Chapter One

London, 1816

The hackney coach rumbled under the arched stone passage and rolled to a halt in the torchlit innyard, but even before the driver could throw the brake, let alone descend to assist his solitary passenger, the door swung open and she jumped out—a tempestuous, tousle-headed eighteen-year-old with the fire of rebellion in her dark eyes.

Sans maid, sans chaperon, Lady Jacinda Knight thrust the carriage door shut behind her with a satis- fying slam. She turned, shrugged her leather satchel higher onto her shoulder, and passed a simmering glance over the galleried coaching inn with its double tier of white-painted balustrades as a pair of postboys dashed out to assist her.

“My luggage, please,” she ordered, heedless of them gawking at her slender figure wrapped in a ruby velvet redingote with rich sable fur at collar and cuffs. She paid the coachman, then marched across the cobbled yard, her guinea-gold corkscrew curls bouncing with her every determined stride.

At the threshold of the busy inn, she paused, warily scanning the motley assortment of bickering, rumpled travelers. A child squalled on his mother’s hip; plain, rustic-looking folk dozed on chairs and benches waiting for their stagecoaches to depart. A drunkard was making a nuisance of himself in one corner, while a beggar boy had crept in to escape the damp chill and huddled near the crackling hearth.

Lifting her chin a trifle self-consciously, she proceeded into the long room among what her count- less wellborn beaux would have called “the Great Unwashed.” She felt their stares following her, some rude, some merely curious. She noticed a man squinti