AUTHOR’S NOTE

      It was in the eighteenth century that the highwayman became the greatest menace so that no main road was safe for a traveller.

      But he was also thought to be a romantic.

      In actual fact, however, few of them were anything but the very worst type of criminal, who would murder or torture their victims.

      There were, as I have told in this novel, a few wellborn highwaymen, who came from much respected families and had been educated at public schools.

      William Parsons was a Baronet’s son, who was educated at Eton and was commissioned in the Royal Navy.

      Simon Clarke was a Baronet in his own right but became a highwayman.

      They behaved much better than Dick Turpin, the most romanticised of all highwaymen, who was both brutal and unscrupulous.

      Some highwaymen escaped the gallows, but the majority were hanged at Tyburn, which, until the end of the eighteenth century, was the most uncivilised sight. Tyburn was where Marble Arch is now situated and close to Hyde Park.

      There would be thousands in the crowd assembled to witness the hangings with the gentry sitting in the expensive seats, which were close to the gallows.

      The mob, who could not afford the closest view, fought fiercely for the best places.

      Spectators often had their limbs broken and some were even killed in the crush.

      Apart from this, Tyburn was a well known fairground with sideshows and street vendors offering their wares.

      In 1789 the gallows were moved from Tyburn to the courtyard of the Old Bailey.

      But a hanging was still open to the public and matters were not very much improved.

      CHAPTER ONE ~ 1817

      Vanda rode through the woods thinking that it was the loveliest day they had had for a long time.

      There were primroses and violets peeping through their leaves under the trees and the birds were singing sweetly.

      She always enjoyed being able to ride in the great Park that encircled Wyn Hall.

      Mr. Rushman had been the manager of the estate during the War with the French.

      He had given her permission to go there whenever she liked as he knew how much she enjoyed every moment that she was on a horse.

      The old Earl of Wynstock was bedridden and his son was fighting against Napoleon in the Peninsula.

      “It would be very nice to see someone young about the place,” Mr. Rushman had said, “and there will be no need for you to take a groom with you.”

      That to Vanda was more important than anything.

      Her father had insisted that she was accompanied at all times when she rode elsewhere from her home.

      They lived on the border of Wyn Park at the end of the village in the pretty and charming Manor House.

      She had really only to cross the road under the trees to be, as she told herself, totally free.

      She was thinking that it would be very frustrating now that the War was over and, when the Earl did return, she could no longer use his extensive grounds as if they were her own.

      The young Earl, whom she used to play with as a child, had come into the title just three years ago.

      He had distinguished himself at the Battle of Waterloo and received the medal for gallantry. He had then joined the Duke of Wellington’s staff in Paris to serve him in the Army of Occupation of France.

      Soldiers were being demobilised and thousands began to return to England.

      There was no sign, however, of the Earl.

      ‘Perhaps he will never come back,’ Vanda thought to herself happily.

      She rode on towards the centre of the wood where she knew no one but herself ever went.

      There, closely surrounded by trees, were the remains of an ancient Chapel.

      It had once been used by a monk, who retired from the world to minister to the countryside birds and wild animals.

      He was a very Holy man and there were many sorts of legends in the County of the animals he had healed.

      Foxes, which had been caught in a trap, would have died had he not placed his hands on them. Cats and dogs that were injured and birds with a broken wing or leg were taken to him usually by children.

      He prayed over them and gave them his healing touch.

      They left, so the legends said, stronger and healthier than they had ever been before.

      The tiny Chapel he had built for himself had fallen into disrepair and the villagers believed he haunted the wood and were afraid to go there by day or at night time.

      “How can you be afraid,” Vanda asked one old woman, “of someone who was so Holy and who loved the animals and birds so much?”

      “He were Holy right enough,” she answered, “but it be creepy-like a-seein’ he’s dead.”

      No one in the village would ever put a single foot inside Monk’s Wood, however often they went in the other woods.

      Vanda knew only too well that some of the boys went there to poach And she thought personally that they did very little harm.

      With the Earl and his gamekeepers now away at the War, there was no one to shoot the pheasants and pigeons.

      Nor for that matter the magpies and jays as well, which the gamekeepers thought of as vermin.

      For Vanda the woods were therefore very much more enjoyable. She loved being alone so that no one could disturb her.

      She loved listening to the buzz of the bees, the rustle of the rabbits in the undergrowth and the chattering of the red squirrels searching for nuts.

      Sometimes too she thought that she could hear music that came from the trees themselves.

      She tried to compose it into a music file that she could play on the piano.

      Her mother had been an exceptionally good pianist and Vanda had tried to emulate her since she was a child.

      She was thinking now that she should compose a song of spring and she was convinced that the trees were giving her inspiration.

      The wind moving through the green leaves was creating a melody that she must try to remember.

      Then suddenly she heard a strange sound.

      It interrupted her thoughts and somehow seemed alien and coarse in all the beauty around her.

      There was another sound and she drew in her horse.

      Her father was always proud that he kept exceedingly good horseflesh in his stable and the stallion that Vanda was riding was called Kingfisher and he was her favourite.

      Kingfisher responded at once to her pull on the reins and came to an abrupt standstill.

      Vanda realised that straight ahead in the very centre of the woods, where she had never seen anybody before, there were men.

      The sound she had heard was a coarse laugh.

      Now listening intently she could hear their voices and she knew immediately that they did not belong to any local men.

      The inhabitants of Little Stock, as the local village was named, spoke with a slow but distinct Wiltshire accent.

      Sometimes she laughed with her father at what they said and the way they spoke. But she thought actually that it was quite attractive.

      Whoever they might be ahead of her in the wood were talking harshly to each other.

      Their accent was quite different and there