She caught up with him in the yard of The Rogues' Inn. In his hand he carried a squawking cockerel. He had won it by knocking it down with a cudgel and catching it before it was up. *Come away,' she pleaded. *This is cruel.'

He was embarrassed by the looks and sniggers he received from other men who had caught her words. *Stop prattling, numbskull. I'm off to the prize-fighting.'

Despondently, she wandered off.

*Eppie!' a boy hollered from beside the stables of The Rogues' Inn. Horse tackle was draped over his shoulder.

Her face kindled with recognition and surprise. Though taller, Dick Pebbleton looked the same as she remembered, his cheeks covered in freckles. He let her into the stable block. Beneath the cobweb-festooned rafters, horses stood in a row, peering over loosebox doors.

*Do you work here?' she asked.

*After I was let out of jail I went to the mops. The ostler gave me a fastening penny, so I got to be a stable lad.'

*It must be awful working for Thurstan.'

*He's been a misery of recent, that's for sure, and takes it out on us lads. Hurry Eades is trying to drive him out of business. Thurstan's had to slash his fares to compete.'

*Why isn't my horse tackled? Dick?'

Through a grimy window they spotted Thurstan swaggering across the yard towards the stables.

*Quick!' Dick whispered. *You ain't supposed to be in here.'

Together they pattered along the quarry-tiled passageway and dived into an empty stall.

A light step was heard as a woman trailed Thurstan into the stable block. *Mr du Quesne?' Eppie recognised the voice of Jenufer Shaw.

*Not now. I am busy.'

*My brother informs me that Alicia did not come home last night.'

*What has that to do with me?'

*She was with you last night, was she not? You took her to see The Provoked Husband in Malstowe?'

*Indeed, a most entertaining evening.'

*You drove back together?'

*Most certainly.'

*Why did she not return home?'

*How should I know? I bid you a good day. I have a pressing journey ahead of me.'

*It is only a step to her home.'

*She probably rose early to look around the fair.'

*Her bed has not been slept in.'

*Dick! Where is that chucklehead?'

*You are hiding something from me, Mr du Quesne, that much I know.'

*What are you implying?'

*Shortly before you called to take her to The Prince's Theatre, Alicia confided in me that she was carrying your child.'

Thurstan hustled Jenufer along the passage so that they were out of earshot of the jostling crowd in the yard. However, to Eppie and Dick, who crouched in the gloom, their voices were clearly audible.

He seemed taken aback by her words for he spoke uneasily. *She admitted this to you?'

*Now she has gone. You know where she is, I am positive.'

*All right, keep your voice low. I shall tell you the truth. We argued.' There was a lull, after which his voice sounded softer. *I told Alicia that I love another, a girl who has forsaken me. But one day we shall be reunited. I am certain of this.'

*Surely your duty is towards Alicia?'

Thurstan's voice hardened. *Alicia was afraid of the scandal that being an unattached mother would bring upon her. We discussed arrangements for her to journey immediately to London in one of my flying coaches, to seek lodgings. She was distressed, though content in the knowledge that she will have no financial difficulties since I will provide for her and the child. She thought it prudent to live under an assumed name and maintain that her husband is deceased. Because of the delicate nature of the situation she asked that her whereabouts remain undisclosed to her closest kin.'

*She said that? Went off without so much as thinking to wish Septimus and I goodbye?'

*Willingly, it is true. Now, excuse me, I must search for that nauseating stable lad.' In an attempt to give Jenufer the slip he headed into the thick of the crowd.

After they had gone, Dick turned to Eppie. *I sleep above the carriage shed, and the oddest thing is that, after Thurstan and Miss Strutt returned from the theatre, a coach never went out.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

RECKLESS RIVALS.

Martha was reluctant to return home early, especially in Samuel's bone-shaking sheep cart. Reticent about mentioning it, not wishing to spoil the day, she was experiencing the pangs of early labour. She had simply told the others that the cramps in her legs were worsening.

Hearing the worrying news about Alicia and seeing the caged animals had crushed Eppie's enthusiasm for the fair and she leapt at the chance to go home. She planned to spend the hot afternoon dabbling in the stream.

As they journeyed along, Samuel played a tune on his harmonica. Squatting on a bag of itchy fleece in the back of the cart, Eppie gazed dreamily at the hills rising and falling like a wide green sea. Along the roadside, the shallow brook glittered in the sunlight.

*I wonder what time Gillow and Wakelin will turn up tonight,' Martha mused.

Reaching for a leather flagon, Samuel took a sip of ale. *They'll get caught up in the late night entertainments, jiggering and the like.'

*Jiggering?' Martha repeated doubtfully. The last time I saw Gillow dancing was at the May dance outside The Fat Duck. That was when he asked me to marry him. I've never seen him as drunk as on that night.'

*When I was a lad I saw the fair go up in flames.'

*What happened, Grumps?'

*One night, Bill Hix and Paxton Winwood grabbed a couple of flares that were lighting the stalls and set fire to a tent. No one else but me saw their caper so they got away with it. I thought it was funny until I found they'd also let a black bear loose.'

*Did it get ya?'

*It was making straight at me when I had this idea of tipping up jars of boiled sweets. That bear was so busy guzzling that I was able to escape.'

As they approached Little Lubbock church, Edmund hailed Samuel from behind a hedge. *I've just given birth to two lambs and I've a third on the way.'

Samuel hopped from the cart. *And there was I thinking that, after you gave birth to that six-legged lamb, I'd seen everything!'

Edmund was a slender, serious youth whose shoulders were so sloped that he looked like a bottle of beer.

*Why don't you come an' watch the next *un arrive in the world,' Samuel asked Eppie.

He dipped his hands into a pail of lye water to wash away grime. With a look of concentration on his face, he thrust his hand up the ewe's rear.

*Can ya feel it?' Eppie asked.

*Aye. Here's the legs. The mother's too tired to give birth to this one naturally.' The lamb slipped onto the grass with a gush. He thrust a piece of straw up its nose. *This is the best way to clean out the airways.' The lamb sneezed.

A sorry-looking ewe stood within a hurdle. *That one gave birth to a single lamb, but it died,' Edmund said. *I was thinking she might accept this last triplet as her own.'

Samuel rubbed the lamb into the birth fluids. Satisfied that the triplet had acquired the scent of the surrogate ewe, he placed it beside her. A loud mair, the ewe's greeting to the lamb, was met with a soft bleat, airr, from the adopted lamb.

Eppie was relieved. *The new mam's licking the lamb's ears.'

*She'll lick it clean to get the blood racing,' Edmund said.

*Love?' Samuel said tremulously, noticing Martha's restless fingers plucking the swell of her unborn child. *You all right?'

*It's nothing, only, seeing the lamb being born seems to have brought on my own.'

*I'd best get ya home, double quick. Edmund, take care o' the dogs.'

Samuel and Eppie helped Martha clamber back onto the cart. The old shepherd flicked Fleecy's reins.

*Good luck, Mrs Dunham,' Edmund cried, waving from the lane-side. *I hope it ain't born with six legs.'

*I certainly hope not!' she replied, forcing a smile. She held her breath to help her deal with a sudden, crushing pain.

*If I ain't mistaken,' Samuel said nervously, *and there ain't nowt I don't know about lambs, yours intends to arrive sooner rather than later.'

From behind came the steady spin of carriage wheels. He glanced back. *That's Master Gabriel's coach a-coming. When I was selling off my barren ewes I met up with him. He'd come to take a look at the fair.'

Eppie kicked herself for not having spotted her friend.

*It seems Gabriel and his mother journeyed back yesterday. Her ladyship was a mite queasy so she pushed off home. Gabriel said he'd stayed overnight at Malstowe with friends.'

Eppie stared at the yellow and black carriage bowling along, its horses driven by Fulke Clopton. The severe-faced coachman wore a high-crowned hat with a red ribbon cockade.

Samuel shouted above the clattering wheels, *I know I had my doubts about these *ere turnpike roads, but I've had a change of heart. We'd never have been able to race along at this pace afore.'

The sheep cart span towards the smithy. Eppie caught the familiar ring on the blacksmith's anvil. Far louder, as they approached the bend in the lane, came a pounding of hooves with a sound like butter-and-eggs, butter-and-eggs. Men shouted, encouraging horses to a greater pace.

Eppie's skin prickled. Tightly gripping the edge of the cart, she sensed unknown danger.

Whirling around the corner came two stagecoaches hell-bent in a race to see which would be the first to reach the staging inns in Litcombe, one overtaking the other.

The green and yellow carriage, which she recognised as one of Thurstan's flying coaches, was slightly to the fore of a rival carriage belonging to Hurry Eades. Locked in a foolhardy bid to win prestige for their employer, and a few extra coins in their pockets, the drivers were oblivious to the imminent peril of those travelling in the sheep cart.

*What's *em gaming at?' Samuel cried as the carriages bore recklessly towards them.

Spotting the sheep cart, the driver of the rival coach drew hard on his reins. *Whoa!'

The stony-eyed driver of the flying coach whipped on his fearful beasts without mercy.

Whinnying in terror, Fleecy bolted down the only escape route possible, the embankment. The cart toppled sideways. The rope traces twisted under pressure and snapped with a noise like an anchor hitting the sea.

Thrown out of the cart, Eppie turned head over heels. Her neck wrenched with a sharp pain. Splashing into the brook, she rapidly pushed herself up with her hands, terrified that the cart would fall on top of her, snatched up her bonnet, and scrambled out.

The cart had come to rest upside down in the brook. Fleecy was cantering down the lane, petrified by the ordeal. The coaches had disappeared into the distance.

Martha lay in a flattened patch of cow parsley, pain sketched upon her face.

*Mam!'

She tried to sound calm so as not to frighten Eppie. *I'm not hurt.'

Samuel sloshed out of the ditch. *That was a mite close.' His forehead had struck a stone on the opposite bank.

*You're bleeding,' Eppie cried.

*I'll survive; my head's made of wood.' He knelt at his daughter's side and stroked her hand.

Ebernezer had hurried from the smithy. *It's fortunate Eade's coach pulled behind Thurstan's express; otherwise you might've been caught up in the accident an' all, Master Gabriel.'

Gabriel had gone clean out of Eppie's mind. Glancing round, she took in his figure as he raced towards them, noticing how slim and handsome he looked, his blond hair caught back in a bow.

Gabriel averted his eyes from Eppie's gaze. *I'll take you back to the manor house, Mrs Dunham.' He turned to the coachman. *After that, go to Leighton House and request that Doctor Burndread urgently ride to the manor to tend Mrs Dunham and Samuel.'

Fulke's ginger eyebrows, stiff like the hairs on a pig's back, fell over close-set eyes, lending to him the appearance of an angry squirrel permanently asleep. Sluggishly, he answered, *Yes, sir.' Though he nodded, Eppie thought he looked disgruntled by the order.

*If it's all the same to you, Master Gabriel, I'll be off to find Fleecy,' Samuel said. *She'll be in a state. Martha, love, you'll be fine with Master Gabriel looking after ya.' He trudged away.

Gabriel stooped beside Martha. *Are you able to walk a few steps to my carriage?'