Chapter Four

 

‘Daisy cutters!’ uttered Persephone in disgust, looking about at the sedately high-stepping mounts chosen by the bon ton for hacking in the park at the fashionable hour of the promenade.

She was herself bestriding a raking bay, whose sidlings and tossings evidenced his uncertain temper. The Winsfords were still borrowing from Lord Rossendale’s stables, until, as the nabob expressed it, his experienced daughter should have learned her way about and might choose her own cattle.

Penelope, thankful for the ill opinion of her skill held by her sister that had prompted her to pick for her use a well-mannered, quiet horse who could give her a comfortable ride, saw nothing amiss.

‘They look perfectly well to me.’

‘That is because you know nothing of the matter,’ said her twin, controlling the plunging progress of her own mount with an effortless grace that won the admiration of the new groom riding behind. ‘For the most part, they are peacocky specimens, obviously meant only for show.’

Her eye then fell upon a grey trotting towards them. She pointed with her whip.

‘Now there is a fine horse. Pure Arab, I would say at a guess.’

‘And guess who is riding it,’ Penelope gurgled.

Looking from the horse to its rider, Persephone drew in her breath sharply.

‘Salla!’

‘Seph, you bad girl,’ Penelope scolded in an under-voice. ‘Thank heaven no one can understand you.’ She turned her welcoming smile on Chiddingly and his companion, who were halting their mounts as they came abreast. ‘Good day, Fitz. How do you do, Lord Chiddingly? My sister has just been admiring your grey. You must know she dotes upon horses.’

‘Be silent,’ hissed her twin.

‘Indeed?’ said Chiddingly, his gaze travelling coldly and indifferently over Persephone. ‘I confess I had not observed it.’

Persephone’s eyes flashed. ‘Your observations, sir, are quite without interest.’

‘You look a dazzling sight, the two of you,’ interpolated Fitzwarren, looking them over.

Obedient to her sister’s plea, Persephone was clad in a dashing habit of military cut in olive-green with gold braid. Penelope, also in green, had chosen an altogether more feminine garment garnished with a quantity of lace, and her frivolous feathered hat formed a pretty contrast to the stark severity of her twin’s unadorned beaver.

‘But how rash to speak first, Miss Penelope,’ Fitz teased, ‘and so deprive us of the agreeable game of guessing.’

‘Oh dear, how silly of me,’ she laughed. ‘Yet I do not know. You could hardly fail to observe our differences on horseback. Why, I am cast quite into the shade by Seph’s skill.’

‘You seem perfectly competent to me,’ Chiddingly said, turning his mount and bringing it up alongside. ‘May I ride a little way beside you?’

‘By all means,’ Penelope agreed, throwing a quizzing glance at her sister’s stormy face as she urged her horse forward.

But Fitzwarren was even now taking his friend’s lead, and guiding his mount ready to accompany her sister.

‘If that is his notion of gallantry,’ Persephone sneered, ‘he will not go far with Pen, I promise you.’

Fitz laughed but made no comment on this. ‘Your sister was in the right of it, you know. You have the best seat I have ever seen. You will take the shine out of all our equestriennes.’

Persephone’s fine eyes met his in a straight look. ‘I am no target for gallantry, sir, so pray do not trouble yourself to invent pretty speeches for my benefit.’

‘I spoke nothing but the truth,’ Fitz protested. ‘As for gallantry, I am afraid you will have to accustom yourself to that.’ He read a retort in her eye and added, ‘But let us not talk of such trivialities. Tell me instead how you come to be so excellent a horsewoman.’

Persephone thawed a little. ‘I had an excellent teacher.’

‘Your father?’

‘No, indeed. Papa has little interest in horses. He began as my father’s head groom, I believe. But latterly he had overall charge of the stables.’ Her eyes softened. ‘And me, of course.’

‘Good God, was he a native, then?’

‘Certainly. Do you imagine the Indians to be savages, untutored in such arts?’

‘Not at all,’ Fitz said. ‘I was surprised just for the moment.’

‘I can assure you, my lord, that a great many of our friends were of the Indian races. Besides, there was in Bombay an ease of social intercourse which I dare say you would deprecate.’

‘Not in the least. I imagine it was inevitable in such a small community. Upon my soul, Miss Persephone, we are not so high in the instep. You will find the racing fraternity, for example, hobnobbing with all sorts and conditions of men.’

‘Racing! How much I should like to see your famed courses. I have heard much of Epsom and Newmarket. We had some racing, naturally. Paltry affairs, mostly, but nevertheless exciting.’

Her eyes warmed and Fitz was reminded irresistibly of Penelope as the classic features lit with a glowing animation.

‘We used to get up the meetings among ourselves. On the Esplanade behind the Fort, stretching to Back Bay. There was a race course of sorts out by the Dongri on the flats. But our own meetings were better, for I was permitted to take part.’ Her deep gurgle of laughter came. ‘Until they complained that I could not lose and no one would be fool enough to bet against me. Ufur, needless to say, would not allow it to be so. And he was right.’

‘Ufur?’ Fitz was fascinated by the change in her as she spoke of what she patently loved.

‘Yes, my tutor. He was himself a notable horseman. They hated him to ride at the Dongri, too. For no one could touch him, even at the last. And he was near seventy years old by then.’

‘He sounds a very paragon,’ Fitz commented, smiling.

‘Oh, past price!’

Her eyes clouded and the distress in her face smote Fitz to the heart.

‘You miss him very much.’

She nodded, her trembling underlip gripped between her teeth.

‘Well, if we cannot offer you such a paragon, I’ll wager Chid would come a close second. He does not ride his own racehorses, naturally, but even his peers acknowledge him an undisputed virtuoso in the saddle.’

This observation had the effect of wiping the woe from her countenance. She stiffened alarmingly.

‘Indeed?’

Perhaps fortunately, they were at this point interrupted by Count Leopold and Lord Buckfastleigh, who were in attendance upon his lady wife, sitting sedately in an open carriage with a companion.

‘Ah, the lovely Miss Winsford,’ shouted his lordship, and pointed an accusing finger at Fitzwarren. ‘Might have known we’d find you monopolising her, Fitz, you dog.’ He bowed, tipping his hat to the lady. ‘And which one of them are you, if I might be pardoned the liberty?’

Persephone accorded this sally the barest modicum of a smile.

‘This is Miss Persephone, Buck. Pray allow me to present Buckfastleigh to you, Miss Winsford. And this—’

‘No, no, already I have had the pleasure,’ Leopold said in a tone of reverence. ‘Though I dare not hope a place to hold in the memory of such incomparable beauty.’

This time Persephone did not even smile, casting him instead a glance of scarcely veiled contempt.

‘I should warn you, Leopold,’ put in Fitz, with an irresistibly quivering lip, ‘that Miss Persephone has no taste for gallantry. If you wish to win her esteem, you must talk of horses.’

‘Horses? But the horses I care nothing about.’

‘I'll talk to her of horses,’ said Buckfastleigh. ‘Give place there, Fitz, and don’t be a dog in the manger.’

‘For shame, Buck! And you a happily married man,’ teased Fitz. But he allowed himself to be ousted from Persephone’s side and trotted ahead to see what had become of Penelope and the baron.

Buckfastleigh and Leopold, receiving only monosyllabic replies to their inane attempts to excite Persephone’s interest, exchanged glances of mutual understanding and cast about among the fashionables present for urgent relief.

‘Ah!’ cried Leopold, spying Lord Goole. ‘There someone is who will be happy to converse on horseflesh. Frederick, mein freund!’

Goole turned his hawk-like countenance, and, seeing the count’s wave, rode over. Adroitly, Buckfastleigh and Leopold performed rapid introductions, extricated themselves with aplomb and cantered after Penelope, now some way ahead, leaving their victims equally hostile at this high-handed manipulation.

Then Goole’s eye fell upon Persephone’s horse.

‘Thunder and turf, you are riding one of Rossendale’s ugly customers!’ He cast a knowing eye over her competent hands. ‘You can hold him, too. Egad, ma’am, you are a capital horsewoman, then.’

His blunt surprise appealed to Persephone far more than flattery would have done. She relaxed, smiling.

‘Thank you. You know something of cattle, I take it.’

‘I know enough to beg you to abandon Rossendale’s brutes,’ he said with a bark of laughter. ‘Oh, you can clearly handle them. But they are unworthy of you, ma’am. You deserve better.’

Persephone laughed. ‘I don’t know that. My cousin, I will admit, is a poor judge of a horse. Though he has one superb team. Bays. Light-mouthed, easy goers, all of them, and so fast!’

Goole gave a short laugh. ‘You need not applaud your cousin on their account, Miss Winsford. They are out of Chid’s stables.’

Her reaction astonished him.

‘They were Lord Chiddingly’s horses? They would be. Devil take the man!’

‘You don’t like him,’ Goole said. His brow lowered, and the impression of some bird of prey became pronounced. ‘No more do I. But there is no denying that he has an eye for a horse unequalled in these times. Except for Tattersall, of course.’

Persephone forgot about the baron. Here was a mine of information. She had naturally heard of Richard Tattersall, the chief and most respected of the horse dealers, whose yard was not only a fashionable haunt, but who had provided the Jockey Club with its present premises where the gentlemen members could place their bets and settle their debts in comfort.

She pelted Goole with questions, learning where and when the principal race meetings were held, and having a number of turf notables pointed out to her. She wondered why none of these gentlemen approached to converse with Goole, such an habitué of the turf as he appeared to be, never dreaming that Sir Charles Bunbury, having noted her incomparable seat, was regretting that Goole’s unwelcome presence precluded his effecting an introduction.

Further along the Rotten Row, another pair of eyes glanced back and observed with austere disapproval the apparent easy intimacy of Miss Persephone Winsford with Lord Goole.

‘Upon my soul, Chid,’ exclaimed Fitz, noting this surreptitious examination and the subsequent drawing down of the corners of Lord Chiddingly’s mouth. ‘What the devil ails you? At least the fellow has something in common with the poor girl.’

‘He cannot add to her consequence.’

‘Gammon. You only say so because he has offended on the turf. No one else cares a straw.’

‘Well, if she wants to be accepted by the horsemen who matter, she would do well to be more careful of her company.’

‘Why do you not tell her so?’

Chiddingly shrugged. ‘It has nothing to do with me.’

‘As you were at pains to demonstrate,’ Fitz commented, adding on a note of satisfaction, ‘Not that it did you much good. Could you not hold your own against Leopold and Buck, my poor Chid?’

‘I wish you will have done,’ snapped his friend.

Fitz grinned. ‘Do you? Now why are you so ready to be at outs with me? I believe it is Miss Persephone’s fault, after all. She put you out of temper at the outset, and no amount of Pen’s charm has succeeded in mending it.’

‘Oh, be quiet! You were well enough entertained, I dare say.’

‘Surprisingly well, as it happens,’ Fitz said, a crease forming between his brows. ‘She is an odd sort of a girl, it is true. But there is far more to her than you would at first suppose. And a vulnerability that is positively touching.’

There was a short silence.

Chiddingly broke it, his voice harsh. ‘Do you mean to prose on forever about the Winsford twins, or is it too much to ask you to give your attention to a different matter altogether?’

Fitz’s unusually serious expression was dispelled by one of his twinkling looks. ‘I am all attention, my oh, so amiable friend.’

‘I am trying out the paces of my new stallion the day after tomorrow,’ Chiddingly told him, choosing to ignore this gambit. ‘Do you care to come and watch?’

‘What, the wonder horse? You perceive me positively agog, dear boy.’ He paused as a thought struck him. ‘Unless you mean to hoist me from my bed at some damnably unseasonable hour?’

‘You must expect to rise early for a try-out. I mean to use Epsom, and I dare not attempt the issue later than six. You know what these devilish touts are. One word and I may kiss goodbye to all my expectations.’

There was every need for caution in such a case, Fitz was aware. If Chid hoped to make a killing on the horse’s first appearance—given that he proved to be of championship calibre—no hint of his prowess must leak out. Knowing that the matter was of great moment to his friend, Fitz kindly forbore to tease him further.

‘Very well. Epsom, you say? Well, then, I shall meet you at the Cock at half-past five of the clock. None of our friends is likely to be found at such an unfashionable inn at that hour.’

Chiddingly agreed to it, falling in with this arrangement.

He then moved to hail an acquaintance, unaware that Lord Goole and Persephone Winsford had closed up so much of the distance between them as to be in a position to overhear.

***

 

‘I am determined to go, if only I can find someone to show me the way,’ Persephone said with resolution.

Penelope stood frowning before the pier-glass, trying out the effect of a ravishing new hat of white beaver with an enormous brim that had just been delivered by an exclusive milliner.

‘I am not so certain this white is truly becoming.’ She glanced briefly at her sister, restlessly pacing the floor as usual. ‘Why do you not simply ask Chiddingly if you may go?’

Persephone halted. ‘I would not ask anything of that hateful man.’

‘It is his horse, after all.’

‘Yes, and everyone is talking of it, convinced that it is something special. At least, so Goole informs me.’

Her twin, apparently preoccupied with her search for the right provocative tilt to her hat, spoke absently. ‘Well, if you don’t care to ask Chiddingly, you may try Fitz.’

Persephone bit a pensive lip. ‘It is an idea. He is an excessively good-natured man; far more the gentleman than his odious friend.’

Her sister agreed to this, her tone a trifle distant.

‘Though I dare say he would refuse if he thought Chiddingly might not like it,’ Penelope added. ‘He seems overly fond of promoting the man’s aims and objects.’

Catching the acid note in her twin’s voice, Persephone looked at her closely.

‘What’s this, Pen? Are you jealous because Fitz took pains to entertain me? I assure you I have no designs upon him.’

‘Dear me, Seph, how you do take one up,’ exclaimed Penelope, shifting the hat about with agitated fingers. ‘Why in the world should you think I care for that?’

‘Because I have seen how your eyes light up whenever he comes near. And you are blushing.’

‘I wish you will not be so absurd. Drat this thing!’ Penelope snatched the hat from her head and threw it aside. ‘I made a mistake ever to suppose I could wear white with these yellow curls. I shall have to take it back.’

Persephone watched her sister’s petulant action without further comment.

‘I dare say you are right, in any event,’ she said, reverting to the original subject of her discourse. ‘It is more than likely that your Fitz will not take me. It would be unfair to ask it of him. I shall have to think of something else.’

She moved to her sister, who was plucking at the disarranged coils of her hair, crimping them back into shape. Putting an arm about her, she smiled at their joint reflection in the mirror.

‘Take the hat back, dearest. It is perfectly insipid.’ She reached for the offending white beaver and placed it on her own head. ‘You see?’

The unusually sober expression in Penelope’s face gave way to her sunny smile. ‘Hideous! I must have been mad.’

An hour later, Penelope was stepping out of the milliner’s door in Bond Street, a perfectly charming feathered hat of dark beaver set at a rakish angle upon her elaborate coiffure, when she came face to face with Digby Norton-Fitzwarren himself, as point-device as ever.

A look of sparkling pleasure leapt into Penelope’s eyes. Then, remembering her sister’s words, the light quickly died again and she gave him an uncharacteristically prim nod.

‘Miss—Penelope?’ Fitz asked, doffing his own high-brimmed hat. He peered somewhat anxiously at her unresponsive features. ‘It is you, is it not, Pen?’

His intimate use of the short form disarmed her and she smiled, unable to prevent the twinkle from creeping into her eyes.

‘Yes, Fitz, it is I. Don’t you know one has positively to drag Seph to visit a milliner?’

‘So I should imagine,’ he responded, relaxing. Then he frowned. ‘You are not alone, I trust? Where is your maid?’

‘No, no, Mama is with me. She will be here presently. I stepped out merely to go to the perfumiers across the road.’

‘Pray allow me to escort you,’ Fitz said, promptly offering his arm.

Penelope hung back. ‘But you are occupied. I must not keep you.’

‘Gammon. My whole desire is to visit the perfumiers. I have just recollected that I am in need of some—er—jessamine drops.’

Penelope broke into her trilling laugh. ‘To sprinkle upon your hands? For shame, Fitz. Am I to think you a very fop?’

He gazed with apparent solemnity upon her, but the quizzing gleam was in his eye. ‘Madam, you mock me!’

‘Sir, you began it!’

He laughed. ‘Come, that is better. I had begun to think I had offended beyond forgiveness.’

‘I—I don’t know what you mean,’ Penelope stammered, blushing.

He took hold of her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. ‘I did offend you. That day at the docks.’

‘Not at all. I—I—’

‘Dear Pen,’ he interrupted, ‘we began as such friends. I have so much missed that easy, confiding air. May we not begin again?’

Penelope stared into his smiling eyes, aware of a fluttering in her breast. She had liked him on first acquaintance. Very much. Then he had appeared to doubt her integrity. She was a little afraid still to trust, but this was an olive branch. If she refused it he might withdraw altogether. And that she could not bear.

Her smile was a trifle tremulous. ‘I think there is something melancholy in second beginnings. As if the first had gone awry. Let us say we are still friends.’

‘Indeed we are.’ He pressed her hand slightly before releasing it. His eye gleamed again. ‘And in a spirit of true friendship, I will offer to show you far more entertaining marts than these.’

‘But I thought Bond Street was the most fashionable place to shop.’

‘So it is. But on the dull side, don’t you agree? Do come with me. Tomorrow?’

‘But where?’

‘Let that be my secret. I will call for you at eleven. And if you are thinking of the proprieties, we will invite your mama to go with us if my groom is not chaperon enough.’

But Penelope was not at all in favour of her mama’s presence ruining what promised to be a delightful tête-á-tête.

‘Fiddle. I am not so missish. And if anyone should remark upon it, we will tell them that the customs obtaining in Bombay are markedly different.’

‘Indian manners, Miss Winsford?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed, twinkling.

When Mrs Winsford presently came down and Fitz took his leave, she went off with her cheeks in a glow and her head in the clouds.

***

 

Persephone, meanwhile, in pursuit of her determination to see Lord Chiddingly’s horse, had bethought her of the one person whom she could ask about Epsom without further betraying the baron. For, hate him though she might, she could not reconcile it with her conscience to speak of this secret trial to anyone who might use the knowledge for some unscrupulous purpose.

She was not so lost to all sense of propriety as to think she might with impunity visit a man at his home. Besides, she had no idea where Lord Goole lived. She wrote a note, therefore, requesting him to visit her, and directed one of the footmen to deliver it.

His lordship, caught on his way to conduct some business of his own, arrived at the Winsfords’ house in Hanover Square in no very amiable mood. He could not imagine what Persephone wanted of him, having no illusions about his conspicuous lack of attraction. When she bluntly asked him to direct her how to get to Epsom, his jaw dropped.

‘You are not thinking of crashing this trial?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Persephone said, bridling. ‘Why should I not? You said yourself the horse must be worth seeing.’

‘I know, but—’ He stopped, frowning in suspicion. ‘Why come to me? I had supposed you to be upon good enough terms with Chid, or even Fitz, to permit of your securing an invitation.’

‘You supposed wrong. I did not ask you here to question my actions, but to provide me with information. If you decline to do so, it is all the same to me.’

‘Egad, ma’am, if this is your manner of obtaining favours—’

With a strong effort Persephone controlled her rising temper. ‘Will you have the goodness, sir, to help me, or will you not?’

‘I will not,’ snapped Goole, who had his own reasons for not encouraging this interest.

‘Obliging of you. Obviously it is useless to request you to escort me.’

‘Quite useless. If you can afford the loss of reputation, ma’am, I certainly cannot.’

Persephone stared at him in surprise, her anger forgotten. ‘What can you mean?’

‘Never mind,’ he said hastily. ‘Let me assure you, you had as well ask Laetitia Smith to escort you as myself.’

‘Laetitia Smith? Who in the world might she be?’

‘She is—well, a—a friend of Sir John Lade. You will recall I spoke of him yesterday.’

‘Oh yes, the notable whip.’ The grey eyes were intent suddenly. ‘Is he not a racing man?’

‘Among other things,’ Goole said on a dry note. For Sir John Lade’s vulgarities and the reckless nature of his gambling propensities had led the beau monde to regard him with disgust.

‘It makes no matter,’ Persephone said quickly. ‘I dare say it will be better for me to remain here, after all.’

She had an idea, and was now as eager to get rid of Lord Goole as she had been to see him, so that she might put it into execution. He was glad enough to go, and she waited only until the front door shut behind him before running upstairs to fetch a hat, gloves and an outdoor garment. Warmed by a thick spencer over an old habit, she walked round to the mews where Rossendale stabled his horses, reflecting that no one would look twice at her in such a garb.

While a groom saddled the big bay for her, she engaged him in conversation, taking the precaution of sliding a gold coin from her pocket and playing it ostentatiously between her gloved fingers. She had not lived in India, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, without learning the power of money.

‘Do you know of Sir John Lade?’

‘Aye, miss, that I do,’ the groom averred, licking his lips as he eyed the flashing coin.

‘And you are familiar with his doxy, too, I dare say?’ suggested Persephone, betraying her understanding of Goole’s veiled conversation.

The groom might have become more used to the peculiar conduct of his master’s cousin, but this patently shocked him. He stared, mouth agape.

‘Come, come,’ Persephone said, digging her hand into her pocket and bringing out a second gold piece.

The groom’s eyes glistened. ‘I know her, miss, if it was that there Letty Smith you was meaning. Smart little house he give her, up Bloomsbury way.’

‘Good. I wish you to guide me there. But say nothing of this to anyone, do you hear?’

The groom nodded his agreement. ‘Mum as an oyster, miss.’ Who was he to quibble when the lady was so open-handed?

Laetitia Smith, however, when informed of the identity of her unconventional visitor, was moved to bluntness.

‘Plaguy odd it is in you, ma’am, and I don’t know what people might say, but I’m very happy to meet you.’

Persephone took the outstretched hand and shook it warmly. ‘Thank you. I don’t know why you should be, however.’

‘Ha! Miss Winsford, I myself am accounted something of an equestrienne. I am naturally agog since all the world is talking of your skills.’

‘The devil it is. I had no idea of it. Word spreads fast in London, I perceive.’

‘Don’t it, ma’am? And all the faster when the word is blameful.’

Persephone gave a scornful laugh. ‘I don’t fear critics.’

‘Well, you should, if you’ll pardon the liberty, ma’am,’ said Miss Smith with feeling. ‘Lord knows I’ve had a bellyful—I mean, I’ve had my share of them,’ she corrected herself.

‘Don’t put yourself about,’ Persephone soothed. ‘No one knows I am here. Besides, we are accustomed to treat very differently those ladies less fortunately circumstanced than ourselves. In Bombay, if you could but come by a ring, you would very soon be accepted.’ Her gurgling laugh escaped her. ‘And bored to death, too. I’ll wager you relish doing the pretty as little as I.’

Laetitia laughed. A great, raucous belly-laugh that indisputably stamped her origins upon her. Persephone had a fleeting vision of her aunt Rossendale’s face, if she could see her now, and hid a mischievous smile.

‘Right you are, ma’am. More at home in the saddle than a drawing-room. Though, for my part, I’ll take the ribbons for preference any day.’

‘I, too, am partial to driving,’ Persephone agreed, ‘but as yet I have not set up a stable and my cousin Rossendale has only one team of decent cattle for the purpose.’

For a few moments the two ladies fell deep into conversation and discovered in each other the same fanatical devotion to horseflesh. Formality went by the board, and within a very short time they were addressing each other by name, like old friends. They sat together in Miss Smith’s cosy parlour, its inelegant and old-fashioned chairs and sofas built more for comfort than for show. Like the hostess herself.

Laetitia Smith was a handsome woman, who affected a mannish diction and whose career had spanned dubious connection with a highwayman and a number of other unsavoury characters before she had fallen in with Sir John Lade, and she was fully alive to the dangers for Persephone in association with a woman of her class.

‘Well, Seph, I’m bound to say I’d give a pony to see you with even a pair in hand,’ she said at length, ‘but I don’t for the life of me see how it can be managed, situated as we are.’

This was Persephone’s cue. ‘Letty, I have now to confess my whole reason for coming to see you.’

‘Ah, thought we should come to it. Tell me it all.’

Persephone complied and found Letty to be as keen as she was herself.

‘I heard Chid had something under his belt. So he means to try at Epsom. Lay my life Derby has no notion of it. He’s a house there, you know. The Oaks. You might say Epsom was his own ground, for he and Bunbury between them established several races there.’

‘You will not tell him?’

‘Lord, no, shouldn’t dream of it,’ Letty said. ‘I won’t even tell Johnny what I see, for I can’t abide cheats. Won’t be able to bet myself, of course, and nor will you.’

‘Can’t abide cheats?’ echoed Persephone unguardedly.

Letty’s cheeks coloured. ‘You need not think my way of life means I’ve no honour, Miss Winsford. I’ll have you know there’s some codes as even a thief won’t break.’

Persephone begged her pardon. ‘I could not imagine anyone who cares so much for horses behaving with dishonour.’

Mollified, Letty calmed down and graciously forgave her.

‘And will you tell me how to get to Epsom?’

‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll drive down with you. Won’t meet a soul so early. At least no one you know, which is all that signifies.’

Letty was as good as her word. When Persephone crept out into the cold at half-past four the following morning, wrapped up in Lord Rossendale’s greatcoat, with a fur-lined bonnet and muff to keep out the frosty night air, she found Miss Smith walking her horses. Only they were found to belong to her lover.

‘Borrowed John’s greys,’ she said, by way of greeting, gesturing at the team harnessed to her carriage. It was a light affair with a hood, built for speed, Letty told her. ‘A curricle, they call it. It is well sprung and therefore good for long journeys. I thought we’d make better time in it.’

It was still dark and the way only dimly visible by the light of the flambeaux in the street and the lanterns bobbing on the shafts, so that, although Persephone was itching to drive, her companion wisely forbore to test her skill just yet.

‘Shan’t put you at such a disadvantage,’ Letty declared handsomely. But once clear of the town where the road lay only straight ahead and with the grey light of dawn just beginning to lighten the sky, she handed over the reins with a single adjuration. ‘Don’t spring ’em!’

‘Not in this light,’ Persephone agreed.

Letty watched with interested eyes her competent handling of the ribbons and said she would dearly love to engage in a race with someone so obviously accomplished. Persephone enjoyed herself very much, and was quite sorry when Letty announced them to be approaching Epsom and suggested she should take over since she knew the route and Persephone did not. It was well she did so, for, their mission being secret, they had to approach the Downs by a circuitous route, conceal the carriage with the groom in charge in some trees hard by the course, and make their way on foot to a vantage-point from where Letty said they might expect to see without being seen.

They had arrived in good time and had some while to wait. Persephone grew chilled and hungry, and began to fret, convinced that six o’clock had come and gone, or else that they had arrived too late and missed the trial. Or even that Chiddingly had somehow got word of her intended exploit and cancelled just to spite her.

Letty, producing a fob watch from one capacious pocket of the thick travelling cloak she wore, announced that the hour wanted but ten minutes to six. Persephone cursed and was just resigning herself to a further uncomfortable wait, when the sound of flying hoofs became audible across the green of the Downs.

Both ladies straightened up, cold and hunger alike forgotten, and craned their necks, straining to see in the new light of dawn with its hint of brightness that promised a sunny day.

In the distance they saw it, pointing excitedly. A single horse, his rider bent so low in the saddle as to be almost invisible, his head and neck well up, the distinctive features becoming every instant clearer as he covered the ground in a matter of seconds.

Then he was almost upon them. A black stallion moving like a thunderbolt, strong legs a blur as he seemed literally to fly past at heart-stopping speed.

Persephone watched him out of sight, unaware that she was holding her breath.

‘Well!’ burst from Letty behind her. ‘I am lost for words. Did you ever see the like?’

Persephone shook her head dumbly, her eyes still on the diminishing figure in the distance.

Letty was still a-bubble. ‘With Siegfried up, too! I’ll warrant Tidmarsh is in high croak. How I will keep my tongue between my teeth I don’t know.’

‘A horse in a million,’ breathed Persephone.

In a daze, she followed the still exclamatory Letty towards the place where they had left the curricle.

Suddenly Letty stopped in mid-sentence, seizing Persephone’s arm in a vice-like grip.

‘What in the world—?’

‘Hush!’ hissed her new friend. She pointed away from the trees. ‘See there! Some others have had the same notion.’

Persephone followed her pointing finger to where three men stood in close conversation. Even at this distance she could make out one set of hawkish features.

‘It is Goole!’ So this was why he had refused to help her.

‘No, is it indeed?’ Letty peered. ‘A plague on it, I can’t see! Who is that with him?’

‘I don’t know, but it is certainly Lord Goole. One is dressed like a groom. The other is a short gentleman, extremely stout.’

‘Not Billy Bolsover?’ Letty looked as closely as she dared. ‘I believe you are right. He certainly has the figure of old Billy. Well, I wouldn’t have believed it! Depend upon it, he has come like us, out of curiosity. Goole, however, is another matter.’

‘We had better go before they see us,’ Persephone said, and they moved quickly and quietly into the trees, where, safely concealed, they watched the men until they began to move off.

The third had been largely concealed by Bolsover’s bulk, but as the group broke up and shifted, and his face turned momentarily in their direction, Persephone noted a livid white scar running from the man’s forehead, across his face to the corner of his mouth. It gave him a sinister look and Persephone shivered. As he walked away behind the gentlemen, she saw that he had a pronounced limp. She was just about to ask Letty about him when she found her friend had already moved towards the carriage and was calling to her to hurry.

They were soon bowling back along the way they had come. ‘For ten to one we will run smack into Chid if we take the usual route.’ As she drove, Letty gave vent to her disgust at the presence on the ground of Lord Goole. ‘He means mischief, I’ll be bound. That plaguy man is not to be trusted.’

‘What makes you say so?’ Persephone demanded.

‘He’s a cheat, that’s what.’

‘A cheat?’

‘I dare say you might name any foul trick a devil might play on the turf to win his bets, and you will find Goole has done it,’ Letty declared. ‘Why, Charles had him thrown out of the Jockey Club, and a good thing, too.’

When once she had heard how Goole had paid off jockeys to lose races, had caused his own riders to trip their fellows, had in a word used every means in his power to nobble the opposition in order to avoid losses, Persephone heartily agreed with her.

But, with the excitement over, the ladies found that the pangs of hunger began to be too insistent to be ignored.

‘I wish I had thought to bring a basket,’ Letty said in a fretful tone. ‘I am like to expire.’

‘I am very hungry, too,’ Persephone confessed, ‘but it was worth it.’

This did not satisfy Letty, however. ‘Now what is to be done, Seph? For let you go all the way back to London empty-bellied I won’t. Yet we can’t eat in a public inn. Anyone might see us.’

‘Do not concern yourself over me, Letty, I beg you.’

‘I have it,’ exclaimed her companion, unheeding. ‘We will go to the Oaks and knock up Lizzie Farren. She will be glad to give us breakfast.’

Nothing Persephone could say would move her from this plan. From what she said it was to be inferred that Elizabeth Farren, an actress of some note, had taken up residence at the Oaks under the Earl of Derby’s protection, his wife having left him for Lord Dorset some time previously. In vain did Persephone try tactfully to convey to her friend the impropriety of her breakfasting with two notorious gentlemen’s mistresses, even in private. Letty was in fine fettle, so pleased with her ready solution to the dilemma that Persephone felt it would be churlish to persist in refusal.

On arrival at Lord Derby’s house, the ladies were ushered into a cosy breakfast parlour where Elizabeth Farren soon joined them.

‘Lord a’ mercy, Letty, what are you about?’ she scolded on discovering the identity of her visitor. ‘Sir Charles in the house and all! What if he were to come down?’

‘Plague take it, Lizzie, we are starving! You may lock the door if you choose.’

But this Miss Farren would not take it upon herself to do, for fear of her Ned coming down. ‘Not that it is likely at this hour, I admit. But he would be bound to suppose that I was in here with some man and break the door down. He is quite vilely jealous.’

Persephone, having abandoned her scruples, was highly amused by this disclosure and demanded to know more. Nothing loath, Miss Farren launched into a graphic description of Lord Derby’s marital difficulties, and was only brought to desist upon the arrival of a dish of coddled eggs, fresh baked bread and a pot of steaming chocolate. The two guests fell upon the meal with voracious appetites and no early risers entered to mar their enjoyment of it.

As ill-luck would have it, however, just as Miss Farren was escorting them across to the front door, Sir Charles Bunbury came yawning down the stairs. He glanced idly at the ladies and his eyes widened.

‘Good God!’ He stared amazed at Persephone.

‘Oh, the devil,’ she swore, biting her lip on a rueful grin. ‘How do you do, Sir Charles? We have not met, but you were pointed out to me the other day.’

He came down the stairs and crossed the hall, holding out his hand. ‘So you are Miss Winsford. What a piece of luck. I had been wanting to meet you excessively. Such a notable horsewoman.’

Persephone shook his hand and thanked him.

‘Coming from you, sir, I gather that is high praise.’

‘A notable whip, Charles, too, as I live,’ Letty put in. ‘I am on my mettle, I can tell you.’

‘Well, well,’ laughed Bunbury. ‘If only we allowed females to join the Jockey Club, ma’am, I should certainly support your membership.’

Lizzie Farren, quite scandalised by the easy camaraderie they were all adopting, almost thrust Persephone out of the house.

‘Have no fear, Miss Winsford,’ she whispered. ‘He will not mention your having been here. I shall see to that. There are things he would much dislike to have known, you know, so I have the means to compel his silence.’

But Sir Charles, following them out of the house, had overheard this speech and was chuckling. ‘No need to compel me, Lizzie. I should not dream of putting such a tale about. I have too much respect for Miss Winsford.’

Persephone could only thank him. She turned to follow Letty to the curricle which, in the charge of a groom, awaited them at the bottom of the steps, and stopped short, almost cannoning into Letty who was standing stock still, staring aghast at a second vehicle drawn up beside it.

Standing next to it, his greatcoat hanging negligently open, his hat on his head and his whip in his hand, clearly having just alighted, was Lord Chiddingly, his outrage patent.