He turned to wait for her. Shielding her eyes against the cloudy brightness of the morning, she looked up at him. “I wish you to tell me what’s happening. All these questions about Margaret. It makes me uneasy!”

There was a trowel in her gloved hands and a smudge of damp earth on one cheek. He found himself staring at it “I don’t know myself why I’m asking them,” he said, surprising himself. “Every time I think I’m a step closer to the truth, the concepts of what’s truth and what’s wishful thinking seem to merge, and there’s only a muddle where there had appeared to be answers.”

Because if Margaret Tarlton was wearing gray silk on the morning she arrived, how could Bert Mowbray have searched everywhere for a woman wearing pink?

Aurore reached out and touched his arm. “You will know what to do,” she said. “However difficult it is. You have courage, you see. It’s there, in the lines of your face. Suffering has taught you that.”

He found himself wanting desperately to tell her about Hamish—and Jean. The words seemed to hover on the edge of his tongue, ready to spill over, wanting understanding—absolution—and afterward, peace.

Stunned by his unexpected and overwhelming reaction to her sympathy, he stood there, at a loss.

Hamish was warning him over and over to leave—now! While you still have some measure of self-control.

He thought for one dazed instant that the warm hand on his arm was lifting to touch his face. And he knew, helplessly, that it would be his undoing.

But she stepped back, that deep sense of stillness wrapping her again in her own untouchability.

Without saying good-bye, he turned and walked through the gate. He didn’t remember turning the crank or starting the motorcar. He didn’t remember driving out of Charlbury. It wasn’t until he reached the crossroads that some measure of self-command overcame the turmoil in his mind.

Aurore Wyatt was a suspect in a murder investigation.

And she had been conscious of the effect she’d had on him.…

Chapter Eleven

11

Rutledge sat in his car at the crossroads trying to shut out Hamish’s voice. “Loneliness leads a man into folly,” he was pointing out. “It’s loneliness at the bottom of it. And she saw that, man, she’s no’ above using it. The notice of Jean’s engagement’s left ye vulnerable to such wiles—”

“It was natural—she’s a damned attractive woman.”

“Aye, and she’s got a husband. Besides which, she’s French.”

Rutledge shook his head. As if being French explained a woman like Aurore. And yet, somehow it did. She knew more about men than was good for them. She saw deeper inside them. But her power was very different from Elizabeth Napier’s.

He’d have to remember that.

He sighed and let in the clutch.