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Lizzie shrugged. “I told you I would accept only what you saw fit to give. If that is the case, then, farewell,” she nodded and started to turn away.

“No, wait!” Miss Halperton blurted, her bosom heaving. “Papa always said payment must be made for services rendered.” She turned imperiously to her companion. “Timms, take out my purse.” She thrust her reticule at her companion, who hastily began untying the strings. “You say you will accept however much I think your consultation is worth, is that not so?”

Lizzie nodded, drawing her hood up and over her head. She was starting to feel a little conspicuous in the red headscarf. She certainly did not wish to tell anymore fortunes, she thought fervently, heartily sick of the whole charade.

“So, that means you will not complain if I pay you a simple ha’penny?” Miss Halperton persisted triumphantly as she pulled on her black glove.

“That is so,” Lizzie agreed. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was disappear into the crowd and find her way back to the wagon. She had, had enough of this disagreeable woman and the situation she had embroiled herself in. She glanced over her shoulder. Was it her imagination or had the noisy crowd grown closer since she had been stood here?

“I don’t believe you!” Miss Halperton replied with a curl of her lip.

“Well, there is one way to prove it,” Lizzie said irritably. “Pay me a ha’penny now. I assure you I will accept it with thanks.”

Miss Halperton gazed at her keenly. “I believe you are in earnest,” she blurted after a moment.

“I can’t wait around here all day,” Lizzie said, gathering her cloak about her. She had some dignity left to her and would wait no longer on this woman “I’ll bid you good day, ma’am.”

“Wait!”

Ignoring Miss Halperton’s cry, Lizzie started to hurry away. She felt suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment over the role she had just played. When had she ever been so fanciful? What had she been thinking letting her imagination run riot like that, and even worse, giving voice to her suspicions which may well have been unfounded? She pressed her hands to her hot face and wondered if she was starting to lose her mind!

She almost screamed when a hand seized her elbow. Wheeling around, she found it was Miss Timms again. The poor woman was puffing and panting like she had run the entire length of a field.

“Please – ” she puffed. “Don’t run away – Miss Halperton – sends this – with her regards.” She held out a glove of sensible tan leather, and Lizzie met it reluctantly with her own mittened hand. After all, a ha’penny might come in useful at some point. The coin pressed into her palm felt a good deal more substantial than a ha’penny, however. Lizzie glimpsed it briefly before closing her fingers around it tightly. It was a golden sovereign!

Miss Timms was regarding her almost fearfully. “How did you know?” she whispered. “I never dared to speak of what I saw in the orangery.”

Lizzie stared back at her. “What did you see?” she could not prevent herself from asking.

“Mr. Abney and Miss Smith in an embrace,” Miss Timms confessed shakily. “But I knew that Miss Halperton would never believe me, and indeed I would never have had the nerve to tell her of it. She would have dismissed me in a towering rage at the very suggestion, but now …” She shook her head. “Do you know, I believe she will actually throw him over.” Miss Timms’ voice shook with suppressed emotion, and she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I am so relieved, you cannot imagine! A gazetted fortune hunter, that’s what he is! And that cunning, sly wretch of a girl, dripping her poison into Miss Halperton’s ear. You cannot imagine the weight that has lifted from my shoulders at the prospect of their dismissal. Thank you, thank you a thousand times, thank you!” the poor woman twittered. “Your great gift is truly a blessing!”

Lizzie swallowed and wondered if Miss Timms would say if she knew it was only a reckless mixture of guesswork and instinct that had led her to the truth. Deciding such an admission would be ill-advised, she nodded at Miss Timms, and the other woman clasped her hands to her bosom and stood watching her with stars in her eyes as Lizzie made haste to disappear once more into the crowd. She would walk once around this busy arena and then make for the entertainer’s field.

That way she should shake off any other pursuers, she thought thinking for instance of a freshly spurned fortune hunter who might bear a grudge against her. She had entered the first of the entertainment fields now and gasped aloud to see how much busier it was today from the previous. Now there were people everywhere, as far as the eye could see; a teeming crowd of day-trippers on pleasure bent.

Lizzie felt her anxiety mounting as she picked up her pace and gazed about for a landmark she recognized. It did not matter how much she told herself she was being fanciful; she felt a sort of lurking dread sneaking up on her as she hurried around the field full of strange and bizarre attractions. Finally, she spied The Adam and Eve sign and realized where she was. Spinning around, she saw it, the Toomes’ boxing tent. This Easter Monday it looked full to capacity. In front of the booth, a tall, strapping brunette, her hair piled high on her head, stalked up and down, her voice upraised.

“Come and see the Harbinger of Doom!” she boomed. “’E takes on all comers, ’e’s not fussy! Fancy your chances, lads? Go three rounds with the Harbinger and win a pound for your trouble! Be a local hero! A legend in your own time, gents! Sir, you look a likely young bruiser, ever boxed?”

Lizzie watched her opportune a passing young man who seemed more interested in looking her up and down than trying out bare-knuckle fighting. And small wonder, for she was a handsome woman, Lizzie thought, though her dress was cut rather low and showed a good deal of frilly chemise along with her ample charms.

Whatever the young man said, she laughed and tossed her head. “Maybe if you stop by later, my fine gent.” She winked and turned to hail another gaggle of young men. “You look the very thing, my lads, I’ll bet there’s a sports fancier or two between you. Surely you’ll be keen to see the triumphant return of Benedict Toomes himself to the ring?”

“Toomes?” repeated one of them, lowering his bottle of beer. “Thought he was in Newgate, last time I heard?” Lizzie could not help but wince at this as she slipped past them, making for the tent. “Bless you, luv, it weren’t Newgate,” the brunette started to explain, before noticing Lizzie. “Oi!” she yelled after her. “Where do you think you’re – ”

But Lizzie did not stop to listen. Instead, she hurried forward and ducked inside the opening. A heavy sense of impropriety descended on her as soon as she stepped inside the tent. For one thing, she was the only woman present that she could see. For another, the milling crowd was a rough company of men in flat caps, jostling and jeering without any discernible sense of propriety. Cigar and pipe smoke and curse words peppered the air, and she scarcely knew where to put herself as she looked about in vain for a face she knew, be it either her husband or new brothers-in-law.

Guessing that any entertainment must be at the front of the tent, she pushed forward, gathering the heavy folds of the black cloak about her and pulling the hood down low over her face. She did not make much headway, however, and it wasn’t long before she realized that the crowd was thickest in the middle of the tent.

She was a good five or six rows back from the front when she realized she could proceed no further forward and came to a halt. Going up on her tiptoes and peering over the shoulder in front of her, she made out an area in the center which was roped off. It was square in shape, and standing at one end was a figure she knew only too well. It was that of her husband, Benedict Toomes.

He stood bared to the waist with his arms folded across his chest as his brother Frank whipped up the crowd. Lizzie could barely make out his words the crowd was so noisy, but after a moment or two she managed to drown out the catcalls and laughter and to focus on Frank’s words.

“Here he is, gentlemen,” Frank announced. “Take your fill. The Harbinger of Doom himself! Benedict Toomes, fresh from his sojourn at Her Majesty’s pleasure!” A smattering of laughter greeted this witticism, and Lizzie was shocked to her core to hear such a thing joked about so shamelessly. His recent incarceration seemed to be a selling point rather than anything else. “Has prison softened him, gentlemen?” Frank pondered aloud. “Let’s find out. Surely there’s one amongst this fine company who will go toe-to-toe with this reformed convict who stands before us a new and better man?”

Another ripple of mirth and went through the crowd at these words. Benedict stood, coolly impassive. His cold eyes, though, passing over the crowd with a sort of calculated consideration that reminded her of a coiled snake which had stared at her once through the glass with a venomous intent that had filled her with frozen horror.

Was he sizing up possible opponents, she wondered, and gazed about her uneasily? What kind of fool would take one look at this man and think they wanted to tangle with him? If they had any sense of self-preservation, they would not set one foot over that rope.