A writer, she thought—or something that wore the shape of one.
CHAPTER 3
He had not meant to linger on the cliff path after the two women had disappeared from view. It was not his custom to stand like a fool with the wind in his hair and the taste of salt on his lips, staring at a point in a lane where a lady’s gown had last fluttered. He was not a schoolboy, nor a poet, nor a man who believed in the nonsense that passed for sentiment in circulating libraries.
Nonetheless, there he stood.
A writer.
A harmless fellow with a notebook and a fondness for pathetic fallacy.
He let out a humourless breath. “Imbecile,” he muttered to himself. “Get along with you.”
He turned down the path toward the harbour, moving with deliberate, purposeful strides meant to banish the unwelcome unease that clung to him like brine. Yet the conversation replayed itself in his mind, each moment pricking with more discomfort than the last.
She had been polite—so very polite. Civil, one might say, to the point of austerity… and that, more than anything, unsettled him. A guilty woman might have fluttered, protested, simpered,acted the injured innocent. The Widow Larkin had done none of that.
When he had said the name Singleton, however?—
He stopped dead on the harbour road.
Her face.
There had been a flicker—quick and small but unmistakably there. Not fear. Not guilt. Recognition.
He crossed his arms against the wind and stared blindly toward the moored boats. “Why would she recognise Alastair’s name,” he murmured, “unless she?—?”
He broke off. He would not follow that thread. Not yet. Only if circumstances necessitated. His brother’s treason was a wound that still bled when touched.
She had known something, that much was clear… and that knowledge might be the root of everything Renforth feared.
He resumed walking, his pace brisk, his boots crunching over the pebbled lane. Stonehouse, viewed from below, resembled a painting hung askew: cottages leaning into one another for balance, the church steeple poking the clouds like a finger raised in admonition, the cliff path cutting its way like a scar across the hillside. The harbour bustled with the modest life of the fishing trade—nets drying, gulls screaming, men arguing over nothing and everything.
Yet none of it registered upon his notice. His thoughts returned to her.
Her composure; her scrutiny; her guardedness; the last of which mirrored his own too closely for comfort.
“Devil take it,” he muttered, and the nearest gull echoed him like a disreputable chorus.
He reached the inn and bypassed the coffee-room entirely, heading straight for his modest chamber. The space was small enough to fit into Renforth’s dressing room, but it served: a lowceiling, a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, and a window that looked out over the restless sea.
He closed the door behind him, shrugged out of his coat, and pulled his journal from his satchel. It was a habit drilled into him in the Peninsula—record everything in code.
He sat at the small desk, dipped his pen, and began.
Met Mrs. Larkinupon the cliff path. She is neither simpering nor meek, nor given to girlish nerves. Composed. Intelligent. The sort of woman who measures everything she sees and reveals nothing not already weighed.
At mention of Singleton, there was recognition, not surprise. She knew the name.
What is her involvement?
What did Larkin tell her?
What is the nature of her recognition of Alastair?
If she possesses the cipher, why has she not destroyed it?
Why is she making twice-weekly walks to the harbour?
