Chapter 5 #2
He flipped to a blank page, shielding the book with the curve of his coat, and began to sketch: the school facade, the servants’ entrance, the path that circled around the rear gardens, and the small, postern gate in the south wall that opened towards the path to the sea.
He added a brief note beneath: Useful vantage points: east wall, beech copse. Rear gate unsecured.
He took another glance at the windows. One, on the second floor, was faintly lit—her room, he suspected, though not by any reasoning he could articulate. It came, rather, from that quiet instinct honed during darker years.
He found himself wondering—in spite of every contrary impulse—what Mrs. Larkin looked like when not bracing herself for others, when not schooling her features to gentle composure.
What might she appear like alone at night, a candle burning low beside her, firelight softening the shadows, her hair unpinned and her expression eased of all that measured restraint?
He frowned and forced the thought aside at once. His interest was professional and necessary, nothing more.
To prove it, he wrote down the thought etched most firmly in his mind:
’Tis unclear whether her caution arises from benevolence toward local invalids or fear of an unseen threat or involvement in something covert.
He leaned upon the wall, letting his gaze travel across the grounds. The field beyond the school sloped gently upwards away from the sea. A narrow footpath wound to the cliff edge—perfectly placed for sunrise walks or secret errands. Anyone could pass through unseen.
He closed the notebook, tucking it inside his coat.
A bell rang faintly from the school. Lights brightened in the eastern windows as the winter sun fell early to dusk. A silhouette passed behind one of the panes—just a flicker, a shift of shadow.
He drew a slow breath and the air was sharp in his lungs.
The wind had that restless, rising note he remembered from nights on campaign, when tents strained at their ropes and every man checked his gear twice.
A stinging damp had begun to creep into the air, not yet rain but the hinting of it, pricking against his cheek and gathering in a chill along his collar.
Far out to sea, a low growl of thunder sounded—or perhaps it was only the sea striking harder against the rocks—but the effect was the same: the sense that the day was drawing in its breath and meaning to hold it.
He turned back toward the Admiral’s lane, considering.
There was a pattern here. There had to be. There was a tension beneath her movements, a purpose beyond her errands, something held too tightly within.
Patterns—especially the faintest ones—were precisely what revealed the anomalies.
Edmund walked on, boots crunching the frost, his mind assembling the day’s details with a calm precision.
He continued down the lane, already drafting in his head the coded message he would pen before dusk.
The smallest details often held the key.
To learn those details, he had to gain Mrs. Larkin’s confidence.
He made a detour and walked past the wharf, past the fishing boats, hoping to become familiar enough to discern more about the fisherman.
The harbour was already prepared for the blow.
Sails were furled taught, extra lines thrown over stout posts, and no one in sight.
Blake was not there this night. No one would be who knew a storm was brewing. Where had Blake gone in his boat?
Edmund returned to his room and began his report. The cipher used by the troop was simple but clever—Edmund’s own design. Edmund dipped his pen in the small travelling inkhorn and wrote swiftly:
Woman’s involvement uncertain—may be charitable, may be compelled.
Observed heightened caution on her part.
School situated ideally for concealment of movements.
In contact with an old sailor at the harbour, possibility of relaying messages.
Boarding with Admiral Hammond, Larkin’s former mentor, aware of his cipher.
Renforth always said the smallest details mattered most. Edmund had once dismissed such notions—until the day a misplaced footstep had nearly cost him his life. How many small details had he overlooked with his brother?
He folded the paper, sealed the message inside, and prepared it for the next messenger heading toward the mail-coach. The Colonel insisted on frequent reports—as long as it was safe to do so.
Yet once the report was sealed and the duty done, he leaned back in his chair and allowed the thoughts he had been resisting to gather and take their shape.
How might a man find his way nearer to a woman so guarded? Having a female who was not part of London Society as his suspect was new territory.
He considered, first, the simplest path of conversation.
Mrs. Larkin did not seem one to volunteer details of herself, but she listened keenly.
If he could contrive to encounter her during one of her walks, he might speak of subjects she would not fear: the school, the girls, the weather, the sea—practical things.
Or perhaps there was her school. If he were to offer some assistance with a matter of maintenance or supplies, something requiring a man’s strength or merely his presence, she might accept the offer out of convenience.
Not from gratitude but from practicality, and from such a beginning, trust might grow.
Perhaps he could encourage some type of entertainment in which he might help… make himself indispensable to her.
He drummed his fingers on the desk, annoyed with himself for thinking so far ahead, and yet unable to stop.
He sensed a shared connection with her, whether of grief, loss, or something else entirely, he could not say.
However, emotional confidences could entangle two people very swiftly, and he had no right to tread on the private soil of her grief, nor was it wise in his profession. And yet…
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his brow. “You are a fool, Edmund,” he muttered to the empty room. “A complete and lamentable fool.”
Still, the ideas persisted: Offer practical help; be present without hovering; speak of what she valued rather than what he wished to know. Prove himself steady, consistent, harmless.
These were the strategies of a patient man, a sensible man—traits he had always believed himself to possess.
But beneath those measured intentions lay a truth that unsettled him more: he wanted her to trust him.
And that desire, he suspected, would require far more discipline than he had exercised before.