Whatever his thoughts on Lucien, it was clear he wasn’t going to share them with me. Maybe he was right not to. I knew, of the two, he preferred Vincent, but he would know as well as I did that Viscount Woodward was not a long-term option for a girl like me, however much he said he loved me, and however naively I had once imagined a life together for us. Colour wasn’t the only barrier between Vincent and me; it had always been class too, and everyone knew that was even harder to overcome.

‘Here we are,’ Barky said. He dropped my trunk to the ground with a thud.

‘Careful! That’s got to make it halfway around the world with me,’ I teased. ‘It can’t be that heavy. It’s not half-full yet.’

The main thing in there was the dress I’d picked to wear for our wedding.

‘Do you see Lucien?’ I said.

‘Not yet, but we’re a little early.’

‘Will you make sure that we’re definitely in the right place?’

Barky rolled his eyes but off he went to speak to an official-looking man dressed in a naval uniform and holding a long roll of paper. They spoke for a few minutes before Barky came back.

‘Right place. That’s your ship out there.’ He gestured to a massive vessel anchored in the middle of the river. It looked much more impressive than the first one I had noticed.

‘What’s it doing all the way out there?’

‘They’ll row you out to it in groups. From there, you’ll dock at Liverpool – should get there in the early hours. You’ll stay there overnight, take on more passengers, more supplies, and then you’ll be on your way. I’ve told them you’re here. They’ll call you soon.’

There was a group of Black men standing patiently in a line. They would be my fellow passengers, my neighbours when we reached Sierra Leone. Most looked like soldiers. I could hear the American twang as they spoke to each other. How many were Londoners born and bred like me? Hopefully the women had boarded first, because at the moment it looked like I was the only one.

‘I wish Lucien was here,’ I said.

Barky reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. ‘He will be.’

I sat down on my trunk. Barky kept looking around, like he wanted a get-out.

‘You can go if you want, I’m fine to wait on my own,’ I said.

But I was glad when he shook his head at me. ‘I’ll stay with you, at least until your fellow gets here.’