Chapter Seventeen
They rode in silence until Georgina’s gate came into view. The lanterns were already lit against the gathering dusk. Alex dismounted first, offering his hand as she stepped down from her saddle with more grace than he had any right to expect after such a day.
“I’ll study the receipts and ledgers,” she said, her voice low and steady.
He didn’t answer right away. He watched as she slipped inside, the folio still tucked under her arm. When the door closed behind her, he turned back to Barrington.
“We’ll need her insight on the rest of it,” Alex said as he mounted his horse.
“And ensure she is out of harm’s way,” Barrington said. “There is much to discuss. Let’s get to Sommer Chase.”
A soft glow shone from one of the upper windows of Ravenstock Manor as they turned from the gate. Alex lingered a moment, glancing back. He couldn’t see her, but he pictured her at her desk, head bent over the folio, sleeves pushed up, determination set in every line of her.
“You’ve seen that look before,” Barrington said as he nudged his horse into motion.
“On you,” Alex replied. “Just before we breached the southern wall at Ciudad Rodrigo.”
Barrington gave a dry grunt. “That ended with a limp and three days unconscious. Let’s hope she’s smarter than we were.”
The ride to Barrington’s estate passed in near silence, the kind of silence that settles between two men already thinking in the same direction.
The sun had slipped low by the time they turned off the coastal road, casting long shadows across the frost-dusted hedgerows.
Alex let his horse fall into pace beside Barrington’s.
“Carver wasn’t just afraid,” Alex said quietly. “He’d already surrendered.”
Barrington gave a single nod. “That kind of fear doesn’t come from one man with a ledger. It comes from the kind of pressure you don’t talk about. The kind they used during the war.”
Alex glanced at him. “You think it’s the Order.”
“I’d stake my commission on it.” He guided his mount through the open gate. “They isolate, threaten, then wait. They watch a man ruin himself to protect his family.”
Barrington added another log to the fire and settled back into his chair.
“This isn’t just about stolen coal,” he said, eyes fixed on the flame. “It’s too deliberate.”
Alex looked over. “You think it’s orchestrated.”
“I think someone’s pulling strings we haven’t even seen yet. Quiet hands. Patient ones.”
Alex’s brow tightened. “You have a name?”
Barrington shook his head. “Not yet. But if I ever meet the man behind this, I’ll recognize his methods.”
Alex thought of Carver’s stiff posture, his clipped answers, the way his eyes kept darting toward the empty yard.
It hadn’t been resistance. It had been resignation.
And he’d seen it before. It had been in his father’s eyes, just before the estate began its slow decline.
The silence after his father signed away his shipping contract had been heavier than any raised voice.
And he had missed it entirely, too young to see what fear looked like in a man who had run out of options.
Barrington didn’t bother removing his coat once inside. Instead, he led Alex straight to the study, where a fire already smoldered low. He crossed to his writing desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment.
“Edward needs to know what we’ve found.”
Alex dropped into the leather chair opposite. “Will he listen?”
“He’s been listening for years. He just hasn’t had proof.” Barrington dipped his pen, scrawling in a tight, decisive hand. “There’s a rot in government, and Edward means to dig it out. I just need to give him the spade.”
Alex watched the ink pool into clean lines. “You trust him?”
“With my life.” He paused. “And with Honoria’s.”
Alex looked up. Barrington gave a wry twist of a smile. “He’s been telling me to marry Honoria for years. Said I was wasting her time, and mine. I asked her more than once.”
“She said no?”
“She said I was more fun unmarried.” Barrington set down the pen. “Until this last time. I knew the minute I looked into her eyes that she would say yes.”
Alex let out a low breath, not quite a laugh. “He’ll be unbearable when you tell him.”
“Delirious with triumph,” Barrington agreed. “He’ll probably demand a seat at the planning table. He already gave Honoria a list of people for the wedding.”
Alex gave a half smile but didn’t respond. He rose, crossed to the fire, and stood watching the flames.
“You’re thinking of Georgina,” Barrington said.
Alex didn’t deny it. “She’s in it now. No more questions. No more hesitations. She’s too clever not to see what this is becoming.”
Barrington added another log to the fire and settled back into his chair. “There was a man I knew once, Lieutenant Wade. Clever as anything. Saw subversiveness where none of us did, except one time, and then it was too late. He trusted a supplier we shouldn’t have. Cost twenty men their lives.”
Alex looked toward the flames, jaw tight. “We won’t let that happen here.”
“No,” Barrington said. “Because we have Georgina Ravenstock. And we won’t let her carry the burden alone.”
“And we make damn sure she never stands alone.”
The two settled into quiet contemplation.
The door creaked open not long after, and Georgina stepped in without knocking, the folio under her arm.
Kenworth brought tea and vanished, leaving behind a neatly folded note beside the pot.
If you’re planning treason, sirs, at least let me iron my coat first.
Alex smirked and handed it to Barrington, who shook his head and tucked it into his pocket.
“You’re not sleeping,” Alex said.
“Neither are you,” she replied. “I couldn’t rest until I was certain we hadn’t missed something.
” She set the folio on the desk and opened it.
“I went through everything again, this time tracing the pattern from the invoices forward instead of backward. Rowland had marked several entries twice. The same date and phrase were used, with delivery scheduled for offshore cargo, but no location was listed. It’s repeated in two different hands.
One looks like Rowland’s. The other, I can’t identify. ”
“Different slope, different rhythm,” she said. “Rowland wrote decisively. This… this looks like it was added in haste. Or in secrecy.”
Barrington joined them, studying the page. “That’s not local delivery language. That’s shipping.”
“I agree. What struck me was that there’s no port listed,” Georgina said. “Nor a recipient. Just a mark and an abbreviation. R.T.S.”
Alex leaned in, tracing the edge of the ink with one finger. “Then we need the port records. Sommer-by-the-Sea’s dockmaster logs. That will tell us what ships came in, which ones left, and what the cargo they carried.”
Barrington gave a thoughtful nod. “Or we contact Mr. Seaton. He was nearly killed for uncovering false freight entries. The Order wanted his daughter married to their puppet so they could control the entire Seaton fleet.”
“Didn’t they hold Viscount Hollingsworth in prison to keep him out of the way?” Georgina asked.
“Three years,” Barrington said. “The marriage plans failed, thanks to Seaton’s stubbornness, his daughter’s spine, and the viscount’s determination.”
“Is Seaton still at the docks?”
“In Portsmouth now,” Barrington replied. “But he’ll help us. If those shipments were bound for a port he’s touched, he’ll know what to look for.”
She looked back at the folio. “And he might recognize R.T.S.”
“If it’s a route or a code, yes,” Barrington said. “We’ll send him word tonight.”
“If they’re shipping stolen coal, it won’t be in plain sight.” Barrington looked at both of them. “But the gaps will be there. You don’t move that much weight without someone noticing.”
“Unless someone was paid not to notice,” Georgina murmured.
There was a brief silence. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.
Alex looked at her, not the folio. She stood with her arms crossed. She was determined, brilliant, and unshaken. And for the first time, he didn’t fear losing her heart, but rather the sharp, hollow fear of losing her entirely.
He’d spent years guarding what was left of his world, his estate, his name, the ghosts of men who had trusted him.
But this was different. Georgina wasn’t something to preserve.
She was someone to stand beside, someone who turned quiet deduction into revelation, someone who made him believe that not all was lost. And suddenly, what he wanted most wasn’t the protection of what remained.
He wanted to protect what could possibly be their future together.
“We start with the ships,” Alex said.
She nodded. “If Rowland saw this, he knew it was bigger than one mine.”
Alex met her gaze. “Then we follow the shipments. And we find out who’s been profiting.”
He didn’t move right away. The room had settled and become quiet once again, but his pulse had not. Slowly, he reached across the desk and drew the folio closer, brushing her fingers as he did. Her hand remained where it was, steady and unflinching, the faintest warmth lingering between them.
Barrington cleared his throat, but the sound was not entirely necessary.
“Kenworth can be ready within the hour,” he said, his voice dry. “He’ll ride for Portsmouth with a sealed message for Seaton. We’ll ask for shipping records from the past six months, flagged for any coal-related entries and anything marked R.T.S.”
Georgina withdrew her hand and turned to Barrington with a nod. “And if he finds nothing?”
“Then we dig deeper,” Alex said. “This time, we know where to look.”
Barrington moved toward the door, calling for Kenworth to prepare the dispatch. Georgina remained where she was for a moment longer, her eyes still on the folio.
“You’ll tell me the moment you hear from Seaton?” she asked.
Alex nodded. “You’ll be the first.”
The fire popped in the grate. She reached forward and turned one of the documents slightly, aligning it just so. It wasn’t nerves, more like precision. Or ownership. She was part of this now. No less than either of them.
Barrington paused at the door and glanced back. “My men used to say the ones with the questions were the most dangerous.” He offered her a smile, the kind that left you feeling uplifted and appreciated. “You ask the right ones, Lady Ravenstock.”
She met his gaze, neither flattered nor dismissive. “I was married to a man who trusted quietly and died anyway. I’d rather ask questions.”
A flicker of approval crossed Barrington’s face.
Minutes later, Kenworth returned in full riding gear, the sealed letter in hand. “Any message for Seaton besides what’s written?” he asked Alex.
Alex handed him the folded folio copy. “Tell him this one’s not forged. And take the fast route. But not the obvious one.”
Kenworth gave a half-bow and a wink. “Always do. Back before dawn if the wind’s in our favor.”
They watched him go in silence, the door closing softly behind him. The only sound was the fire, and the quiet rustle of paper as Georgina turned another page.
“Rowland used to keep a list,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Not of partners. It was a list of names he wouldn’t do business with. He said it wasn’t worth the coin if he couldn’t trust the weight.”
Alex turned back toward her. “Do you still have it?”
“It might still be in his desk,” she said. “Or the safe. I haven’t gone through everything yet.”
Barrington crossed to the fire and nudged the logs. “Then you’ll look. Carefully. We’ll follow the manifests, and you chase the names.”
She nodded once. “Agreed.”
Alex moved to her side. “I’ll walk you out.”
They crossed the hall in silence, the shadows longer now, but less heavy. Outside, her carriage stood, lamps lit, the horses shifting gently in the cool night air.
At the step, she turned.
She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t reached for him, and yet there was a shift in the air between them. It was familiar and charged, like the moment before a storm that might cleanse instead of destroy.
“There are times you amaze me, Georgina. How did I not see this before?”
As they continued to the carriage, she tilted her head, a smile catching at the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps you weren’t looking.”
That smile lingered in his thoughts. It wasn’t flirtation. It was confidence. She was a woman who no longer asked to be seen, but rather a woman who decided who was worthy to see her.
The carriage door was already open. Alex offered her his hand, steady and sure, as he guided her inside. She didn’t release it right away. She just held his gaze for a moment longer, and something quiet and unspoken passed between them.
It wasn’t a promise. Not yet. But it was a possibility, and that might be rarer still.
“Be careful,” she said.
“You too,” he answered, and for once, meant every word.
He closed the door with care and remained there as the driver snapped the reins.
The carriage rolled forward, the gravel crunching under the wheels.
He didn’t move until the glow of lamps vanished beyond the trees.
The night was colder for her absence, though the warmth she’d left behind refused to fade.
He had faced down rifles, traitors, betrayal, but nothing had left him so still inside as the space she left behind.