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then locked it behind him, the better to do his mischief in privacy. For a moment she imagined Joseph Stratford, working unawares in the office as an assailant crept stealthily up behind him, axe raised…
    She threw herself at the wrought-iron bars, crying out a warning, shaking them and feeling no movement under her hands. And then she was climbing, using the crossbars and the masonry of the wall to help her up. Mr Stratford had made it look simple when he had climbed to face the crowd. But he had not done so in a soddendress and petticoats. She struggled under the weight of them, stumbling as she reached the top. What she’d hoped would be a leap to the ground on the inside was more of a stagger and a fall, and she felt something in her ankle twist and give as she landed.
    It slowed her, but she did not stop, limping the last of the way to the wide back entrance. She passed through the open dock, where the vans and carts would bring materials and take away the finished goods, through the high-ceilinged storeroom waiting to hold the finished bolts of cloth. She passed the boiler room and the office and counting house, which were quiet and empty, and continued on to the floor of the factory proper, with its row upon row of orderly machinery, still new and smelling of green wood and machine oil.
    From the far side of the big room she heard voices. Her father’s was raised in threat. Mr Stratford’s firm baritone answered him. The two men stood facing each other by the wreckage of a loom. Her father’s axe was raised, and the look in his eyes was wild.
    Stratford must have been disturbed in working with the machinery. He was coatless, the collar of his shirt open and its sleeves rolled up and out of the way, with a leather apron tied around his waist and smudged with grease. In one hand he held a hammer. Though his arm was lowered, Barbara could see the tensed muscles that told her he would use it in defence when her father rushed him.
    ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘What are you doing, Father? I have come to take you home for dinner.’
    ‘Go home yourself, gel, for you do not need to see what is like to occur.’ Father’s voice was coarse, half-mad and dismissive. There was nothing left of the soft, rather pedantic tone she knew and loved.
    ‘Your father is right, Miss Lampett. It is unnecessary for you to remain. Let we gentlemen work this out between us.’ Stratford sounded calm and reassuring, though the smile he shot in her direction was tight with worry. His eyes never left the man in front of him. ‘You will see your father directly.’
    ‘Perhaps I will,’ she answered. ‘In jail or at his funeral. That is how this is likely to end if I allow it to continue.’ She hobbled forwards and stepped between them. And between axe and hammer as well, trusting that neither was so angry as to try and strike around her.
    ‘Miss Lampett,’ Stratford said sharply. ‘What have you done to yourself? Observe, sir, she is limping. Assist me and we will help her to a chair.’ He sounded sincerely worried. But she detected another note in his voice as well, as though he was seizing on a welcome distraction.
    ‘My Lord, Barbara, he is right. What have you done to yourself now?’
    Her father dropped his axe immediately, forgetting his plans, and came to take her arm. Sometimes theseviolent spells passed as quickly as they came. This one had faded the moment he had recognised her injury.
    Stratford had her other elbow, but she noticed the handle of his hammer protruding from an apron pocket, still close by should he need a weapon.
    ‘I fell when climbing down from the gate. I am sure it is nothing serious.’ Though the pain was not bad, and she could easily have managed for herself, she exaggerated the limp and let the two men work together to bear her forwards towards a chair.
    ‘The front gate?’ Stratford said in surprise. ‘That is nearly eight feet tall.’
    Her father laughed, as though lost in a happier time.