The gentleman walking along down the rough gravel drive with its innumerable potholes slipped in his polished Hessians.
He swore under his breath and cursed himself again for having taken the wrong turning and landed up with a buckled wheel to his phaeton.
It was his own fault, he thought to himself, and he had no one else to blame.
He had left London very late after spending the night with a fair charmer, who was so entrancingly seductive that she made him forget the long journey that was waiting for him the following morning.
He had, however, driven very fast and his new team of chestnuts had indeed excelled themselves.
Even so it had meant that he had spent his first night much nearer London than he had intended, while on the second he had arrived later than was polite at the mansi
