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She glanced across at Zadoc Flynn who was keen with anticipation, his guidebook open in his hand. ‘I shall buy a bottle of medicinal water from Bath to take home as a souvenir. My father suffers from the gout,’ he said, reading about the distinctive pleasures of the city they were about to explore.

Once they had left Hyde Park Gate behind, London receded as the Wolfe coach headed for the pretty villages of Knightsbridge and Kensington with their cottages and occasional big manor houses, built of brick and surrounded by gardens. The road was crowded with large wagons filled with produce, alongside racing curricles and flashy phaetons of the young bloods about Town on their way to an illegal boxing match or some other dubious entertainment. The fast mail coaches sped on their way, overtaking the overladen stagecoaches, creaking while their passengers clung onto the top rails, in peril for their lives and blue with cold.

As they passed the barracks, Eliza peered out of the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kensington Palace, aware that the Court retired here amongst the fields and trees for a change of air. The swaying vehicle had rocked Emma to sleep in her mother’s arms and Meg and Polly were gently snoring too. Even Corinna’s eyes were fluttering, but Eliza and Mr Flynn were too stimulated by the novelty of travel to even grow drowsy.

They were crossing the flat lands now, filled with orchards and market gardens feeding the expanding population in the great city to the east. As the coach approached Hammersmith, Zadoc Flynn consulted his book and pointed out a quaint roadside tavern with a distinctively high, red-tiled roof. ‘Look, The Red Cow,’ he said then quoted, ‘“Notorious haunt of the lowest of footpads and pickpockets. They passed on information on any rich travellers to the fine-dressed ‘knights of the road’ on their fleet black steeds with horse pistols ready. The coaches were sitting ducks in the bleak heathland to the west.” Hide your jewellery, Miss Gray.’

‘Luckily I have nothing worth stealing but my virtue!’ she retorted with a self-deprecating laugh.

‘That’s priceless indeed. I’m going to have to lay my life down to protect you!’ He reached up to where a holster swung above his head, checking to see if it contained a pistol and shot. His fingers closed around cold steel. ‘This is more a lady’s pistol. Back home we’d have a shotgun.’ He noticed the surprise on Eliza’s face. ‘Our justice is more rough and ready than yours. We shoot first and ask questions later.’

‘In that case I’m relieved you have no shotgun with you, Mr Flynn.’

Casting her a roguish look, he settled down to read his guidebook further.

Eliza thought this was a good time to raise with him what had been exercising her since reading Rose Bowman’s letter. She hesitated and then in a rush of words, addressed him. ‘Sir, I feel some responsibility for Miss Bowman. Forgive the presumption of asking what your intentions may be towards her.’

He looked up startled and seemed reluctant to answer. Eventually, he took a breath and said, ‘Your concern is to your credit, Miss Gray. I hope I can reassure you when I say…’ He paused, trying to find the right words. ‘Forgive me for any indelicacy, but Miss Bowman is a young woman who knows her own mind. I assure you it is not me taking advantage of her but rather she determined on her own destiny. She has told me she wants to come to America with me to try her fortune.’

Eliza’s eyes opened wide with astonishment. ‘This is what she has told you?’

‘She has.’

‘And have you agreed?’

‘I suggested she could come with me to my father’s business in New York and work in the offices there, or she could help with managing my stud in Kentucky. But she’s not as keen on horses or as skilled with them as you are.’

Eliza was taken aback by Rose’s boldness but also admiring of her reckless courage and sense of adventure. Her anxiety about Rose’s vulnerability as a woman without family, status or money, however, was not assuaged. ‘I presume this arrangement does not involve marriage?’ Her voice was quiet and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment at her temerity in asking such a thing, but she was concerned that her friend should know exactly the kind of arrangement she was entering.

Zadoc Flynn gazed out at the fertile green fields and answered, ‘No, it does not. But then I don’t think Miss Bowman would wish for that. Nor is it as important there as it is here. We are a new country and have not assumed all the constraints of the old. Irregular arrangements between men and women are not as disadvantageous for the women as you may fear.’

‘You would, nevertheless, be responsible for her until she has found work and determined how she wishes to live.’

It was Mr Flynn’s turn to colour with embarrassment. ‘Of course! What kind of brute do you think me? I have the benefit of my father’s successful business and my own efforts and I assure you money is no problem. Miss Bowman will want for nothing while she establishes her new life.’ He was watching her closely as she processed this astonishing change about to happen in her friend’s life.

Everyone in the carriage was still asleep as Mr Flynn leaned forward and took Eliza’s hand, his face serious. ‘Miss Gray, my country offers infinite possibilities for men and women alike, regardless of breeding or wealth. I may not be about to offer for Miss Bowman’s hand but you are a different matter. I share your love of horses, I find your personal attractions unsettling. I would be honoured if you would consider accompanying me home to America as my wife.’

Eliza was astounded. She snatched back her hand and in a fierce whisper said, ‘Mr Flynn! I could not object more to your mentioning in the same breath that you’re happy to take my friend as your mistress but would consider marrying me! If this is an example of the manners and sensibilities of your countrymen, I want nothing to do with them.’

Mr Flynn’s usually genial manner turned mulish. Aware of their sleeping companions, his voice was quiet and emphatic. ‘I’m not a practised flatterer like the trifling dandies and men of the Town in your country, but a plain speaker and an honest one. My father is the richest man in New York and I’m wealthy in my own right, healthy, hard-working and of good temper.’

‘Marriage is not like horse-trading, sir! Am I now meant to inspect your teeth? And anyway, this is hardly the place for such a conversation.’

‘I’d like to point out, Miss Gray, it was you who raised it. I was contentedly reading my book when you decided to poke your nose into your friend’s business.’ He settled back, looking pleased to have claimed the last word. Eliza turned away. He was right, she had been patronising towards Rose whose letter had told her she knew her own mind and made her own decisions about her life. Eliza’s thoughts whirled with so many new and shocking ideas. Rose would be gone from her for ever and she herself had just received a backhanded marriage proposal from someone she considered no more than a brotherly presence at best. Were Rose Bowman and Mr Flynn, with their pragmatic attitude to relationships between men and women, the wise ones – and she, the romantic fool? Lacking family connections or prospects, she had declined out of hand a new life and marriage to a good, decent, attractive man who was as rich as Croesus, just because she had given her heart to another who she had been warned could not return her regard. What folly was this?

Such disquieting thoughts were interrupted as the coach drew into Hounslow for a change of horses, the wheels of the Wolfe coach clanking over the cobbles as they turned into the yard of The Crowing Cockerel.

After a hurried stop, everyone scrambled back into the coach; before nightfall they had to reach Knowl Hill where Mr Wolfe had booked them rooms. As the vehicle rolled towards notorious Hounslow Heath there was a frisson of expectation, even though the tract of rough grassland and scrub was nothing like as dangerous as it was in the previous century, when hundreds of highway robbers on horseback or foot had lurked in wait for travellers. But its reputation remained, and Eliza saw the coachman place his blunderbuss across his knees. Although she felt sure she saw a horseman waiting half-obscured in a scrubby copse of stunted trees, the journey through this windy wasteland was without incident.

Soon dusk was falling and the coach arrived at The Bird in Hand. Eliza spent a restless night in a lumpy bed and could hear Emma wailing next door and Corinna and Meg’s soothing voices. The child had seemed out of sorts on the journey, sleepy and grizzling, and Eliza hoped she was not ailing. She felt a sympathy for Corinna, on whose pale face anxiety was writ large. This onerous journey was all in aid of her search for family and she was aware of it being yet another imposition on her generous hosts.

At last, at the end of the third day, the coach and its weary passengers were finally on the outskirts of Bath, its pale limestone buildings gleaming pink in the sunset. The river Avon ran through its centre and wooded hills to north and south seemed like a great amphitheatre for the spectacle that was the city itself. ‘It is beautiful,’ Eliza said, craning forward so she could see better in the vanishing light.

Mr Flynn looked up from his book. ‘I won’t read out the disobliging comments in this guidebook about how Bath has declined since its grand days last century when it really set the rules of fashionable life.’

‘I know, people complain it’s now filled with the elderly, ailing and lame. And far too many sad, unmarried women who eke out their diminishing allowances as companions or guides.’ Corinna was once again light-hearted, relieved that her daughter seemed to be better.

The coach lumbered over Pulteney Bridge, with its bright souvenir shops overlooking the tumbling weir below. It pulled up outside a tall, imposing house on the south side of Great Pulteney Street. The travellers climbed out, tired, hungry and stiff-limbed, and were relieved to find that Alick’s Aunt Jane had left instructions for the skeleton staff, who remained in residence, to welcome them in her absence. Her under-butler, Toby, opened the door. Still informally dressed, he ushered them in, taking bonnets and pelisses, then showed them the dining room where a cold buffet of roast beef, bread, ale, burgundy and pastries awaited.