“I don’t seem to be doing much better now that I’m older,” James went on. “My father summoned me home again and again, to see my mother. I didn’t come. Now I’m here at last, and I find that I’m too late. She died while I was on my way.”

“Your mother was a kind lady,” Charlie said quietly. “I’m sorry she’s gone.” He paused for a moment. “This don’t make me your father’s friend, though.”

“I know.”

“You and him will always be Loyalists. Me and Sam will be Patriots. Way I see it, we’ll probably be fighting each other before long.”

“Perhaps, Mr. White. But maybe not. There’s something else you don’t know.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not a Loyalist, Mr. White. I’m a Patriot.”

Vanessa

JAMES MASTER COULD never have imagined, when he first came to London, that he would marry Vanessa Wardour.

Indeed, when it happened, all London was astounded. The young colonist was a handsome young fellow, certainly, and heir to a considerable fortune. But the lovely Vanessa Wardour was at the pinnacle of aristocratic society. No doubt, they supposed, she’d turn him into a country gentleman, or a man of fashion. But whatever she did with him, young Master could count himself exceedingly lucky to be taken, in almost a single step, from colonial obscurity to the innermost circles at the apex of the empire.

James was very proud of being British. It was how he’d been brought up. With what rapture, when his parents had first taken him to London, he’d listened to Ben Franklin as the great man described Britain’s imperial destiny. How overjoyed he’d been to go to Oxford, to enjoy its stately quadrangles and dreaming spires, and to imbibe the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome that was proper to an English gentleman.

For when Englishmen walked through London’s classical streets and squares, or took the waters at Bath, when aristocrats made the Grand Tour to Italy and commissioned Palladian country houses back at home, or when politicians made fine speeches full of Latin tags, how did they see themselves, if not as the honest, sturdy heirs of ancient Rome? To be an English gentleman, in an age when Britain’s empire was expanding, was a fine thing indeed; and young men in such a position might be forgiven for feeling a sense of superiority.