“Tonight you are not,” Jane said. “Tonight you are a wench with tired arms and a willingness to work for a coin.”
Jane loosened Elise’s hair, drawing it down into a rougher knot, then secured a dark cap over her hair. She dabbed the faintest smudge of face paint along Elise’s cheekbone, then darkened her skin with some powder mixed with ash.
Elise stared at her reflection. The face looking back was still hers—but altered, softened into anonymity by the smallest changes. It was startling how little it took.
Jane held up the apron. “Tie this low across your stomach. And do not stand as if you are about to give orders to a fleet.”
Elise’s mouth twitched. “How, then, should I stand?”
“As if you expect to be ignored and have nothing to offer,” Jane replied crisply. Elise tied the apron and then reached for her cloak.
Jane caught her hand. “Promise me you will not do anything stupid.”
Elise met her gaze. “I promise I shall do only what I must.”
Jane stepped back, studying her. “You look… plausible.”
“I do not know whether to thank you or not,” Elise said dryly.
“Do not thank me,” Jane replied, “just return alive. That will be gratitude enough.”
Elise hesitated at the door, one hand on the latch. “If I do not return before dawn?—”
Jane’s eyes flashed. “Do not say it.”
Elise nodded, accepting the rebuke, and slipped out into the corridor.
Downstairs, the house was settling for the evening. Cook had finally stopped muttering about damp flour. The girls were in their rooms, hushed with the tiredness that follows a long day.
When the last candle in the dormitory corridor was extinguished, Elise took a steadying breath and, leaving by the side door, stepped into the dark.
The docks at night were another world.
In daylight it wore its respectability like a well-mended coat: cottages whitewashed, curtains drawn and people tending their business. At night, the seam of it loosened as the men came inland from the harbour. Shadows pooled in doorways. Men’s voices grew louder. Laughter rose too easily and fell too sharply. The sea made its own constant, disinterested music beneath all the human noise.
The George sat near the harbour, its windows bright, its door opening and shutting with the steady rhythm of appetite. Light spilled onto the muddy lane in a warm, inviting square, and within that square were boot prints, dropped crumbs, and the faint scent of ale and smoke.
Elise paused for a moment across the road, watching.
It was a tavern like most coastal taverns: timbered, low-ceilinged, built to endure weather and men. The sign creaked above the door—a painted anchor, chipped by time. The air around it was thick with competing smells: salt and fish, damp wool, pipe smoke, and the unmistakable odour of spilled beer gone stale.
She had been here before a few times—years ago. In those days she had come in a cloak and bonnet, slipping within through the back door. The landlord had never asked questions. He had accepted her help as though he expected it, and perhaps he had. Men like him saw more than they admitted.
Elise crossed the road and entered.
The noise struck her at once—voices layered upon voices, laughter, argument, the scrape of chairs, the thump of a tankard upon wood. The fire was bright and too hot, mingled with the stench of male bodies after a day’s labour. In one corner, a fiddler sawed at a tune with more enthusiasm than skill. Men crowded the tables—fishermen, rough seamen, a few sailors in half-pay coats, and tradesmen.
Behind the bar stood the landlord, Mr. Grey, as broad as an ox and with a face that could be genial or forbidding depending on his mood. He looked up as Elise stepped in, and for a moment his gaze passed over her without recognition.
Then, something flickered—not surprise, not alarm, only… acknowledgement. It had been years since she had donned her disguise, and thankfully he went along as they had when she had done surveillance in this guise for Charles.
He jerked his chin toward the back. “You,” he said curtly, as if she were any girl who had been late for her shift. “Busy night.”
Elise dipped her head. “I will nay be late again.”
“See you don’t,” he grunted, and shoved a cloth into her hand. “Wipe that table—and don’t stand about.”
She moved at once, grateful for the cover of labour. A woman who worked and did not look at anyone too closely lest she be construed as open for more.
