Chapter Twenty-Nine
Friday evening, the smell of salt and tar wrapped around Mary-Ann the moment she stepped off the carriage near the warehouse offices.
The wind off the water was brisk, tugging at the edge of her cloak and stirring the hem of her skirts.
It wasn’t quite noon, and yet the harbor buzzed with movement.
Sailors called across rigging, crates creaked on pulleys, and dockhands shouted to one another above the churn of tide and trade.
It looked like order. It smelled like business.
But Mary-Ann no longer trusted appearances.
She held a folded sheet of shipping records in her hand, a legitimate errand in case anyone questioned her presence.
She’d taken care to choose a day when she knew Wilkinson would be at the Guild meeting in Newcastle.
Inside the warehouse office, the bookkeeper barely looked up when she entered.
“Morning, Miss Seaton. Didn’t expect you today.”
“I needed to clarify a discrepancy,” she said, setting the folded paper on the edge of his desk. “Cargo weights on the Branford Belle don’t match the manifest totals.”
He frowned, pulling the paper toward him. “Likely a copying error, but I’ll double-check it.”
She nodded, her tone polite, then drifted toward the far wall of ledgers as if browsing.
Two voices murmured beyond the partition. Men were speaking in hushed tones, too faint for words, but the cadence was sharp. She tilted her head subtly, pretending to examine the spine of a leather-bound log.
“…wasn’t meant to dock again so soon,” one said.
“…barely cleaned out from the last run.” The second voice cursed under his breath.
A hinge creaked. Mary-Ann moved swiftly, taking the nearest ledger off the shelf and flipping it open.
One of the men stepped into view a moment later, wiping his hands on a cloth. He paused when he saw her.
“Miss Seaton,” he said, startled. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“Just reviewing a few entries,” she said, turning a page.
He nodded, slow and wary. “Everything in order?”
“For now.”
He gave a brief nod and disappeared through the side door, heading toward the loading dock.
Mary-Ann replaced the ledger and returned to the desk. “Thank you for your help. I’ll return the report once I’ve gone over it again.”
The clerk gave a vague grunt.
She stepped back out into the wind, her mind racing. A ship that wasn’t supposed to dock again. A last run that had to be “cleaned out.” And no record of it anywhere on the manifest.
She followed the curve of the harbor wall slowly, her eyes scanning the names of moored ships. Branford Belle. Argent Wind. The latter bobbed faintly in its berth, despite being supposedly overdue. She knew its usual captain kept to a strict calendar, never idle in port without cause.
Something was very wrong. And someone was lying. She turned back toward the carriage, eyes narrowed against the light. Let them think she’d come to chase numbers. She was chasing something far more dangerous.
By the time Mary-Ann arrived home, the clouds had thickened, and the light coming through the drawing room windows had cooled to a pale gray. She’d barely removed her gloves when Lydia appeared in the hall, her expression all composed concern.
“There you are,” she said lightly, stepping forward. “I was beginning to worry.”
Mary-Ann handed her gloves to Hollis, who took them with a quiet nod. “No need.”
“I thought you’d gone to the seamstress.” Lydia’s tone was pleasant, but there was a faint edge beneath it.
“Plans changed.”
Lydia followed her into the drawing room like a shadow, her footsteps muffled against the carpet. “I do hope you weren’t out alone. Mr. Wilkinson’s been quite clear about keeping a proper escort.”
Mary-Ann turned slowly, her smile cool. “And yet I wasn’t aware Mr. Wilkinson had been promoted to Lord Chancellor.”
Lydia blinked at the rebuke, then recovered quickly. “Only meant for your protection, of course.”
“Of course.”
A pause stretched between them, thin and brittle.
“You’ll want to be mindful of such things,” Lydia continued, straightening a vase on the nearby table with casual precision. “It won’t be long before this house is no longer your concern.”
Mary-Ann lifted a brow. “Oh?”
Lydia’s smile stretched. “I did mention it the other day. Mr. Wilkinson has offered me a permanent position. A housekeeper, of course. But with my knowledge of your habits, it only makes sense.”
Mary-Ann felt it then, a flicker of heat in her chest, slow and steady. She stared at Lydia for a long moment, letting the silence stretch. Then, lightly: “And you accepted?”
Lydia’s smile didn’t waver. “It’s all but settled.”
Mary-Ann stepped forward and reached for the tea tray. “Shall I pour, or would you prefer to continue implying my life has already been decided for me?”
Lydia didn’t answer. But the smugness in her expression said enough.
Mary-Ann handed her a cup. “Careful. It’s hot.” Let her think she’d won. It would make what came next all the more satisfying.
The front door slammed open not a moment later, followed by a flurry of skirts, raised voices, and what sounded suspiciously like a tangle of hatboxes.
“Oh, blast the walkway stones. Hollis, do be a dear and rescue the lilac ribbons before they scatter to Kent!”
Mary-Ann turned just in time to see Mrs. Bainbridge sweep into the drawing room, cheeks flushed, gloves mismatched, and hair only half-pinned. A feather stuck out at an angle that suggested war rather than fashion.
“Why is it always windy when I need serenity?” she demanded, then paused upon seeing Lydia. Her expression brightened with dramatic delight. “Miss Lydia! What a surprise. I hadn’t realized today was your turn to hover.”
Mary-Ann blinked. There was a bite beneath Bainbridge’s sweetness she hadn’t heard before. It was cool, practiced, and unmistakably deliberate.
Lydia’s mouth thinned. “I was merely serving tea.”
“Splendid. Serve it elsewhere.”
Lydia hesitated.
Mary-Ann gestured without looking. “That will be all, Miss Finch.”
With a stiff curtsy, Lydia vanished. Refined or not, Mrs. Bainbridge wielded her words like scalpels when she chose. And today was one of those days.
Bainbridge collapsed onto the settee with a groan, kicking off one shoe. “Honestly, between your father’s dreadful penmanship and my cousin’s duel over a dessert fork, I may call off the wedding and elope with my own dog.”
Mary-Ann bit back a smile. “I imagine he would object.”
“He’d be honored. He listens when I speak.”
Then, with a sigh and more gravity, Bainbridge added, “I saw something odd this morning. I wasn’t going to mention it, but now… I think I must.”
Mary-Ann’s smile faded. “What did you see?”
“I was in the fish market, don’t ask, and I saw your lady’s maid. Lydia. Near the docks. She wasn’t shopping. She was standing behind the fishmonger’s stall, staring out at the harbor as if memorizing the tides.
Mary-Ann’s spine went still.
“She didn’t see me,” Bainbridge added. “But it didn’t look like an errand.”
“No,” Mary-Ann murmured. “It wouldn’t.”
Bainbridge leaned forward, tone quieter. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you’d like to tell me?”
Mary-Ann met her gaze steadily. “Yes. But not here.”
They relocated to Mary-Ann’s bedroom under the pretense of selecting a shawl from her wardrobe. Hollis offered to bring tea, and Bainbridge distracted him with a fabricated crisis involving crushed invitation seals. Once the door was shut behind them, the mood shifted.
Mary-Ann turned the key in the lock and leaned back against the door. “I need you to listen and not dismiss what I’m about to say.”
Mrs. Bainbridge lowered herself into the armchair near the window, her tone losing its usual lilt. “I’m listening.”
Mary-Ann didn’t pace. She crossed to her writing desk and opened the drawer slowly, drawing out the folded list she’d written the night before.
“This is what I know or suspect. Wilkinson is manipulating the shipping accounts. The Argent Wind was listed as missing, but I saw it at the docks today. Men are speaking in hushed tones, cargo is unrecorded, and I found altered ledgers in my father’s study.
Lydia’s placement here wasn’t for my comfort. It was surveillance.”
She passed the page to Mrs. Bainbridge, who read it in silence.
When she looked up, her face was pale, but resolute. “You’re not being paranoid.”
“No,” Mary-Ann said. “I’m being followed. And now I’m following back.”
Bainbridge folded the list with care. “What are you going to do?”
“There’s one place left to search. The sea cave.”
“The one from the newspaper?”
Mary-Ann nodded. “If anything is still hidden, it’s there. And I can’t wait for Quinton. I don’t know when he’ll be back or what he’s allowed to tell me. But if I could choose, I would rather not do this without him.”
Bainbridge didn’t argue. She only asked, “Do you want me to come with you?”
Mary-Ann hesitated. “No. I need you to go to Barrington. Tell him what I’ve told you. Tell him where I’ve gone. But don’t come after me unless I fail to return.”
Bainbridge rose, straightening her spine like a soldier receiving orders. “Then we both have something to do.”
Mary-Ann reached for her cloak, fingers firm on the fabric.
“If I’m wrong, they’ll mock my pride. But if I’m right… Someone has twisted my family’s name into a shield for corruption. And I will not let that stand.