“It’s just the blasted sun.”

“Here. Please.”

“You’re very kind.”

It is only as she takes his handkerchief that he remembers it is embroidered with his brother’s initials. It was a shame not to use them, Edie had said, not sounding entirely convinced. He looks away as the woman wipes the tears from her eyes. The blue water is glitteringly bright.

“‘F.B.,’ is it? Frank? Fred? To whom do I address my thanks?”

“Harry, actually.” He offers her his hand. “Harry Blythe.”

“Rachel West.” Her face softens when she smiles. “Bother. It doesn’t seem quite nice to soil a stranger’s handkerchief and then to hand it back. Even if it perhaps wasn’t yours to begin with.”

“Do keep it. Think nothing of it.” He can feel his breath slowing, his center stilling. To focus on the details of a new face, to see her tears drying, and to exchange steady civilities takes that momentary misplaced rush away.

“I’m indebted to you, Mr. Blythe. I assure you, I don’t make a habit of commandeering the linen of men I’ve never met before.”

“No secret stockpile of pilfered napkins and inveigled cravats, then?”

“This is the first in my collection.”

How could he have mistaken her? Her face isn’t like Edie’s at all, he sees now: the angles are sharper, her colors all darker. But something in her smile, in the animation of her eyes, reminds Harry of her.

“Did I see you drawing pictures earlier?” she asks.

“Quite possibly. I’ve found myself press-ganged into being a floating portrait artist. A lady asked me to draw her likeness this morning and now they’re forming a queue. I’ve never had more custom or more gratitude. I’m starting to think that I could make a living on this crossing.”

“What a thing!”

“They mean to pin themselves up in enquiry offices and cafés and railway stations. They’re looking for missing men.”

Rachel West blows smoke at the sea and nods, as if she finds this behavior perfectly normal and natural. Her hand goes to the locket around her neck, her fingers stroking the engraved words Forget Me Not. He considers, as he watches her, whether it is sometimes best to try to forget.

“They stick up photographs of their husbands and their own faces. Like so many misplaced shoes that need pairing back together again. I didn’t know that there would be so many.”

When she looks back at him, she seems surprised. “So many? But of course.”