Hugh bit his lip. He had kept busy all day, far from the nursery, but tomorrow he could avoid his responsibilities no longer. He must deal with John’s latest misdemeanour. Could he avoid punishing the boy? He remembered the painful punishments that followed his own wild behaviour as a child. No. He must check John’s worst excesses, even though each wide-eyed stare from eyes as round and green as Beatrice’s, and just as quick to tears, twisted the knife of guilt in Hugh’s heart. Easing his legs back beneath the desk, he concentrated on the stack of documents.

Finally, the day’s work completed, he threw his pen aside and tossed down the last dregs of claret. A foot crunched on the gravel. His head jerked up. A voice called and another answered, loud and urgent. A fist hammered on the door, insistent. Hugh’s heart lurched.

He hurried to the window and flung open the shutters. A dozen or so labourers, lanterns held aloft, jostled one another on the front drive. Hugh took the stairs, two at a time. The butler threw open the front door and a noisy cacophony exploded into the Hall.

Hugh spoke steadily, hiding his agitation. “What’s amiss?”

“Oh, begging your pardon, my lord. There’s been a terrible accident over yonder. One of them there new-fangled steam trains has come off its tracks, and all the people are dead, my lord. Dead, or dying.”

“Good God.” Ice slid down Hugh’s spine, and he shivered. It seemed that death and disaster had returned to Thatcham Hall. “Tell the coachman to send a horse and cart at once, and saddle Thunder for me. I’ll ride over and see what can be done.”

The rain still fell and the night was cold, with the wind blowing in gusts from the east. At the railway cutting, amid swirls of smoke and arrows of rain, shapes shifted and stumbled, indistinct in the flickering light of lanterns. Oil lamps threw shadows that hid as much as their glow illuminated. Hugh squinted into the gloom.

The whole village, it seemed, had turned out to help. He urged Thunder on to where a carriage lay overturned on the ground, wheels in the air. Broken planks littered the mud. Here and there, twisted bodies lay quite still. Dead bodies.

Hugh leaped down, took a pace forward, stumbled, and almost fell over a bundle on the ground. He fought for balance, boots sticking in the mud that reached to his ankles. The bundle moved, rubbed its head, rested a moment on its elbows, then fell back and lay still. Hugh bent nearer, and the bundle opened its eyes. Startling, bright blue pools stared up from a face caked in dirt. The bundle coughed and sat up. “What happened?”

It was a boy’s high voice. Hugh let out the breath he had not even known he held. “You’re not dead yet, then.”

Chapter Two

Hugh peered more closely at the boy. “Of course, you’re not dead. I meant to say, are you hurt?” A crimson streak on the boy’s temple shimmered in the ghostly lantern light. “You are bleeding.” He touched the boy’s head. The lad jerked as though Hugh had struck him and scrambled to his feet. Hugh, surprised, grabbed his arm.