Beyond the rise, he could hear the sea had altered—a rougher, more unsettled sound, as the waves beat against the shore. The air felt heavier, as though trying to impart a warning. The town had been speaking of a storm for two days, and as a testament to the impending tempest, no one was about.
He had no purpose in walking except to think, yet thinking demanded movement.
Pausing beside the low stone wall, he ran a gloved hand over the lichen-patched stones. The cold roughness calmed him and steadied the current of his thoughts.
He could read faces—men’s faces, chiefly—and hers had had the unmistakable look of someone accustomed to assessing danger long before it reached her.
He crossed the lane and followed the narrow track toward the school. The grounds were extensive—fields to the west, a copse of beech trees to the north, and the school itself rising from the earth in solid grey stone softened by ivy and winter roses. Smoke curled from one of the eastern chimneys where the kitchen fires burned. The high windows threw back the last of the daylight in pale reflection.
No movement showed within, though he heard a girl’s laugh drift faintly from the courtyard before fading into quiet.
The building gave the impression of unwavering respectability, solidity, and order. Yet even orderly places concealed their secrets. He knew that better than anyone.
He approached the gate but did not pass through. Instead he lingered at the wall, notebook in hand. Edmund drew it from his pocket the way other men might draw a flask—by instinct and habit. Its pages were filled with coded notes in a tidy hand, and small sketches rendered with precision.
He flipped to a blank page, shielding the book with the curve of his coat, and began to sketch: the school façade, the servants’ entrance, the path that circled around the rear gardens, and the small, postern gate in the south wall that opened towards the path to the sea.
He added a brief note beneath: Useful vantage points: east wall, beech copse. Rear gate unsecured.
He took another glance at the windows. One, on the second floor, was faintly lit—her room, he suspected, though not by any reasoning he could articulate. It came, rather, from that quiet instinct honed during darker years.
He found himself wondering—in spite of every contrary impulse—what Mrs. Larkin looked like when not bracing herself for others, when not schooling her features to gentle composure. What might she appear like alone at night, a candle burning low beside her, firelight softening the shadows, her hair unpinned and her expression eased of all that measured restraint?
He frowned and forced the thought aside at once. His interest was professional and necessary, nothing more.
To prove it, he wrote down the thought etched most firmly in his mind:
’Tis unclear whether her caution arises from benevolence toward local invalids or fear of an unseen threat or involvement in something covert.
He leaned upon the wall, letting his gaze travel across the grounds. The field beyond the school sloped gently upwards away from the sea. A narrow footpath wound to the cliff edge—perfectly placed for sunrise walks or secret errands. Anyone could pass through unseen.
He closed the notebook, tucking it inside his coat.
A bell rang faintly from the school. Lights brightened in the eastern windows as the winter sun fell early to dusk. A silhouette passed behind one of the panes—just a flicker, a shift of shadow.
He drew a slow breath and the air was sharp in his lungs. The wind had that restless, rising note he remembered from nights on campaign, when tents strained at their ropes and every man checked his gear twice. A stinging damp had begun to creep into the air, not yet rain but the hinting of it, pricking against his cheek and gathering in a chill along his collar. Far out to sea, a low growl of thunder sounded—or perhaps it was only the sea striking harder against the rocks—but the effect was the same: the sense that the day was drawing in its breath and meaning to hold it.
He turned back toward the Admiral’s lane, considering.
There was a pattern here. There had to be. There was a tension beneath her movements, a purpose beyond her errands, something held too tightly within.
Patterns—especially the faintest ones—were precisely what revealed the anomalies.
Edmund walked on, boots crunching the frost, his mind assembling the day’s details with a calm precision.
He continued down the lane, already drafting in his head the coded message he would pen before dusk.
The smallest details often held the key.
To learn those details, he had to gain Mrs. Larkin’s confidence.
He made a detour and walked past the wharf, past the fishing boats, hoping to become familiar enough to discern more about the fisherman. The harbour was already prepared for the blow. Sails were furled taught, extra lines thrown over stout posts, and no one in sight. Blake was not there this night. No one would be who knew a storm was brewing. Where had Blake gone in his boat?
Edmund returned to his room and began his report. The cipher used by the troop was simple but clever—Edmund’s own design. Edmund dipped his pen in the small travelling inkhorn and wrote swiftly:
Woman’s involvement uncertain—maybe charitable, may be compelled.
Observed heightened caution on her part.
