Chapter Five
It was two mornings later, beneath a sky the color of steel, the Seaton Shipping offices stood at the edge of the docks, a proud two-story brick building with green-shuttered windows and a wide slate roof that bore the salt and gull-marked wear of years by the sea.
Beyond it, ships creaked in the morning tide, gulls circled overhead like sentinels.
The scent of brine, tar, and freshly oiled wood hung thick in the air.
Carts clattered over cobblestones as dockworkers laughed and shouted orders while some lifted crates and barrels.
Inside the office, Mary-Ann sat at her desk outside her father’s office, the late morning light slanting through the high windows.
Her sleeves were neatly pinned beneath linen protectors, a precaution she’d learned early when ink blotches ruined a favorite cuff.
Even now, an ink stain smudged her wrist as she leafed through a shipment ledger.
She stopped and turned to a previous page and studied the column of numbers.
Her brow furrowed. Something wasn’t right.
A shipment from Lisbon, three crates of dried fruit, and two filled with bolts of silk were marked as received and cleared. But she’d been down at the docks two days ago. Those crates never came off the Winsome Tide.
She turned the page back. Then forward again. The same tidy handwriting. The same signature initials.
“Father?” she called.
From the adjoining room, a gruff voice replied, “Yes?”
“This entry for the Lisbon cargo says it was received, but I never saw it come off the ship.”
He appeared in the doorway, spectacles perched on the end of his nose. “Probably a delay in the offloading. You know that happens more often than you think.”
She tapped the page. “But it’s already marked as received and taxed.”
He shrugged. Must have been sorted before you got there. These things are handled quickly when there’s coin at stake.”
Yet this time, something tugged at the edge of her thoughts. Not doubt, just a sense that the numbers didn’t add up the way they always did.
She wasn’t a child tallying figures for amusement. She knew the shipping routes, the taxes, and the weight of crates before they were even unlashed. And she trusted numbers. Numbers, at least, didn’t misremember.
She stood and gathered the ledger and notes into a neat pile.
Her fingers lingered on the ribbon, and her gaze drifted to the window where the mast tops swayed gently in the distance.
The tide was coming in. She had always liked this time of day when the harbor stirred with motion, when the world felt full of purpose and quiet industry.
But this morning, the tide’s steady pull couldn’t quite wash away the unease that clung to her.
And this time, she couldn’t quite ignore it.
She had just begun to tie the stack with a ribbon when a familiar voice floated in from the doorway.
“Still buried in numbers, my love?”
Rodney stepped inside with a smile just shy of sincere and a small parcel wrapped in linen. “I brought you something from the bakery you like. Surely you can spare a moment for something sweet?”
Mary-Ann offered a polite smile. “That was thoughtful of you.”
He moved closer, his gaze drifting over the desk, the papers, the ledgers as if none of it quite deserved to be there. “You’ve always had a curious fondness for figures. Most ladies I know would be content to plan their wedding.”
She lifted her chin slightly. “I enjoy the work.”
He set the parcel down on the edge of the desk. “Of course. But once we’re married, you’ll have more pleasant diversions than poring over ledgers.” He turned toward the window, adding under his breath. “No more of this playing at bookkeeping.”
Her hand stilled on the folio. She wasn’t even sure why she opened it, except that she needed something familiar, something firm beneath her fingertips.
Inside lay the arithmetic paper Mrs. Bainbridge had asked her to review, its clean sums now scored with her own careful red notes.
Numbers. Order. Precision. Her world made sense here, and at this moment, it steadied her.
Rodney’s voice, low and dismissive, still echoed in her ears. Not loud, but sharp enough to leave a mark.
Rodney turned back to her with another smile, expecting…what? Gratitude? Compliance?
She didn’t return his smile.
A quiet twist curled in her stomach. Not because of what he said, but because of how he said it, offhanded, amused, the way one might speak of a child’s whim.
As if her work, her skills, were some idle indulgence he’d been tolerating.
She wondered, not for the first time, how many other parts of her he planned to smooth away, reshape, or quietly set aside.
“I should finish up here,” she said, not unkindly but without any warmth.
He held up his hands in a gesture of easy surrender. “Of course. I’ll walk you home in an hour.”
She gave a small nod but didn’t look up, her eyes fixed instead on the student’s paper.
The door closed gently behind him.
She had been grateful for his steadiness once. His calm presence was a boon in a world turned upside down. But today, he felt less like an anchor and more like a rope, gently tugging her away from the parts of herself she wasn’t ready to relinquish.
Her gaze dropped again to the column of numbers. The Lisbon discrepancy tugged at her thoughts like a loose thread. She copied a few more notes, circled the missing crates, and added a short line beneath: Ask Father.
He glanced up from his desk when she approached him with a fond smile. “You’re still chasing that Lisbon cargo?”
“It doesn’t match the dock record,” she said. “There are two crates not accounted for.”
He shrugged. “It’s likely still in storage or mislogged. You know how these things go.”
“And Rodney?” she asked, keeping her tone casual. “He’s a banker. Yet, you’ve had him reviewing the quarter reports?”
Her father leaned back slightly as if amused. “Rodney was asking a few questions. Said he wanted to understand the business better. He is a banker. Figures and ledgers come naturally to him. And he’ll be part of the family soon enough. His interest is only normal.”
Mary-Ann had nodded, but the answer didn’t sit well. Rodney had never shown interest in the shipping operations before. And while her father had said it lightly, there had been something offhand about it, dismissive, as though it didn’t matter.
But it did matter. Every crate, every tally, every conversation. And she would continue looking until it all made sense.
She didn’t wait the full hour. She needed the air, the space. Needed to walk without someone watching her for signs of fatigue or a lapse in decorum.
She tucked the ledger beneath her arm and drew her shawl tighter against the rising wind, she left the office. The smell of brine and pitch hung in the air, the sound of the sea blending with the clatter of hooves and the low rumble of carts.
The long route along the docks was always livelier. Familiar. Here, she wasn’t Miss Seaton, the betrothed young woman. She was simply Miss Mary-Ann, the shipowner’s daughter, the girl who used to count crates for fun and ask too many questions about shipping manifests.
Crates thudded onto wheeled platforms. Ropes creaked above her as dockworkers coordinated the unloading of a tall brig moored near the seawall. Overhead, a large bale of cotton swung slowly on a pulley system, guided by shouted instructions and wary eyes.
A younger dockhand tipped his cap as she passed, and another called out, not unkindly, “Mind you don’t start tallying our wages next, Miss Seaton.”
She smiled faintly but said nothing. The familiarity of the banter was oddly comforting.
Sunlight reflected off the water in jagged shards, and the air was filled with the clang of chains and the deep thrum of a departing steamer’s horn.
A gull swooped overhead, scattering breadcrumbs from an upturned crate.
She should have felt comforted by the familiar routine, the same crates, the same shouted orders, but the knot in her stomach refused to loosen.
She passed workers who had known her since she was a girl, men who had watched her grow into her father’s shadow.
One older man, Hamish, a trusted dock foreman with shoulders like stacked barrels and a permanent squint from years in the salt wind, caught her eye.
He stepped away from a stack of crates, wiping his hands on a cloth as he approached.
He didn’t smile like he usually did. His gait was slower, his eyes flicking once toward the warehouse before settling on her.
“Miss Mary-Ann,” he said with a respectful nod. “Been hoping I’d see you. There’s something that’s been bothering me.”
She slowed her steps, brow furrowing. “Hamish, is something wrong?”
He glanced over his shoulder, not nervously, but with the wariness of someone careful with what could be overheard. “No, not wrong, exactly,” he said. “Just been thinkin’ on something. You’ve always had a sharp head for things, and you see more than most.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What is it, Hamish?”
He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck with a calloused hand. “It’s about him. He’s not—”
A sharp shout cut through the air. “Move, miss!”
Hamish’s arm shot out, pushing her aside. She stumbled back, the ledger pressed against her chest. Above them, ropes snapped with a sickening twang. A block and tackle, iron and wood, spun free from the hoist and plummeted to the dock.
It struck Hamish with a sound that was more felt than heard.
Time stuttered. The air rushed from her lungs, but her body moved before her mind caught up. She was calling for help, even as everything inside her screamed to undo what had just happened.
Mary-Ann’s scream pierced the air as Hamish dropped to the planks.
The ledger slipped from her hands, scattering pages in the wind.
Dockworkers shouted, some running, others frozen in place.
But she moved. She was at Hamish’s side in seconds, falling to her knees. Blood was already pooling beneath him.
“Fetch Dr. Manning!” she cried. “Quickly!” She glanced overhead. “And get this rigging checked. Now!”
She gave Hamish her full attention, but she knew. From the unnatural stillness. From the way the breath never came.
Hamish’s fingers twitched. He struggled to breathe. “Ink…” he whispered.
Her head dipped close, tears already falling.
“On your nose,” he murmured, his voice no more than a memory. “Always had ink on your nose, little miss…” His lips lifted, barely. And then he stilled.
Hands were already moving, boots pounding across the dock.
She scanned the pulley line overhead, and her stomach turned.
She crouched beside the rigging, reaching out with a steady hand to inspect the frayed end.
It hadn’t come loose. She’d seen ropes wear down before.
The fibers unraveled in weather and time, but this break was too abrupt, too clean.
Whoever had done this hadn’t meant to miss.
The question was, had they meant to kill Hamish…
or someone else? She rose slowly, her heart pounding.
Someone stood beside her, Jonas, a younger dockhand with wide eyes and trembling hands. He held out the ledger with the pages reassembled as best he could, the ribbon slightly torn but still wrapped tight. “Miss Mary-Ann… I think this is yours.”
She took it with a numb nod, brushing grit from the cover.
Something inside her had shifted. Not just grief.
Resolve. Someone had turned her docks into a hunting ground, and she would not let them take another soul.
A dark smear marred one corner, blood or grease, she couldn’t say.
She clutched it to her chest again, fingers tight.
Not just to protect it. But to steady herself.
One of the crew covered Hamish with a sailcloth. The world hadn’t stopped moving. But inside her, something had gone very, very still.
The cries and footfalls faded around her, distant echoes in a world that had tilted on its axis.
She brushed her skirts, her hands trembling, before she forced them still.
There was no room for panic now. Grief would come later.
For now, there was only action. She turned to a group of stunned dockworkers nearby.
“Check every hoist line on this dock,” she ordered. “Start at the rigging and work your way down. If anything appears to be wrong, frayed, in tension, or with knots, report it to the office immediately.”
Her voice did not waver, and for a heartbeat, no one moved. Three men nodded and took off at a run. And beneath it, something colder still. She had a growing certainty that this was no accident.