Chapter Fifteen
That same Thursday, past the noonday heat, the pace of the day slowed to a measured beat.
The docks smelled of rope, brine, and the sour tang of pitch.
Quinton moved with quiet purpose, his boots tapping over damp planks as the morning sun climbed pale over the harbor.
Salt hung sharp in the air, mingling with the scent of soaked wood, the kind that seeped into clothing and lingered there.
Mist clung low to the waterline, blurring the outlines of ships and softening the world into hush.
He drew it in slowly, steadying himself.
There was something about the light at this hour. It was cool, honest, and unrelenting. It didn’t comfort. It revealed.
Crews were only just beginning to stir. Voices drifted across the moored ships, threaded through the creak of timber and the sharp clang of a dropped chain.
He paused near a stack of crates labeled for Montrose & Co.
, scanning the activity. The rhythm of the port hadn’t changed.
But something beneath it had. A ship he once knew, The Redwake, sat moored in the far berth, sails furled like resting wings.
He didn’t recognize the crew. A younger man stood where Old Thatch used to smoke his pipe, and the deck boards had been replaced.
They were newer and brighter but stripped of memory.
He could feel it, the way certain men fell quiet when he passed, how foremen stood a little straighter, how glances darted and turned away too quickly.
Barrington had mentioned a name: Lyle Merton.
A dockhand, formerly under Wilkinson’s clerk, now worked odd hours and showed up on manifests without clear assignments.
Quinton had marked the name and the habit.
Men didn’t wander into extra labor without a reason, not when hours were tallied with precision and pay was tight.
He spotted a figure near the edge of the quay, sorting lengths of rope into loops far too tidy for the hour. Broad-shouldered, close-cropped hair, a faded blue cap.
Quinton approached slowly, keeping his hands visible and his voice low. “Merton?”
The man glanced up. “Aye.”
“Captain Hollingsworth,” she said evenly “Just quiet inquiries today.”
Merton looked him over, then returned to his ropes. His hands moved more slowly now, the loops less precise. He didn’t meet Quinton’s gaze. There was wariness in the tightness of his jaw, the careful way he chose each motion as if he were buying himself time. “Ain’t much to say.”
“You worked under a man named Crowley?”
A pause. Just long enough.
“For a bit. He left.”
“And Wilkinson?”
Another pause. The rope slipped slightly in his grip. “Still around. Big plans.”
Quinton raised a brow. “Barrington said he rarely shows his face down here.”
Merton shrugged. “Now and then. Mostly keeps to the ledgers. Not much use for wet boots.”
Quinton let the silence stretch, then nodded once and stepped back. “Thank you.”
As he turned to go, Merton added, almost too quietly: “Some things don’t get written down, sir.”
Quinton didn’t reply, but the words stuck.
It was the kind of thing a man only said when the truth was more dangerous than silence.
Quinton didn’t press. Not here. Not with eyes watching and boots echoing off wet planks.
But the knot behind his ribs tightened. This wasn’t misfiled cargo or ledger mistakes.
This was something people were afraid of.
Something someone had worked hard to bury.
*
Mary-Ann lifted the lid on a tin of oat biscuits and peered inside with something close to dread.
Empty.
Bainbridge’s arrival had been sudden and, as always, noisy.
The front door had barely shut before her voice filled the hall, followed by the unmistakable rustle of paper patterns, clinking buttons in a tin, and an exasperated rustle of fabric that sounded like a battle standard being unfurled.
She now occupied the best chair by the fire, arms draped in swaths of ivory and pale green fabric.
“It’s a disaster,” Bainbridge said mournfully. “I wanted the green for the ribbons, not the sleeves. And now I have a dozen yards of the wrong fabric, and none of the right, and the modiste insists I agreed to this shade, this shade, Mary. Look at it. It’s like over-steeped tea.”
Mary-Ann set the tin down and leaned against the sideboard, a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth despite the hollowness still lingering in her chest.
“Can’t you repurpose it for bows? Or table runners?”
Bainbridge sighed. “Perhaps. If I don’t burn it first.”
She tossed one bolt of fabric onto the settee and reached for her tea. “You’re distracted.”
Mary-Ann blinked. “Am I?”
“You haven’t said a word about my dramatic reversal of fortune. Usually, you at least pretend to be impressed.”
Mary-Ann smoothed the fabric between her fingers, watching the way the light caught the dull sheen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
Bainbridge studied her for a moment. “Is it about last night?”
A silence hung between them, delicate and full.
“It’s nothing,” Mary-Ann said quickly. “I’m just… tired.”
“Hmm,” Bainbridge replied, utterly unconvinced. “Is it the man who watches you too closely, or the one who’s never looked away?”
Mary-Ann gave her a look. A slow blink. A half-turn toward the window. She didn’t speak, but her hand rose to rub her temple absently, as if to ward off something.
“You think I don’t notice things,” Bainbridge said airily. “But I’ve planned an entire wedding with Barrington. I can read tension better than I read measurements.”
Mary-Ann laughed, and it startled her. A true laugh. Not forced, not polite.
“There she is,” Bainbridge said softly. “I was starting to worry.”
Mary-Ann looked down at the fabric again.
“You can’t say yes to something just because it looks good on paper,” Bainbridge added. “You’ll regret it.”
Mary-Ann froze. She hadn’t meant to, but her fingers clenched.
The line struck too close. She tried to shake it off, but Bainbridge’s words lingered like a thread caught on a splinter.
It wasn’t just the dress. It was everything lately.
Rodney’s sudden attentiveness, her father’s trust in him, and the silence around Quinton that echoed far too loud.
Rodney always said the right things. Always made sense on paper. And wasn’t that the trouble?
“The dress, I mean,” Bainbridge said too quickly.
“Of course.”
*
Quinton made his way back from the harbor on foot, his hands in his coat pockets, thoughts churning in rhythm with the steady beat of his boots on the stone. Merton’s words stayed with him. Some things don’t get written down. That could mean anything or everything.
He passed the grocer, nodded at a man stacking apples, and turned onto the lane that curved toward the green. The breeze carried the scent of salt and hearth smoke, and the church bells began to chime the hour.
He wasn’t sure if he meant to see her today. Not yet. Not like this. But the thought of her, retreating behind that careful smile, folding herself back into safe expectations, was enough to keep him walking.
Just a little farther. Maybe he’d pass her street. Maybe that was all.
He slowed at the next corner, his boots scuffing against uneven cobblestones. A glance, just a glance, toward the familiar row of houses. He told himself it was a coincidence that his feet simply knew the way. But his heart beat faster all the same.
And maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe it would be the beginning of something he hadn’t dared let himself hope for.
One more corner. One more pause. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to see: a curtain drawn back, a flash of movement, a shadow near the glass.
Anything to suggest she was thinking of him too.
But even if she wasn’t at the window, he could still believe she might be near it.
Reading. Waiting. Wondering. And that was enough for now.
*
Mary-Ann stood at the window after Mrs. Bainbridge left, watching the lane below.
The light had shifted. Shadows from the trees outside spilled across the floor like slow-moving tides.
She touched the windowpane, cool beneath her fingertips, and closed her eyes just long enough to remember the sound of Quinton’s voice the night before. Low. Certain. Too real to forget.
She opened her eyes again. The street was still, but she stared a moment longer, half-expecting to see the edge of a coat or the flicker of a familiar silhouette. The thought unsettled her and rooted her to the place.
The fabric still draped the settee. A biscuit tin sat open beside her untouched tea. She had been still too long.
She could almost feel the tug beneath her ribs, that sharp, familiar flicker of unrest that meant she’d nearly made a decision.
The room was too quiet now. Even the wind had stilled as if waiting.
She pressed her fingers against the folded paper again.
Not just a warning. A map. Not just suspicion.
Intention. She didn’t know where it would lead.
However, standing still wouldn’t answer anything.
She folded the note and slipped it into her reticule. The words lived there now, tucked against her side, whispering between each breath.
Don’t trust the man with clean hands.
There was so much she didn’t know. But she wasn’t ready to stand still either. She turned from the window, but not away from the question.