School situated ideally for concealment of movements.
In contact with an old sailor at the harbour, possibility of relaying messages.
Boarding with Admiral Hammond, Larkin’s former mentor, aware of his cipher.
Renforth always saidthe smallest details mattered most. Edmund had once dismissed such notions—until the day a misplaced footstep had nearly cost him his life. How many small details had he overlooked with his brother?
He folded the paper, sealed the message inside, and prepared it for the next messenger heading toward the mail-coach. The Colonel insisted on frequent reports—as long as it was safe to do so.
Yet once the report was sealed and the duty done, he leaned back in his chair and allowed the thoughts he had been resisting to gather and take their shape.
How might a man find his way nearer to a woman so guarded? Having a female who was not part of London Society as his suspect was new territory.
He considered, first, the simplest path of conversation. Mrs. Larkin did not seem one to volunteer details of herself, but she listened keenly. If he could contrive to encounter her during one of her walks, he might speak of subjects she would not fear: the school, the girls, the weather, the sea—practical things.
Or perhaps there was her school. If he were to offer some assistance with a matter of maintenance or supplies, something requiring a man’s strength or merely his presence, she might accept the offer out of convenience. Not from gratitude but from practicality, and from such a beginning, trust might grow.
Perhaps he could encourage some type of entertainment in which he might help… make himself indispensable to her.
He drummed his fingers on the desk, annoyed with himself for thinking so far ahead, and yet unable to stop. He sensed a shared connection with her, whether of grief, loss, or something else entirely, he could not say. However, emotional confidences could entangle two people very swiftly, and he had no right to tread on the private soil of her grief, nor was it wise in his profession. And yet…
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his brow. “You are a fool, Edmund,” he muttered to the empty room. “A complete and lamentable fool.”
Still, the ideas persisted: Offer practical help; be present without hovering; speak of what she valued rather than what he wished to know. Prove himself steady, consistent, harmless.
These were the strategies of a patient man, a sensible man—traits he had always believed himself to possess. But beneath those measured intentions lay a truth that unsettled him more: he wanted her to trust him. And that desire, he suspected, would require far more discipline than he had exercised before.
CHAPTER 6
The wind clawed at the shutters as Elise shut the front door behind her. She had made her usual twilight journey to the wharf to take Blake his food and medicines. His eyes had been sharp with an old fear she had not seen since the year Charles had died, yet he was reticent since Jane was with her.
Blake had waited in the lee of the boat-house, hunched against the first spattering of rain.
“You had best hurry,” he breathed, though his voice carried no impatience—only worry. “Storm’s rising.”
“I came as soon as I could,” she replied, placing the parcel beside him.
But Blake scarcely looked at it. His trembling fingers seized her wrist, and he thrust something into her palm. A small folded scrap, edges smeared with damp and salt.
“Later,” he whispered. “Read it later.”
His gaze flicked quickly toward the harbour-master’s office, the tavern loft, the lantern swinging above the quay. “Someone is asking questions.”
Elise went cold.
“What?”
Blake shook his head, his eyes fierce. “Not here.”
Her heart stumbled. Questions? It had to be related to their past work, but why now?
Charles Larkin’s work had been secret even from most officers—tracing the stolen government arms that Singleton was then smuggling through hidden coastal channels. Charles had chased Singleton for months, following the faintest threads of evidence.
Then, in a cruel twist of fate, someone else had caught Singleton first—he had been exposed, cornered, and killed in the raid.
Charles’ ship had gone down, supposedly sunk by Singleton’s gang, and the Crown declared the smuggling ring extinguished.
The cipher had retired.
