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“Here,” said Benedict thrusting a rolled-up pile of fabric into her arms. “Unfold this.”

He picked up another and started to unfurl it, as Lizzie shook out the large banner, he had given her. ‘Toomes Family Boxing Booth’ was spelt out on it in large red and black letters. Well, at least she knew what their act was, she thought with sinking heart. After all, she had known he was a prizefighter.

From each corner of the sign was a length of string, presumably for attaching it to the tent. Lizzie had just sat herself down onto the grass and started unknotting the strings when Benedict turned with a snarl toward his brothers.

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded, holding his own banner aloft.

Frank and Jack looked at each other furtively before they turned back to their brother. Lizzie looked at the long sign painted in red and yellow with the interest. ‘The Battling Burnett Sisters’ it proclaimed jauntily.

Frank scratched the back of his neck. “We had to take on another turn, Ben. While you were serving your stretch. Me and Jack weren’t enough to carry the show. Not on our own.”

“We’re the Fighting Toomes’,” Benedict pointed out coldly. “Not a freak show.”

“Now don’t be like that,” Frank sighed.

“We knew you wouldn’t want us letting Pa back in the act,” Jack piped up. “He came sniffing round as soon as he knew you weren’t on the scene.”

Benedict immediately went rigid. “You’d better not have,” he growled.

“Of course we didn’t!” Frank scoffed, but Lizzie could see he looked uneasy.

“Did you give him any money?” Benedict persisted.

“Course he did!” Jack burst out contemptuously. “You know what he’s like where the old man’s concerned.”

“He is our father,” Frank said wretchedly. “And he – ”

“Save it!” Benedict growled. “I don’t want to hear it! If I see him anywhere about, I’ll ram his teeth down his throat with my fist.”

Lizzie gasped at the visceral image this conjured. She had never dreamed such filial impiety was even possible.

Benedict threw her a warning glance before he continued. “And this?” he hissed, holding up the yellow banner.

Frank gazed back at him appealingly. “They were a real draw, Ben. We made more at Hull last year than we have in a long time – ”

“They’re still a fixture, then?” Benedict ground out furiously.

“Sadly not,” Jack replied. “Would you believe someone only went and reported us the next month at the Goose Fair?” He sounded aggrieved. “The law showed up, slapped a heavy fine on us, and forbid them to box.”

“It’s prohibited for women to box publicly,” Frank added. “It’s alright so long as no one sells you down the river, but we got stung good and proper.”

“Apparently,” said Jack contemptuously. “There’s those that think it’s an affront to public decency. As though Ma didn’t tell us she watched Elizabeth Wilkinson back in the day fight both men and women and gouge and kick as good as any man.”

Benedict glanced briefly at Lizzie. “Those were different times,” he muttered, throwing the banner down onto the ground contemptuously, flinging off across the field without so much as a glance in her direction.

Lizzie sat a moment, wondering if she should scramble to her feet and follow him. Then with a shrug, she decided to finish untangling the knotted strings instead.

“Jesus, I’d forgotten what a moody bastard he could be,” Jack said, wiping his brow. “I hope you know what you’ve let yourself in for.”

Lizzie ignored him. Whoever had torn the banner down at their last show the previous year had done so with a shocking lack of care. For some reason, she suspected Jack was the culprit.

“He was bound to take it hard,” Frank said fairly. “We didn’t consult him, after all.”

“What happened to them?” asked Lizzie curiously. “The Battling Miss Burnetts, I mean.”

“We had to let them go,” Frank replied absently, stroking his full sideburns. “It was a damn shame, but that fine really cut into the profits and we do the bigger fairs, so it’s not like we could get away with going unregulated.”

“They’ll be touring the smaller fairs now,” Jack explained. “Maybe have gone abroad. Prime pair of girls they were too and decent boxers, whatever Ben thinks of it.”