It was only the howling of the slaves that broke off his drunken, murderous, suicidal ranting. This was one house where none of the Blacks wanted to brave a crazed White man with a gun, but he was all for shooting them anyway if they didn’t shut up and stop all that chanting and moaning. As soon as he left her alone, Lady Ashworth fled to her room and locked the door. She threw up so abruptly that she didn’t have time to move first—her vomit was a smear down the door and onto the floor beneath it. By the time the flood came she had nothing left to throw up, but she kept retching.

With the Blacks terrified and Lady Ashworth indisposed, the only person able to answer Margaret’s insistent ringing at the door was Lord Ashworth himself, who stood there drunken and disheveled, the pistol still in his hand, hanging by the trigger. Margaret immediately reached down and took the gun away from him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “That’s my gun. Who are you?”

Margaret took in the situation with a few probes into his heartfire. “You poor stupid man,” she said. “Your wife wasn’t seduced. She was raped.”

“Then why didn’t she say so?”

“Because she thought it was a seduction.”

“What do you know about any of this?”

“Take me to your wife at once, sir!”

“Get out of my house!”

“Very well,” said Margaret. “You leave me no choice. I will be forced to report to the press that a trusted officer of the King has had a liaison for the past two years with the wife of a certain plantation owner in Savannah. Not to mention the number of times he has accepted the hospitality of slaveowners who make sure he doesn’t have to sleep alone. I believe sexual congress between White and Black is still a crime in this city?”

He backed away from her, raising his hand to point the gun at her, until he remembered that she had his pistol. “Who sent you?” he said.

“I sent myself,” she said. “I have urgent business with the King. Your wife is in no condition to take me. So you’ll have to do it.”

“Business with the King! You want him to throw me out of office?”

“I know the ringleader of the slave revolt!”

Lord Ashworth was confused. “Slave revolt? When?”

“Tonight, while you were threatening to kill your wife. She’s a shallow woman, Lord Ashworth, and she has a mean streak, but she’s more faithful to your marriage than you are. You might take that into account before you terrify her again. Now, will you take me to the King or not?”

“Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell him.”

“An audience with the King!” demanded Margaret. “Now!”

Lord Ashworth finally stumbled into the realization that he had no choice. “I have to change clothes,” he said. “I’m drunk.”

“Yes, by all means, change.” Lord Ashworth staggered from the room.