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‘Ah, Miss Lucie. I know you be teasin’ your noddle. My Martha’s been run off her trotters, she’s that merry now the young blades are off. Weather, I think. Spoiled their shootin’.’ His sniff carried a freight of disapproval, but he smiled at the disconsolate expression on her face. ‘Miss Lucie, you better than any of ’em.’ With that unhelpful salvo, he disappeared into the dusky light of the kitchens.

The next day, the rain had cleared and Lucie decided to take Jenny out for a ride. She dressed hurriedly in her riding habit. If she was to be in London for the Season, she knew she would have to perfect her riding technique with the side-saddle, as well as start practising her piano-forte in earnest. She was intelligent and good-humoured enough to accept the constraints on her behaviour, if just for a while. Once she was married, Sybella had assured her, she could live much more to her liking. ‘As long as I marry someone as handsome and amenable as James,’ she had answered, wrinkling her nose.

‘I won’t allow you to marry a harsh taskmaster or a bully, so don’t worry. You just have to behave with exaggerated propriety until then.’

George was in the office working on estate business and nodded as Lucie walked through to the stables. Gem, the groom, was busy with the curry comb on her sister’s black stallion. Gem had a youthful athletic air with a round expressive face and hands as big as shovels. He quickly came over to saddle up Jenny. ‘I should accompany you, Miss Lucie,’ he said as he heaved the saddle onto the mare’s back and tightened the girth.

‘Don’t worry, Gem, I’m fine. I’m not going far, just up to Studley Cross and back.’ She knew he was uneasy at the thought of his young mistress riding out unaccompanied, but she was confident enough to follow her own instincts: at least in this sleepy part of Wiltshire, where she knew almost everyone and everyone knew her, there was little danger of young bloods racing their curricles in the narrow lanes or footpads preying on the unwary.

Gem tossed Lucie up into the saddle and she arranged her heavy skirts, straightening her back and dropping her shoulders as she trotted elegantly out of the cobbled stable yard towards the drive. At the public road, she turned left to Studley Cross and headed off with the sun behind her, easing Jenny into a canter, all the time concentrating on keeping her posture centred and graceful. She had a great vantage point to see over the hedges and walls into the fields on either side but was too busy concentrating on her technique this time to satisfy her natural curiosity. Almost immediately the high stone wall of Shotten Park began its sinuous march along the road. Lucie glanced up at the spreading oak tree that marked the beginning of the woodland she loved so well. It was one of the Carey sisters’ favourite climbing trees when they were younger, and Bella was less particular about trespass.

The peace of the morning was suddenly riven by the sound of horses’ hooves approaching at speed. Lucie let Jenny slow to a trot just as a pair of black horses harnessed to a dashing curricle swept round the bend, barely checking its speed as it whisked past, startling Jenny who started to jib, side-stepping and throwing her head up. Lucie had just calmed her when another curricle, also travelling far too fast for the road, flashed round the further bend. This one slowed enough to allow her to encourage Jenny onto the verge. The young gentleman handling the reins tipped his curly-brimmed hat and momentarily turned his head to stare. Lucie was caught for an instant in the flickering deep blue gaze of a young man with hair as golden and wavy as her own. The driver seemed as struck by the sight of her and was about to check his horses, then, glancing ahead with a frown, let loose the reins and his spirited pair of bays shot off in pursuit.

Lucie was indignant at such high-handed behaviour from these young bloods, treating this quiet stretch of country road that morally seemed to belong to the Manor and those who lived there, as if it were for private races, oblivious to any inconvenience, accident or death that might befall. A year before, the neighbourhood had been agog when the squire’s daughter, Mary Fortnum, was thrown from her horse when it was startled by a post-chaise driven wildly and far too fast by some Town buck. Miss Fortnum’s head had hit the hard stony road and she was killed outright.

But Lucie was not long exercised by the thought of that awful fate. Instead, the sight of these young daredevils stirred interest and excitement in the heart of someone young and spirited herself, already growing restless with her pastoral way of life. As she passed the gatehouse to Shotten Hall, she glanced up the long drive to the great house. She supposed the young men had been part of the disreputable party, of which Beamish had so disapproved, and were now on their way back to London. It occurred to her these were the sort of gentlemen she might meet during the Season and the thought was not entirely displeasing.

She rode on the couple of miles to the Cross in a ruminative mood, hardly noticing the landscape that rolled away from the escarpment with a patchwork of fields of golden-green stubble and pyramidal stooks of hay and wildflowers drying in the sun. Her mind instead was filled with the possibilities of her life ahead. She knew she did not have the advantage of a substantial portion to offer in marriage, but her family was of good breeding and she was lucky enough to be pretty. There were still a couple of months left for her to practise her social charms and feminine accomplishments like dancing – her sister had hired a dancing master to teach them both to waltz – and playing the piano-forte, and doing endless fine stitching. Although it had never been clear to her why hemming handkerchiefs with tiny stitches made her a more desirable wife for a nobleman.

By eleven o’clock, Lucie turned for home. The sun was getting warmer and the breeze was welcome. After a while, she had passed neither horse nor carriage on the road so eased Jenny into a canter, beginning to feel much more at home with the side-saddle. She had feared that it would spoil all the pleasure she had enjoyed since childhood in riding bareback, free and at one with the horse under her. It would be fun to show Bella just how good she could be. For all her elder sister’s sensible nature, she was a fearless rider and could handle a team of horses harnessed to her husband’s curricle as well as he had. The Captain had said her horsemanship had been one of the distinctions that had attracted him in the first place.

In this happy state of mind, horse and rider turned the corner of the lane that led past the great wrought-iron gates to Shotten Hall and then beyond that to the stone entrance posts that marked the Manor’s drive. She noticed there was an obstacle ahead which had not been there on her journey out. She narrowed her eyes, hoping to make out what had happened, and saw a branch from the mighty oak lying halfway across the road. Lucie slowed Jenny to a walk, puzzled that such a large limb would have sheared off and in the short time since she had passed under it. As she approached, she could see a figure crumpled half on the verge, half on the road.

Slipping from the saddle and with Jenny’s reins in her hand, Lucie ran up to the body, her heart in her throat. A young man lay motionless, half trapped by the branches. She led her horse to the grass verge where she began to contentedly graze, then fell to her knees beside him. ‘Are you all right?’ The words escaped her breathlessly, although she could see he was clearly far from all right. The sight before her was so incongruous and unexpected, for a second it was not clear if it was real at all. Lying in the dirt of this country lane she knew so well was a young man more handsome and exquisitely dressed than anyone she had ever seen in her life. The rarest of creatures, it seemed, had fallen to earth from another world. He was deathly pale, his eyes were shut and he appeared to be unconscious. Or dead.

Desperate to feel for his pulse, Lucie tried to loosen his cravat, but the starched folds were so complicatedly tied and the knot was hard to find. How she wished she had some implement with her to cut the linen. She managed to open his shirt and then found the cravat’s tail and quickly disentangled it to expose his throat. To her horror, there was a small pool of dark blood spreading onto the road from the back of his head. She hurriedly put two fingers to the side of his neck and sighed with relief when she found the steady beat of an unhurried pulse. But she needed help to move him. She called Jenny and led her round the fallen limb of the tree. Pointing her head towards home, her reins looped loosely over the saddle, she gave her horse a smart smack on the rump. ‘Go home, Jenny!’ she said and pointed down the road.

Her horse needed no encouragement. She trotted off with a decided air and Lucie returned to her patient. Lucie knew that the return of a riderless horse to the Manor would immediately start up a rescue party. Gazing down at the prone figure, his body slightly twisted to one side, she dared not try to make him more comfortable as she had no idea what injuries he had sustained. A small sob broke from her throat. It was frightening to feel so useless in a crisis like this. ‘Please, make it George who comes,’ she whispered under her breath. While a soldier, he had dealt with much injury and death in action and would know what to do.

She knelt again and gently brushed the dark hair from the young man’s grazed and grimy face. Feeling again for his pulse, she was relieved to find it was still there, beating slightly faster now. As she leant over, she saw his eyelids flutter. Sitting back on her heels, she waited, holding her breath. His eyes opened and they flickered, dark and dazed. He seemed to have trouble focusing on her face as she said, ‘Don’t worry. Help is coming. What’s your name?’

He struggled to speak and just managed the word ‘Lynwood’ before losing consciousness again. Lucie looked up at the tree and was puzzled. The young man was wearing his riding clothes, but there was no sign of his horse. Had the limb fallen on him as he passed? It seemed too unlikely. But the other possibility, that he had been climbing the tree when the branch had broken under his weight, seemed just as odd. Would a grown man climb a tree in his riding boots? As these thoughts exercised her mind, the brisk clopping of hooves from the direction of home cheered her spirit. She leapt to her feet and walked towards the sound. Within a minute, the farm cart pulled by one of the hack horses and driven by George, with Gem beside him, rumbled towards her.

‘Oh, Miss Lucie! Thank the Lord you’re unharmed. What happened?’ Gem had leapt off the cart and ran forward, his face tense with anxiety. It was then he saw the prone figure, and he and George quickly knelt beside him. George looked up at her with a question in his concerned eyes.

‘I was riding home and this is what I came upon. I don’t know what happened, or who he is. He regained consciousness for a moment and said his name was Lynwood. Or I think that’s what he said. And then he closed his eyes again.’ Lucie’s voice was breathless with emotion. George examined the young man with experienced probing fingers. He slipped his hand under his head to assess the bleeding wound and, having checked his vertebrae, slowly rolled him onto his back. The young man groaned.

‘I think he’s broken his leg, but this wound in his head isn’t too troubling. Heads have a habit of bleeding greatly.’ He looked down the road and continued, ‘We must get him back to the Manor and then Gem can go for Dr Bristow. We brought straw and blankets to make the cart a comfortable conveyance. We were afraid we’d find you like this, laid out on the road, Miss Lucie!’ His brusque words betrayed the anxiety and responsibility he felt for the family he had sworn to the Captain to protect.

Lucie felt her knees buckling. All the excitement of her heart that had kept her practical and active drained from her now that she could relinquish authority to George. She put a hand out to steady herself against the cart. Gem and George eased the tree branch off the young man and then picked him up as gently as they could to lay him carefully on the makeshift bed of straw. They heaved the branch onto the verge to clear the road. ‘Jump up, Miss Lucie,’ Gem said and shifted his place on the seat. She squeezed in between the two men and looked back at their bloodied passenger as George started to turn the horse for home.

Sybella was waiting for them at the entrance. She breathed a great sigh of relief to see her sister unharmed and sitting up between the men, pale but smiling. It was only as the cart passed that she saw the figure of the young man sprawled on the straw. ‘By heavens! What happened? Who is he?’

‘We don’t know.’ Lucie had clambered down and hugged her sister with relief.

‘Take him to the small morning room. The sofa’s comfortable and big enough for him to lie full length there. Gem, can you get the doctor? Bristow. You know where he is. Just off the High Street.’ Sybella brusquely walked into the house, picking up a sheet from the laundry room, and laid it over the sofa. ‘Lucie dearest, can you get a pillow from the linen cupboard?’

Beamish emerged from the kitchen as the young man was carried through. He peered at his ashen face and started. ‘What larks has young Freddie been up to?’ He looked across at his mistress.

‘So this is Freddie? We have no idea what has happened. He was found on the road under a fallen tree branch. Is he one of the Brabazon family? He told Lucie his name was Lynwood.’

The old man shrugged. ‘Just knows he’s been up at the great house with some rattle-pates. Drivin’ Martha and the old staff crackers with their niffy-naffy ways.’ The young man was laid carefully on the sofa and Sybella picked up some newly laundered cotton cloths and wet them in a bowl of warm water. She began to clean his face and hands gently but did not touch the back of his head where his dark hair was matted with blood.

‘If he’s broken a leg, the doctor will want his boot cut off.’ She glanced up at George. ‘It’s a pity because they look to be extremely fine riding boots.’

‘That’s the least of his troubles,’ George said grimly. ‘I’ll get the shears from the barn.’

Sybella studied the young man; he looked young and vulnerable, barely twenty, she thought. Slowly, a small fat hand crept into hers. James’s cherubic face was looking unnaturally troubled. ‘He dead?’ he asked in a whisper.