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  There was a little silence. “They plan to convert Africa to Christianity and civilization?” Mehuru asked.

  Stuart Hadley nodded.

  “Then Africa is lost,” Mehuru said simply.

  STEPHEN WARING STOOD IN the doorway of the Custom House, breathing the warm night air. Other members of the Merchant Venturers’ Company went past him into the dark gardens, some of them weaving unsteadily from the wines at dinner and the heavy drinking that had followed.

  Sir Henry came up behind him and took his arm. “Walking home?” he inquired.

  “Why not?” Stephen replied easily. He tossed his cigar away and whistled for a linkboy to light their way. As they drew away from the others, he said, “A pleasant evening, I thought.”

  “Very.”

  “I am sorry for that Josiah Cole,” Sir Henry said suddenly.

  “Oh, why so?” Stephen asked. “He wants his Hot Well, and he has bought it.”

  “He’s paid a high price for it,” Sir Henry said. “And we both know he will regret it.”

  “It’s his choice,” Stephen said comfortably. They strolled slowly over the lowered drawbridge. The tide was on the ebb, and the riverbank was starting to stink. The dark mud and water reflected the boy’s moving light.

  “Still, he might get his money back,” Sir Henry predicted cheerfully. “If he can hang on.”

  “More important, the Venturers have got their money back,” Stephen said. “Anything he pays in rent hereafter represents a profit to us.”

  “Where d’you want it invested?” Sir Henry asked. “Clifton? The Downs?”

  “I think we should spend money on the port,” Stephen said. “We lose trade to Liverpool every day. We must straighten the river and make some deep-water anchorage. It is madness trying to run a commercial port out of a tidal harbor.”

  “Oh, aye,” Sir Henry agreed lazily. “But you won’t see a profit inside fifty years.”

  “Still, it should be done.”

  “I’d have thought you would have wanted some investment in Clifton,” Sir Henry teased. “I heard that you had plans for terraces and assembly rooms and all sorts of grand projects.”

  “Did you?”

  “But I said that Clifton would never be anything more than a pretty little out-of-the-way place.”

  “D’you think so?” Stephen asked interestedly.

  “It won’t grow until it can be supplied with water,” Sir Henry assured him. “Limestone. You can’t have a town on limestone. It’s dry, bone dry. To reach the water, you’d have to drill, oh, three hundred feet.”

  Stephen nodded. The bobbing light of the linkboy’s torch lit his face and then hid it again. “Would it be that deep?” he asked pensively.

  “But if you hit water, then prices in Clifton would go through the roof,” Sir Henry pointed out.

  “Lucky, then, that we all own land there,” Stephen said simply. “And that the company owns the whole manor, Clifton, and Durham Down, too.”

  “Satisfactory,” Sir Henry said. He paused at his doorway on College Street. “I like talking to you, Waring. You are always so uninformative.”

  Stephen laughed shortly. “I thought we had understood each other very well,” he said.

  BY JULY, FRANCES WAS well enough to get out of bed but was still easily tired and short of breath. Dr. Hadley called once every week and one day detained Josiah for a quiet word as he walked to his waiting phaeton. “The air does not suit her,” Stuart said. “It is low-lying here, and the river mists are very unhealthy. You can smell the diseases like a fog. Any day now I expect to hear that we have cholera in the old town. Already there is typhoid fever not half a mile from this house. And all the drains from the old town flow into the river that surrounds you. She has a weak heart; she could not survive a major illness.”

  Mehuru was holding Stuart’s horse, straining to hear.

  “I cannot move house!” Josiah exclaimed. “We have only just bought this one!”

  “That is a pity,” Stuart said carefully. “Could Mrs. Cole perhaps go away to the country for a visit once a year, especially now in midsummer?”

  “She could go to the Hot Well spa every day,” Josiah offered. “I have just bought the Hot Well spa, you know, Doctor. She could go there daily.”

  “No, that is not what I mean. She needs a more airy situation in summer and a warmer climate in winter like France, or Italy. She needs warm, dry air, especially in wintertime.”

  Josiah shook his head. “We have never traveled abroad. I would not know how to manage it.”

  Mehuru’s face was like stone, his impatience burning inside him.

  “It could be managed,” Stuart said earnestly. “And I do fear for her if she spends the next winter in Bristol. She is delicate, I am afraid, and another serious chill and inflammation like this one could even be fatal.”

  Josiah looked shocked. “Frances might die?”

  “She could live for years,” Stuart said quickly. “But these delicate lungs are very difficult to predict. If it is possible for her to go somewhere warm every winter, then she would grow stronger.”

  Josiah was badly shaken. “I will consider it,” he assured Stuart. “It is just that we have never thought of such a thing. My sister and I have never even taken more than a day’s holiday. We have never been away from Bristol. I would not know how to set about it.”

  Mehuru fidgeted at the horse’s head, unable to stand still for anger.

  “Arrangements are easily made,” Stuart said. “No doubt Mrs. Cole would know people who travel abroad. She has many friends and family, does she not?”

  “But she would be away from Bristol for such a long time,” Josiah protested. “I bought this house for her enjoyment, and only she knows how it should be run. I thought this house would suit her very well.”

  “I am sure it does,” Stuart soothed him. “But in very hot weather such as these last few weeks, it is not salubrious for anyone. And it may be that next winter she will need a little time in the sun. That is all.”

  “I will consider it,” Josiah assured him. “I would spare no expense to keep Frances in the best of health. Whatever a trip abroad would cost, I would be prepared to pay. Anything that I can do shall be done.”

  He shook Stuart’s hand and turned back into the house.

  “Fool,” Mehuru spit through his teeth, released at last. “What a fool!”

  “I pity him,” Stuart said shortly. “He chose a woman to bring him money and connections, and he finds himself obliged to provide things for her which he does not even understand.”

  “He runs a shipping company.” Mehuru’s voice was an angry mutter where he wanted to roar. “He has three damned ships going anywhere in the world. He could put her on a ship, couldn’t he? He could send her to Africa, couldn’t he? Or to the Sugar Islands? Good God, if she were my wife and you told me she needed sunshine, I would carry her on my back if there was no other way.”

  Stuart smiled wearily at Mehuru’s rage. “Do you love her so much?”

  Mehuru checked, looked at Stuart’s face for any signs of mockery and saw none. “Yes,” he said shortly.

  Stuart shook his head and climbed up into the high perch seat of the phaeton. “Then I am sorry for you,” he said conversationally. “And for her, too.”

  Mehuru would not release the horse but held the rein, forcing Stuart to wait. His expression was sharp, as if with a pain held inside. “Because she is ill? Is it worse than you told Mr. Cole? Do you pity me because she will die?”

  Stuart kept his true opinion of Frances’s health to himself. “I pity you because there is nowhere for you,” he answered. “She cannot leave him, you cannot freely love her. If I were you, my friend, I would rather go to Sierra Leone with all the risks that entails than fall in love with a married woman, the niece of a peer of the realm, and my owner.”

  Mehuru’s face lightened. His smile started at his eyes, and then his whole face lit up into an irresistible beam. “When you exp