She hadn’t said anything before about someone else at the farm who might have seen her there, nursing a heifer with colic.

Rutledge asked, “I’d like to speak to him. He might have seen you on the day Margaret left.”

Aurore smiled. “I don’t think so. He was suffering from a rheum—a cold—and avoided me when he could. I think it was actually too much ale, and a sour stomach. In France we say it is the liver rebelling. At his age, any rebellion is a revolution.”

“He didn’t know you were at the farm? Surely if one of the livestock was ill …?”

“From the barn he doesn’t see where I leave my car. Sometimes I go and come without meeting him at all, if he is out in one of the fields.”

“But he might have heard the motorcar.”

“Well, perhaps. It is kind of you to look for someone who can tell you positively where I was—and was not.”

“It isn’t kindness, it’s necessity,” he said, more harshly than he’d meant. “I have witnesses who saw your motorcar in Charlbury that morning and who would swear to that. And to the presence of Margaret Tarlton in it with you.”

She shrugged. “I cannot invent witnesses for myself.” Despite the shrug, she wasn’t indifferent to her predicament. There was an intensity beneath her stillness that he could feel. A very real fear.

The tranquility here under the trees had vanished like smoke on the wind. After a few minutes she excused herself and was gone.

He sat where he was, remembering what Frances had said about the Wyatt finances and wondering if there was enough money in their coffers to pay for a first-class barrister to defend Aurore. Or would Simon abandon her, to preserve his precious museum?

Was that what kept Elizabeth Napier in Charlbury, meddling?

Chapter Sixteen

16

Rutledge went to find Constable Trait and finally ran him to earth just outside of Charlbury, where he was supervising a group of men poking through the heavy undergrowth along a small stream.

“Trait? I wish to speak to you,” Rutledge called, tramping through a field for the second time that morning.

The man looked up, then walked toward Rutledge.

“Something happened? Sir?” He added it as an afterthought, Rutledge’s face warning him that this was not the time for overt insubordination.

Rutledge drew him farther from the curious glances turned their way. Then he said, “You may have heard. There was a body found near Leigh Minster this morning. One of the seach teams came across it.”

“Aye, I heard. Nothing to do with us.” He jerked his head toward the men desultorily digging behind him, half an ear attuned to Trait and Rutledge.

“I understand there was a woman who worked for Mrs. Darley who has been missing for some time. And that she was known in Charlbury as well.”