Flood: TWENTYONE
...During their conversations, the plan began to formulate in Robert's mind. He had discovered it was easy to be accepted as someone else and his conscience was untroubled by lying to Bunsen. Their friendship was sealed by chance as they left the bordello in the early hours and were attacked by footpads. Bunsen cowered while Robert shot one and pistol whipped the other...
Emma Cookson continues her dramatic tale of love and revenge set in the 19th Century.
In the spring of 1850, Robert sold out his share of the business to Joshua for a sizeable stake and took a ship from San Francisco to New Orleans, looking for quicker means to enhance his wealth. He outfitted himself as a gentlemen and lost his virginity in a high class bordello where he also met Mr William Bunsen, textile baron of Manchester. The new-money arrogance of the man immediately annoyed him.
Bunsen had started with very little and had made a great deal. He treated those who worked for him as slaves. He preferred to employ mothers and children, he said. They were more reliable, they caused no trouble and he paid them less.
Robert remembered Zac's stories of life in the mills and smiled and listened and Bunsen basked in the company of such a fine young gentleman from such a fine background with family connections to the Earl of Dartmouth.
During their conversations, the plan began to formulate in Robert's mind. He had discovered it was easy to be accepted as someone else and his conscience was untroubled by lying to Bunsen. Their friendship was sealed by chance as they left the bordello in the early hours and were attacked by footpads. Bunsen cowered while Robert shot one and pistol whipped the other.
The man was ripe and, in the heartlands of cotton and slavery, Robert found the perfect pairing in Gabriel Tyler. The men's greed and ambition did the rest. Bunsen vouched for Robert's credentials as an aristocrat and Robert had documents printed secretly in Savannah that were heavy in legal terminology and which authorised him as a lawyer and broker who possessed extensive holdings in England.
Perhaps Bunsen was convinced by thoughts of grandisement at home. It was one thing to be a mill owner, quite another to be a trans-Atlantic property owner. Perhaps he was convinced by Robert. Perhaps he saw the female house slaves as the basis of a personal harem. Tyler was no better. He inferred that the house slaves were a harem. The men were two of a kind and Robert had no compunction in closing the deal.
He looked upon it as a small victory in the fight against slavery, white or black.
Now he was faced with Cosmo Pinkerton and the threatened visit of Gabriel Tyler in the new year, who would no doubt be looking for his money back and for Robert to be prosecuted with the full force of the law, either here or in America. His brother Harry would be delighted.
But that was in the future and he had time yet to make plans and see at least some of his dreams come to fruition.
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