Author’s Note

      A book called A People’s Conscience by Stratheam Gordon and T. G. B. Cock describes six typical enquiries during 1729-1837 by Select Committees of the House of Commons, from which I have taken the references in this novel. Little or nothing was done for the plight of child prostitutes and in Victorian times their condition was worse than ever.

      Paradise Row, with its centuries-old history of famous residents, was demolished in 1906.

      Vauxhall Gardens ceased to be an attraction in 1859. It was closed and the grounds that had seen so many spectacular entertainments and so many distinguished guests, was built on.

      The references to the Fire Police and the Fire Brigades of the period are all accurate, as are the descriptions of the newspapers of that time.

      Chapter One ~ 1819

      The off-side leader went lame and the Earl of Staverton swore beneath his breath. Then he pulled his horses to an abrupt standstill and his groom jumped down from the seat behind the phaeton.

      “It’ll likely be a stone, my Lord,” he said cheerfully as he ran forward. “These roads be terrible bad.”

      “Bad indeed!” the Earl replied, repressing more forceful language.

      He tied the reins to the front of the phaeton and stepped down.

      The road was in fact extremely stony and he was not surprised that one of the stones had lodged in the horse’s hoof.

      He thought perhaps he had been driving imprudently fast over such a rough surface, but he was in a hurry to get to London and away from the boredom he had endured in the house where he had been staying near St. Albans for a mill between two well-known pugilists.

      It had been an excellent fight and the Earl had backed the winner for a considerable sum of money. But both the company of his host and the food provided had been one long yawn from start to finish.

      Admittedly the Earl was not easily amused and he found a great many things and a large number of people to be what he termed ‘a dead bore’.

      It was a pleasant spring morning. Wild flowers were to be seen in plenty amongst the grasses by the road and there were primroses in the hedgerows and bluebells making an azure carpet under the trees in the woods.

      The Earl watched as his groom carefully prised out the sharp stone that had lodged in the hoof so as not to loosen the shoe.

      He looked at his team with some pleasure. Jet black and perfectly matched, they were, he knew, the most outstanding horseflesh to be seen in the Four-In-Hand Club, which he was confident that no other member was able to equal.

      To stretch his legs he walked through the grasses, regardless of the fact that the pollen marked his shining Hessians, which had been polished with champagne as originally decreed by Beau Brummell.

      On one side of him there was a brick wall, higher than was usual, enclosing the Park of some important aristocrat.

      The bricks, narrow and red, had mellowed with time and the wall was now deep pink in colour, which told the Earl, who was an expert on architecture, that it was Elizabethan.

      The spring sunlight playing on the bricks was very beautiful and he was just wishing that the wall that enclosed Staverton House in Oxfordshire was the same colour when suddenly a heavy object flew past his head missing him by inches.

      It fell with a thud at his feet and he looked down with astonishment to see that it was a leather valise not too heavy to carry but a dangerous weapon should it have struck him.

      He looked to where it had come from and saw climbing over the top of the wall a female figure.

      There was a most improper expanse of very shapely legs before the owner dropped to the ground with a lithe grace that kept her on her feet and prevented her from sprawling, as might have been expected, on her back.

      She had descended with her face to the wall and only as she turned round did she see the Earl with the valise at his feet.

      “That was an extremely dangerous thing to do,” he said coldly. “If it had hit me, I could easily have been knocked out.”

      “How was I to know that anyone would be standing by the only place where it is possible to climb the wall?” she asked.

      She walked towards him as she spoke and he saw that she carried her bonnet on her arm and her hair was gold with pretty red lights in it.

      As she looked up at him, her eyes were very large and there was something mischievous in the way they slanted just a little at the corners. Her mouth also curved, which gave her an unmistakably impish expression.

      She was not strictly beautiful, but she had, he thought, a decidedly fascinating face, quite different from that of any girl he had seen before.

      “I presume that you are running away,” the Earl remarked as casually as he could.

      “I should hardly be likely to climb the wall if I could walk out through the gate!” was the instant reply.

      She bent down, intending to retrieve her valise and then she saw the Earl’s horses.

      “Are those yours?” she asked in an awestruck tone.

      “They are,” he answered, “but the leader has collected a stone owing to your abominable roads.”

      “Not mine!” the girl retorted. “But your horses are wonderful. The most magnificent I have ever seen.”

      “I am honoured that you should think so,” the Earl said with a sarcastic twist to his lips.

      “Where are you going?”

      “To London as it happens.”

      “Then please – please take me with you. That is where I wish to go and I would like above all else to drive behind such an exceptional team.”

      She moved towards them as she spoke, forgetting the valise, which still lay on the grass at the Earl’s feet.

      “I feel it is my duty to ask you who you are running away from and why,” the Earl said.

      The girl had drawn nearer to the horses and was now standing gazing at them, her eyes shining.

      “They are superb!” she breathed. “How can you have found four such perfect matches?”

      “I asked you a question,” the Earl persisted.

      “What about?” she enquired absent-mindedly and then added,

      “I am running away from school and, unless they are to find out I have gone, we should be moving away.”

      “I do not wish to become involved in anything reprehensible,” the Earl pointed out.

      “That sounds very stuffy,” she replied scornfully, “but, if you will not take me, then Jeb the butcher will. He should be along at any time now.”

      “You have an assignation with him?”

      “No, but I have talked to him about his horses and I know he will oblige me.”

      She looked down the road as she spoke and then her eyes came back to the Earl’s face.

      “Please take me,” she begged him. “Nothing you can say or do will make me go back, so it is either you or Jeb. But I would like so much to drive with you.”

      As she spoke, the Earl’s groom straightened his back.

      “It’ll be all right now, my Lord.”

      The girl’s eyes were still on the Earl’s face.

      “Please,” she pleaded almost beneath her breath.

      “You could not be so treacherous.” she exclaimed “At the same time my reason is a really good one.”

      “I will take you on one condition,” the Earl suggested.

      “What is that?”