Hazel is 13 and watching the Epsom Derby with her father. It's June 4th, 1913 and a woman in a dark coat steps out in front of the King's horse to be trampled to death. The event, understandably, makes a strong impression on Hazel and starts her on a journey of discovery that will span the geographical distance between London and The West Indies, and the psychological distance between the sheltered existence of a bourgeois childhood and a much more grown up awareness of a young woman.