Mrs. Larkin is central to what is occurring.
He setthe pen down and stared at the ink until it blurred. The thought of her being involved in treason with Alastair made a coldness sweep through him.
He had found more evidence of Alastair’s treason after his death. There was a vast interconnection of arms smuggling and blackmail far beyond what his superiors knew. If necessary, he would divulge it. He prayed it would not come to that.
By the next morning, the innkeeper had developed a cough that shook the rafters and a disposition that suggested Edmund’s presence, while profitable, was no longer convenient. The gossip in the tap-room had also begun to grow too keen. Fishermen were not subtle creatures, and he could feel their eyesassessing him as a man too well-dressed, too well-spoken, too keenly interested in quiet corners.
He needed something quieter—and someone who would not question his business.
Fortunately, a naval town possessed such a man.
“Admiral Hammond?” Edmund repeated when the landlord mentioned him over breakfast in answer to Edmund’s enquiry. “Where does he live?”
“Old house off the eastern lane,” the man wheezed. “Just at the edge of the Seminary grounds. Sees few visitors these days, poor soul. He ’as a mind like a chart half-faded with salt water but he lets rooms now and again. ’E likes the company.”
“And he will take a lodger without question?”
“He will nay remember to ask ’em,” the innkeeper said with a shrug.
It was, Edmund reflected, the first blessing he had received since arriving in the port.
He packed his things, settled the bill, and walked up the lane with his valise in hand.
The house stood apart from the town, a slate-roofed structure with a garden overrun by shrubs that had long since declared independence from pruning. He knocked twice before the door opened and an elderly man, garbed in a naval coat of faded blue, peered out.
His hair was white, his eyes as bright as stolen gunpowder, and his back straighter than any man his age should have been able to hold it.
“Well?” he demanded. “Speak up! State your business!”
“Sir,” Edmund said, undisturbed by being addressed like a midshipman, “I am seeking a lodging.”
“Ah!” The Admiral’s entire countenance transformed, as if the word ‘room’ had unlocked a long-closed cabin door. “Alodger! Capital! Been years since I have had one. Come in, come in.”
He stepped aside with a sweep of his hand, surprisingly elegant for someone whose fingers were misshapen with age.
Edmund entered the dim hall, noting the naval prints on the walls—Trafalgar, Copenhagen, the Glorious First of June. Dust lay thick on the frames, but the brass beneath still gleamed faintly.
“Your name?” Hammond demanded.
“Leigh,” he said quickly, falling into his alias with more ease than yesterday. “Edmund Leigh.”
“Leigh.” The old man tested it on his tongue, as though tasting a vintage port. “Good name. Sensible name. You are not a thief, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Not French?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then you will do. Come into the sitting room. Mind the rug—my niece knitted the thing and it has ambitions to trip the unwary.”
Edmund bit back a smile and stepped over a remarkably ugly rug that looked perfectly capable of murder.
The sitting room was… unexpected. Neat, but cluttered with naval artefacts: brass sextants, a spyglass, charts in cylindrical cases, and—most curiously—a locked mahogany chest on the mantel that bore the insignia of the Admiralty.
“You served in the Navy, sir?” Edmund asked, though the uniform made the answer obvious.
“Forty-four years. Retired now—more by obligation than choice.” The Admiral tapped his temple. “Memory comes and goes like the tide. Some days I remember every wave I ever saw. Some days I cannot recall whether or not I have eaten breakfast.”
