yet women visit our offices, approach us in the streets, and send us petitions with tens of thousands more signatures every year to ask for more freedom. They feel that their safety comes at the expense of their freedom. And, gentlemen, the trouble with freedom is, it isn’t just an empty phrase that serves well in a speech. The desire to be free is an instinct deeply ingrained in every living thing. Trap any wild animal, and it will bite off its own paw to be free again. Capture a man, and breaking free will become his sole mission. The only way to dissuade a creature from striving for its freedom is to break it.”
“My goodness,” Hattie whispered, her eyes searching Annabelle’s uncertainly. “Is he on our side?”
“It appears so,” Annabelle mumbled. But why? He had made it perfectly clear that it would harm his interests to do so.
Indeed, a stony silence had fallen over the chamber.
“Britain has avoided the revolutions of France and Germany because here in this chamber, we always knew when we were approaching a tipping point, when it was time to make a concession to the people to keep the peace,” Sebastian said. “The suffrage movement is rapidly gathering momentum, and what will we do? Will we strike back harder and harder? I for my part am not prepared to try to break half the population of Britain. I am in fact unprepared to see a single woman harmed because of her desire for some liberty. I therefore propose a bill to amend the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870.”
The collective gasp in the Ladies’ Gallery was drowned out by the shouting on the floor below. Annabelle didn’t remember rising, but she stood, her fingers curling over the grille brass work like claws.
Sebastian stood at the opposite end of the chamber, and even from here she could see his contemptuous frown as he surveyed the tumultuous scene before him.
“To any suffragists in the Ladies’ Gallery,” he said, his voice rising over the noise, “I say—brace yourselves. For many people, your demands amount to a declaration of war on the master of every household. It is a war you will not win in the foreseeable future. But today, you gain another ally for your cause. I hereby resign from my role as election campaign advisor.”
“No!” Her outcry echoed through the chamber.
Sebastian’s head jerked toward her.
He couldn’t possibly see her here, behind the grate, dozens of yards away, and yet he caught her eye.
The world seemed to slow on its axis as their gazes locked.
“No,” she whispered.
Sebastian folded up his paper, never taking his eyes off her. “And, gentlemen,” he said, “I am leaving the Tory party.”
Chaos erupted.
Annabelle turned on her heels.
“Annabelle, wait,” Hattie called out, but she was already squeezing through rows of stunned spectators to the exit. She hasted blindly along the corridor, her blood pumping in her ears. What had he done? His life’s mission depended on him winning the election.
She skipped down a flight of stairs. A startled footman swung back the heavy entrance door for her, and she bolted into the open. Wet droplets hit her face. The light rain had morphed into a roaring downpour; the skies had turned the color of iron.
“Annabelle.”
She heard him clearly over the rain.
How had he caught up so quickly?
Because he is always one step ahead.
And her body was driven to flee, its animal instincts shrieking that he was out to catch her again.
She would not escape him today.
When his hand wrapped around her arm from behind, she whirled. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you do this?”
He was grasping for her flailing hands. “Do what?” he said. “Do what?”
“You quit your party, and your role as advisor?”
“Yes,” he said, and made to pull her close, and she twisted out of his hold like an angry cat.
“You have just caused a tremendous scandal for yourself!”
“I have, yes.”
He was already drenched, his hair plastered to his brow, the icy blond darkened to silver. Rivulets of water were streaming down his face and dripping into his starched collar. He hadn’t even put on his topcoat before coming after her.
“How could you,” she said, her voice breaking.
Sebastian’s eyes softened. “A very clever woman once told me to think about on which side of history I want to be,” he said. “I made my choice today.”
“Oh, don’t,” she said. “I have no part in making you commit this . . . self-sabotage.”