Renforth’s mouth did not change, but Edmund knew the Colonel’s humour; it lurked like steel beneath velvet. “We will find this tunnel and explore from the outside in,” Renforth said calmly. “I suspect it empties into a cave. We may have need of it tomorrow.”
“We had already planned to approach the rendezvous from the tunnel,” Edmund said.
“Holt will watch the house, in case she decides to run away,” Fielding said in a tone of agreement.
“The tunnel appeared sealed, so hopefully they will assume she knows nothing of it.”
“And if he sees strange men about the headland,” Baines added with relish, “he will bolt like a rabbit.”
A deeper shadow detached itself from the slope above them. Stuart emerged, his quiet, practical air instantly familiar. He had been keeping watch nearer the house.
“He may bolt anyway,” Stuart said, gaze on Edmund.
Renforth turned to Edmund again. “You have already set the meeting at the fishing hut?”
“Yes,” Edmund said. “Tomorrow, at dusk. The note implies that Mrs. Larkin must retrieve the key from elsewhere, but having done so, she will then meet him.”
A stillness fell—one of those pauses in which, Edmund thought, men measured not merely the plan, but the cost of it.
Manners exhaled slowly. “Of course.”
Fielding looked toward the cliff, and his voice turned colder. “You are using her as bait?”
“No,” Edmund snapped, more harshly than he intended. He felt the heat of it rise—anger, yes, but also the more inconvenient thing behind anger: care. “We are using her message. There is a distinction.”
Baines gave a low whistle. “Ah. Chum is tender.”
Edmund glared at him. “Hold your tongue.”
Baines’s grin widened and he made as if to do so literally.
Renforth lifted a hand, and the strain shifted at once—his authority settling upon them like a lid on a cooking pot. It was not a rebuke, it was a reminder: this was not a parlour where gentlemen might spar for entertainment. This was work.
“Edmund,” Renforth said quietly, “we need clarity.”
Edmund forced himself to breathe, to uncoil his gloved hands. “Holt has already attacked Blake. He or his men ransacked the school earlier,” he said, glad his voice was more controlled now. “He threatened to burn the school and left a warning for Mrs. Larkin to leave the cipher for him at the gate by midnight. He will not come to the gate at midnight if he receives the note—he will go to the fishing hut tomorrow, believing she will be there. We can take him then, away from the women.”
“What of the ledger?” Stuart asked, because Stuart was always the one to pin the heart of a matter to the table.
Even to his own ears, Edmund’s voice went hard. “I assume he keeps it on his person.”
“Then we cannot let him run,” Fielding remarked the obvious.
“We will not,” Renforth agreed. “We will allow him to believe himself secure.”
Baines’s disappointment was nearly audible. “I dislike plans that involve patience.”
“You dislike plans that involve anything other than brute force,” Fielding returned, and the faintest edge of amusement cut through the cold.
Edmund’s attention returned, rather inevitably he felt, to the part of the plan that made his stomach knot. “I object to involving Mrs. Larkin,” he said, plainly, because it was no use dressing it in politeness. “She is not one of us, she did not swear our oaths. She did not choose this. She should not be made to stand before a man like Holt.”
Manners’s eyes softened a fraction—despite the slightness, it was almost startling in its rarity. “Chum,” he said quietly, “none of us choose all of it either.”
“That is not the same,” Edmund bit out defensively.
Renforth’s voice remained calm. “It is not—and it is precisely why we must ensure this matter ends here.”
Stuart stepped nearer, his tone gentler—not indulgent, but firm in the way of a man who had lost enough to speak without theatrics. “If Holt believes she will deliver, he will come close. If we try to apprehend him before he sees her, we may lose him—and the ledger. He will throw it into the sea, or hand it to another man.”
