Jane nominated Mr. Leigh, and the girls seconded it with dangerous enthusiasm.
Thus caught, the poor man had no choice. He began, however, not with a schoolboy prank, but with a stiller sort of tale, and the room altered at once. “There is a peculiar thing,” Mr. Leigh said, his voice lower than before, “that happens among men who have been obliged to trust one another without question.” He did not look at Elise when he spoke—perhaps he knew he ought not—but his words seemed to settle on her all the same. “In London, men measure one another by name andconsequence. In the field, those distinctions dissolve. You are reduced to what you can do, and whether you will do it when it costs you.” The girls had gone quiet. Even Lydia, who could usually find humour in anything, stared with round eyes. “I once saw a man,” he continued, “give away his last dry shirt to a stranger, because the stranger shook with fever and the night promised to be bitter. It was not charity as the sermons describe it. It was simply… fellowship. A recognition that tomorrow might require the same of you.”
The Admiral made a small sound of agreement, not quite a cough, not quite a sigh; his gaze, suddenly distant, seemed fixed on some horizon only he could see.
“It is an odd thing,” Mr. Leigh went on, “to return from such places and be expected to be amused by drawing-room trifles. One feels—” He paused, as if searching for a word he did not wish to confess to a room of girls. “One feels out of joint with the world.” Elise felt something in her chest tighten. Out of joint. Yes. That was precisely it. She had thought the sensation peculiar to widows and to those who lived with ghosts. Yet here was a man who spoke of it as if it were a common injury. He let the gravity hang only a moment longer, and then, as if he regretted having allowed himself any earnestness at all, his mouth twitched. “Which is why,” he said, “it is a mercy that Providence provides compensations—such as foolish boys at school who believe themselves invincible.” The girls released their breath in a collective rustle, and laughter—tentative at first—returned to the room as he shifted into the promised tale of a clock tower, a forbidden rope, and a dog whose loyalties were entirely mercenary. When he described the moment the rope snapped and he tumbled into a duck pond with the offended bird pursuing him like an avenging spirit, Harriet laughed outright, Lydia shrieked with delight, and Clara pressed her hands to her mouth as if laughter might compromise her dignity.
The girls shrieked with laughter; even Elise felt her lips tremble toward a smile.
His voice was a good one—low, steady and expressive without theatricality. When he described falling into a duck pond, the Admiral slapped his knee.
“You see, Mrs. Larkin?” he cried. “A natural storyteller!”
Elise gave a composed nod, but inside she felt the slightest flutter. He was a natural storyteller indeed.
And entirely too agreeable.
When the tale ended, the Admiral demanded another. Elise obliged with one of Charles’s—an anecdote from his midshipman days involving a mistaken signal and a near collision in fog. She relayed it carefully, for Charles had told it to her so many times she could hear his laughter still.
As she finished, silence fell over the room—a warm, thoughtful silence.
Mr. Leigh regarded her with an expression she could not decipher.
“Your husband,” he said softly, “was an extraordinary man.”
The words pierced her unexpectedly. She forced a calm smile.
“He was,” she said simply before adding, unable to resist the hint of warning, “He also despised dishonesty.”
Their eyes met briefly, Elise felt it intensely, nonetheless.
He inclined his head slowly. “A quality I admire more than I can express.”
Elise looked away first. Why had she made such a remark?
When the girls were finally tucked into their beds, the Admiral settled in his chamber, and Jane occupied with checking the roof for leaks, Elise lingered for a moment in the empty drawing room.
The storm had passed but the house still creaked with its memory. Rain tapped faintly at the window-panes. She sat at thewriting desk and stared at the inkpot. Her mind would not be still, and she had to decide what to do. Someone who knew the code had not died with Charles.
She must protect Blake, the girls, the Admiral, Jane, and herself—and she must do it under the watchful gaze of a man who was far too perceptive for her comfort.
She told herself again and again that she must maintain her distance, her caution and her carefully guarded secrets.
Nevertheless, when she remembered the sight of Mr. Leigh lifting the Admiral as though he weighed nothing… and tending the old man through the night… and speaking so gently to the frightened girls… and laughing at Jane’s keen wit… her resolve wavered.
You cannot trust him, her rational mind insisted.But you want to, whispered something traitorous inside her.
She pressed her hands to her eyes. If she was wrong about him—if she falsely suspected a good man—she would never forgive herself.
If she was right—and he was here to uncover her knowledge of the cipher—then she must tread with exquisite care.
A soft knock broke her torment of thought.
“Elise?” Jane’s voice sounded in the doorway. “You left your candle downstairs. Are you retiring?”
Elise rose at once, smoothing her skirts. “Yes. I am coming.”
She glanced once more at the empty hearth, where the fire had burned down to a sleepy glow. Perhaps she had been wrong to suspect Mr. Leigh so quickly. Perhaps she was merely frightened—more than she had allowed herself to admit.
