“No,” Elise murmured. “Nothing at all.”
Yet she knew her tone betrayed unease.
Jane peered back over her shoulder. “I see no one. Why, the path is completely deserted.”
It was true. The fishermen had long since returned home. The town was settling for the night, save for the usual custom at the tavern. The cliffside lay in its usual desolate serenity and yet Elise could not shake the conviction that unseen eyes lingered somewhere beyond the wild gorse and stone.
Jane resumed her light, pleasant talk, praising the beauty of the evening, quite unaware that Elise heard none of it. She was listening instead to the soft scrape of stones, the hiss of grass bending, the faintest rustle far behind them.
She listened… and measured the quiet.
No footsteps followed.
No voice called out.
No movement betrayed pursuit.
The stillness might have reassured another woman. It did not reassure her.
The next day dawned with none of the foreboding that had haunted the previous evening. The school was already alive with purposeful bustle. Elise began her day as she always did, making certain everything was running as it should. Each morning, three girls would take turns at helping in the kitchen. Cook—a stout, cheerful woman with opinions as strong as her tea—presided over the baking lesson. Elise merely offered quiet encouragement from the edge of the warm, fragrant kitchen.
“Not so heavy with the currants, Miss Clara,” Cook instructed briskly. “A gentleman likes his tea-cake sweet, not leaden.”
Clara obeyed at once, and the others tittered softly.
Elise smiled, though she kept her hands primly folded. She never interfered in the cook’s domain; indeed, Cook would not suffer it. Her own role was to guide the girls’ deportment—gentleness in correction, steadiness in hand, and the quietgrace required in all household matters. Jane oversaw the girls’ education.
When the cakes were at last drawn from the oven—golden, fragrant, and triumphantly declared very nearly perfect by Cook—the girls wrapped several in a clean cloth and offered them to Elise.
“Would you be taking these to the Admiral, ma’am?” Clara asked, cheeks pink with pride. “He likes these on Tuesdays. He told me so at church.”
“He likes the cakes because you make them,” Elise corrected softly.
The girls beamed, satisfied with this distinction.
Twice a week—always on the same steady rhythm—Elise visited the Admiral. Her husband had served under him as a young officer, had held him in high esteem, and had often said that no commander could shape finer men. It seemed to Elise a sacred obligation—one she could not neglect—to honour those early bonds by ensuring the Admiral was never left too long in loneliness.
The Admiral’s dwelling, a white stone cottage with blue shutters and a slate roof, appeared peaceful in the late-morning light. The housekeeper, Mrs. Grealey, opened the door to her knock, standing taller than usual, as though she had been listening for it.
“Mrs. Larkin,” she greeted her with a curtsy. “The Admiral has a new guest.”
“Oh?” she replied, stepping inside. It had been ages since she could recall him having a boarder.
The Admiral brightened the instant she entered the drawing room. It appeared to be one of his good memory days, unlike some when he was distant and babbled nonsense.
“There she is!” he cried, his lined face creasing into delight. “Do you know, my dear, your visits do me more good than a full complement of naval surgeons?”
“I doubt they would approve of your sweet indulgence,” she said, placing the cloth-wrapped cakes upon the table, and carefully smoothing the folds as though the occupation gave her hands something to do besides betray feeling.
“They may frown and fuss,” he scoffed, waving one hand in lofty disdain, “but Charles always said that a man who has earned his comforts should not be denied them. Bless his memory. Come, sit, sit. You must tell me everything the school has been about.”
Elise took her usual seat—she never tarried long, yet she always stayed long enough to satisfy the Admiral’s desire for company. Of late, she had begun to recognize the swing of his humours and his faculties: there were days when his mind ranged as briskly as any young officer’s, and days when it drifted like a ship the anchor of which had slipped. This was one of the former. His eyes were clear, and his speech, though rambling, was connected.
She folded her hands in her lap, prepared to answer his inquiries about the girls, the headmistress, and Cook’s tyrannical rule over the kitchen, when a slight movement near the doorway caught her attention.
Turning, she saw his guest standing at the door.
He had stepped back a little when she turned, as though unwilling to intrude upon the Admiral’s greeting, and the posture had placed him half in shadow. Now, with the Admiral beckoning him nearer to the fire, she had leisure to look properly at him.
