Too Dangerous For a Lady by Jo Beverley

going.”
    â€œNot Liverpool,” said the clergyman with pinchedprecision. “I spoke briefly with Sir William Selby and he imparted that their destination was Tranmere in the Wirral to visit a relative there.”
    â€œBut,” said the workingman, perhaps feeling left out, “they could be goin’ to Liverpool, then crossin’ by ferry, seein’ as Tranmere’s a ferry ’ouse.”
    Solange cursed his thick accent. The woman with her papers was going to a place called Tranmere and could be pursued. But which route had she taken?
    The innkeeper took command. “Sir William has taken the Chester road,” he stated, “though against my advice he intends to turn off early toward Picton. I told him that shorter doesn’t always mean faster, but he paid no heed.”
    How delightful that people loved to be “in the know,” as the English put it.
    â€œAnd they are definitely gone?” she asked. “There is no hope?”
    â€œThat is so, ma’am,” said the innkeeper with finality.
    As if to conclude the discussion, a groom entered to say he’d come to collect Reverend Portercombe and his lady. Attention turned to getting the elderly couple and their luggage on their way.
    Was there any more to be learned? Solange sighed, and said to the young women, “So sad to have missed my friend by so little.”
    â€œâ€™Appen you could follow her, mum,” one said.
    â€œAlas, my coach to London leaves soon. Did Miss Wellingborough have a letter to post? I suspect it will have been to me. Such a shame.”
    â€œOnly a package, mum, and not to post. Ever so pretty. Pink wi’ silver ribbons. I caught a whiff. Fancy soap, I reckon. Rose.”
    â€œShe said as she’d been
thinkin’
of writin’ a letter,” the other said.
    â€œAnd wouldn’t ’ave time. That’s right, Hattie!”
    â€œAh well,” Solange said. “What’s done is done.”
    She left before she roused too much suspicion and hurried back to the Nag’s Head, putting the scraps together. It was possible that the young woman was a coincidence, she and her package of soap. It seemed unlikely that Granger would have gone to the trouble of including a scent in his disguise. He couldn’t have had much time.
    On the other hand, the woman had enquired about the post office and then claimed not to have a letter ready to post. Odd, very odd, when her party was waiting to depart.
    A letter could easily be concealed in a pocket.
    If the straw-bonneted woman was an agent working with Granger, she was an inept one. Or did she act that way to throw off suspicion, as Solange herself acted the dowdy matron? Most people would assume a muddle-minded woman traveling with a family could not possibly be dangerous, yet this muddle-minded, ordinary woman had been in the yard of the Lamb a minute or so after Granger had entered it, and had claimed not to have seen anyone of his description.
    What was more, Nathan Boothroyd had focused on her. The Boothroyds had limited brains but were doglike even to their instincts. The woman wasn’t his quarry, so he should have ignored her, but he hadn’t. He’d been going after her until Granger had shown himself.
    As Solange approached the Nag’s Head, she spotted the key point: Granger shouldn’t have shown himself. He knew the sort of danger a Boothroyd presented, and he’d had time to put distance between himself and death. But he hadn’t. He’d hovered out of concern for the woman, and when she’d been threatened, he’d shown himself to draw Nathan off.
    Solange nodded.
    Granger had stolen her papers and missed the London coach from Ardwick. He had come to Warrington to take a coach south, thinking himself out of danger, but had seen her arriving. Whether by prior plan or on impulse, he’d passed the papers to the woman in the straw bonnet,probably already packaged as