Chapter 12
Holt vanished into the caves and Elise knew they had lost this skirmish.
She stopped first, her breath fire in her chest, her skirts damp and heavy with salt.
The wind tugged at her hood, loosening a strand of hair that whipped against her cheek.
Mr. Leigh halted a pace behind her, close enough that she could feel his presence.
As ever, he seemed contained, watchful and controlled.
“Well,” she said, without turning, “that answers nothing.”
“No,” he replied quietly, “but it confirms something.”
She glanced back at him. The moonlight caught the planes of his face, intent, thoughtful and infuriatingly calm, as though he had expected this outcome all along.
“You followed him,” she said, “as I did.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you are unperturbed that he escaped.” She stated the words as fact.
“Holt was never meant to be caught tonight.”
She let out a short, humourless breath. “Then what was the purpose of following him?”
“To see who he spoke with,” he said, “where he went and—” He hesitated a fraction. “—who else might be watching.”
That pricked her nerves. Elise straightened. “You believe there were others?”
“I would stake my life on it,” he said simply.
They began walking back toward the headland together, the path narrow and uneven beneath their feet. Waves splashed against the rocks below, the tide swollen. Above them, the sky had cleared to a hard scatter of stars, cold and distant.
Elise drew her cloak closer about her. Her thoughts were racing now—not with fear, but with calculation.
“You recognized me,” she said abruptly.
He did not deny it. “Your disguise was… determined.”
She pursed her lips. “I did not ask for critique.”
“No,” he said mildly. “You asked for honesty.”
She shot him a look. “Did I?”
“You ask many things without voicing them,” he replied.
That gave her pause. She did not like being read so easily.
“And yet,” she said, “you said nothing.”
“You were disguised for a reason,” he said. “Acknowledging you would have put you at risk.”
“That is thoughtful and perceptive of you.”
He inclined his head with a slight upturn of his lips.
She almost smiled—almost—but suspicion returned at once, more acute than before.
“You were not at the tavern by chance,” she said.
“No.”
“Did you follow me there?”
“No.”
“Then you followed Holt. Why?”
“I have reason to believe he is connected to something I am trying to prevent,” he said carefully.
She stopped walking. He halted too, immediately, as though trained to match another’s movement without thought. The moonlight caught the side of his face, illuminating the faint scar at his temple. She wondered—not for the first time—how he had earned it.
“You will speak plainly,” she said.
He regarded her steadily. “You are asking questions you may not like the answers to.”
“I am accustomed to that.”
“As am I.”
The wind gusted, tugging at her skirts. She did not look away.
“You knew my husband,” she said flatly.
“Yes.”
“At school?”
“Yes.”
“And Singleton?”
He flinched almost imperceptibly. “Yes. That was the truth.”
She noted it and filed it away against future need.
“You arrived here at the same time Holt appeared,” she continued. “You have insinuated yourself into the Admiral’s household, into my school, into my path. You follow men who speak of keys and ciphers. Do you continue to insist you are here merely as a writer?”
He exhaled slowly. “I do not to you.”
Her brow furrowed. “You do not?”
“I insist only that I am searching for an object,” he said, “and that whatever I am pursuing intersects uncomfortably with your life.”
“That is an evasion.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
“I am not at liberty to disclose details. Besides, if I tell you everything,” he said quietly, “you will wish you had not heard it.”
Her voice softened despite herself. “You assume I am fragile.” Again, though, it was a statement.
“No,” he said at once. “I assume you are resilient enough to be endangered by the truth.”
That struck deeper than she liked.
They resumed walking, more slowly now. The school’s silhouette rose ahead of them, solid against the night, its windows dark save for a faint glow on the upper floor.
“You said that Holt believes I possess something,” Elise said.
“A key.”
“And you believe he is correct?”
“I believe,” he said carefully, “that Holt believes it. Whether he is right is another matter.”
Her heart beat harder. “You think I might not have it?”
“I think,” he said, “that you are hiding something.”
She did not know whether to be relieved or unsettled.
“You heard him speak of the cipher,” she said, once more stating facts as she saw them.
“Yes.”
“What did you hear?” Perhaps he had heard more than she.
“That the key was essential to unlocking what they needed in order to continue,” Mr. Leigh answered.
Elise’s fingers clenched within her cloak.
Blake’s warning burned in her mind. Someone was using the cipher.
Perhaps they had only copied some of the symbols if they were looking for the way to read it.
“And you?” she asked. “What do you believe?”
He was silent for several steps.
“I believe,” he said at last, “that your husband died pursuing men who never truly disappeared as had been thought.”
Her breath caught. She stopped again. “You presume—?”
“I presume nothing,” he said quietly, “but I know this: operations of that scale do not dissolve simply because one man is killed. The perpetrators fragment. They wait. Then when conditions are favourable—when memories fade and vigilance lapses—they resume.”
“Do you think Holt is part of that?”
“Yes.”
“And Singleton?” she asked, watching him closely.
“Singleton was one part of a much larger machine.”
She searched his face, looking for judgement, for condemnation. She found neither, only something harder to name in the steadiness of his voice.
“You speak as though you mourn him,” she said.
He met her gaze. “I mourn what he destroyed.”
That was answer enough. They reached the school gate. Elise laid her hand upon it, then hesitated.
“Who are you?” she asked quietly.
“Someone who seeks the truth.”
“That is not a complete answer.”
“It is the only one I can give.”
She turned to face him fully now, lantern-light catching the planes of his face. He looked tired, she realized—not merely from the night’s exertions, but from a deeper weariness. This was a man long accustomed to carrying weight without relief.
“You are not what you pretend to be,” she said with conviction. “Yet you expect me to trust you.”
“I expect nothing of the sort,” he corrected gently. “I mean to find what I was sent here for, and I believe Holt has it.”
She pressed her lips together.
“If you have what he wants, then he will stop at nothing to get it.”
“I would protect the girls with my life. I cannot let him breach the school.”
“I would prefer that Holt does not reach you, myself,” he said, “by learning what he wants, and by stopping whatever he intends to do with it.”
“Where will you stand if I am part of that?” she demanded. “If you discover I am more than merely a target?”
“Then,” he said evenly, “we will both have difficult decisions to make.”
She studied him for a long moment. “So Holt has what you seek, and he believes I have the key to the code he needs,” she said finally.
“Something of that nature,” he said quietly. “I believe he has stolen a ledger written with a cipher that was created by your husband. I intend to find it before he finds the key.”
“What will you do if I possess this key—or, indeed, if I do not?”
“I mean you no harm as long as you do not intend England harm.”
“I assure you I would never do harm to my country! Everything Charles worked for was for England’s good.”
A flicker of something—admiration, perhaps—passed across his face before he masked it.
“Then,” he said, “we may yet prevail.”
Elise opened the gate and stepped inside. She paused, hand still on the latch.
“You will not tell anyone what you saw tonight?” she asked.
“I will not,” he replied, “unless it becomes necessary.”
She frowned. “Necessary for whom?”
“For you,” he said.
She shook her head. “You are impossible.”
“I am told so often.”
“Consider the matter. Perhaps we can help each other.”
She turned away then, walking up the path toward the house. She did not look back, but she felt his gaze upon her until she reached the door.
Inside, the school was quiet, and safe—for now. They went to their rooms, where Elise closed her door and leaned against it, her heart racing.
She had meant to uncover Holt. Instead, she had uncovered something far more unsettling: a man who watched her as both suspect and something to be protected. A man who knew too much, revealed too little, and yet had deliberately placed himself between her and danger.
She did not know whether Mr. Leigh would prove to be her greatest ally—or the gravest threat she had yet faced. In the morning she must go to Blake and seek his advice on whether Mr. Leigh was to be trusted.
The morning broke cool and crisp, the sea winds biting after a clear night.
Elise crossed the courtyard with her usual brisk step, the hem of her grey gown catching a stray leaf or two as she went.
The girls—those lively, disorderly, well-meaning creatures—were already assembled in the east hall, their chatter echoing down the corridor.
Jane met her at the door, flushed with the effort of imposing order.
“They are yours now, Elise,” she whispered in an exhausted tone, as though handing over a regiment rather than a classroom of schoolgirls.
“Very well,” Elise murmured, pressing a steadying hand to the other woman’s arm. “Just the time for decorum.” However, her mind was racing with thoughts of getting away to see Blake.
Miss Archer managed a thin smile and retreated, leaving Elise to face her small army alone.
“Ladies,” she said gently.