CHAPTER ONE ~ 1786

The stagecoach had made good time since it left the Posting inn at Hartley Wintney.

The horses were fresh and, as if they were anxious to make up for the irritating delays that had made the coach nearly three hours late, they moved at a spanking pace along the narrow twisting lanes that led towards Blackwater in Surrey.

But if the horses were fresh, the coachman was the opposite.

The ale at the inn had been strong and he had been kept awake the night before with a nagging tooth. He yawned loudly, making his companion on the box, a thin, nervous little man with spectacles, look up at him apprehensively.

He yawned again and did not seem to notice the sharp corner ahead until they were almost on top of it and then, as the horses still travelling too fast seemed to become aware of a bend in the road, a curricle travelling at quite a formidable speed came into view.

There was a flash of yellow-and-black wheels, a glimpse of a pair of perfectly matched chestnuts, a gentleman wearing a beaver hat at a jaunty angle holding the ribbons and another equally smart seated beside him.

Then the thin man in spectacles let out a cry of sheer terror. The coachman tugged at the reins, but it was too late.

The horses swerved sharply, suddenly aware of the danger. Then, by a superb piece of driving, the curricle, scraping the wheel of the coach, got past. But after seeming for a moment to rock like a clumsy wooden ark, the coach crashed against the bank of the road and partially overturned, the horses plunging and rearing.

For a moment there was pandemonium.

A woman screamed, violent oaths were shouted, some in fear and some in anger, and then a voice, cold, contemptuous and authoritative, seemed to restore sanity.

“Get to your horses’ heads, you fools!”

The coachman scrambled to his feet followed by the groom who appeared from the ditch with a bemused expression on his face as if he had been asleep before this had happened.

The thin traveller in spectacles climbed down onto the road.

“This is m-monstrous, m-monstrous!” he squealed in a quavering voice to the driver of the curricle.

“I agree with you, sir,” the gentleman answered. “Your driver is either a knave or a lunatic to approach a corner at such a speed. But no good will be served at this stage by recriminations. I suggest you assist the inside passengers to extricate themselves.”

The traveller, who was about to say a great deal more, obviously lost his nerve. He bit back the words that seemed to tremble on his lips and turned, as he was bid, towards the coach.

The horses were being held and now that the moment of panic was past it was obvious that things were not as desperate as they had seemed in the first moment of the accident.