And what would Lady Ashworth do? Lion, refusing to confess, would be whipped and, in the futures in which he survived the whipping, sold west. Doe would be turned out of the house, for even though she had not given Peggy a bit of information, she had proven she was more loyal to a fellow Black than to her mistress. As a free black of advanced age, Doe would be reduced to living from scraps provided by the charity of other slaves, all of whom would be opening themselves to charges of stealing from their masters for every bit of food they gave to Doe.

Time to lie. “Do you think that you’re the only... abolitionist... living in Camelot?” said Peggy. “The difference is that some of the others are sincere.”

At once Lady Ashworth’s heartfire showed different futures. She would now be suspicious of the other ladies in Lap-Rip. Which of them had exposed Lady Ashworth’s hypocrisy by speaking to Peggy, or writing to her, about the Ashworth slaves now being disciplined?

“Did you come to my house to insult me?”

“No more than I came to be insulted,” said Peggy.

“What did I do to insult you?” said Lady Ashworth. What she did not say, but what Peggy heard just as clearly as her words, was that it was impossible for Lady Ashworth to insult Peggy, for Peggy was nobody.

“You dared to claim that you share the goal of abolishing slavery wherever you can, when you know perfectly well that you have no intention of living for even a single day of your life without slavery, and that your entire effort is merely to pacify Northerners like me. You are part of your husband’s foreign-relations strategy, and you are as committed to preserving slavery in the New Counties as anyone else in the Crown Colonies.”

At last the façade of cheerfulness cracked. “How dare you, you priggish little nobody? Do you think I don’t know your husband is a common tradesman with the name of Smith? No one ever heard of your family, and you come from a mongrel country that thinks nothing of mixing the races and treats people of quality as if they were the common scum of the street.”

“At last,” said Peggy, “you have consented to deal with me honestly.”

“I don’t consent to deal with you at all! Get out of my house.”

Peggy did not budge from her seat. Indeed, she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and poured herself a tall glass. “Lady Ashworth, the need for you to create the illusion of gradual emancipation has not changed. In fact, I think you and I have a lot more to talk about now that we’re not lying to each other.”

It was amusing to watch Lady Ashworth think through the consequences of throwing Peggy out—an event which would undoubtedly get reported all over the north, at least in abolitionist circles.

“What do you want, Miz Larner?” said Lady Ashworth coldly.