Property

The pain was heavy in her heart. She had married a man below her status because her father had left her nothing and now her husband was also leaving her with nothing.

Her husband was a cruel man. He beat her, abused her and raped her on a daily basis. He was now leaving her with nothing after all she had been through with him. He had lost all his money borrowing against an asset that was still at sea. A precious cargo of exotic things. Things craved by all the fashionable people in London. He had been blind to her warnings and to the others.

His new found friends, his rich ones just wanted to ruin him, make his money theirs to pay off their debts.

Lily's heart was weak anyway. The Doctor had told her many times. She already knew. Her mother had a weak heart and died when Lily was four years old. She knew that this was the pain inside her chest.

Her heart ached with the pain at being brutally used by her husband, it ached for the lover she dared not have and it ached with the loss of everything she owned that was now being taken away including her friends.

Her lover was property. Something to be sold. However the slave was hers to own and train to work in someone else's house. Her job was to teach him to be domesticated and polite. She did not want him to go, but knew if the bailiffs got hold of him, he would be sold because of the money her husband owed.

She yelled at him to run, to get away before the bailiffs got hold of him. He was by her side not wanting to leave her in her fragile state of health, knowing that if he left her, he may never see her again.

The bailiffs downstairs shouted at her husband. There was banging as belongings were taken away. Her breath quickened and her slave knew she would die if he did not get her away from this house, this noise and this terrible city. This stress was going to kill her.

He picked her up and she put her arms around his neck lovingly. He had decided in that moment that he would take her north maybe to Yorkshire. That's where the kind Doctor had sent many of his friends. The white Doctor was a friend to his people.

Lily was barely awake as her slave Matthew carried her down the stairs, past the commotion, out of the house and down the street. She was not aware of the stares they were receiving from all those they passed.

Matthew carried all the way to the Doctor's house which lay a whole mile away. He would help them as he had helped all the others before them. His hope lay in the white Doctor. Lily's life was in the hands of her lover and friend.