Jane’s brows rose. “You think him a military man? Betsy will never survive it if he proves to be a colonel.”
“Betsy may console herself with her pots and pans,” Elise said. “I am more concerned with why a soldier should be masquerading as a writer here. It is not an obvious destination for either.”
Jane leaned back in her chair and considered this. “There are not many reasons a gentleman comes to a place like ours and takes rooms at the George. A former soldier must dosomething… have purpose. He is perhaps using writing to chase away his demons, though why he would linger here… or?—”
“Or he might have business with the harbour,” Elise finished, thinking of her own twice-weekly journeys down to the quay. No one took much notice of a woman walking alone with a basket on her arm. No one, she hoped, except perhaps the Almighty.
Jane’s eyes met hers. They had long since ceased needing to speak certain things aloud.
“You think he is from the Admiralty?” Jane asked.
“Or the War Office,” Elise said. “Or something allied to the two. Though it would be odd if they sent a gentleman whose boots Mrs. Prowse can admire and whose jaw Betsy will compose sonnets about. One would think a spy should be less noticeable.”
“Perhaps they thought to distract us,” Jane said dryly, “with boots and jaw and writer’s notebooks. It is a very underhand method of inspection. However, I think you are merely suspicious.”
Before Elise could reply, there was another tap at the door. This time it was Charlotte Fairchild, one of the elder girls, fifteen and very nearly elegant, with dark hair that would be pretty when she ceased tormenting it with pins. She held a folded paper in her hand.
“Mrs. Larkin, might I—oh, I beg your pardon, I did not mean to interrupt.”
“You seldom do when you intend to,” Elise said, softening the rebuke with a smile. “What is it, Charlotte?”
“It is Papa, ma’am,” Charlotte said, twisting the paper. “I had a letter this morning. His ship is to sail again next month. He says—I mean, he wishes me to continue here until he returns, and I am glad of it, truly I am, but—” Her voice wavered. “Could I write back to him today? I know it is not the usual day for letters, but if the packet sails soon, it might reach him in time…”
Elise rose at once and took the letter gently from her hands. She knew that cramped, hurried script; Captain Fairchild had been one of her earliest correspondents in the network of men and women who wrote to her of girls needing placements and sailors in need of care. That was how her work had begun. He had been kind after Larkin’s death. She would scan the missive for any hidden correspondence, then return it to Charlotte.
“Of course you may write,” she said. “You shall have the small parlour to yourself, and we will post it today. Your father shall have a letter fit to carry in his breast-pocket.”
Charlotte’s eyes shone. “Thank you, ma’am. I did not like to ask, only—” She faltered. “He says the sea is calm just now. That it makes him uneasy.”
Elise felt the echo of that.
“The sea is a fickle creature,” she said quietly. “It smiles when it means to bite. But your father is an excellent officer. He knows her tricks. Now go and tell Miss Archer you shall be absent from French. I shall answer to her if she complains.”
Charlotte curtsied and withdrew, her cares visibly lighter.
Jane watched her go, then looked back at Elise.
“You are going into town this afternoon?”
“Yes. The post must go, and we are very nearly out of sugar.”
“I will come with you,” Jane said at once. “Mrs. Grey owes me the receipt for her currant buns, and I intend to tear it from her by any means short of violence. Besides—” A glimmer of mischief appeared in her face. “Someone must stand between you and this mysterious soldier-writer if he contrives to throw himself in your path.”
“Do not be absurd,” Elise said, but she did not refuse the company.
They set out after luncheon, the house behind them settling into the gentle chaos of needlework, pianoforte playing, and reading. The air on the cliff path was brisk and clean, tastingof salt and cold stone. Elise drew her shawl closer about her shoulders; Jane, who never minded the weather, tilted her face into the breeze as if it were a challenge. It might have been any other afternoon in winter—ordinary, predictable and safely dull.
“I think a storm is coming,” Jane said, then quickly changed the subject. “If Mrs. Grey thinks to fob me off with stale gossip again instead of a receipt, I shall take it as a declaration of war.”
“You are welcome to declare war,” Elise replied, “so long as you do not declare it in my kitchen. Cook will retaliate with salt beef, and then we shall all suffer.”
They had just reached the point where the path from the school met the lane rising from the harbour when Elise saw him.
He bore that same measured stride she had noted from the chapel window. His coat was of serge, plain but well-made, his hat pushed back a fraction, his notebook tucked beneath his arm in a manner that suggested he was as much armed by it as any man by a sword. The wind had brought colour to his cheeks, and a scar at his temple was visible at this distance, a pale line against sun-browned skin.
He saw them almost at once and, instead of blundering into their way like most men, stepped aside neatly, removing his hat with an ease that spoke of long practice in drawing-rooms more polished than this stony lane. His hair was a little longer than was fashionable, and was most definitely chestnut. His eyes were a shade lighter.
“Good afternoon, ladies.” His voice was low, civil, unmistakably that of a gentleman.
