The disarray of the hut told a story. Blake had struggled. Someone had pinned him down near the back wall—impressions suggested knees or boots beside him—and then dragged him across the floor, judging by the long smears.
Edmund rose, sweeping his gaze slowly around the room.
A faint metallic glint near a fishing net caught his attention. He retrieved it: a button. It was Navy-issue, but the engraving had been filed down. He turned it over in his fingers, feeling that familiar prickling at the back of his neck—the sense that he stood too close to something he ought to recognize. Men who wished to hide their allegiance defaced their buttons. It was an old trick. Smugglers did it.
He slipped the button carefully into his pocket.
Near the door, he noticed something else: the imprint of a boot larger than the others, set in drying mud and leading out of the shack—not toward the coast, but inland. He straightened slowly.
Had someone come here after the assault? Not Elise—her steps were light, quick, unmistakable. This print belonged to a large man.
He scanned the shack once more, committing everything to memory. The attackers had been methodical, the beatingintentional. It had been the kind of violence meant to extract information—or punish its absence.
That meant Blake had something Holt wanted. Had Blake given them what they sought?
And Elise… she was in danger by association if not more.
Edmund drew a deep breath of cold, bracing air, feeling more and more uneasy about Elise Larkin.
He continued toward town with long, determined strides. Before collecting the medicines, he stopped at the post office and stepped inside. He would send off a query at once. Renforth would know whether Blake belonged to the Navy, the Army, the smuggler-watch, or something darker still—and he would know it quickly.
There was a desk for patrons to write messages at before handing them to the courier who rode to London twice a day. Edmund took up a pen, his hand steady despite the conflict roiling beneath his ribs.
He wrote swiftly, clearly and sparingly:
Requireimmediate intelligence on a man answering to the name of Blake—found wounded on the coast. Knife wound, deliberate assault, left for dead.
Confirm whether he is known to our circle or any branch of service.
Colonel Renforthand the other officers might make sense of it.
He folded the message with precision and sealed it with the small signet he carried for correspondence only Renforth would see. Handing it to the courier, he said quietly, “To London with haste.”
The man nodded, slipping it into the dispatch bag without question.
Edmund stepped back out into the daylight and exhaled. He felt steadier already. He had a clue to follow. Now he would fetch the willow bark and laudanum. Edmund quickened his steps. He would keep his promise to her—as long as he was able—but he would not let himself wander blindly into whatever network of danger she was entangled in. Duty came first.
Edmund returned to the school with the apothecary’s parcel tucked firmly beneath his arm, the winter wind snapping at his coat-tails as though urging him along. He had set out the moment he left Mrs. Larkin, whilst his mind had remained lodged in that room the entire walk.
The images were imprinted on his mind’s eye: A wounded man—‘Blake,’ she had said, though the name had tumbled out with a hesitation that lingered unpleasantly in his memory; a knife wound to the thigh, ribs bruised by boots, half-delirious and left to die in a broken hut. Whoever had delivered this brutality was delivering a message.
Mrs. Larkin had clearly known that the very moment she saw the wounds.
No ordinary schoolmistress would have tended those injuries with such practised deftness, lest she had experience. And no woman living quietly would react to danger by moving a dying man into a hidden room to tend, let alone without help.
He approached the school’s side door and knocked lightly. He had meant to be discreet, but she opened it so swiftly he wondered if she had been waiting by the door.
“Mr. Leigh,” she said softly, her eyes unreadable. “You have returned promptly.”
“Of course,” he replied, lifting the parcel. “I thought it best not to delay.”
She stepped aside, admitting him into the narrow corridor. Her composure was unchanged—calm, grave, maddeninglycontrolled—yet there was a faint strain at the corners of her eyes he had not noticed before.
He followed her up the small back staircase, careful not to appear too curious. When they reached the landing, she turned with a quiet warning in her manner—as though she expected him to behave with solemnity. He inclined his head in reassurance.
He paused, weighing the wisdom of seeking further information. Her face, however, held no guilt, only the weary determination of someone who had done what had been needed, regardless of propriety or expectation.
She opened the parcel, inspecting the bottles with a practised eye. “These will do well. Thank you.”
