It seemed that whatever she had to tell him was weighing on her mind, but she was not certain how to begin, or possibly where to begin. He kept in step with her and let her take her time.

Finally she said, “My husband—Peter has told me about this poor woman—in Lancashire, is it? The one who was murdered. And he told me as well that you can’t seem to find her husband’s family. He was from Dorset, I believe?”

“Apparently, yes. It’s what we were told in Hobson.”

“Yes, well, I may have an explanation for this mystery.” She paused again and watched a small boat pulling upriver. “There was a young subaltern in my husband’s regiment. Burrows was his name, and he was from a good family. He had connections to Dorset, but I believe his family lived outside Worcester.”

She glanced up at him and looked away again.

“He was a very nice young man. We saw a good bit of him. And I’m afraid my husband and I made fun of him behind his back. It was unkind, but Thomas admired my husband no end. He had no older brothers, and I think he saw Peter as a role model, in a way. And he emulated Peter at every turn. When Peter showed an interest in golf, it became Thomas’s enthusiasm. When Peter bought himself a pair of matched blacks to pull his carriage, the next month Thomas sported a pair that was almost identical. Peter grew a mustache, and Thomas must have one as well. Peter shaved his, and soon after, so did Thomas. It would have been very trying, except for the fact that we knew it was harmless.”

“And what has this to do with the dead woman in Hobson?”

“I don’t know anything at all about Hobson,” Susannah Teller said. “But I should imagine it was a very small place, and that the dead woman—”

“Her name,” he said, “was Florence.”

“—Florence, then. That Florence was not from a wealthy, influential family, however nice she might have been?”

“If you are trying to say she wasn’t of his class, she was a school-teacher and not an heiress, although she had property of her own.”