Free Redlegs by Chris Dolan

independently while continuing unhindered with her career. If any children were to result from the liaison, she judged it preferable that they enjoyed a moneyed, rather than a legitimate, start in life. In Scotland, she had heard tales of supposed noblemen without a farthing to their name. And, even if George tired of her, she calculated he was not the type to throw her overboard altogether. When the time came – as come it must – when he forsook her, she considered it likely that he would continue both their friendship and his financial support. She even considered suggesting such a scheme to George himself . But it occurred to her that, should he reject her and the snubbecome known, it would have a detrimental effect on her standing, and be too harsh a blow to withstand personally. And what would Lord Coak make of such an arrangement? Four months her patron would be gone – not long enough for her and George to live out the three-act drama that was forming in her head. And doubtless, even from abroad, Coak was being kept up to date of goings-on at Bridgetown by Philbrick and others.
    So, for the meantime, she let the friendship grow. George became more liberal in his attitude towards her: taking her hand in company, remarking openly on her figure and costume, kissing her delicately on the cheek. All this in the bare light in open society. On those nights when Isabella made up her Dalby’s Turbo, the kissing became less subtle. On the mornings following those parties, events of the night before were a little hazy. Certainly, they all drank, played dice sometimes with the gamesters, swam, always talking and always cavorting. She could taste George’s lips on her own, but sometimes, too, she thought, Derrick’s, and even Christian’s, though he and Nonie were devoted fiancés. As the sun trickled early into her room, before Tuesday or Dainty brought her her bowl-and-water, her drowsy head was strewn with pools of dark seawater, the tang of mauby, twinklings of stars, of Nonie’s white and Isabella’s brown breasts, suggestions of the boys’ naked backs, and suspicions that she might well have surpassed them all in acts of public indecency. No one ever made mention of what they had got up to the night before, until they reconvened, by which time all details were lost or dismissed.
    During waking hours she practised her poem in a room made specially available for her by Mr. Philbrick. At luncheon, and of an evening – sometimes instead of joining the others at the View – George took her to the Careenage, where they walked and talked, and sipped tea on the porches of grander hotels. She loved how the boats – from tiny skiffs to magnificent yachts and ocean-going ships – rocked on the water, masts and ropes chiming like Sunday bells. Just as he had taught her the names of plants and animals, George instructed her on shipping, pointing out across the harbour, distinguishing clippers from windjammers, sail from steam.
    “The old three-master is a supply ship. Raises its sails thrice ayear to return to Bristol. You ought to see it at full rig – a sight dying on our seas, sadly. It’ll be replaced by the likes of that ugly great hulk there. A steamship, bringing wood and coal in from the forests and mines of America.”
    They sat together on the terrace of the Regency Hotel, the waiters bowing to her in her distinguished company.
    “The clipper out beyond the quay? You won’t see many more of those either, if there’s any justice. A slave ship, ferrying its foul cargo from Senegal to Liverpool to here.” George declared himself to be an Emancipist. “Though don’t tell my father. That’s a little surprise I’m saving up for when I’m master of my own fate.”
    He spoke to her about politics as if she were already tutored in the subject, and took for granted her interest in it. Wilberforce and the Houses of Parliament in London, the local contest between the aristocratic Pumpkin faction and the merchants