If she was looking for the Serena she was lost, or at least too late; it had pulled in at the next pier to unload its cargo but had shifted berths later that same night. Alfred had only been aware of it after the fact, when he'd come in the next morning and seen that the place where she'd been docked was empty, so he wasn't sure exactly where she'd gone, or why. It was unlikely to be anywhere very distant, though, given the turn-around time between pulling in and pulling out. Maybe they'd shifted down to a pier that was easier to accomplish some structural work, if they had any that needed doing — that seemed the most likely scenario. In any case, the port authority would know, and he was inclined to direct her there without any further involvement on his part, until she asked if they knew each other. It wasn't that she'd asked — people sometimes recognized him from newspapers or the back of that damned book. The way she'd asked, though, was intriguing: had they sailed together.

Every voyage he'd gone on since his return from the Sycorax, he'd been the captain, and he liked to think he would have recognized any of the men who'd sailed under him. He certainly would have recognized a woman, though, because they were few and far between — and, because, if he were being honest, he was still too superstitious about having them on board to just treat them equally, regardless of their role. She hadn't been on his ship since he'd returned to England, then. He didn't remember every face from the Sycorax, particularly with the whole slew of scientists and researchers they'd brought along, but there were only three survivors of that journey, in the end, and he certainly knew them quite well. Which only left his early sailing career, but that didn't seem possible. He wasn't sure how old she was, but she didn't look old enough to have been sailing ten years ago.

"Doubtful," he answered. "And the Serena's moved, but I'll walk you over to track down where," he offered. It was uncommon enough to meet women with any nautical experience that he felt it was justified to help her out a bit, if only so that he had an excuse to talk to her a bit longer and satisfy his curiosity. "You sail?"