Chapter Thirty
Sunday morning, after a restless night, Mary-Ann sat at the breakfast table, smoothing her napkin across her lap, her expression perfectly composed as Lydia prattled on about linens.
The breakfast table was set with precision, marmalade in a cut-glass dish, eggs gone slightly cold, and tea she hadn’t tasted.
Her father sat at the head of the table, more tired than usual, though he made an effort to murmur polite responses now and then.
“I do think the pale green would suit the dining room better, don’t you?” Lydia was saying. “It’s soothing. And it reflects the light in a very forgiving way.”
Mary-Ann nodded. “Lovely.”
Lydia beamed. “Of course, Mr. Wilkinson has excellent taste. He said we should embrace the modern hues. He’s ordered new wallpaper samples to arrive next week.”
Across the table, Mr. Seaton’s fork paused mid-air.
Mary-Ann folded a slice of toast neatly on her plate. “How efficient of him. I had no idea wallpaper was among his many talents.”
“Oh, he’s been involved in every decision.” Lydia poured herself more tea. “He says you have so much on your mind, you need someone to carry the burden.”
Mary-Ann looked up and smiled sweetly. “And how generous of him to volunteer you.”
Her father cleared his throat. “Perhaps some matters might wait until after the wedding.”
“Oh, of course, sir,” Lydia said quickly. “I only meant to ease things in the meantime.”
“I find things rather orderly already,” Mary-Ann murmured, rising from her seat. “But you’re very kind.”
She crossed the room to retrieve a folded sheet from the sideboard, yesterday’s cargo schedule. “Father, may I speak to you a moment before you head into town?”
He blinked. “Certainly, my girl.”
Lydia rose as well, but Mary-Ann’s glance over her shoulder was polite steel. “Alone, if you please.”
Something in her voice, cool, clipped, certain, made even Lydia pause.
Lydia hesitated, then offered a thin smile. “Of course.”
Mary-Ann led her father into the study and closed the door behind them. The ledger she’d left on the desk the night before was undisturbed. She laid the cargo schedule beside it.
“I noticed a conflict between the inventory log and the dock reports,” she said. “The Maribel was offloaded two days ago, but the manifest says she hasn’t made port.”
Her father frowned, adjusting his spectacles. “That can’t be right. We would’ve received confirmation.”
“We didn’t. But she’s on the books at the harbor office.”
He scratched his chin. “Wilkinson told me the Maribel was delayed in the north.”
Mary-Ann met his gaze. “Then either the harbor’s lying, or Wilkinson is.”
A silence hung between them, one that said more than words. For the first time, she wasn’t seeking his approval. She was offering him the truth.
He didn’t speak for a long moment. Then he folded the schedule in half. “Leave this with me. I’ll look into it personally.”
Mary-Ann nodded. “Thank you.”
And for the first time, she saw something flicker behind her father’s eyes. Not fatigue. Not confusion. Resolve.
*
Later that morning, Mary-Ann slipped away from the front rooms under the pretense of inspecting a fresh delivery of linens. Lydia, still discussing drapery options with the upstairs maid, scarcely noticed.
She took the long corridor toward the rear of the house, where the morning sun filtered through narrow windows and the scent of lemon oil lingered faintly in the air. Mrs. Aldridge was just finishing with the silver chest when she looked up.
“Miss,” she said quietly, straightening. “Might I have a word?”
Mary-Ann nodded, stepping into the butler’s pantry. It was dim and narrow, tucked between service rooms, and a place of quiet and secrets.
Mrs. Aldridge reached into her apron and pulled out a folded envelope. “I found this yesterday. Behind the small table in the front hall. It was meant for you.”
Mary-Ann opened it. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the contents were clear: a merchant’s note, confirming a delivery she had never received. Dated nearly three weeks prior. Her name was on the front. Her father’s seal was beneath.
Mrs. Aldridge had quietly handed her a folded slip of paper with Mr. Hollis’s neat script listing the merchant’s response.
A pearl-handled dressing case, monogrammed combs included, ordered in Mr. Seaton’s name and delivered not to their home, but to a lodging house off Cavendish Street. Lydia had signed for it.
Mary-Ann read it twice more, then folded it again and tucked it into her glove.
“Thank you,” she said. “You did exactly right.”
She turned to leave but paused. “Mrs. Aldridge… has anyone else been asking about me? Among the staff?”
The housekeeper’s mouth tightened. “Only Miss Lydia. She often asks about your schedule. And once, about the lock on your writing desk.”
Mary-Ann absorbed that in silence.
“I’ve reminded the staff that such questions are not to be answered,” Mrs. Aldridge added.
Mary-Ann met her gaze. “Thank you. Please continue to do so.”
She stepped out into the corridor again, her pace slower now, her thoughts sharper.
Intercepted letters. Watching eyes. And now a desk lock that Lydia had no business wondering about.
Whatever Rodney Wilkinson was planning, he hadn’t expected her to be paying attention. And that was his first mistake.
*
By early afternoon, Mary-Ann found herself once again inside the Seaton offices near the quay. She had claimed a need to fetch archived documents for wedding accounting, a believable excuse that kept Lydia at bay.
The office smelled of ink and dust, the windows thrown open to the salt-heavy breeze.
Ledgers stretched across the back wall in orderly rows, a familiar rhythm from childhood days when she’d curled beside her father to practice sums and sea routes.
But now, there was little comfort in the neat columns.
She set down her reticule and reached for the shipping records dated two weeks prior. The pages were crisply folded, too crisp. New parchment tucked into old bindings.
Her finger traced the entry for the Maribel. The cargo weight was listed as standard. So was the destination. But the departure port… had changed.
She flipped backward through earlier entries. The Maribel had always departed from Branscombe Dock. But now it claimed Northgate Port.
Mary-Ann frowned. Northgate was nearly forty miles inland. No one with any knowledge of tides and drafts would send a vessel of the Maribel’s size there.
A sound behind her made her still. Boots on stone. Not heavy enough to be her father. Not light enough to be Kenworth.
She turned, ledger still open in her hands.
A junior clerk she didn’t recognize offered a quick bow. “Apologies, miss. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
She forced a smile. “Just reviewing accounts. My father asked me to double-check a few details.”
“Of course. Please let me know if you need anything.”
He ducked out again.
Mary-Ann didn’t move. Her pulse remained high, her thoughts running faster than her breath. Another pair of eyes. Another coincidence that didn’t feel like one.
She returned the ledger to its shelf and took another, scanning the recent arrivals. Branford Belle. Argent Wind. Fallowmoor.
She traced a line to a cargo number she recognized. It was listed under the name “R. W. Holdings.” Wilkinson’s initials.
Her jaw tightened. She copied the line onto a slip of paper and tucked it into her sleeve. She wasn’t done yet. But she was getting close.
*
Mary-Ann returned home just before sunset, her skirts tugged by the breeze and the faint scent of salt clinging to her gloves. The house was oddly quiet, the usual hum of staff movements subdued. She had just handed her shawl to Hollis when she heard a knock at the front door.
Hollis opened it. “Captain Hollingsworth, sir.”
Mary-Ann’s breath caught, not in shock, but in something softer, something unsettled. She stepped forward before she could think better of it.
Quinton stood in the entry, travel-worn but composed, his hair wind-ruffled and boots still dusty. He looked at her like he’d been hoping to for days.
“I’ve just come from Scarborough,” he said. “There’s news.”
She stepped aside to let him in, nodding once. “Come into the drawing room.”
The fire was low, barely more than embers, but she didn’t call for more coals.
They sat across from each other, the silence stretching between them.
Mary-Ann didn’t ask him to explain. Not at first. Instead, she stood and crossed the room to a small table beside the bookshelf. From beneath a stack of folded reports, she drew a slip of paper and handed it to him.
A symbol was scrawled in the corner, a black raven stamped onto the back of a shipping invoice.
Quinton went still. Not surprised. Not confused. Resigned.
“You know what this is,” she said.
He didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
He hesitated.
“Tell me, Quinton.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s the mark of the Order of Shadows. A syndicate that has been operating through ports and politics for decades. Maybe longer.”
She stared at him. The air between them seemed to constrict.
“You’ve known,” she said. “Since when?”
“Since just after I returned,” he admitted. “Barrington briefed me on it. But I’d heard whispers, even before—”
She flinched like he’d struck her. “And you said nothing.”
“I couldn’t. It’s not just dangerous, Mary-Ann. It’s a web. A world of its own.”
Her voice broke. “I asked you to trust me. I trusted you even when I shouldn’t have. Even when you walked into my house like a ghost and gave me nothing but riddles.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Her hands were trembling now. “I have walked into warehouses alone. I’ve had my room searched, my letters intercepted, my life rearranged. And I did it all thinking I had no one. No allies. No truth.”
Quinton stood, but she rose with him, her eyes bright with tears she refused to shed.
“You let me carry it alone,” she said, her voice hoarse. “You knew what Rodney was. You knew what I was walking into, and you let me believe it was just my imagination.”
“I was trying to find a way to stop it without putting you at risk.”
“No,” she whispered. “You were trying to find a way to stop it without needing me.”
His shoulders dropped. “That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true.”
She turned away, pressing a hand against the mantel as if to steady herself. She didn’t want to cry. Not now. Not when her clarity had finally sharpened into something usable.
“I loved you,” she said. “I never stopped. I held onto you for three years, through silence, through grief, through hope. And when you came back, I thought I had been given a second chance. But I wasn’t. I was given a shadow. A man who looked like you but didn’t know who I was anymore.”
He crossed the room. “I do know—”
“No, you don’t,” she said, pulling away. “Because if you had, you would have come to me with the truth. Not when it was safe. But when it mattered.”
“Mary-Ann,” he said her name softly, but she shook her head.
“You don’t get to call me that right now.”
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Finally, she stepped to the door and opened it, her voice was a low ache. “Please go.”
“Mary-Ann—”
She looked at him, one last time. “You made me feel like I was too much to love and too fragile to trust. That’s not love. That’s control.”
She hesitated, then added, more quietly, “That’s what Rodney does. He makes choices for me, then calls it care. Are you really any different?”
Quinton’s eyes darkened. “You can’t marry him.”
Mary-Ann didn’t flinch. “No? Then who else is left to choose me?”
He stepped forward, but she stopped him with a look that was clear, wounded, and resolute.
“Good-bye, Captain,” she said.
And when the latch clicked closed behind him, she didn’t move. Not right away. The silence was hers now, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like peace. It felt like an absence echoing through the room like the final click of a door left open too long.