There were young, flashing gentlemen, “all the crack and all the go”, driving their two- and three-horse chariots at similar paces as the passenger coaches, dust or mud flying in their wakes, and flashing past their own shabby coach with shouts of glee over how rapidly they could eat the miles, and how daring they were. Lewrie’s coach was passed by a pair bound South from behind them, two chariots racing wheel-to-wheel like ancient Romans in the Colosseum, and damning Lewrie’s equipage for a “slow-coach” as they careened around them!

Now and then, though rarely, a much grander coach-and-four came trotting toward them, with liveried coachmen in the driver’s box and in the bench above the coach’s rear boot. Most of those coaches bore no family crests on their doors, and those that did went by so quickly that it was hard for Lewrie and Pettus to discern even the colours or the shapes of the crests, and it was a rare coach with painted heraldry that bore a crest large enough to be recognised.

Lewrie tried to recall how large the Stangbourne crest had been and the colour of the coach they’d shared to Sheerness, the one she had taken the last time she’d come down to Portsmouth, and began to wonder if he would recognise it if it sat right in front of him, at full stop! As rich as Lydia and her brother Percy were, they might have more than a dozen carriages and coaches for every occasion!

Assuming that Percy hadn’t gambled them into debtors’ prison in the meantime!

They got to Guildford for a change of horses, and a chance to stretch their legs. The four poor prads were led off to rest and feed, heads hanging low, and as the coachman arranged a fresh team, Lewrie and Pettus had a quick breakfast of bacon strips and cheese on thickly sliced bread with smears of spicy, dark mustard, and pint mugs of ale. When offered, their coachman settled for a hard-boiled egg, toast, and hot tea … without sugar or cream.

“Evidently, cream and sugar are too luxurious for ‘temperance’ people,” Lewrie commented in a whispered chuckle. “God only knows what a cinnamon roll’d do … one bite, and he’d be found in a gutter with crumbs on his face, clutchin’ a bottle o’ rum, weepin’ for bein’ a back-slider!”

Once a slightly more promising team was hitched up, they were off once more, at a slightly better pace this time, for more peering at the passing traffic. They passed the turning for Chiddingfold, the narrow road that led to Anglesgreen and Lewrie’s father’s estate. He wished that he could spare the time to see his daughter, Charlotte, but … no, Lewrie sadly reckoned; that could only turn out stiffly, and badly. He had written her. That would have to be good enough.

*   *   *

A bit North of Liphook, Pettus pulled his head back into the coach to announce, “Here comes another coach-and-four, sir, with liveried coachee and all.”

Lewrie stuck his head out of the lowered door window, peering ahead. What he could see of the approaching coachman’s livery under his opened black great-coat looked like the royal blue and white trim that he remembered, the coach was very much like the dark green with discreet gilt trim one that Lydia had used in London, and had used to come down to Portsmouth before, and its wheel rims and spokes appeared to be the same jaunty canary yellow.

Lewrie leaned further out, half-standing with head and shoulders out the window, looking to see if the passengers were—!

“Lydia!” he bellowed as he espied a woman seated in the middle of the front-facing rear bench seat, a woman with loose and curly hair the colour of old honey. “Lydia Stangbourne! It’s me, Alan!”

“What the Devil?” the female passenger cried back, mouth agape in shock as her coach came level with his and whisked by.

“Driver, draw up!” Lewrie bellowed to their coachman, opening the coach door to hang out and look aft. In his loudest quarterdeck bellow, he shouted, “Lydia, draw up!”

Sure enough, the other coach was being reined in, and he could see Lydia leaning out an opened window. It was she!

“Draw up, did you say, sir?” their dour coachman asked.

“Goddamn right I did! Whoa, stop right now!” Lewrie exclaimed as he kicked the metal folding steps down with a booted foot. Before the coach could come to a full stop, he was jumping down and running back up the road. “Hoy, Lydia, it’s me!” he cried, waving madly.

He got to her coach in a trice and pulled down the door handle to whip it open.

“Good God!” Lydia gasped. “Where did you spring from?”

“God called away t’London, a bit after I sent you a letter,” he said, knowing that he was grinning like a loon and not caring if he was or not. He sprang inside her coach, ignoring her goggling maid-servant, and sat beside her. “I sent a note round your house, and got told you’d already left, so I was hopin’ t’run across you like this, somewhere on the road, at any rate … comin’ or goin’, no matter. You look simply … wonderful!”

And ain’t ye goin’ t’gush somethin’ back? Lewrie wondered at Lydia’s reticence. She was smiling, but it wasn’t the same sort of adoring look that he remembered. In point of fact, one of her brows was arched, as if nettled by his sudden appearance. And, she had yet to offer him even one of her hands, much less a cool peck on a cheek! He put that down to the presence of the maid-servant. Lydia could be warm, open, and girlishly animated in private, very quick to smile or laugh out loud. In public, though, her demeanour was arch and imperious, guarded, cautious, and aloof. Given that she had been the victim of nearly three years of scandal and newspaper gossip when she had pled for a Bill of Divorcement in the House of Commons, with charges and countercharges from her bestial husband almost a daily thrill for avid readers, it was no wonder that she had need to armour herself. During the procedure, and even after Parliament had voted her Divorcement and rejected her husband’s, Lydia had become a scorned and rejected woman to all but her closest old friends and her small family.

Lewrie had forgotten that in his eagerness, and silently chid himself for being so boyish.

“I tried to spot your coach on the way to London, but no luck,” Lewrie babbled on. “And now you’re returning to the city?”

“You were not in Portsmouth,” she replied, nigh accusingly.

“Admiralty,” Lewrie told her with a shrug. “They summon, I have to go, and I hadn’t gotten your reply to my invitation, so I could make no plans for your arrival ’till I knew where we both were, when you were coming down, if you would be coming at all.”

“The George Inn was full,” Lydia said, rustling her skirts in irritation. “I ended up spending the night at some place called the Blue Posts … full of Midshipmen and … eager young Lieutenants.”

Ouch! Lewrie cringed; Full o’ lusty young sprogs, she means, and her the only woman in sight!

“Sorry for that, Lydia,” Lewrie said. “That couldn’t have been enjoyable. Er … you’re not in a tearin’ rush t’get back to London, are you? Mean t’say, Liphook’s but a few miles away, and there’s an inn there.”

Her expression was stony, and her dark-emerald-coloured eyes bore a leery squint.

“We haven’t seen each other in ages, and at the least I could offer you dinner, or just a pot of tea, or…,” Lewrie offered, feeling his neck beginning to burn when he realised that he was pleading. “Talk things over? Catch up on the latest news since your last letter got to me in the Bahamas? The last I got was four months ago.”

“I would be getting into London a little after dark as it is, Alan,” Lydia said, turning her head away in contemplation for a moment. “Even if my coachmen are in Percy’s regiment, and go well-armed, he’d have a fit did I expose myself to the risk of highwaymen at night. I fear that I cannot accept your kind offer.”