Eliza Redgold - The Scandalous Suffragette

A long, shapely leg clad in a white-silk stocking extended from behind the pillar, followed by a familiar tricolour silken banner.

It must have been under her skirt.

Stifling his chuckle, not wanting to alarm her, Adam backed behind another marble column. After a moment she appeared, glanced around furtively and raised herself up on tiptoe. One after the other she hurled the two billowing banners into the air.

Adam frowned. He couldn’t quite make out what she was doing, but he could make a fair guess. He was about to reveal himself and remonstrate with her when her parents appeared and bore her off in a carriage.

He leapt out from behind the pillar and swore.

Her aim was excellent.

‘Damnation,’ he muttered below his breath.

The ballroom doors flung open. Before Adam could grab the banners a group surged into the hall.

A woman squealed and pointed.

All hell broke loose.

Adam groaned. Violet Coombes had no idea what she’d done.

‘Shall Error in the round of time

Still father Truth?’

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘Love and Duty’ (1842)

‘Whoa.’ Violet pulled the reins of the grey mare. All morning the mare had been frisky, playing up. It took all Violet’s strength to stop her breaking into a gallop in the middle of Hyde Park. It was a day to gallop, the sun golden in the summer sky. Around her all the flowers in the garden beds were in bloom, their colours as bright as ball gowns and their perfumed scents heady. Instead, Violet slowed to a sedate trot.

A groom from the riding school rode up to her. ‘That’s it, miss. Give me the reins now. I’ll lead you back to the others. That’s probably enough for today.’

Violet passed them over with her thanks. Suddenly she felt exhausted. Dancing at night and riding in the morning was strenuous exercise. Her tight-fitting blue-velvet riding habit, trimmed with a lace jabot at the neck, suddenly seemed much too hot. She’d have something made in a cooler fabric for the summer and try to prevent her mama from adding too much trimming. The riding habits of the other young ladies, all in black, seemed to have marked signs of wear, as if to emphasise use.

While the groom led her to the group, her mind roved over the events of the night before. It had been so unfortunate that the banner had unravelled from around her thigh before she had a chance to dance once more with Adam Beaufort. She would probably never have another opportunity to dance with him, to be swept across the floor in those powerful arms, after running away from him so publicly. He must have been insulted.

She sighed. She owed Adam Beaufort another apology and yet another explanation, if she ever saw him again. He must have wondered what made her run off in such a peculiar fashion, but she had to move quickly before the banner fell to the floor from beneath her ball dress. She had made it just in time. She dashed behind a pillar and whipped out the banner from beneath her petticoats, yanked one free and then the other. Quickly she seized the moment, did what she’d set out to do. She’d intended to wait until the end of the ball, to linger until the crowds dispersed, but with the banners released she grasped her opportunity while everyone else was in the ballroom. She had just completed the deed when her parents appeared, full of concern after seeing her leave the ballroom. Steering them away from the evidence of her activity, she pleaded a sudden fever, with her hand to her forehead. They called for the carriage instantly and took her home. She didn’t see Adam Beaufort again.

She released another sigh. He was the only person she had ever told about how strongly she believed in the suffrage cause. Had he been mocking her? As she replayed the conversation in her mind she decided not. She could only hope he’d keep his word and not betray her secret.

He’d trusted her with a secret, too. The lines of care on his face she’d noticed when they first met; she hadn’t mistaken those. She wondered what he might look like without the burdens he carried.

Their honest conversation had seemed to bring them closer together than the waltz. When she’d finally fallen asleep that night she had dreamed about him again. In the garden of that unidentifiable house, he called up to her at the window. She leaned out, almost tumbling from the window as she tried to hear what he said, but she couldn’t make it out.

When she awoke she’d puzzled over it. She recalled how he whispered in her ear, ‘I hope you dance as well as you climb.’ His deep voice had sent quivers through her. When she got out of bed she’d washed her face with cold water from the pitcher, instead of hot.

Even now, the next morning, in the sunshine of the park, thinking about him made her pulse flicker at her wrist under her riding glove. The night before as she lay in bed, she’d found herself lifting her fingertip to her mouth, remembering the look he gave her as he lowered his mouth so close to hers. Had he meant to kiss her? Was that blackness in the midnight of his eyes...desire?

If she were going to daydream about such matters, which of course she was not, he was the kind of man she would daydream about. But she had other matters to think about rather than waltzing with Adam Beaufort, no matter how extraordinarily wonderful it had been. Yet if she were scrupulously truthful, as she always tried to be, she had to admit her attraction to him. He was, after all, one of the most eligible bachelors in London, or so her thrilled mama had enlightened her on the way home in the carriage.

‘He’s related to the royal family!’ her mama had gasped.

Whether Adam Beaufort was eligible or not, there was no point in daydreaming. She’d made her decision.

She took the reins from the groom.

He tipped his cap.

She halted next to the girl she had spotted the night before in the ballroom who sometimes chatted to her.

With a clip of her whip she moved her horse away from Violet’s.

Violet lifted her chin. It hadn’t been pleasant to be snubbed at the ball, nor was it pleasant to be snubbed now, and she wasn’t sure why. It seemed a more blatant cut than pretending not to see a waving hand from across the room. If Adam Beaufort hadn’t asked her the night before, she would have sat out every dance. It made her even sorrier that she had missed being whirled into another waltz. The way he danced with her would remain in her memory, but that was all.

The Cause was more important.

Deeds, not words . She must stay true to her purpose. Yet her heart gave another strange flinch as she turned her mare towards the park gates.

* * *

‘Mama?’ Violet pushed open the drawing-room door. ‘Where are you? There’s no one in the dining room. What’s happened to luncheon? I’m famished after riding. Will you allow me to come to the table before I change out of my riding habit?’

Her mother lay on the chaise longue . Her arm, clad in a ruffled sleeve, was flung over her face. She didn’t reply.

‘Mama?’ Violet stepped into the room. Her father was also in the drawing room, to her surprise. He faced the fireplace, his back to her. He wasn’t often home during the day. ‘Why, hello, Papa. Have you come home for luncheon? We’ll have to wake Mama. I think she’s asleep.’

‘I’m not asleep, Violet,’ her mother said in a strangled voice. ‘I’ve had a visit from some of the society ladies who invited us to the ball.’

‘Oh, how lovely, Mama.’ Violet cared little for such things, but she knew how much store her mother set by them and it mattered to her father, too, with his business ambitions. To have such ladies call on them was a step up the social ladder. Not that Violet had any inclination to climb it.