Page 74 of His Sinful Touch

“Do you remember what time she and Mr. Jones arrived here? Do you know where they had been?”

The innkeeper stared at him. “Yes, it was quite late, sir, but surely you—”

“I fear Mrs. Jones remembers almost nothing from that night. She was so ill, you see. The, um, the fever.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“Did they come from the church? Or from another town?” Alex went on hurriedly, “She lost something, you see, and we are trying to find it. An earring. Quite valuable.”

“She didn’t lose it here,” the other man protested. “I’d have told you right off if we’d come upon a fancy earring.”

“No, no, we weren’t implying that you had anything to do with it. We think perhaps it was lost along the way. So we are trying to retrace their path.”

Hudspeth frowned, suspicion growing on his face. “But surely Mr. Jones can tell you that.”

“He succumbed to the illness, as well,” Alex told him. “Quite laid up—some sort of tropical fever, you know. His father, as well. Perhaps they mentioned to you where they last stopped.”

“No, naught like that. They didn’t say a word about it. But their driver, now, he might have said something to the stable lads.”

“Yes, of course, thank you. We shall just finish our drinks and be on our way. Sorry to have bothered you.” Alex handed the man a silver coin, and the man’s face cleared, his suspicion apparently dismissed in the face of cash.

“Yes, sir, thank you, always glad for your custom.” The innkeeper bowed out of the room. Alex followed him, firmly closing the door behind the man.

“A tropical fever?” Sabrina asked, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Really, Alex.”

“First thing that came into my head. For all he knows, the Dearborns have been in Burma for a year.” He grinned. “But I suspect we ought to leave before he has time to wonder why you are jaunting about the countryside looking for a lost earring while your husband is in bed with a terrible fever.”

They left their cider on the table and headed toward the stables, where, they found, a groom had seen to their horse. Again, Alex tipped him lavishly before inquiring about the carriage that had arrived three weeks earlier. It took some time and conversation between the stable lads before the head groom was called from the back.

“Mr. Jones? Nay, I can’t say I recall the name.”

“Three weeks ago, late at night,” Alex prodded.

“Oh! Aye, I remember that now. A hired carriage, it was. Horses were dead tired, and the coachman was fair disgusted with them. Not the horses, the people what hired him.”

“Why is that?”

“Said they was going to lame his animals the way they was rushing on. They wanted to keep on to Winchester, see, but he told them they could do it on foot, then, for he wasn’t forcing his horses.”

“They were headed to Winchester?”

“Aye. At least, that’s what he said.”

“Do you know where they had been before? Perhaps they’d stopped at a church along the way?”

“A church?” The groom looked at him blankly. “Nay, he said naught about stopping or churches. They’d driven from Andover.”

“Andover, eh? Thank you.” Alex pressed a half crown into his palm. “Do you remember anything else about the carriage or the people? Did the driver say anything about who they were?”

The man tucked the coin in his pocket and took up a pose of deep thinking. “Well...there was a woman asleep in the carriage. The man had to carry her to the inn. Or maybe she was sick.” He shrugged. “That’s all I remember, sir.”

“You’ve helped a great deal,” Alex assured him.

They climbed back into their gig and Alex picked up the reins. But he didn’t move forward, turning to look at Sabrina.

“Where now?” Sabrina asked. “Should we check at the church here?”

“No, it sounds as if they only stopped here because the driver insisted. I think we should take the road back to Andover. At least we have a destination now. I imagine that is where we’ll find out more.” He paused, then added musingly, “Still, that scene you remember could have been at a church anywhere along the way, too.”