She smiled wryly. “While all those faces are pressed against their windows, wondering if you will arrest me on the way back? Yes, I know what is being said! I can feel it Charlbury is both titillated and scandalized by this affair. What is that novel one of your famous authors has written about the French Revolution? Where the old women sit by the guillotine and knit as the heads of aristocrats fall into baskets? Except here it is not knitting, I think. It is the face that is just behind the lace of the curtain, each breath stirring it with anticipation!”

“I saw you standing behind a curtain. As I came up the walk,” he said.

She smiled. “So I was! Allow me to find my sweater, Inspector!”

She was back in only a moment, as if she’d had it close to hand. They walked out of the house and turned through the gate toward the churchyard.

“I apologize for such stupid bitterness!” she told him, as if there had been no interruption to their conversation. “It is not like me. But Elizabeth Napier is a woman one cannot defend herself against. She uses innuendo like a sword. But then I must remember that I have robbed her of the man she wanted to marry. It is the most unforgivable thing one woman can do to another.”

“I think she’s worried about Margaret Tarlton.”

“Is she?” Aurore turned her head and looked at his profile. “I am glad to hear it. I thought she was worried for Simon.”

He smiled down at her. “Touché. A little of both. With Elizabeth Napier, as I am fast learning, there are no absolutes.”

She laughed, a deep, brief chuckle.

“You are an extraordinary man,” she said. “Are you married?”

“No.” It was uncompromising. She read more into it than he intended.

“No,” she repeated softly. “It explains much. Now—you wished to speak to me?” She pulled her sweater a little more closely about her, as if as a shield.

“Everyone seems to believe—although so far I’ve not found one of them who actually saw you!—that it was you who drove Margaret to the station. And therefore, in their view, you’re the person who should know whether she got there safely or not. I spoke to the stationmaster. He claims she didn’t take either train from Singleton Magna on the day she left Charlbury.”

“But I have told you. I was with a heifer that was sick. Whatever Simon may say, we can’t afford to lose livestock—Simon is pouring every penny he possesses into this museum. There was not a great deal of money to start with. His inheritance from his father was quite small. And it is this farm that will pay for our food, bur car, our clothes. Not his grandfather’s treasures.”