The Marriage Season: A page-turning Regency romance novel from bestseller Jane Dunn

By Jane Dunn

‘It’s not a fair world I’m afraid. Beauty or fortune carries the day. You have the beauty and I the fortune, so there’s every chance we’ll succeed’

In Regency England, marriage is everything. For young widow Sybella Lovatt, the time has come to find a suitable husband for her sister and ward Lucie. Male suitors are scarce near their Wiltshire estate, so the sisters resolve to head to London in time for the Season to begin.

Once ensconced at the Mayfair home of Lady Godley, Lucie’s godmother, the whirl of balls, parties and promenades can begin. But the job of finding a husband is fraught with rules and tradition. Jostling for attention are the two lords – the charming and irresistible Freddie Lynwood and the preternaturally handsome Valentine Ravenell, their enigmatic neighbour from Shotten Hall, Mr Brabazon, and the dangerous libertine Lord Rockliffe, with whom the brooding Brabazon is locked in deadly rivalry.

Against the backdrop of glamorous Regency England, Sybella must settle Lucie’s future, protect her own reputation, and resist the disreputable rakes determined to seduce the beautiful widow. As the Season ends, will the sisters have found the rarest of things – a suitable marriage with a love story to match?

Sunday Times bestselling author Jane Dunn brings the Regency period irresistibly to life in a page-turning novel packed with surprising revelations, which all comes wittily, gloriously, good in the end. Perfect for fans of Gill Hornby, Janice Hadlow, Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and anyone with a Bridgerton-shaped hole in their lives.

Praise for The Marriage Season:

'Brilliant, sparkling and very clever.' Elizabeth Buchan

'Jane Dunn’s The Marriage Season gives all the immersive pleasure of Georgette Heyer’s brilliantly confected Regency novels, in a sublime alternative world of joy. Bridgerton look out!' Melanie Reid, The Times

'What a joy! I fell in love with the characters immediately, the storyline was brilliant, the descriptions of clothing, fashion and scene setting for that era were excellent' ★★★★★ Reader Review

'Beautifully written by the inimitable Jane Dunn.Her characters are so appealing you will not want to leave them. One of those books that you never want to end' ★★★★★ Reader Review

Praise for Jane Dunn:

‘Outstanding, perceptive and delightfully readable.’ Sunday Times Books of the Year

‘Jane Dunn has written a splendid piece of popular history with the ready-pen of a highly skilled writer, endowed with remarkable insight.’ Roy Strong, Daily Mail

‘Jane Dunn is one of our best biographers.’ Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times

What readers say about Jane Dunn:

‘Absolutely brilliant book. Easy, interesting and certainly a page-turner. Enjoyed reading this book so much.’

‘I loved this book, Jane Dunn writes with an insight into Elizabeths and Marys psyches that is mesmerising. I couldn’t put it down and was gutted when I finally finished it, at a loss of what to read next.’

‘One of the best books I have ever read. I have always been interested in this period of history and felt that this book and the way Dunn writes helps to bring history alive. Once I started reading I could not stop.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781804835241

Jane Dunn

Described by the Sunday Times as ‘one of our best biographers’, Jane Dunn writes about women and their relationships, and sisters in particular. Her books include a biography of the sisters Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the bestseller Elizabeth & Mary, which looks at the lives of the cousin queens Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Bath with her husband the writer and linguist, Nicholas Ostler.

Book preview

1

A NOBLE LORD FALLS TO EARTH

The low-built house seemed to be dozing in the late summer sun. A golden light glinted off the leaded windows and burnished the honey-coloured stone. Emperor butterflies floated over the lavender beds flanking the portico that sheltered the studded front door. Suddenly the drowsy air was stirred by a young woman running across the lawn. Picking up her skirts, she lengthened her stride to jump the muddy carriage tracks, then struggled with the heavy oak door for a moment before dashing into the house.

‘Bella! Bella!’ She paused in the cool dark hallway and listened. The oak staircase stretched away and up, the dust motes dancing in the slanting light from the great west window on the landing. She called again. A door opened at the back of the house and an old man appeared. He looked as ancient and gnarled as an oak tree bent by the wind, but with a gay red neckerchief tied round his scrawny neck.

‘Miss Lucie, hush that clamourin’. Nuff to quicken the dead.’ He advanced slowly towards her, his eyes twinkling at the sight of the excited flushed face, her fair hair dishevelled and falling in damp tendrils round her ears.

‘Oh, Beamish, I’m sorry. Where’s my sister?’

‘Well, that would be tellin’.’ He grinned, not willing to give up his advantage too soon.

‘Oh, don’t tease.’ Lucie slipped a hand through his arm. ‘There’s something happening up at the big house. The windows are unshuttered.’

Lucie Carey had turned eighteen and country life was beginning to pall. She still rode her horse freely over the family’s acres and even trespassed on the neighbouring estate, but she longed for more exciting company than her busy sister and the elderly servants. No sight nor sound of their neighbours at Shotten Hall had been detected for the last four years. Lucie had got used to treating their land as her domain and habitually trespassed in the grounds. She had discovered two mysterious temple follies crumbling back into earth and strange dykes and ditches suggesting ancient waterworks that caught her imagination. It was a mysterious place, full of thrilling atmosphere, and the opening up of the house after so long was news indeed.

But Beamish was less excitable. ‘Aye, I hear last week they were a’comin’.’

‘Last week! Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘What’s to say, Miss? They been twigged in town. That harum-scarum Freddie is down with some cork-brained culls.’ Beamish sniffed and gazed mournfully at his young mistress. ‘All jackanapes. Too much rhino, not enough to do. Should be out sheddin’ blood in the Peninsula like the young master.’ He turned back towards the kitchen.

‘But where’s my sister?’

‘P’raps with her blessed bees,’ he said over his shoulder.

Lucie headed through the walled garden, her feet scrunching on the cinder path between wigwams of beans and rows of cabbages and parsley. She could just see through the far gate the spreading mulberry tree that marked the beginning of the orchard, but knew better than to halloo for her sister when she was with the bees. There Sybella stood, dressed in her workaday blue cambric and with her husband’s violin and bow in her hand. She lifted her instrument and began to play. The first notes were tentative and then the melody took over with a life of its own. The music floated upwards and out, vibrating between the trees, a familiar folk tune Lucie knew so well.

Perhaps it was the warmth of the afternoon, perhaps the magic of the orchard filled with sound, but a luminous envelope of light seemed to trace Sybella’s form against the humming air. Around her were five conical grass-woven beehives, her new experiment. She had explained to Lucie with excitement how these revolutionary hives opened at the top. Inside were wooden frames on which the honeycombs were built by her busy swarm of workers. She hoped it would make the harvesting of honey possible without having to kill the bees each year.

Lucie approached soundlessly over the springy grass. The trees were weighed down with apples and the bees were busy rummaging in the dusty hearts of ox-eye daisies, foxgloves and buddleia that fringed the orchard. Gently, she put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. Sybella stopped playing and turned her head. Her green eyes seemed distant and unfocused; for a moment, she was lost in another world. Startled from her reverie, she smiled, her whole countenance radiating warmth and a quizzical good humour. ‘Lucie! You were so quiet, I didn’t hear you coming.’

Sybella kissed her, tucking one of the loose tendrils of her hair behind her ear. ‘You look charming even with your dress muddied like that.’ She brushed the skirt with a quick hand.

Lucie fulfilled every ideal of blue-eyed, fair-haired beauty and had a body that was fashionably sylph-like but strong too, used as she was to riding pell-mell and climbing trees.

‘Well, you, dearest Bella, are just beautiful, even in your oldest dress and with twigs in your hair.’ Lucie picked a leaf from her sister’s cloud of hair, already tumbling half-undone. They were a striking pair. Sybella knew her own dark hair and green eyes were less the fashion but she was grateful to be tall and shapely and enjoyed the fact she was a woman now, no longer a girl. Her vivid face had a sensitivity that expressed every emotion, often close to laughter but always alive with sympathy. Sybella understood how it pained her sister to be adjudged by strangers as the pretty one. How invidious were comparisons, she thought, particularly between sisters.

‘You’ve been playing to your bees again?’ Lucie quizzed her.

‘I have. They seem to like it. I’ve been practising the Sussex Waltz and hope we’ll play it together to entertain us in the winter. Grandpapa’s piano-forte would like you to exercise it more.’ She smiled.

‘I love playing with you, Bella. It’s so unfair, though, that we can’t play duets together in company. Why is it considered indelicate to play the violin? How vexing!’

‘Many things are improper for well-bred young ladies. But we get away with it here as long as no one sees. When you’re presented in London, you’ll have to leave your hoyden tricks behind!’

‘Oh! I had forgot. I came to tell you some news. The great house is woken up. After all these years! Its shutters are open and it has eyes again. It’s come back to life.’

‘How do you know?’ Sybella turned to regard her sister with a knowing gleam.

‘I saw for myself,’ was the defiant reply.

‘You were trespassing again. I knew it!’

‘Of course. I love their woods and no one is there apart from the few servants who keep to their quarters at the back. No one goes into the woods.’

Sybella’s frown did not diminish. ‘You must not go there while the house is inhabited. You have no idea whom you may stumble across. You don’t want to be mistaken for a poacher and shot!’

‘Beamish says it’s all over town that some young man called Freddie, although he wasn’t very complimentary in the words he used, is down from London with some wild friends. Who is Freddie? Does his family own the estate?’

‘I don’t know. I thought the house and land belonged to the Brabazon family. Perhaps he’s a son or grandson?’ She picked up her violin and began to walk with Lucie back to the house. ‘Beamish might know more. We haven’t met anyone from the estate since before our father died.’

A thought struck Sybella and she grabbed her sister’s arm. ‘Lucie, promise me you won’t trespass while this Freddie and his friends are here.’ Her voice was urgent. ‘Young men in their cups can be reckless, and rude. And they won’t know you for a gentlewoman, wearing a muddied dress like that and with smudges on your nose.’

‘Oh, Bella, you’re so sensible.’ The sisters had almost reached the kitchen door. ‘I’m longing for adventure.’

‘I know, my dear. But not that sort, I assure you!’ They laughed. ‘Anyway, I’ve written to Lady Godley and asked her to sponsor you this coming Season. As she’s your godmother and was a dear friend to our own mama while she lived, I hope she will be amenable.’

‘But how will we manage my clothes?’ Lucie was anguished.

‘We will do very well. I’ve been saving some money just for this occasion. We can go to that good modiste in Salisbury and get some evening dresses made. And we’re both clever with our fingers; no doubt we can refurbish some of my dresses, even use the fabric from a few of Mama’s, and add ribbons and flowers. Don’t worry about not having the right clothes.’

But Lucie was worried. She knew that their countrified ideas of what were becoming dresses would not be the same as the fashion of the haut ton in London, and she wanted to look truly up to snuff.

Sybella smiled sympathetically and slipped her arm round her sister’s waist. ‘You goose! Something you don’t appreciate, but I do, is that you are so very beautiful you could wear that faded blue muslin you like so much, and you’d still outshine them all.’ They both knew it was not quite simple but Lucy was consoled.

‘Now, I must rescue Nurse from James. I wonder where they are.’

‘Most likely down at the stables with George. You know that scamp can’t keep away.’

‘It’s wonderful he loves horses so much. Just like his father. But his language leaves much to be desired.’ Sybella walked into the sun towards the stable yard behind the house.

‘Mama! Mama!’ A small boy with an angelic face and blonde curls was running unsteadily towards her. ‘George say I can ’ave a pony. Say I’ll be good as Papa. A top—’ His brow wrinkled as he tried to remember the word he wanted. ‘A top-saw!’ he said triumphantly.

She laughed. ‘You mean a top-sawyer. But really that’s not a word for you to use.’

‘Well, George uses it,’ he said as he skipped uncertainly back to the stables.

George came out of the ancient barn, a tall loose-limbed man with a sunburnt face and a shock of red hair. He was wiping his hands on some straw as James cannoned into his legs.

‘What’s the hurry, Master Jim?’ He swung the boy into his arms.

‘I told Mama I’m ’aving a pony.’

‘Aye, ye did?’ George smiled at Sybella and put down her son. ‘He’s so good with the horses I thought it’s time he should learn to ride properly on his own nag.’

She frowned. ‘He’s so fearless – and reckless. I’m afraid of what he’ll do.’

‘I understand, Miss Bella, he’s too like his father. But I won’t give him his head until he has proved himself. I promise.’

‘I know, George. I trust you implicitly.’ Sybella’s face relaxed as she took her son’s grubby hand in hers and led him back to the house. Looking down at the small boy beside her, she noticed how untidy he looked. Only recently breeched, he was proud of his blue pantaloons but that did not mean he was careful not to muddy his knees or snag the cotton on a briar. The fine lawn shirt under his small jacket had a lace collar, now awry and with a sticky handprint on the front frill. She smiled at him, sometimes still disbelieving the good fortune that had given her this child. The late sun haloed her son’s fair hair with light as he chattered about what kind of pony he would like.

‘A bay one or p’rhaps a grey one like Papa’s Cato. Or like Kippio?’ He couldn’t yet say Scipio, the name of her horse, and looked up with an enquiring frown, but was undeterred. Her heart swelled with love for him. It was shadowed, however, by a sadness that she would never share this joy with his father.

Sybella only had two months of married life before her husband was recalled for service with his Hussar Regiment in the Peninsular War against Napoleon. That was the late summer of 1808. By the end of December, Captain Lovatt was wounded in the Battle of Sahagun. Bayonetted through the lung, his favourite horse shot from under him. George had been by the Captain’s side and told his wife of the terrible heroic defence the King’s Hussars had put up against the French cavalry. He accompanied him and the other wounded men on the nightmare journey home and eventually arrived at the Manor with the Captain’s body, his personal belongings and his violin.

That first winter brought days when Sybella was utterly bereft. ‘It is a pain that cannot be overcome,’ she had confided one evening to her sister soon after the burial, ‘the grief that it is George who knew him best. It was George, not me, beside him when he celebrated and when he suffered. It was George who was there as the man I love best in the world breathed his last. I cannot know anything more than the two happy months here with him. I could only know the domestic joys. Not the reality of my husband in his last agonies. That crushes my heart.’ It was the bleakest winter and the sisters were crouched together over the fire in the small sitting room. Stone-flagged floors and leaky windows further chilled their aching hearts.

Sybella knew that Lucie was stunned by her grief and silenced by the realisation there was nothing she could say to comfort her. The only consolation, however, was growing daily; the unborn child within her would embody for ever the brief love she had shared with her Captain. It was a promise their spirit would continue. Luckily, this precious being carrying all their hopes proved to have a tenacious hold on life. Lucie was by Sybella’s side as baby James slipped, red-faced and crying, into the world. She had been the one to put the swaddled child into her arms. A kind of blessing at last had descended on the house.

Sybella looked down at her son, now tugging at her skirt. ‘I want a boy pony ’cos I want a bruvver.’

‘Enough of I want, my lad!’ She swung him up onto her hip and carried him into the kitchen for supper.

‘I do. An’ call ’im Dasher.’

A week or so passed with no sign of the new inhabitants of Shotten Hall. The weather had turned wet and, to please her sister, Lucie had given up prowling round the woods. She had hoped the young man known only as Freddie might have come calling on the neighbours. Curious to know who was still in residence, she went in search of Beamish, the fount of all gossip in the neighbourhood, most of it from his friend, Martha, housekeeper for the Brabazon family up at the big house.

‘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