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‘Well, if you’re riding or walking along their backs, then they look like Downs.’

‘From here, they Ups,’ he said logically.

‘Look at the sheep, James, sheltering in that copse.’ Sybella grazed sheep at the Manor and she was particularly fond of the local Berkshire Notts, special in being able to thrive on this thin downland soil. ‘Look how handsome they are with their black faces and Roman noses.’

‘Take them to the fold tonight?’ He looked concerned.

‘I’m sure the shepherd will.’

‘Shepherds loves sheep like I love Dasher.’

James’s love of horses became the theme of his sightseeing. He noticed every one that trotted past them in the opposite direction. Sybella had drawn a set of columns on a sheet of paper so he could count each one by the colour of its coat and Lucie helped him register his sightings.

Grateful for some peace, Sybella rested her head on the seat and closed her eyes. The vintage carriage creaked uncomfortably on its elderly springs. She thought of the Manor and home and how she would rather be there. But Lucie and James were the people she loved best in the world and she longed to see her sister settled with her own home and family. She knew as well as anyone that a good husband with a respectable estate would most likely be found during the Season; there was a reason it was disparagingly called the Marriage Mart. Sybella thought her sister so beautiful, competent and brave she was sure that she would find a suitable match which would allow her to make a success of her life and provide the freedom she needed. She could not wish that she remained with her for ever.

‘Look, Mama, look!’ She opened her eyes to see James staring wide-eyed out of the window as a very smart black and silver curricle pulled by four handsome matched bays overtook them at a canter. ‘Boo’ful steppers,’ James breathed under his breath and was so taken with the sight of them up close that he forgot to add them to his chart of horses. Sybella saw the driver fleetingly in profile, focused, his jaw set and muffled by his scarf, the many capes on his driving coat rippling with the speed of his passage. Behind him, his liveried groom perched holding the yard of tin, ready to blow to summon the toll keepers to let them through without delay.

‘Top-sawyer, ain’t he, Mama? Like Papa.’

‘Well, he certainly looks like he knows how to handle his horses. It’s very difficult to control four like that. There’s even a club for those who can.’

‘Want to drive like that, Mama.’

‘Perhaps one day you will, darling.’ She sat back and closed her eyes.

Sybella was surprised by the pang that gripped her heart. It was exciting to see a man so calmly in charge of his mettlesome steeds and it reminded her painfully of how much she had lost. She was pierced by a longing to be loved by someone other than her sister and her son. The pain of it rose in her throat like a sob. But always sensible and fair, she knew she could not recapture what had gone and would not betray the love she still bore for her Captain. Their father had liked to quote Heraclitus for his paradoxical view of the world, and as a girl she had been most impressed by the maxim that all things must change, nothing remains fixed, just as you cannot step into the same river twice. Perhaps life had flowed on without her and it remained to make the best of the joys she already had.

Lucie recalled her to the present with a hand on her knee. ‘We’re approaching Reading for our change of horses. Do you need some refreshment? James is wanting to tell Nurse about the horses he’s seen. Apparently, the Old Bull does a fine hot chocolate.’ Sybella decided to join them, a pot of hot chocolate sounded just the trick after cold, uncomfortable hours in the coach.

As the ostlers ambled forward to unharness the horses and take them to the stables, Sybella looked around at the bustling inn. Conveyances of every kind were in the process of leaving and arriving. The horses newly harnessed and ready to go stamped and whinnied, those who had just finished their hard-worked stage were drooping with fatigue. Every kind of person bustled around the courtyard, the inn staff and the ostlers mixed with a few liveried grooms belonging to the Quality. The travellers too were a fascinating cross-section, from the immaculately dressed women in travelling cloaks of silk and high poke bonnets and the men in lustrous top boots and caped driving coats, to local farmers and their wives in worsted jackets, shawls and heavy boots. Most looked cold, their noses pink and cheeks raw, with ribbons of breath wreathing in the brightening air.

Sybella was ashamed to find herself half-hoping she might catch sight of the man in the curricle. She chided herself for such missish behaviour; of course he would be long gone. He was driving like the wind and was the kind of Corinthian, as gossip had it, who stabled his own horses at the major staging posts along the Bath Road and the Great North Road, so he had the best bloodstock at hand to power his journeys west and north. He was probably already in London.

James had been regaling Nurse with his view of the horseflesh he had seen on the journey so far; despite Nurse’s disapproval of the jargon he had learnt from George, he enthusiastically catalogued the few inferior ‘bone-setters’ but mostly elaborated on the types of ‘prime bits of blood’. Alice’s forebodings had faded with the excitement of a journey that had taken her for the first time so far from home. The threat of highwaymen had also lost some of the lurid colour of her imagination. Everyone seemed in high spirits as they climbed back into the coaches for the next stage to Maidenhead.

Lucie was standing by the entrance to the inn, waiting impatiently for Sybella to appear, when a flurry of hooves heralded the arrival of a gleaming post-chaise with a crest on the door and a gilded legend, Nil carius auro; ‘nothing more precious than gold’ struck her as being rather dispiriting for a family motto. The liveried postillions sprung down from their horses and as soon as the steps were lowered, a young woman emerged. In this workaday setting, she appeared as incongruous as a golden-haired goddess, but a goddess with a look of thunder on her face. She turned crossly to address the lady still sitting in the luxurious blue satin cocoon of the coach’s interior.

‘I’m not being fiddle-faddle, Mama. I feel unwell.’ With that, she lifted her skirts and began to traverse the filthy courtyard towards the inn.

Lucie had never seen such a vision of beauty and high fashion, as astonishing a sight as if one of the French engravings in her godmother’s magazine had stepped off the page. She watched her picking her way delicately across the courtyard mired in mud and horse dung, and caught her eye momentarily as she entered the inn.

Lucie immediately recognised the difference between gowns that had been bought from a Parisian modiste and those inspired by Paris but translated through Madame Dupont of Salisbury. This young woman’s topaz-blue travelling cloak was lined with snowy ermine, the pelisse underneath was a shimmering mother-of-pearl satin, possibly the fashionable colour, Stifled Sigh, and her dainty little feet were clad in soft boots of lilac doeskin. Lucie, a finely boned, golden-haired beauty in her own right, nevertheless felt an unrefined provincial in comparison. When Sybella finally emerged, her sister grabbed her arm and hurried her to their waiting carriage. She bundled them both in and flopped down on the seat beside James, who greeted them enthusiastically. ‘Mama, Lucie, now I’m counting collicles.’

Lucie glanced back at the smart chaise, where the older woman had descended in a stately manner. She too was dressed in what looked to the sisters to be the absolute height of fashion, her pretty soft face lightly powdered and rouged, her coral-pink silk turban stylishly embellished with a curling chartreuse feather that framed her face. As the Carey carriage began to lumber out of the Old Bull, Lucie heard her remonstrate with her daughter, who had emerged like a sunbeam from the shadows of the inn. ‘Cleome, come now! His lordship awaits: we can’t be late.’

‘Oh, Bella, my courage rather fails me.’ Lucie smiled ruefully at her sister, who knew exactly what she meant. They understood each other so well: just a word or a look would pass between them and in that slight glance was a world of meaning.

‘Think of it as an adventure, something you always enjoy. Not a judgement on us.’ Sybella smiled over the golden head of her son, who was still excitedly surveying the passing show. ‘I think Lady Godley will be our first challenge.’

‘I can’t remember when I last saw her. Perhaps before Mama died. What’s she like, Bella?’

‘Well, she was born out of time. She should have been an Elizabethan, when it was honourable for women to be educated. According to Mama, she was a very bookish young girl and her own mother despaired of finding her a husband. Intelligence and learning in a woman were as disqualifying as having two heads!’

‘But she did marry, despite this?’

‘Yes, she was married off to Sir Pomeroy Godley, who was very rich and fortunately stupid enough not to notice how clever Augusta was!’

‘Wasn’t he a dandy too?’