Page 66 of His Sinful Touch

She hesitated. “I’m not sure, but I think so. I didn’t really look at him, but today, when he was in that room, it came over me again. I felt so ill and scared. It keeps returning.”

“Have you remembered anything more about the scene?”

She shook her head. “No. And it really doesn’t get much clearer.” Sabrina hesitated. “Well, a little while ago, something popped into my head and then was gone. It was so quick, I couldn’t grasp it. Then you came and I forgot all about it.” She sat down, closing her eyes. “I don’t think it was connected to that dream. I think—I think it was something about a boy.”

“A boy?”

“Yes. A child. I—” She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t remember. I don’t suppose it would be much help anyway.”

“You think it was Peter? Lilah said you knew him when you were children.”

“I suppose.” She shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the boy. It was just...an intense feeling, but I’m not even sure what the feeling was.”

“No one has said anything about there being a child,” he mused.

“It didn’t feel at all like that dream. I doubt it’s connected.”

“Probably not.” Alex sat down. “What’s first on your plan?”

“My plan?”

“Yes. For finding out what happened. What you decided to do when you left Broughton House.”

“Oh. Yes. That. I don’t know that I really had a plan, other than to go to Baddesly Commons and see if anything looked familiar. Perhaps they would sell me a ticket. If that is where I lived, then people would recognize me. Maybe they would know what happened.” She straightened her shoulders. “I could go to the church, check their marriage records.”

He nodded, feeling no more happy about the idea than Sabrina looked.

“The vicar would remember if he’d married us,” she went on, pressing her hand to her stomach. “I dread it, frankly. I’m afraid of what I’ll find out.”

“I know.” Alex reached over and took her hand. “But we’ll do it together.”

“Yes.” Sabrina smiled at him. “That will make it much easier.”

There was certainly nothing that stirred Sabrina’s memory about the Newbury train station. It took little time for them to walk all around it. When they questioned the ticket agent about whether he had sold a ticket to Sabrina three weeks before, he gave them an odd look but said only that he didn’t remember.

“What about a young man who resembles her?” Alex asked, which earned him an even more suspicious glance. “Her brother,” Alex added hastily.

“No. Nor her father or mother, either, I ’spect.”

They beat a quick retreat, finding a seat out of sight of the ticket agent. Alex glanced at her, and they began to laugh. “I wonder what that man must have thought of us,” Sabrina said.

“Hopefully there’s not a madhouse close by,” he replied. “But I do hope the train to Baddesly Commons comes soon, before he decides to turn us in as suspicious characters.”

“It’s wrong of me,” Sabrina said, “to be pulling you deeper into this, but I am awfully glad you followed me.”

He slanted a smiling glance at her. “Two is generally better than one in finding something.”

“No, not just because you’re an extra set of eyes or because the ticket agent talked to you more freely than he would have to a young woman. It’s you that makes it better. Just you.”

* * *

ALEX SAID NOTHING, just looked at her for a long moment, then glanced away, but the expression in his eyes warmed Sabrina down to her toes. She folded her hands in her lap demurely and thought about those moments in the train when Alex had taken her into his arms. She supposed that she should feel guilty and sinful, or at least blush, but the truth was, she had found the whole thing glorious and had been very sorry when the conductor knocked on their door.

She thought about this evening. They would have to spend the night at some inn. They would be alone among strangers. The only thing to keep them separated was their conscience. And Sabrina’s conscience wasn’t feeling very powerful right now.

The train to Winchester, which would pass Baddesly Commons on its way south, was announced, and Sabrina pulled her thoughts from the irrelevant and highly improper paths to which they’d strayed back to the matter at hand. They boarded and carefully sat at the opposite ends of the padded bench of their compartment, even leaving the door open.

Sabrina leaned her head back against the high seat and closed her eyes. She was tired, and at least she wouldn’t be able to think about Alex if she were asleep. That hope proved to be wrong, though, for a dream in which she was hurrying through seemingly endless doors, frantically searching for something, ended up with her gazing out a window with a man standing behind her, one arm hooked around her waist.