Chapter One

      Lady Harriet Inskip tilted back her head and breathed in deeply. She could still smell soot, but at least this early in the day it wasn’t completely blotting out the more wholesome odours of dew-damp grass and leather and horse. It didn’t matter that it was still barely light enough to see the trees and flowers, or the curve of the Serpentine. She hadn’t come here to admire the decorous landscape, after all.

      She leaned forward and patted her horse’s neck.

      ‘Come on, Shadow, let’s have a good gallop, shall we? While there’s nobody to tell us we can’t.’

      Shadow snorted and pawed at the gravel path to indicate she was just as eager for exercise as her mistress. And then, with just the slightest tap of Harriet’s heel against Shadow’s flank, they were off.

      For a few glorious minutes they flew through the dappled dawn, both revelling in Shadow’s power and vitality. For those few minutes Harriet was free. Free as any wild creature that lived purely by instinct. Unhindered by the fetters with which society restricted the movements of young ladies.

      But then her peaceful communion with nature was shattered by a sound that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and Shadow to falter mid-stride. It was the neigh of another horse. From beyond a stand of chestnut trees. A neigh so high pitched in outrage, it was almost a scream.

      Harriet slowed Shadow to a canter. ‘Easy, girl,’ she murmured as her mount twitched her ears and rolled her eyes. But Shadow kept fidgeting nervously. And Harriet could hardly blame her when she reared up at the precise moment a black stallion burst from the cover of the trees as though it had been shot from a cannon.

      At first she thought the black horse was a riderless runaway. But as it came closer, she could see a dark shape huddled on its back and a pair of legs flailing along its flanks.

      ‘What an idiot,’ she muttered to herself. For the man clinging to the stallion had not put a saddle on it. Perhaps there hadn’t been time. Perhaps he was attempting to steal the magnificent, and no doubt very expensive, animal. The horse certainly looked as if it wanted nothing more than to dislodge the impertinent human who’d had the temerity to ride him without following the proper conventions first. The stallion had just galloped through the trees as if it had been an attempt to scrape the interloper from his back, to judge from the way he began to buck and kick the moment he got out into the open.

      ‘The idiot,’ said Harriet again, this time a bit louder, as she saw that the runaway stallion was now heading straight for the Cumberland Gate. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads at this time of day, but if that horse, and the idiot on board, got out into the streets, who knew what damage they might inflict on innocent passers-by?

      ‘Come on, Shadow,’ she said, tapping her mare on the flank with her riding crop. ‘We’re going to have to head off those two before they get into real trouble.’ Shadow didn’t need much prompting. She loved racing. However, rather than attempt to pull alongside the snorting, furious stallion, Harriet guided Shadow into a course that would take them across his current path. For one thing, even if they could catch up with the runaway horse, any attempt to snatch at the reins to try to bring him to a halt was bound to end in disaster. Though Harriet took pride in her own skills in the saddle, she couldn’t imagine being able to lean over far enough to grab the reins without being unseated. Not whilst mounted side-saddle as she was. In fact, only a trained acrobat would be able to accomplish such a feat with any degree of confidence.

      For another thing, she knew that no horse would run directly into another, not unless it was completely maddened with terror. And the black stallion, though furious, did not look to be in that state.

      Just as she’d hoped, after only a few yards, the stallion did indeed notice their approach and veered off to the left.

      It was just a shame for its rider that it did so rather abruptly, because the man, who’d clung on through all the stallion’s attempts to dislodge him thus far, shot over its shoulder and landed with a sickening thump on the grass.

      Harriet briefly wondered whether she ought to go to the rider’s aid. But the man was lying crumpled like a bundle of washing, so there probably wasn’t much she could do for him. She could, however, prevent the magnificent stallion from injuring itself or others, if she could only prevent it from reaching the Gate. To that end, she repeated her manoeuvre, pulling sharply to the left as though about to cut across the stallion’s path. Once again, the stallion took evasive action. What was more, since it wasn’t anywhere near as angry now that it had unseated its hapless rider, it didn’t appear to feel the need