twenty
Isabella was still glowing after her secret encounter with Patrick two weeks after the ball. She had no doubts now she’d done the right thing. Times had changed, and women were gaining power. That was why she’d joined a march.
She raised a fist and shouted, “Deeds not words”—the slogan of the women’s suffrage movement.
The street was packed with women chanting the motto and shaking their fists in the air. Some shouted louder than others, and some didn’t shout at all. But it didn’t matter.
The important thing was that thousands of women…not thousands, maybe a few hundred…were marching towards Parliament to make their voices heard. Mrs. Millicent Fawcett was leading the march although Isabella couldn’t see her.
There was something empowering in being in the middle of a determined crowd with women who shared her sentiment. Or in gently getting rid of her chaperone. Lawson hated protest marches and had gladly agreed to spend her time in Oxford Street rather than following her charge.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a man yelled from a cart.
He was trying to drive through the crowded street with little success. The horse snorted at the people around him.
“Right to vote!” Isabella waved one of the leaflets she’d helped type. “It’s a protesting march.”
“Get off the streets.” The man shook a fist. “I must go to work, and you’re blocking my way.”
“We’ll leave the street when we have the right to vote,” the woman next to Isabella said.
The man pulled the reins and jumped off the seat. “I prefer using my own methods.”
A group of half a dozen men leapt out of the cart.
“Move out of my way,” the leader said.
As the men started to shove women aside none too gently, shouts rose from the protesters. Other people joined the fray, and Isabella kept moving to avoid being manhandled. Police officers arrived from somewhere, blowing their whistles. Women started fleeing the street, dropping their signs and leaflets.
When a man aimed at her with his fists closed, Isabella ran as well.
* * *
Sitting in his carriage,Anthony changed his mind about wearing a mask in the House of Lords, and not because Grandmama had told him to remove it.
His sense of shame and fear of being judged had pushed him to be rude to Isabella. But she’d seen his face and hadn’t cared about it. It was time he dealt with his new reality without hiding, or he would never make amends as he’d promised her. She never failed to make him feel better and give him the strength to be the man he wanted to be, and he didn’t remember anymore why he’d decided not to court her.
He was driving along Horse Guards Road when the coachman stopped.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A protest march, Your Grace.”
A cold chill went down his spine. Not another bloody march.
“The Irish?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Your Grace. I’ll turn around.”
The manoeuvre caused Anthony to shift right and left, not helping with his anxiety. When the carriage resumed driving, he exhaled and unclenched his fists. Loud voices came from somewhere, and a few people ran along the pavement. He looked out of the window, ready to bolt out in case another angry mob attacked him.
But it wasn’t an angry mob.
He gripped the window when Isabella sprinted along the pavement, chased by a broad man.
“Stop!” Anthony ordered his coachman.
The moment the carriage stopped, he flung the door open and went after Isabella. She was fast while the man chasing her lagged behind. She would likely outrun her pursuer. Still, he had no intention of leaving her alone. Thankful he’d recently resumed boxing, he pushed himself onwards, until he closed a hand around the collar of the man’s jacket.
