have her to confide in, just for a few hours. He was even tempted by Mary Prince, as, with Alison indisposed, he found himself able to humour the girl once again to her gratification. But Mary Prince could not possibly be a confidante. She was a servant. She had to be nothing more than an extension of his personality, there when he wished her to be, out of mind as much as sight when he wished her to be.

He wondered if Alison was also nothing more than an extension of his personality. But she was his only hope for the future. In time, when she grew older, she would be able to talk with him and understand him, and dissipate his misery.

There could be no one else. Roger and Charlie had vanished as if they had left the face of the earth, so far as he was concerned. He kept track of them, from Roger's colonel and Charlie's captain. Roger was in barracks with his battery in Kent, as the international situation deteriorated, and was making a fine soldier, so it was said. Charlie had already made one voyage to the West Indies and back, would no doubt be an admiral in due course. But while his ship had been paid off in Portsmouth, and he had been entitled to a month's shore leave, he had remained on board. 'Perhaps,' Captain Trowbridge had written, 'you would care to visit us here in harbour, Mr. Haggard.' What, crawl to his own son? Charlie would discover, eventually, where his bread was buttered.

But they would never be friends, any more than he could be friends with Alice, who existed in a tightly-knit dream, never smiling, never speaking except when spoken to, often weeping. Marriage was the only solution for her. The very moment she was sixteen, which, he reflected, was not too far distant.

Nor was it possible to be friends with any of his parliamentary acquaintances. Where had that dream dissipated? In the scene with the Prince which had resulted in the blackballing of White's? In his obvious contempt for them, or in their obvious dislike of him? It would be different, Brand said, when Alison was again out and able to play her part. 'You should take a town house for next season,' he said. 'Entertain. Show them that you are not such a bad fellow after all.' And had flushed as Haggard had stared at him. They don't understand foreigners,' he had mumbled, adding insult to injury.

They had listened to his speech against the abolition of the Slave Trade. He did not suppose he had ever spoken better or more forcefully, and Pitt had congratulated him afterwards. But he doubted he had convinced many of them. The Bill had been lost, to the discomfort of Wilberforce and his supporters such as Clarkson and Sharp, but it had been lost mainly because the growing excesses of the French democrats were offending all right-thinking opinion in Britain, not because John Haggard had persuaded them that slavery was less morally wrong than economically essential to the well-being of the sugar crop. Once again they did not understand, were too wrapped up in their own affairs to see any importance in the world beyond the white cliffs of Dover.

And having said his piece, he had not been required to speak again, had been returned to that outer darkness reserved for back-benchers. Well, bugger them, he had thought, and abandoned Parliament altogether. If Haggard was to be ostracised, then there was sufficient for him to do in and about Derleth. As indeed there was, to a man brought up to the intimate details of managing a sugar plantation.

He at last persuaded himself to descend the mine. If he no longer had any temptation to have coal dust on his penis—or if he was tempted he could exorcise it in the arms of Mary Prince—the economics of mining, the understanding that this wealth did not have to be planted, but was just there, had been there for thousands of years, and would be there for thousands more years, no matter how much of it he took, was remarkably comforting. Of course coal did not produce a tenth of the income of sugar. And he had to pay people to mine it for him. But inexhaustible wealth, even if in a low key, was fascinating.

As were the other occupations of his tenants. He became an active farmer, to his mind a far more rewarding pastime than senselessly chasing foxes round the countryside. Indeed he barred Derleth to both the neighbouring hunts, and made himself as unpopular with the local gentry as with their London betters. Instead, he developed a herd of milch cows on his own estate at the same time as he followed with interest the activities and prosperity of the seven other farms in the valley. Not a week passed but he made a tour of inspection, and was happy to assist with money whenever it was needed. Soon all of Derleth was sporting the new red roofs and the clean white walls which had been his pride at Haggard's Penn. Here at the least he was needed and wanted. His villagers might have regarded him with suspicion at first. They might not have forgotten how he had taken Mary Prince from the mine . . . but then the widow Prince was one of the most prosperous in the entire village, as her store of golden guineas grew. They might not have forgotten how he had thrown his domestics out of doors on a winter's day, never to be heard of again—but they had been black people and not really important. They might not have forgotten how they had been encouraged to oppose him by Parson Litteridge—but neither had they forgotten how he had walked into the midst of them to seek out and defeat Jem Lacey, straight up and man to man. And they knew that in his capacity as magistrate his judgements were given without fear or favour, and strictly according to the rule of law. He had achieved the respect he wanted, at least in Derleth. As he had been respected by his slaves in Barbados. Which did not mean they would ever lift a finger to save him from drowning. But at least it gave him a feeling of belonging in his own valley, which he knew nowhere else in England.

But if they were friends in their fashion, they were not friends to whom he could speak, in whom he could confide, who could in any way alleviate his lonely bitterness. Which but grew as Alison grew, and became more bitter herself, and more plaintive.

‘If only Emily were here,' she moaned. 'You are the hardest man in all the world. Mr. Haggard. What harm could it do, with my belly this hideous size?'

'You knew I was the hardest man in all the world when you married me,' he pointed out with savage humour. 'And Emily will not enter this house again.'

'You will drive me insane,' she shouted, throwing her pillows on the floor, insane, do you hear, insane.'

' Tis of course a grievous hardship,' Dr. Harrowby explained, on one of his weekly visits from Derby. 'For any woman, but for a young girl who is in all the prime of her beauty, why, I know not how they put up with it. On the other hand, the rewards, the feeling of the babe in their arms, are usually sufficient to compensate for the long months of misery. Usually. We must hope and pray that it will be so in this case.'

'Hope and pray?' Haggard demanded.

'Well, Mr. Haggard, there is no question that your wife is taking it harder than most. She tells me she did not wish the child, does not wish it now.'

'Neither of us had expected a pregnancy so soon,' Haggard said.

'Of course, sir. But it is the future that must concern us now. Your wife must want to have the child, or the risk, to both mother and babe, will be greatly increased. Mrs. Haggard is in a most unhappy state of mind. She says you do not go near her.'

To be screamed at?' Haggard demanded.

'Can you not look on her as unwell, Mr. Haggard? Once the ordeal is over, she will be herself again.'

Then I will be happy to be with her,' Haggard said.

Harrowby sighed. 'Well, then, sir, would it not be possible to accede to her request and have her sister to stay, at least until the confinement?'

'It would not be possible,' Haggard said.

'As you say, sir. But I feel I must warn you that it is impossible for me to guarantee a successful delivery unless I am actively assisted by the mother.'

'You cannot guarantee it even then, Dr. Harrowby,' Haggard pointed out. 'So do you do your best, and leave the rest to God.'

Did he want her to die, he wondered? Of course he did not. He wanted to hold her in his arms again, even while she seethed with sexual discontent. But he had been speaking the truth; he did not really think it made any difference at all whether or not the mother wanted the child. No one could have wanted Roger more than Susan, and it had done her no good at all. While as for having Emily back in the house . . . that would be to lose Alison altogether.

Anyway, he reminded himself, it is only for a short while. Then it will be over and forgotten. As indeed it was. Harrowby was in attendance with a midwife, and the birth was amazingly easy. 'A son, Mr. Haggard,' the doctor said. 'You'll not lack for heirs.'

Haggard held the tiny little boy in his arms. This one,' he said. This is my true heir.' He handed him over to the midwife, sat beside Alison. Her eyes were open, but she scarce looked alive, her hair matted with sweat and sticking to her head and shoulders. 'Happy, my sweet?'

'Leave me alone,' she said. 'Just leave me alone. Haggard.'

Haggard looked at the doctor, who shrugged, ‘I imagine Mrs. Haggard wishes to rest, sir,' he explained. 'But I suggest you allow the boy to suck, ma'am, if you will. Your milk will not be in yet, of course. But 'tis best he gets into practice, so to speak.'

To suck?' She raised her head. 'You expect me to give my breast to that?’

'Well, ma'am, it is nature's way.'

'You'll find a wet nurse,' she said.

'But ma'am ..."

'Just get out of here,' Alison Haggard commanded. 'All of you. Leave me alone.'

Leave me alone. Haggard knocked, softly, and then turned the door handle. But the door was locked. As it was locked most of the time, nowadays. He had not slept in his own bed for near a year. She was playing the spoiled brat again. But how did she exist, a woman alone in her bedchamber?

His bedchamber, and he had been patient long enough. He knocked again.

'Go away,' she said.

'Sweetheart,' Haggard said. 'If you do not unlock this door I am going to break it down.' He could feel the anger simmering in his belly. So what would he do to her? He could not throw her out as he had done Emma. Besides, when he saw her again . . .

The key turned, and the door swung inwards. He stepped into the room, watched her climbing into bed. It was early December, and she wore both a nightgown and a robe; but not even the heavy garments could hide the sliver of figure, the pink soles which he could remember from the night they had put Brand to bed.

She settled herself beneath the blankets, looked up at him. 'Well?'

Haggard closed the door behind him, once again turned the key.

'What do you want?' she asked in some alarm.

To sleep with you,' he explained, undressing.

'You can't,' she said. 'I am not yet recovered.'

‘It is three months,' he pointed out. 'Harrowby says you will be as well as ever in your life.'

Her tongue showed for a second, then disappeared again. 'I am still full of milk. Look.' She opened her bodice.

'What do you do with it?' Haggard asked. His belly was swelling, with a terrifying mixture of desire and anger.

‘I squeeze it out. Like this.' She took the nipple between thumb and forefinger,, pressed very gently. The milk trickled on to her stomach.

'It seems a waste,' he said, keeping his voice even with an effort. 'When the boy could use it.'

'The boy does not starve,' she said. That girl has more than I could ever produce. And would you have me with sagging tits?'

He removed the last of his clothing, stood by the bed. it would scarce matter, as I am not allowed to touch them.'

'Mr. Haggard . . .' She hesitated.

He sat beside her, took her in his arms. He slid one hand between them to touch her breasts, to feel the sticky wetness crossing his palm as the nipples rose against it. He kissed her eyes and her nose, fastened on her mouth, felt her fingers biting into his back.

'Mr. Haggard,' she said. 'I'll not be pregnant again.' ' Tis unlikely so soon,' he agreed, reaching down to spread her legs, and finding them tightly clamped together. 'I'll not,' she gasped. 'It will be rape.'

'A man cannot rape his wife.' Haggard sat up. 'You'll not pretend you don't want it.'

'Want it?' She raised herself on her elbow. 'Give me your hands, Mr. Haggard. Oh, give me your hands.' She herself pulled the skirt of her nightgown to her waist. 'Please, Mr. Haggard.'

He moved closer, obliged, had his fingers imprisoned in that warm wonderland, watched her eyes turn up and her tongue loll. He kissed her mouth, very gently extracted his hand.

'My turn,' he whispered.

'No,' she gasped. 'No.' Her knees came up and she rolled away from him as he would have come on top. 'For Christ's sake . . .'

'Let me use my hands, Mr. Haggard. Please. The sensation will be no different. It will be better.' ‘I am not to enter you again?'

'No,' she said violently. 'No.' She bit her lip. 'Please. Not for a while. I could not endure it, Mr. Haggard. I would go mad. I could not stand it.'

'My penis?'

'The pregnancy, Mr. Haggard.' Her legs slowly straightened, and she turned to face him again. 'Not you. The pregnancy. Let me, Mr. Haggard.' She reached for him, but he rose to his knees above her and just out of reach.

'You are behaving like a silly little girl,' he pointed out, the anger returning. 'For God's sake, you had the easiest of deliveries. You are perfectly healthy in every way. Can't you understand? Tis just in your mind.'

‘I won't.' She shut her eyes. 'I won't, I won't, I won't.'^-

'Silly child,' Haggard said, and moved towards her. Her eyes opened, as did her mouth.

'No,' she shouted, and threw up her hands. He caught her wrists and flattened them on the bed, lay across her, driving her knees flat. He got his toes between her ankles, slowly prised her knees apart, forced his own knee between—but she wriggled her hands free and scratched at his cheek. The pain made him gasp and half rise, and another wriggle sent her on to her face, trying to crawl away from the bed.

He threw himself on her, pressing down on her shoulders. She gasped and squirmed, attempted to kick. Her legs were spread. Haggard pushed himself between, caring not where he made his entry, his anger and his desire and his frustration mingling together into a tremendous climax which hurled the girl flat to the bed and kept her there, driving the breath from her body, making her bite the sheet, bringing a thin trickle of sound from her mouth.

'No,' she moaned. 'No, no, no.'

Haggard gasped, and lay still, his weight pressing her flatter yet.

'No,' she whispered. 'No, no, no.'

The self-distaste spread over him. It might have been Mary Prince lying here, with coal dust staining the bedclothes. But it was his wife.

He pushed himself up, got out of bed, went to the washstand. ‘I apologise,' he said. 'You have kept me waiting for too long.' Alison made no reply.

Haggard dried himself, went back to the bed. She had not moved. Her feet dangled over the edge, her bare bottom seemed to shiver, but perhaps with cold. He gathered her feet and turned her straight, lifted the sheet and placed it over her, got into bed himself.

'You'll not sleep here,' Alison whispered, her back to him.

'It is my bed, my darling,' he said. 'As much as yours.' He attempted a smile. 'At least you'll know you are not pregnant.'

'You have abused me in a most unnatural fashion,' she said.

'Oh, come now. It was an accident, brought on by your own stupidity.'

Alison rolled over and sat up. She gathered her bedjacket over her breasts, got out of bed. 'Where are you going?'

'As you have pointed out, Mr. Haggard, this is your bed, therefore I must find another.'

He felt his anger returning. She really was in the most absurd mood. But it was a mood she had been in for too long. 'You want to remember that the entire house, and every bed in it, is mine.'

She turned to face him, her arms folded to hold the bedjacket close.

Haggard pointed. 'As you are my wife.'

Her chin came up. ‘I wish to visit London. I wish to visit Papa.'

Haggard frowned. 'You wish to leave Derleth?'

'Yes.'

'You wish to leave me?'

Her tongue came out, went back in again. 'For a season.'

'Do not suppose your father will be pleased to see you. Who will settle his debts should he quarrel with me? Or will you tell him you have been abused? Even that will hardly equal his desire for money.'

'My father is no more contemptible than any other man,' she said.

'Or do you propose to shout from the rooftops that you have been buggered by your husband? Do you suppose even that could possibly make me less popular than I am? You cannot ruin me, socially, Alison. I am ruined, socially, merely by being Haggard. So do not be a fool. Come back to bed.'

Her eyes gloomed at him. 'I wish to visit London, Mr. Haggard. I have been confined here for upwards of a year. It will be Christmas in a month. I wish to visit London.'

'You wish to bed your sister, you mean.'

Once again the tongue, showing for an instant. 'We do not harm each other, Mr. Haggard. Nor do we quarrel. Nor are we cruel to each other. I wish to be away from this . . . this coal dust. Just for a season.' This time she licked her lips. 'If you will let me go, Mr. Haggard, I will be good to you, when I come back. I give you my word.'

'You will be good to me,' Haggard said, his anger once again mingling with the returning desire, as he watched her standing there. The most beautiful girl in England. And she was his. There was nothing she could do about that. Nothing any one on earth could do about that. So why was he afraid of her moods, of her angers and her scorns? Why was he even afraid of her perversions? They were all equally his, equally to be enjoyed. Why, indeed, did he not take her back to Barbados? There was the answer to all their problems. Surely Emily could hardly follow them there. But his instincts warned him that Alison's reaction to such a proposal would be hysterical. Time enough for that when she had had more children.

And in the meantime, he suddenly realised, she could be enjoyed the more by humouring her perversities.

'You will be good to me first,' Haggard said. 'You will come back to this bed, now, and make love to me, and then you will sleep here with me. You will sleep with me every night for the next three months. At the end of that time, I will allow you to visit London. I will give you to your sister. For six weeks. Is that not an equitable arrangement? For every twelve weeks you spend with me, behaving as a wife should, I will allow you six in London.'

She stared at him for some seconds. 'I hate you,' she said at last, in an almost matter of fact tone. 'I hate everything about you.'

Haggard patted the bed beside him. 'And take off those stupid clothes.'

Slowly Alison released the bed jacket, shrugged it on to the floor behind her. Then she lifted the nightgown over her head, threw that also on the floor, inhaled to fill her lungs. 'You're an old man,' she said contemptuously, slowly approaching the bed. 'You'll not be stiff enough to enter.'

He held her wrists, pulled her on to his chest, kissed her mouth. 'I am not going to enter you, my darling. As it displeases you. You may use your hands after all. Pretend I'm Emily. Be loving, Alison, my sweet. Be loving.'

'I hate him.' Alison Haggard nesded deeper into the double bed, her chin on her hand. 'Everything about him. His age. It's horrible. Do you know he's nearly forty? Even Papa is only a year or two older. If I loved a man at all it would have to be someone young. Someone even younger than myself. Someone who could keep it up for hours and hours. I suppose some men can do that.'

Emily lay beside her, gently stroking the long golden hair. 'Did he really, well . . .'

'He did.' Alison rolled on her back, arms and legs flung wide. The strange thing is I rather enjoyed it. I'd never felt anything like that before.' She rose on her elbow, clutched her sister's hand. 'Em, do you suppose . . .’

'No,' Emily said, ‘I never heard of anything so ghastly. Anyway, we'd hurt each other. Didn't he hurt you?'

‘I don't know,' Alison said seriously, ‘I suppose he did. But it was different.' She leapt out of bed as the drums and fifes started again; it was the sound of martial music which had first awakened her. She stood at the window, pulling the drapes just wide enough to look through, at the red jackets and the gleaming bayonets, the horses and the officers with their gold braid . . . young men, she thought.

'War.' Emily stood beside her, put her arm round her sister's waist, was rewarded with an equally warm embrace. 'Isn't it terrible.'

'Oh, you think everything is terrible,' Alison complained, ‘I think it's splendid. All of those young men, all going to be blown to bits, just pieces of mangled red flesh everywhere . . .'

'Ugh,' Emily said, and crawled back into bed.

'Or think of the King of France, kneeling there, waiting to have his head chopped off. Wouldn't it be marvellous to watch King George have his head chopped off? I suppose it would be boring. He's so old. But Prince George. Or that Freddie. Wouldn't that be splendid?'

'Come back to bed, do,' Emily begged.

Alison crossed the room, slowly. 'What do you suppose it must feel like, to kneel there, and know you are about to die, that all around you are people who hate you, jeering and laughing at you? What do you think it feels like as the knife hits your neck?'

'You are in a horrible mood,' Emily protested, ‘I don't suppose you feel anything at all.'

'You must feel something,' Alison insisted. 'You can't die and not feel anything. Imagine it, Em, you and me executed, the man holding up our heads, with our hair trailing and the blood dripping from our necks.'

'Stop it, stop it, stop it,' Emily screamed, pulling the pillow over her ears.

Alison knelt beside her, kissed the nape of her neck, ‘I was only supposing.'

'Well don't. I've never known you in such a mood.'

'Ha,' Alison said. 'You haven't had to spend nearly two years locked up with John Haggard. He never talks, he hardly ever smiles, he doesn't play any games, he won't entertain, God, I may as well have married my own father. But I don't have to see him for six weeks. Six whole weeks. God, I want to ... to ... I don't know what I want to do. I want to flirt and I want to make love and I want to dance. Get up, get up, get up,' she shouted pummelling her sister's back. 'Papa is taking us to Almack's tonight. Didn't you know?'

'I don't see how we can,' Emily said, ‘I don't see how we dare.'

'Oh, nonsense. It is Haggard they hate, not us. Besides, the Prince won't be there. But the officers are going to be there before they sail for Holland. Get up, get up, get up.'

The music rippled across the giant ballroom, set the crystal chandeliers to tinkling, and the myriad candles guttering and flaring. The colours were dazzling, the ladies in whites and pinks and pale blues and greens, the officers in their red jackets, with here and there a sprinkling of blackcoated riflemen or gold and blue artillerymen to add contrast; there were even one or two naval officers present, and of course a smattering of drably dressed politicians and young men about town. It was too early in the year, and yet everyone who was within reach of London was at Almack's this night. Tomorrow the Army embarked. Once again it was war, with France. Why, the intervening ten years might never have been. War with France was a natural state of affaire.

But this war would be different, was already different. This was a punitive war, a determination to punish the upstart lawyers and doctors and merchants who had dared to overturn the established order of things, who had dared to execute their own king, who had dared to challenge the rest of Europe to follow their example. Who had dared to overrun the Netherlands. Which was where, however dark the secret, everyone knew this army was destined. Alison, seated against the wall behind her fan watching Emily dance with a guard officer, wondered what John Haggard thought of it all.

'War,' Papa had said. 'You had best return to Derleth.'

'Whatever for?' she had asked.

'Well, 'tis a serious matter.'

'How can it possibly affect Mr. Haggard?' she had demanded. 'So there will be French privateers and some of his sugar may be lost. He survived the last war, he is always telling me, even more prosperous than he began it.'

'Your two sons are in the service,' Papa had pointed out.

'His sons,' she had answered contemptuously. 'Mine is safe at Derleth.'

But she might as well have gone home, she thought angrily. She was the most beautiful woman in the room. In her pink satin gown, the ostrich plumes which dominated her headdress, in the pearl necklace she wore or the diamonds on her fingers—all paid for by the Haggard wealth—she was the best-dressed woman in the room. And she knew she was the best dancer in the room. But she had not once been asked. Because she was Mistress Haggard. Because everyone knew of her husband. Because he had quarrelled with the Prince of Wales.

While Emily, wearing last year's gown, had not missed a dance. I may as well be home, she thought, her anger growing. By marrying Haggard, by securing Papa's debts and my own future, as he would have it, I have taken on a millstone to hang around my neck and leave me bereft of friends or entertainments, for the rest of my life.

She was so angry she wanted to stamp her foot, and could not resist the tears which suddenly sprang to her eyes. It was so unfair.

'Ma'am,' said the young man.

Alison raised her head, blinked at her stepson in consternation. 'Roger?' She frowned. 'It cannot be.'

He sat beside her, while her eyes glowed at him. Haggard must have looked like this, once, she thought. Except that Haggard had never been so handsome, nor so superbly displayed by his uniform. Haggard had never been a soldier. But Roger wore the dark blue coat with the red facings and the masses of gold braid of an officer in the Royal Artillery; with the white stock and the high black boots, with a sword at his side, he was quite the best-looking man in the entire room.

'Roger,' she said. 'What a pleasant surprise.'

'And for me, ma'am,' he said, ‘I had not supposed you in London.'

‘I had to visit my father,' she said. 'He is not well.'

'Oh, but I have just seen the colonel . . .'

‘Indeed you have,' she agreed. 'He is at the tables, is he not?' She peered through the archway to her left. 'But there is the trouble. He will continue to live his normal life, however poor his health. But I am sure you did not attend Almack's to discuss my father's health?'

'Oh, no, ma'am . . .' He bit his lip. 'Would you care to dance?'

‘I should be honoured.'

The room whirled about them, as she left her hand resting on his shoulder, feeling the epaulette beneath her fingers, inhaling the faint aroma of leather, gazing into his handsome face. Roger Haggard. She gave him a smile, but he allowed her only a brief grimace in reply. Nor did he speak. He was concentrating on dancing.

'You are a very naughty boy,' she said, as he escorted her back to her seat. 'You have not written. Why, I will wager you do not even know you have a new brother.'

'I did know, ma'am,' he said. 'And I wish to offer you my congratulations. May I say . . .' He ran out of words, and flushed.

That I have not changed? I have endeavoured not to, to be sure. Now do sit down, and tell me about life in the Army.'

'I . . . you must excuse me, ma'am. My fellow officers are waiting for me. Excuse me.'

She watched him walk across the room. He had performed his duty. Really, he was after all very like his father. Except that he was only . . . she frowned as she calculated. Seventeen years old. As she was nineteen. He could be her brother. Or her lover. A seventeen-year-old boy, with a dick as hard as any in the land, she'd be bound. Her stepson. My God. No relation at all, really, merely the son of the man to whom she was married, the man she hated with utter loathing.

Therefore she should hate the son as well. He would undoubtedly grow up into a copy of his father. Save that they had quarrelled. Now where did that leave Roger Haggard, she wondered?

There is a brown study.' Emily sat beside her. 'And after such a handsome partner, too. However did you let him get away?' 'Didn't you recognise him? That was Roger.’ 'Roger who?' 'My son, you silly goose.'

'Good Lord. Well, I only saw him twice, and that was two summers ago. He looked quite different. I suppose it is the uniform.'

'Not entirely. It is the Army, as well. He had twice the confidence I remember. Em . . .' She seized her sister's hand. 'I want him.'

Emily frowned at her. 'Whatever do you mean?' ‘I want to bed him.' 'You must be insane.'

'For God's sake,' Alison said, keeping her voice low with an effort. 'Why does everyone accuse me of being insane all the time? I want to bed him. There is nothing insane about that.' 'He's your stepson. You couldn't.'

'Against his father. Oh. yes. That's why I want him. You have no idea what that great lout has inflicted upon me these past three months. He would be bad enough, but the thought of again becoming pregnant . . . I've had a syringe up me more times that I've had Haggard.'

, 'And you don't suppose this boy could make you pregnant?' ‘I’ll use the syringe again, you silly goose.' 'Anyway, he'd never agree.'

'Of course he won't agree, goose. That's why I'm telling you.' 'Me?' Emily shook her head. 'Oh, no, oh, no, no, no.' 'You said he was handsome.' 'He is. But . . .'

'And you'll have him too, all to yourself, when I'm finished. If you'll just do as I tell you. We'll both have him, and he'll never know the difference. Please, Em. Don't let me down.'

Emily Brand stared at her sister as if she'd never seen her before in her life. 'You must hate Mr. Haggard very much,' she said at last.

'I do,' Alison said.

Roger Haggard drank champagne punch and watched his stepmother through the archway. How utterly beautiful she was. He wanted to loathe her, as the woman who had displaced Emma, who had replaced his own mother. But it was impossible to hate such radiance. And now she was a mother herself. Father's possession. As everything in Derleth, everything on Haggard's Penn, were Father's possessions.

She had rebuked him for not writing. For not returning to Derleth in a year. For not inquiring after his new brother. Could it really be possible that Father missed him? Wanted him back? He finished his punch, took another glass, felt the room gently swaying beneath his feet; he had never been drunk before. But if Father wanted him back he had only to send for him. There could be no question as to which of them was in the right. Even Father must recognise that now. It had been drummed into him since birth, be a Haggard, do what you think is right, turn your back on no man. Except your own father. But how could he do otherwise than turn his back on Father?

The point was that he still loved and admired the old tyrant. He admired everything the name Haggard stood for, everything Father represented. He knew little enough about the rights and wrong of slavery. His memory of Barbados was a happy one, of smiling faces and eternal sunshine. Whatever reason Father had had for sending the black people away from Derleth, it had not been their fault. He had sent Emma at the same time. Therefore the cause had been Alison Brand. There could be none other. That had been wrong, and it would continue to be wrong as long as Alison was mistress of Derleth Hall. It would be wrong until he could find Emma again, and in some way make it up to her, all the misery and humiliation she had suffered. But he had no idea how to go about it; she had vanished as completely as if she were dead. Perhaps she was dead. Then would Father never be forgiven. Certainly by Alice and Charlie.

But what of him? How magnificent it would be to be able to return to Derleth, to know the comfort of his own home, to be loved by Father. How magnificent to share the house with so lovely a stepmother.

He started guiltily, raised his head, and stared at her. And then realised that it was not her, but her sister.

'Roger Haggard,' Emily said. 'How absolutely splendid to see you. You'll dance with me?'

'Why, ma'am . . .'

'Emily,' she said firmly. 'You'll be pretending I'm your aunt, next. Dance with me, Roger.' She held his hand.

He put down the cup, held her hand in tum. They fitted into the parade, lost each other and found each other again, turned away from each other and came back at the arch, ducked together and brushed their shoulders against each other, reached the end of the floor laughing with each other. Roger gave a hasty glance at where Alison had been sitting, and discovered that she was gone.

To bed,' Emily said. 'My sister takes her duty as a wife and a mother seriously, and never remains after midnight. But you do not have to hurry off, Roger. Do you?'

‘I must report to my depot at six tomorrow morning.'

'Well, then, you have yet seven hours. You do not wish to waste any one of them in sleeping. Who knows how long it will be until you are again at Almack's, dancing? Why, there goes the music again.'

Once again she was in his arms, and this time, reinforced as he was by several glasses of punch, he could appreciate her more. She was a remarkably pretty girl. Not as beautiful as her sister, to be sure, but with the same finely-chiselled features, a slightly darker yellow in her hair, somewhat more placid nostrils and eyes. But better than any of those things, she was unmarried, and only a year older than himself.

'You'll call me Emily,' she insisted, as they obtained some more punch.

'You are my aunt.'

'What absurdity. I am your aunt by marriage, which is no aunt at all. How can I be your aunt, when we are almost the same age?'

So she had been considering the matter too. 'You are my aunt,' he said owlishly, once again feeling the room tremble. 'But I would have no other. You are a very beautiful aunt.'

'And you are a rogue, Roger Haggard. I can tell it. I think you should take me home.'

'Home?' He blinked at her, desperately trying to focus.

'Home,' she said firmly. 'By now, you see, Papa will be hopelessly drunk. I must therefore either wait here until the small hours, or make my own way. I would not like to have to do either. But there is no reason at all why you should not see me home, as we are so closely related.'

He found himself in the open air, and felt vastly better. It really-had been very close in there. But really, he supposed he should play the man, and not permit Emily Brand to do all the organising. She had already secured a carriage, and was waiting for him to hand her up. He sat beside her, took off his shako; he could not remember having regained it from the porters, but he must have done so.

'Miss Brand,' he said.

'Emily.'

'Emily. I fear I am cutting a very poor figure. The fact of the matter is, I am unused to strong drink.'

‘You have not had any strong drink,' she pointed out. 'Only champagne cup, which is perfectly harmless. And I do not think you are cutting a poor figure at all. I think you are a perfectly splendid figure. I could not wish for a better nephew.'

'You are too kind.'

'And I do wish you would stop being formal. We are friends, are we not?'

'Oh, indeed, we are, ma'am.' 'Emily,' she reminded him. 'Emily.'

'And therefore I wish you to treat me as a friend. Here we are, two friends, alone in a carriage, travelling at midnight through the streets of London, and you sit there prating about cutting a poor figure.'

'I am sorry, Emily.'

'So you should be,' she said severely, and then smiled, allowing her teeth to flash in the gloom. 'Do you know what any other friend would be doing now?'

'I have no idea. Telling you a story.'

'God give me patience,' she muttered. 'He would be kissing me.'

'Kissing you?'

‘I suppose you have never kissed a girl.' 'Well,' he began.

it's done like this.' She held his arms, kissed him on the mouth. She took him by surprise, for in fact he had never kissed a girl before; when, with the other junior officers in the regiment, he had been laid on top of a whore, only a few weeks ago, she had neither offered her mouth nor had he wished to kiss her. But here was a tongue licking across his own, gently sweetened with champagne, as was the breath which rushed against his. He discovered his eyes were shut, and opened them again to stare at her face, so close, to feel her hands sliding across his uniform jacket, to feel his own arms going round her. But what to do with his hands? He touched bare flesh and gave a little gasp until he realised that it must be her shoulder. But how wonderful it felt.

The cab was slowing, and turning into the gateway. Roger felt a sense of panic that this heavenly moment was about to end. He clung to her the more tightly, sent his own tongue questing after hers, felt, to his amazement, her hands slipping lower on his body, wondered with desperate anxiety whether he dared do the same. She turned away from him as the cab finally pulled to a halt, and his hands slid across the bodice of her gown. He sat back and gazed at her as the door was opened and the interior filled with light from the link torch held by one of the Brand footmen.

'You'll not leave me now,' she whispered, and stepped down, drawing her cape about her shoulders. Roger found himself at the foot of the front steps, paying the cabbie, the entire night revolving about him. Emily had already gone inside, but the footman was still holding the door for him. He ran up the stairs, into the front hall, found her already half way up the next flight of stairs.

'Your coat and hat, sir,' the footman said.

He tore them off, handed over his sword as well. He could not believe it was really happening. But was it not what he had always wanted to happen? His aunt. But only by marriage. A lovely girl only a year older than himself. Why, he supposed, how wonderful it would be if she would marry me. What a sensation that would cause.

Whatever would Father say? But it was impossible, and Father must never know.

Emily was waiting for him at the foot of the next flight of stairs, ‘I should not be here,' he mumbled inanely. 'My regiment . . .'

'You said you were free until six of the morning,' she said. That is still more than five hours. But I do not think we should waste a second of them.' She held out her hand, and he took it. She led him up the stairs.

'But . . . that fellow. The servants.'

'Are my servants. I act as housekeeper for my father. They will not say a word. I promise you.' 'Well, then, your father . . .'

'Will be brought home drunk, and will scarce awake before noon. By then you will be on your ship.' 'Alison . . .'

She gave a little tinkle of laughter. 'Alison is asleep. Do not worry about Alison.'

'But . . .' He checked in horror as they reached the next gallery, and were met by a maid.

'Good evening, mum. Shall I attend you?'

'Not tonight, Rose, thank you.' Emily opened the bedroom door. 'You shall attend me.'

He stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot as she disappeared into the gloom.

‘I . . .'

She turned to face him. 'Don't you like me, Roger?' 'I do. I ... I adore you. But . . .'

'You adore me.' She came closer, put her arms round his neck, kissed him on the mouth. Her body seemed to fasten itself on his, sliding up and down his uniform. 'And I adore you. We shall adore each other.' She stepped away from him. 'And if you say one more word about our being related I shall scratch your eyes out.'

'I really . . .' He sighed, ‘I suppose I just can't believe it is happening. That you should want to . . . well . . .'

'I do want to. I have wanted to since I saw you at my sister's wedding. Perhaps I also never believed we would meet again like this. But we have. And I don't want to waste a moment of it.' She held his hand, pressed it on her breast, and he realised that while she had been talking she had unfastened her gown and allowed the bodice to fall round her waist. He touched satin-like flesh, had his palm scraped by a hardened nipple, felt he was going to burst with desire . . . but she was away again, half lost in the darkness.

There is a pot,' she said. 'Do you undress, and get into bed, my darling Roger. I will be back in a moment.'

'But . . .' He reached after her in the gloom, but she was too far away, opening an inner door which apparently led to a dressing room.

'Go to bed,' she said over her shoulder.

The door closed, and he was alone. As if he could ever be alone while her scent was whirling about his head, filling every recess of his lungs. He tore at his clothes, sent them flying about the floor, sat down to pull at his boots. His fellow officers had boasted of evenings like this, unbelievable conquests, of girls who actually wanted to surrender . . . but they had usually been married women. No unmarried girl was going to risk her reputation or her virginity by taking a man to her bed. Then was Emily Brand a whore? She could not be. She was Alison's sister.

He parted the curtains, got into the bed. Here her scent was even more pronounced, and the sheets were warm, as if someone had recently been lying on them. More likely the warming pan had only just been removed, by the maid they had met on the stairs. He lay on his back, gazed at the dimly visible white tester above his head. Emily Brand. Emily Brand, Emily Brand, Emily Brand. My God, he thought, I am in love, and was suddenly nervous. His erection was not yet full. He had not considered that before. But suppose he did not come hard. Would she not scoff at him? Emily Brand. An unmarried girl, but if she was so free with him, had she not been equally free with others?

He leaned on his elbow, staring at the drapes, watched them move. He could only just see her in the darkness, but he could smell her. It was not a scent he would ever forget.

'Emily,' he whispered, and reached for that white blur. She came closer, kissed him on the mouth; her hair flopped across his face. His hands slid over her shoulder blades, attempted to hold her breasts and were unable because she was pressed against him, slipped down her back to her buttocks, felt her spreading her legs to allow him between, while she gave a little moan and wriggled, and her fingers sought and found his penis. No doubts about hardness now. He rolled her on to her back, and her legs came back together, trapping one of his between. 'So soon?' she whispered.

'I . . .'He slid off her, and her breath rushed against him as she smiled at his ignorance. She held his hand, guided it down to her pubic bush, moved it up and down for him, left him to his own devices while she caught his head and brought it close, to kiss him again. He had never believed such a freedom would be granted by any woman. Certainly not by a lady. But she actually wanted him to touch her as he chose, gave another of those little wriggles and broke out in a fine sweat against his chest.

'Oh, Emily,' he whispered. 'I love you, Emily. Emily, Emily . . .' She closed his mouth with another kiss, and her hands were back at him, stroking and rubbing until suddenly he realised that he would not be able to stop himself. 'Emily,' he gasped. 'Not now. Emily . . .' But it was too late. He lay against her, quite paralysed with alarm, waiting for her disgust, for her to flee him, and instead heard a low gurgle of happy amusement.

'You are a potent fellow,' she whispered, if you will put your hand through the drapes, you will find a towel.'

He obeyed, still feeling her against him, mind utterly confused ‘I . . . I don't know what to say.'

She took the towel from his fingers, dried herself and himself. Then why say anything? There is naught to be ashamed of. It is what I wanted.'

'Wanted? But . . .'

'You would like to enter me. You cannot do that. But you may use your hands again, and soon you will be hard again, and I will be happy again.'

He rested his head on the pillow, on strands of her hair. His confusion was complete. No one had ever warned him there might be a woman like this. A woman who wanted to touch and to feel and to hold, just like a man, but not necessarily to consummate. Should he be repelled? Should he be disgusted? Should he be angry? What would Father be? Oh, angry, certainly. Father would take her by force, in such a situation.

But was he not having the best of all possible worlds? He loved the feel of her fingers, as they now returned, gently stroking him while she nuzzled his cheek. And he was doing her virginity no harm. Nor was there any risk of a pregnancy. That could wait until after they were married. Because they must marry now. He could not envisage ever loving any woman save for this magnificent creature, who knew so surely the way to his happiness, and had no doubts of her own.

'Emily,' he whispered. 'Oh, Emily, Emily, Emily. Marry me, Emily. Say that you will?'

Once again the gurgle of amusement. 'I can't marry you, silly,' she said. She released him, raised herself on her elbow. 'But if you wish it, we can tumble like this whenever you are at Derleth.'

'Derleth?' He was sliding his hands to and fro between her legs, her thighs clamped on his fingers. 'Do you spend much time in Derleth?'

'I spend all my time in Derleth,' she said. 'And it is a dismal spot, I do promise you, with only your father for amusement. But when you return from the wars, my darling Roger, why then we shall have sport. And it will serve the old monster right.'

He moved his head to stare at her, as realisation burst across his mind like an explosion of gunpowder.

'Well?' Haggard demanded. 'Out with it, man. What have you?'

George Cummings stood first on one foot and then the other. His face was pale, and not entirely with fatigue. He licked his lips and looked longingly at the decanter of port on the table by the desk. There is some news, sir. But . . .'

‘I am not a boy, Cummings. You do not have to stammer at me. He's dead.'

'No, sir. Well, sir, I cannot say for sure. The news of Master Roger is not so definite. But sir . . . there is a letter.' 'Letter?' Haggard frowned at him.

Cummings took the envelope from his pocket, held it out. Haggard's frown deepened as he saw the black edge. 'Dead,' he said.

'Well, sir . . .'

Haggard slit the envelope with this thumb, took out the single sheet of paper, gazed at the embossment: the Admiralty. Slowly he raised his head to gaze at his agent. And realised that his eyes were filled with tears. It could not be. It was simply not possible. 'What does it say?' He did not recognise his own voice.

Cummings sighed. The frigate Antiope was lost at sea, Mr. Haggard. A most gallant action it was, sir, but against a superior French force. And finally a shot in the magazine ... it is supposed, sir. She blew up. There were no survivors.'

Slowly Haggard leaned back in his chair. The letter fell from his hand and sifted down to the floor. He supposed he was dreaming from the moment the news had been brought to him that Roger had deserted the colours, on the day before his regiment had been due to sail. He had attended a ball at Almack's, and then just disappeared. Roger. A coward. Because there could be no other explanation. Unless he had been set upon by footpads. Either way, Roger, lost. Susan's child. Yet had his grief been assuaged by the memory of their sudden enmity, the fact that Roger had taken Emma's side, had steadfastly opposed him. He had anticipated endless quarrels, endless opposition, as the boy had grown to manhood. He had not anticipated cowardice. And there had always been the others. If Alice seemed determined to be on Roger's side, Charlie, younger and more pliable, would surely be a prop in the years to come.

Charlie. Floating about at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. My doing, he thought. I sent him there. Just as I sent Roger into the Army. Just as I elected to come to England at all.

He raised his head. Cummings still stood there. 'You spoke of news.'

Cummings licked his lips. His distress had given way to terror. 'We ... we have traced certain of Master Roger's movements, sir, on the night he disappeared.'

Haggard nodded. 'Go on.'

'Well, sir, in company with several other young men from his regiment, he had attended Almack's . . .'

'I know that, for God's sake,' Haggard snapped.

'Well, sir . . .' Cummings' despair appeared to increase. 'We have ascertained, sir, that he left the ball in the company of Miss Emily Brand.'

Haggard stared at him for some seconds. 'Emily? But ... he saw her home, of course.'

‘Indeed, sir. That is the information I have been given by Miss Brand. That Mr. Haggard accompanied her home, and then left again.'

'Well, at least we may be able to obtain some clue as to his mood.' It was essential to keep living, keep acting, keep searching, for Roger. Charlie was dead, dead, dead. But Roger might be alive. Might not have run away. Might still be his son.

'Yes, sir. Miss Brand did not apparently notice anything unusual about Mr. Haggard.'

But he had not finished. Haggard raised his head again. There is something more?'

Cummings licked his lips. 'Well, sir, Mr. Haggard, you told me to spare no expense and no feelings provided I found Mr. Roger.' 'I'll not deny my own instructions.'

'Well, sir . . . notwithstanding what Miss Brand had to tell me, I spoke with the servants, sir, clandestinely. It was necessary to disburse some currency, you understand . . .'

'Of course,' Haggard said. 'Go on, man.'

'Well, sir, one of the maids confided to me that Mr. Roger did not leave immediately after accompanying Miss Brand home. That he stayed for some time, sir, upstairs, alone with Miss Brand, and that eventually he left in haste, sir, barely half dressed, trailing his clothes behind him.' Cummings paused for breath, and to mop his brow. While Haggard continued to stare at him for some moments. His brain seemed to have atrophied. Charlie was dead, dead, dead. And Roger . . . had raped his own aunt by marriage?

But he had been invited there in the first place. Conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. It was the only sure fact about the Brands. All was conspiracy.

He pushed back his chair and got up. Cummings hastily backed to one side of the room. The girl did not know where he went after that, sir. But my people are still looking.'

Tell them to cease,' Haggard said, and opened the door. Conspiracy. Not on Roger's part alone. Emily Brand. A girl who wanted only the embraces of her own sister. Unless it be the embraces of her nephew by marriage. Emily Brand, a crawling thing, a snake . . . no, it was Alison he had once compared to a snake. A hateful thought, as hastily rejected. But Alison had been in town then, even if she had come hurrying back to Derleth the moment she had learned of Roger's disappearance. Learned of it? She had been there.

He stamped up the stairs. What was he going to do? What could he do, about Emily Brand? He could not call her out. He could not have Cummings' people waylay her and slit her nose. By God, he could do that. Perhaps he would do that. Emily Brand. To have her here ... he opened the nursery door, gazed at his wife and son, playing on the floor. My only son, he thought. Of them all, my only son.

'John?' She frowned at him, then scrambled to her feet. She wore only an undressing robe and her hair was tucked out of sight beneath her mob cap. It was far too early for Alison Haggard to dress. 'News of Roger?'

'Aye,' Haggard said. 'And of Charlie.' 'Charlie?' Her frown deepened. 'Is dead.'

She stared at him for some seconds, while her jaw slowly slipped open. 'Oh, my God,' she said.

'Drowned,' Haggard said. 'The entire ship's company.'

'Oh, Mr. Haggard.' She got to her feet, while John Haggard junior lay on his back and stared at his parents with deep, thoughtful eyes, ‘I am so sorry.'

'Are you, madam? Does it matter to you in the slightest?'

'John,' she protested. 'How can you say that?'

'How can I?' he snapped. 'My entire family has been destroyed. With a single snap of the fingers, your fingers, madam, I have lost both of my sons.'

Suddenly she was watchful, taking a step backwards to find herself against the cot. 'I have no idea of what you are speaking.'

'Have you not? Had I never seen you I had never quarrelled with my sons. Had I never seen your sister I would still have Roger, at the least.'

'Emily?'

'Can you deny it was she left Almack's with Roger? Can you deny it was she seduced him, there in your own house, left him so ashamed he deserted his regiment and his honour? Can you deny it was she destroyed him?' He pointed at her. 'I will tell you this, madam. Should that sister of yours ever set foot in my presence again, I will take my whip to her. There you have a promise. And one I shall keep.'

'You are being absurd,' Alison said. 'How on earth could Emily destroy Roger? Even supposing she did seduce him?'

'Supposing?' Haggard shouted. 'Can there be any doubt about it?'

. 'You persist in seeing him as a child,' Alison shouted in turn. 'Well, he is not. He is a man grown, with all the appurtenances of a man. I cannot help it if he is so confused and uncertain that he does not know his own mind. He fled before . . .' She checked, and bit her lip.

Haggard frowned at her. 'You were there?'

‘I . . .' Again she bit her lip.

'By God,' Haggard said. 'You were there. You are no better than your sister. Well, I have always known that. You are an unnatural whore, at heart. By Christ, a snake. I knew it when first I saw you. A snake.'

'A snake,' she snarled. 'And what are you, John Haggard? A stupid old man. A cuckold in his own home, by his own son.'

Haggard's head jerked. 'By God,' he said.

'Oh, yes,' Alison shouted. 'It was I seduced your precious son. Oh, I destroyed him, all right. I didn't mean to. I meant to use him to destroy you. But what difference does it make? He jumped from my bed and fled the house when he realised it was me. He abandoned his home and his regiment and his honour. Oh, he is destroyed, Haggard.' She paused for breath, and to pant, amazed at her own temerity. 'What are you going to do?'

Haggard stepped round the amazed babe.

'You'll not whip me," Alison said. 'By God, you'll not. I'll walk Piccadilly naked to show the world your stripes, Haggard.'

Haggard reached out, seized her wrist.

'You'll not,' she spat at him.

'I'll not whip you,' Haggard said. There would be a waste.' Slowly he drew her towards him, then thrust down his other arm to encompass her knees and lift her from the floor, ‘I am going to bed you.'

To . . .' She stared at him.

'As you have robbed me of two of my sons, Mistress Haggard,' he said. 'I am going to make sure you replace them, as soon as possible.'

Book The Second

_{THE SON}