Chapter Twenty-Three
Tuesday morning, sunlight streamed through the parlor windows as Mrs. Bainbridge declared war on the guest list “I simply cannot send invitations to a wedding that doesn’t exist yet.
” Mrs. Bainbridge dropped a folio of pressed writing paper onto the table like a general slamming down a campaign map.
Cream and ivory sheets, each bearing a different hand-pressed border or embossed crest. None of it would matter until a date and venue were decided.
“I have a cousin who was married in the rain,” she added. She had planned for sunshine and roses, but ended up with mud and mildew. Do you know what saved it?”
Mary-Ann smiled faintly. “Love?”
“Cloaks and parasols,” Mrs. Bainbridge declared. “The footmen dashed out with anything they could find, shawls, rugs, parasols from the drawing room. The guests were half-drowned and laughing like sailors. But the poor girl never forgave the weather, or her mother.”
Mary-Ann stifled a laugh. “You sound prepared for anything.”
“I was,” she said. “Until I met him. Barrington rearranged every plan I’d ever made just by standing still long enough to be admired.”
There was a pause, not quite tender but close enough. Then Mrs. Bainbridge sniffed and resumed flipping through the paper as if nothing at all had been confessed.
Mary-Ann, seated near the window, offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure the delay is only temporary.”
“Temporary,” Mrs. Bainbridge echoed. She tossed the word into the air like a handkerchief with a tear in it. “You say that as if it means anything. As if Barrington isn’t dodging my questions with the same skill he once used to avoid his mother’s pianoforte recitals.”
Mary-Ann tried for a soothing tone. “I’m sure he’s not dodging.”
“He’s strategizing,” Lydia added sweetly, gliding in with a small tray of tea as if summoned by gossip. “It’s a sign of a thoughtful man.”
Mrs. Bainbridge blinked, her brows lifting. “Is it?”
Mary-Ann bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
“I have two homes in London,” Mrs. Bainbridge declared, gesturing broadly, though she ignored the tea tray entirely. “His lordship has one. Perfectly suitable, and yet he says he’s considering something else.”
“What else?” Mary-Ann asked, leaning forward slightly.
Mrs. Bainbridge sighed, the kind of sigh that summoned storms. “Rosalynde Bay.”
That caught Mary-Ann off guard. She blinked. “Truly?”
“Where we met, he says. Where it all began.”
“That’s… rather romantic.” Lydia offered.
“It is also,” Mrs. Bainbridge said, slicing the air with one hand, “miles from anywhere, and entirely unsuitable for a guest list that includes no fewer than two duchesses and one very inconvenient baroness who is allergic to sea air.”
Mary-Ann tried not to laugh, but a quiet breath of amusement escaped. “And yet you love him.”
Mrs. Bainbridge dropped her chin to her chest in mock defeat. “Worse. I agreed to marry him.”
Lydia gave a light chuckle. “You’ll find a compromise. Love always does.”
Mrs. Bainbridge gave her a long look. “I sincerely hope you’re right, Miss Finch. Though I’ve found love is much like planning a wedding. It looks lovely on paper, but then it stamps its boots through your best-laid table arrangements.
Mary-Ann offered to help pack away the samples. Lydia lingered for another few minutes, making soft observations and asking a few too many questions about the guest list, before excusing herself to retrieve a shawl.
As her footsteps faded down the hall, Mrs. Bainbridge exhaled and turned toward the window. “I have the oddest urge to scatter her,” she murmured.
Mary-Ann blinked and paused mid-fold. “Scatter her?”
“Like dandelion fluff.”
That earned a laugh. “You’re in fine form today.”
“No one in this house quite remembers how to be themselves when you’re around, my dear,” Mrs. Bainbridge said, adjusting a stack of samples with casual precision. Her voice softened. “You bring out the truth in people. I find it refreshing.”
Mary-Ann didn’t speak at first. She simply smiled, her fingers resting lightly on the edge of the table. There were many things she wasn’t certain of these days, but this, she would carry with her.
*
Mrs. Bainbridge left, and Mary-Ann followed shortly after, claiming a headache.
It was polite enough to be unassailable, vague enough to buy her time.
As she passed through the hallway, she caught sight of Lydia in the mirror above the sideboard, still tidying her sleeve as if rehearsing the next moment of charm.
It gave Mary-Ann just enough time. She wasn’t sure if it was the conversation or the sense that Lydia was always just a step behind her, smiling too sweetly, watching too closely.
It left her breathless in a way no headache ever had.
She slipped on her gloves and took the back path out of the house, lifting her skirts slightly to keep them from the morning dew. The spring breeze was mild, the sky a soft, steady blue. A line of gulls danced along the roof of a fishmonger’s shop, their wings flashing white and silver.
Her heart had steadied by the time she turned past the churchyard, but her mind had not.
Each step echoed evenings long past. Those shared walks, shoulder to shoulder, when Quinton would match his pace to hers without a word.
She didn’t go to the harbor. Not yet. She took the path to the rise as they once had, not because she expected him there but because sometimes hope took the shape of old habits.
Instead, she took the narrow path up the rise beyond the churchyard, where the view of the sea made the world feel both wide and still.
He stood there as he had all those years ago.
Quinton stood near the stone wall, coat unbuttoned, hands tucked behind his back. He didn’t turn when she approached, though she saw his shoulders shift.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” she said softly.
He turned, and the moment their eyes met, something in her chest realigned.
“No,” he said. “Only waiting.”
“For what?”
He didn’t look surprised to see her. As if he’d expected this moment long before it arrived. “I’m not entirely sure.”
She joined him at the wall, silence stretching comfortably between them. The sea churned far below, each wave rising and folding like breath.
“Barrington said the Redwake left port yesterday morning,” she said at last.
“I know.”
She hesitated. “There was a shipment manifest I never saw. I’m certain it existed and that I was meant to review the weights.”
“I heard,” he said quietly.
She studied him. “You’re gathering information.”
“So are you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, as if he wanted to say more, to confess that seeing her like this, here, searching and brave, made it harder not to tell her everything.
A flicker of acknowledgment passed between them, the smallest thread of understanding. And yet something still hovered unspoken between them.
He looked away first, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. “Some things aren’t ready to be named.”
“But they’re there,” she said. “Aren’t they?”
He met her eyes again, and the pause between them held more than words could carry.
“Quinton.” Her voice was low. “Why won’t you tell me what you know?”
He didn’t answer immediately. The breeze tugged at the hem of her coat. “I don’t want to bring you into something dangerous,” he said finally.
“You think I’m not already in it?”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m not made of glass, you know,” she added, softer now.
“No,” he said. “You’re made of fire. You shine so brightly, sometimes I think you don’t realize it burns.”
She blinked.
He turned to face her fully. His gaze was steady. “That’s why I worry. Because you’ll walk straight into the flame to see what’s burning.”
She hadn’t meant for it to happen. But since the moment he stepped into her entrance hall, tired, changed, and alive, something inside her had been drifting toward the flame. She hadn’t stopped it, and she didn’t want to.
She tried to smile, but it faltered. “I thought I lost you.”
“You didn’t.”
Her hand lifted, hovering for a breath before she touched his sleeve. She didn’t say more, not about the past or what they’d lost. The ache in her chest was answer enough.
The silence was different now, dense and full of words they weren’t brave enough to say yet.
She leaned in first. Or perhaps he did. Later, she wouldn’t be sure.
Their second kiss was not hesitant. It wasn’t rushed.
It bloomed like something inevitable, forged from nights of silence and days of aching possibility.
His hand found her waist, drawing her just close enough to feel the echo of her breath.
Her fingers curled into the lapel of his coat, not to steady herself, but to hold onto something she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
The kiss was firm and unguarded, a quiet collision of longing and recognition. It deepened as he tilted his head, and her lips parted without fear. It was not a question. It was a vow.
There had been a time when she thought this part of herself was gone, the part that felt deeply, without fear. But he had brought it back with nothing more than a look, a silence, a kiss that said everything neither of them dared name. It wasn’t new. It was old, aching, and inevitable.
He remembered the first kiss, windy and stolen in the hush of morning, her lips trembling with more surprise than certainty. This one was different. She met him fully now. No tremble. Just heat.
And for one long moment, they forgot the world entirely.
She stepped back slowly, her breath uneven.
“We can’t keep doing that,” she said.
“Then tell me to stop.”
She didn’t. Not yet. Not when it still felt like the truth.