by Candace Camp
They traveled west along a narrow lane, clearly not a well-traveled route, arriving after a few hours in the village of Cumbrey. It looked to be an even smaller village than Baddesly Commons, but the main road, which their own lane intersected, was on a well-traveled route to Winchester, and for that reason, it boasted more than one inn.
“The Blind Ox, the head groom said,” Alex said as they turned left and rolled along the wider thoroughfare. “It ought to be easy enough to find an inn with such an unappealing name.”
They had almost reached the edge of town and Sabrina was beginning to think they had gone the wrong way when her eyes fell on an old building done in the distinctive black-and-white pattern of the Tudor era. It sagged here and there as if it had partially melted, giving credence to its having been there since the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Sabrina stiffened. Her stomach roiled, and suddenly her head felt as if it was about to split in two. “Wait! Stop.”
Alex pulled up and turned toward her. “What? Did you see a sign?”
“This is it!” Sabrina said, her voice hushed but intense. “I’m certain of it. This is where I escaped.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“SABRINA!” ALEX’S EYES WIDENED, and he reached out to take her hand. “You remember it?”
Sabrina did not reply, just clenched his hand tightly. Memories were flooding into her mind, almost swamping her. She climbed down from the gig, Alex right behind her. Instead of going toward the front door of the inn, she started around the side. “The stables.” She flicked her hand to the left. “That’s where I got the horse. I don’t know who it belonged to—it was terrible of me to take it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get away as quickly as I could.”
“Of course you did.”
They reached the back of the inn. She pointed to a small, shedlike extension with a slightly slanted roof that had been built onto the back of the place. “I landed on that.” She looked up at the window above it. “I was in that room, and I climbed out.” She pressed fingers to her temple. “I... It’s fuzzy a little. I was climbing out and I remember falling...yes! He was trying to pull me back in, and he leaned out too far. I tried to pull away, and then suddenly we were falling.” She shivered, her face pale.
“Sabrina, you don’t have to think about it right now.” Alex’s forehead was creased in concern. “We’ll sit—you can have something to drink and rest a bit.”
“No. I’m fine.” The truth was she felt strange and more than a little ill, but it was all roaring through her now, an unstoppable wave sweeping everything before it.
Taking Alex’s hand, she rushed through the back door, startling the cook and a scullery maid, and emerged into a corridor. She hurried toward the stairs at the end of the hallway.
“Where are you going? To the room you pointed?” Alex asked.
“Yes, yes.” Sabrina came to a halt at the top of the stairs and glanced around uncertainly. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember how it looked.” She glanced up at the ceiling and it swam before her eyes. “I remember that light fixture.”
“Judging from the outside, it should be this way.” Alex pointed. “I think.” A maid was walking down the hall, carrying a pail and eyeing them curiously. “Excuse me. Miss...can you tell us which room has the window directly over the roof of the kitchen extension?”
She gave him an odd look, but when he dropped a few pence in her hand, she pointed and said, “That one there. The Bombay room.”
“Bombay?” Alex raised an eyebrow, and the girl smiled.
“Yes, sir. He’s grand, Mr. Hudspeth is. At least there’s a chest from India in it. The St. Petersburg room’s as Russian as my aunt Sally.”
“Is it locked? We’d like to go in and look.”
She shrugged. “No. I just cleaned it.”
Sabrina was already starting toward the door before the girl finished. She swung open the door but paused on the threshold, for a moment overcome by a wave of nausea. She took a half step back, coming up against Alex. The warmth and strength of him was reassuring, and she managed to step into the chamber.
“It was here,” she murmured, her eyes moving slowly around the room. “It’s all...so vague. I was dizzy, and nothing made sense, but I knew...I knew Peter had betrayed me.” She paused, feeling again that stab of pain and loss.
“Betrayed you? How?”
“He... I’m not sure. I just remember feeling it quite strongly. I woke up on that bed.” She closed her eyes, frowning. “I don’t remember coming here or lying down. I was alone and very confused. I didn’t know where I was or why. What had happened.”
“Ease up. Don’t try to pull out the memory by force. Just tell me what you do recall.”
She nodded and took a breath. “Um, I got up—well, I rolled off the bed, actually. I was wobbly and...curiously remote, almost as if I were watching someone else. Nothing seemed quite real.” She glanced at him.
Alex nodded grimly. “I think you’d been drugged.”
“Yes, I suppose I had, looking back on it. When I got to the door, I found that he’d locked me in.” Alex let out an oath, but she ignored it. “Our cases were over here, and I grabbed mine. I was going to climb out the window, but somewhere in there I thought about a disguise. I hadn’t time to change—and frankly, I’m not sure I was clearheaded enough to have done so right then. So I opened his case and took some of his clothes. And there was that bag of money. I stole it—I was thinking clearly enough to know I’d need money—and put it with my things. I had to take my dress from my bag to fit in his clothes. I even took his shoes. Not the cap, though, I took that from a hook in the stables. I really was quite larcenous.”
“I think you can be excused for it. What did you do then?”
“I heard Peter at the door and I tried to climb out the window, but he grabbed my arm, and we struggled. I was hitting and kicking him, and he slapped me.” She glanced at Alex and said lightly, “Don’t look so murderous. I don’t think that caused all my bruises—a lot of it was the fall.”
“Which was his fault, too. I intend to have a talk with Peter Dearborn when we get back.”
“A talk?”
“Something more than a talk,” he admitted. “But go on. How did you get away?”
“I think he was surprised, actually, by slapping me. I grabbed the water pitcher and bashed him with it. I climbed out the window. I was going to climb down the drainpipe, you see. But he leaned out the window and grabbed me, and I couldn’t get away from him. I kept tugging and...he fell. He’d leaned too far out. But he still had a grip on me, so he pulled me down with him.” Sabrina went to the window and stood gazing down at the roof below them. “I must have hit the roof and rolled off it. I don’t remember any of that.”
“Let’s go downstairs,” Alex suggested, taking Sabrina’s elbow and turning her toward the door. “You should sit down and rest, have something to drink, take a few moments to adjust to all this.”
Sabrina nodded. The nausea and headache were receding, but she still felt jittery and tumbled up inside. They went downstairs, where Alex quickly arranged for a private parlor and a pitcher of cider. Sabrina was soon ensconced in a comfortable chair by a window, Alex pulling another chair close to her and taking her hand. She looked at him and smiled faintly, squeezing his hand. “I’m all right. Really.”
“You looked terribly pale for a moment there.”
“I’m not going to faint, I promise. But it’s so strange.” She frowned, reaching up to rub her temples. “I can hardly remember anything right before I woke up in that room. What I can remember is like my dream, but no more solid than the dream was—just a vague sense of being woozy, almost asleep as I stood there with Peter...wherever it was. And that man talking at me. I was so hot. I felt as if I could hardly breathe.”
“He had to have drugged you. I can’t wait to get my hands
on him.”
“Well, I hope never to see him again,” Sabrina said flatly.
“Before that, what’s the last thing you remember?”
“Being in my room at home.”
“Home? You remember where you lived?” Alex’s face brightened.
“Yes. Well, it isn’t really my home. It’s the Dearborns’ estate in Wiltshire.”
“That’s excellent. We’ll get a map, locate the place, and then we can plot the likeliest course you took from there to here. It will give us some reasonable limits to where this ‘wedding’ might have taken place.”
“Mrs. Jones!” boomed a cheerful voice from the doorway. “Mrs. Jones, how good to see you again.” The voice belonged to a man as large as the voice implied—he had a rounded, wide body topped by a rounded, wide face.
“Good heavens. Another name,” Sabrina said under her breath. “Little wonder I couldn’t remember my own.”
Alex turned and stood up, and the other man stopped abruptly. “I—I beg your pardon, sir. I thought...” His gaze went back to Sabrina, and his voiced faltered again, his face growing even more puzzled.
“I am the lady’s brother,” Alex said quickly. “Mr. Moore.”
“Ah, I see, sir,” the other man replied, though his face clearly said he did not. He bowed to Alex. “My name is Hudspeth. I am the proprietor here at The Blind Ox. We were honored by Mr. and Mrs. Jones’s company a few weeks ago.” Turning once again to Sabrina, he went on, “I am pleased to see you have returned, ma’am. Especially after you had to depart so quickly. I was alarmed to hear that you were so ill.”
“It was rather touch and go,” Alex agreed blandly.
“I knew it must be something dire,” the innkeeper said, unable to quell the spark of curiosity in his tone. “When they came in, I told my wife, ‘Mrs. Hudspeth,’ I said, ‘that poor little lass is dead on her feet.’” Looking suddenly alarmed, he added, “Not really dead, you understand. Just pale, you know, and drooping. Mr. Jones had to half carry you up the stairs. So it wasn’t a surprise when his father told me Mr. Jones had had to take you to a doctor.”
“I’m sorry about, um, taking your horse,” Sabrina said.
“Ah.” He made a dismissive noise. “It was no matter. An emergency like that—a single horse is faster than a carriage. And, of course, the elder Mr. Jones was kind enough to compensate me and send the animal back when he joined you.”
“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.”
“We’re going to stop at every church from here to Andover?” Sabrina asked. “That will take hours...days.”
Alex grinned. “Then we’d best get started.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
THEY STOPPED IN the next village, which was only a few miles away. The church was on the main thoroughfare. It was a small structure made of gray stone with a modest spire, its only unique feature lying in the fact that it did not face the road but lay sideways to it. A vicarage of similar design stood behind the church, and it was there that Alex and Sabrina made their way.
The door was opened by a smiling, dimpled woman who was obviously pleased to receive company. She showed them into the vicar’s office. Alex noted that he looked far less pleased to see them than his housekeeper. It was also clear that he did not recognize Sabrina.
Still, Alex asked him about any recent weddings he had performed, this time spinning a story of a fictitious cousin who had eloped.
“Young man, I am not in the habit of marrying any stranger who passes through town,” the vicar told him with a disapproving frown. “I don’t like this practice of marrying with a special license, and I can tell you that I have not done so anytime in the past year. Indeed, I have not performed a weddi
ng ceremony, even with banns read, for over a month. St. Edward’s is a very small parish.”
“Would you know if there were any other churches in the area they might have gone to? A vicar who is not averse to marriage by special license...or to strangers?” Alex asked, taking a new tack.
“I should think not.” The priest looked horrified. “I imagine your cousin went to Scotland for that.”
Thanking the clergyman, Alex and Sabrina left. He looked down at her as they walked to their vehicle, noting the paleness of her face. “You know, I saw an inn as we drove into town. I think we should stay the night here.”
“Don’t you think we should press on? Drive on to the next village?”
“What I think is that you should rest.”
“I’m fine,” she said stoutly.
“Well, I could use some rest.” Alex gave her a wry grin. “Our horse could, as well. Besides, we should get organized instead of continuing in this haphazard manner. We need to look at a map and figure out your route, as we talked about earlier. I’d also welcome something to eat. Breakfast was a very long time ago.”
“You’re right.” Sabrina rubbed her temples. “Perhaps food will help me think better.”
He turned the gig around and drove back to the small inn they had passed as they came into town. It was a quaint little building, with only a few rooms, and as there was no tavern attached, it was pleasantly quiet, as well. They were the only guests, and Alex was pleased to find that attached to the bedroom was a small sitting room where they could eat their meals and discuss their plans in privacy.
Sabrina went into the bedroom to freshen up, and by the time she emerged, tea and cakes had been brought up and set on the small table. She had taken down her hair, and Alex’s abdomen tightened at the sight of her loose black curls tumbling down about her face. He could not keep from thinking of the nearby bedroom and the night ahead.
“Ah...” She breathed a sigh of relief as she sank into one of the chairs. “How lovely. I hope you don’t mind—I had to unpin my hair. It was making my head hurt.”